Sound is powerful stuff. Most of the sounds we hear are registered subliminally, but we instantly “place” them when we hear the rush of incoming tide, the laugh of a child, the whirr of the dentist’s drill or the cawing din of blackbirds descending.
We locate these sounds in our mind’s past, and what is more, we can smell them, and feel their shape, mass, and texture. This is important information. When sound is linked physically to place, it has the capacity to deepen both the sense and the memory of that place.
What is more important is the capacity of a sound to evoke unlimited pictures in the mind, to interject the listener into the picture, to play with the scene, to write alternative scripts.