Bloom

Bloom fell in love with sound-shapes the day she stopped hearing sounds as "just there."

"For the longest time," she says, glow pulsing gently, "I thought a sound was simple — it happened, then it was gone. On, off. That's it." Then an old sound-keeper handed her a bell and told her to really listen, not to the note, but to the shape. "So I struck the bell, and I listened all the way to the end — and it didn't just stop. It rang out, and lingered, and faded so slowly I could still hear it after I thought it was gone." Bloom's amber light brightened at the memory. "It was like the sound had a whole little life — a beginning, a long soft goodbye. And once I heard that, I couldn't un-hear it. Every sound had a secret shape. I've been mapping them ever since."

One afternoon Pip, a bright squirrel-kid in a red cap, poked into Bloom's studio, curious. "A sound has a shape?" Pip asked, doubtful. "I thought sounds were just... noises."

Bloom smiled, reading the doubt kindly. "Watch," she said, and picked up her glowing envelope-tracker. "Let me show you the secret life of sounds."

Bloom pressed a button and a piano rang out — DONG! — bright and quick, and on the screen a line shot up like a tiny rocket, dropped a little, held a split second, and vanished. "Sharp beginning, quick fade, gone," she said. Then a violin — WHEeee — smooth and long, its line rising slowly like a gentle hill, holding, then floating away. "This one builds up, stays strong, lets go slowly. Very polite, the violin." A drum — BAM! — a super-fast spike, then nothing. "No holding back — just bam and done." And a bell — ding-dong — its line shooting up then fading slowly, slowly, lingering in the air. "Bells say goodbye very slowly; sometimes you still hear them when they're gone." Then she held up her four cards. "A is Attack — how fast it starts (a drum attacks fast, a violin creeps in). D is Decay — how fast it drops to its main level after the attack. S is Sustain — how long it holds that level (a violin holds long; a drum barely at all). R is Release — how long it takes to fully disappear when you let go (a bell's is long; a piano's is medium)." She mapped each instrument's shape on the tracker — piano: fast attack, quick decay, almost no sustain, medium release; violin: slow attack, long sustain, slow release; drum: everything fast, no sustain; bell: fast attack, long release. "See how different they are — even playing the same note? That's why they sound different. It's like they each have their own personality, all because of their envelope."