Wind Memory #1 - Leonardo Eddé

Wind Memory #1 Leonardo Eddé Time: Around 1999 or 2000, Autumn

Location: Home nearby Lake Geneva, Switzerland

Interviewer: Jiuming Duan Interviewed time: 16th April 2021

Could you please tell us an impressed experience of you with wind?

Basically, I was in this room here, 18 years ago. So, my family and I had just moved in that house. I can't remember exactly we moved in during autumn or something. It happened within the first few months less than a year of being here.

And I have always slept quite late in the night, even as a child. I've never sleep early before. Usually around 11 p.m. or 12 a.m.

We could hear a storm coming up before. So, around dinner time or something, there was like pretty much a storm outside. And then we went to sleep. Everyone can’t fell asleep. I didn't as always.

As the hours went by, the storm was becoming louder and louder and louder. We have a chimney here. So, the winds will come in the chimney and make this whistling sound but like very piercing loud sounds. We can feel that everything was kind of moving and you could feel the roof would just fly away at some point and get ripped apart because it was so loud. I started to doubt the structure of the house would be strong enough to protect us.

And my room is at the end of the building. So, I felt kind of isolated and vulnerable.

And around 12 a.m. My mom, my sister. We were awake. That I didn't know they woke up because it was so loud. My dad went to sleep downstairs. He didn't tell anyone. My mom was like, where the hell is my husband? He was sitting downstairs because he couldn't sleep. It was so loud. My mom had woken up and my sister and my brother as well. He couldn't sleep really. He was very young, like 2 or 3 years old.

We didn't talk to one another. My dad wouldn't care because he was downstairs. He knew the house would not get destroyed. My mom was kind of freaked out. There was that sort of anxiety at time, like ground level of the house. We were all stressed out. But for my mom, her husband told her. Don't worry, it won’t break. I just wanted

to be safe and be able to sleep. And eventually the night like the day after we all had very dark eyes because we had very bad slept last night. It has been one of the loudest storms, like one of the most brutal storms, hurricane in Switzerland and in Europe. In fact, it had the name, Lothar. People have died. Many trees have been destroyed. We took a walk by the lake in the next days. You can see the disaster, like broken ships and stuff from the lake.

You can see the chimney on my neighbour’s house. So, the shape is not quite straight but like a curve. The wind really goes in. That was loud, man. That was very, very loud. That was scream really.

You said it is in 1999. Is that right?

1999 or 2000.

Is this place always very windy?

It is very windy. So, we have winds coming from the North, which is called Bise?

When you have that wind blowing, it tends to be very beautiful but very, very cold.

And just like right now, it is a windy place.

Leonardo showed me the chimney on the roof of his neighbour’s house during the video call

Where Leonardo’s house is located, Lake Geneva can be seen from his room

Do you think the wind there is different from another place or can it represent the place you lived?

I never had a moment that was linked to the winds blowing before, no matter good or bad experience. I guess this was the first time I witnessed such a storm or something.

So, now I would say no. I don't think it has shaped my perception on the place where I live. Or maybe it's very unconscious and I associate Switzerland and that's very down with winds. But unknowingly. I don't notice a lack of wind when I travel. I am not like, wait, there is no wind anymore.

Could you please use your breath, or your mouth try to mimic the sound you heard?

That wind. Is that okay?

Yeah, sure. Sure. I don't have a grave voice or deep voice. But… oh yeah, there you go. They were long and constant, such as that's like even more strange you know. Uh, it gets very high pitched. Like a loud scream. You know, think of a banshee.

Leonardo tried to use his breath to imitate the sound of the wind

My next question is that wish you to use one object or something to describe and represent this sound.

I have a very good idea of what that object would be. Can I go and get it? I'll be back in a second.

That's it. That's the one. Uh, it's a bounding knife. You will go if you have a piece of meat, which is attached to a bone. With that knife, you just go very close to there.

Scrub it away with that angle here at the curve. And really engrave the meat out of the bone.

Leonardo’s boning knife

Can you describe the environment around you at that time? Like your room.

Basically, I was at the edge of my house. Kind of like what started of the house was be detached and I'll be just like exposed. Like very vulnerable to the storm. I have very high ceilings. When you were like 10 years old, you're short. So, the proportions were accentuated. My bed was at the corner, the corner of the house. So, my whole perspective was like you're tiny and you're exposed and you're very vulnerable at the end of the place. I felt exposed.

It's a long house, I would say we have two floors like grand floors and first floor. East sides is my parents' room, and I'm completely at the west side of the room. So, I'm like 10 meters away from them or something. It is a long but narrow house. And I'm at the west side.

Did you hear any sound from the house yourself like the structure? The material?

It's wood. Like the roof is made out of wood and you hear cracks. That's true. I have forgotten about that. Whenever the wind blows quite strongly, you can hear of cracks in the roof and so. When there is a storm and, when it's like a very, very strong storm.

Then you have cracks, wood cracks, yeah.

I think I have finished. Thank you!

Sound Design Making Progress The experience happened in his home, and the sounds were all about the house. I choose to use household objects to simulate the sound, especially the objects in kitchen.

He mentioned the scream sound made by chimney, and it was like the scream of banshee. So I use the boiling sound of a kettle to make the pitch part of the wind.

And I use the sound of an electrical kettle for the low frequency part.

He gave me the boning knife to represent that experience, and the wooden cracking sound was also a part of the wind. I used the knifes to scratch on a wooden chopping board to part another layer of the texture.

I repeated the way he used his breath to mimic the sound of the wind.