ENGL 393 | April 01, 2024

Dear Dr. Justice,

My sonic warning is for everyone to clear an outdoor swimming pool because it started to

thunder and lightning outside. It is against regulations for patrons to be swimming outside during

a thunderstorm. To signal everyone to get out of the water, the Red Cross says to do a long

whistle blow (the same kind of whistle blow for adult swim). Doing a long and loud whistle blow

allows time for patrons to stop what they’re doing and hear the warning. The audience would be

swimmers at an outdoor pool, so probably between five and 65 years olds could be in the water

swimming. The pool could also have a mixture of people with their heads above water, and

swimmers swimming laps with their faces in the water.

Communicating with only sound was difficult. To make the warning my sound had to

overcome all of the other sounds happening. This meant that whistle blow had to be louder than

the noise from people swimming in the water as well as the thunder and rain that started. This is

why the Red Cross made the whistle sound to exit the pool a long blow. This gives the patrons

more time to react the the whistle blow above all of the other noises happening outside. If this

were real life and a bigger pool, there would probably be more guards on duty and they would all

be blowing their whistle at the same time to make the warning louder.

What I learned about sonic rhetoric in this case, is the importance of emphasis, loudness,

and pitch range. A whistle blow is very different then all of the other sounds coming from an

outdoor pool. A whistle blow’s pitch is higher and louder which then helps creates the emphasis

to the action. All of this is needed to get everyone’s attention to prevent danger and accidents.

Even typical yelling for people to get out of the water is less helpful. A lifeguard would only yell

to get everyone to exit the pool after they have blown their whistle. But, even then, the guard

would probably be motioning with their arms to get out as well. Patrons at the pool would hear
the warning from the whistle blow and see the arm motions a lot better than being able to hear a

guard yelling for people to get out of the pool.

To make my audio I used a series of youtube videos and recorded the sound on my

phone. I used light thunder noises, people swimming in a pool, loud thunder noises and a long

whistle noise. The hardest part of making the audio was having overlapping sounds. I could not

play one sound and then another because that it not what would happen in real life. In real life

there would be multiple things happening at once so there needed to be multiple noises playing.

To do this I kept tabs of all the audios open and started them overlapping each other. So, first it is

only people swimming in a pool, then light thunder plays and the lifeguard then blows their

whistle. After that, the rain and thunder starts to get louder and stronger and the lifeguard blows

their whistle again to get everyone out of the pool.

If I had more time and resources to complete this assignment I would have tried to make

the audio more seamless. I would match the audio levels of noise better to more accurately

represent how loud each noise was. For example, the people playing in the water would probably

be more of an overlapping sound and not as focused on one part of the pool. The thunder in the

beginning would also be softer and get louder, as well as with the intensity of the rainfall. In the

audio that I submitted, the heavy rainfall and thunder is pretty abrupt, in real life there you would

be able to hear the increase whether is was gradual or not. Another thing I would change is the

kind of whistle blow audio; I could not find the typical whistle blow most of us are used to

hearing when we go to a pool. Overall, I think that the audio is clear and is easy to understand

what event is occurring, it is just not as realistic as I wanted it to be.

Sincerely,

Sofia Guardado