Click on the image to view test out the sounds.
I grew up with the sounds and smells of a coffee percolator brewing the morning cup of Joe in our household. I hadn’t thought much about it until I stumbled on to this story on NPR’s website about sounds that have all but disappeared.
The idea for the NPR story was inspired by a blog post on Mental Floss titled “11 Sounds That Your Kids Have Probably Never Heard.” Remember the rotary phone? Our home number took a particularly long time to dial. It had a 9, a 0, a couple of 7’s. It was a laborious and time-consuming phone call to make by today’s standards (as you can see in the video below).
NPR took this idea a little further and grouped the clips to allow viewers to play these sounds to create some natural sounds music, so to speak. And then they modernized it by finding today’s equivalent sounds and grouped them, as well. Have look – and a listen. Brooks Institute visual journalism grads Maggie Starbard and Melissa Forsyth helped out with the project.