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Sound Clip: Slot Machines by Karen Y Chan
A cacophony of slot machines at a casino in West Virginia. Hear the sounds of levers being pulled, coins dropping, distant voices, and rhythmic electronic tones that lull you into oblivion. Rows and rows of people working at the slots. Blank faces with eyes fixed. There is nothing more deafening than the sound of vacant dreams.
This really captures the sounds of being in a room of slot machines, while the subtle manipulations of the recording successfully convey the sad nature of the activity.
Subtle and intoxicating. All of the little reward sounds resolve on the minor leaving the player wanting to fix the cord with the next pull.
It reminds me that there are no places to sit in a casino so if you have lost it all but you can’t leave you must sit facing a slot machine.
The sound of month’s of labor, being thrown away in the name of luck. The sound of people thinking they have won, that they have triumphed. They hug the one closest to them, and laugh with them. The noise of the lever being pulled becomes tedious, echoing time and time again. Becoming so repetitive that the uniqueness of it starts to meld in with the rest of the noise. Yet only so many times can you hear the coin’s hit the metal, the sweet noise of success. The joy in their words makes them unreadable. Sounding like gibberish, it only serves as an inviting noise to those coming in. You can hear music in the background, overpowering compared to the voices. Overwhelming your ears, it welcomes everyone with it’s generic, digital tone. Playing the same verse over and over again, it starts to imprint itself into your head. Eventually you learn to ignore it, and it soon becomes nothing. The sound of the lottery machine introduces itself, at first sounding obnoxious. Then you start to ignore it as well, letting it drift in with the rest. Eventually so does everything, and the only thing you can focus on is the screen in front of you.
Thank you all for the thoughtful insights on my piece. Vincent–we are looking into the same screen.