Can You Recognize a City With Your Eyes Closed?

Wander With Wonder – Discovering Wow Moments Around the World or Across the Street

Discover how urban soundscapes define Florence, Istanbul, Tokyo, Mumbai, and more—and learn how to capture the sounds that make each city unique.

Gianni Rodari, the famed Italian children’s author, had a nursery rhyme, “The smells of trades,” or “What trades smell like,” whichever translation you prefer. To me, it was the first encounter with the world through a different lens. That’s what I’ve strived to do ever since. See/hear/experience the world in a slightly different way than what I’m used to. What if you decide to experience a city through sound? Close your eyes in a strange city and remove the architecture, street signs, and skyline. What is left?

Maybe a tram on a corner, bells overhead, a fruit peddler calling to you across a market square, a ferry whistle, a pedestrian crossing beep-beeping at you, or a violinist who somehow got 60 people to sit and listen to him in a piazza. Cities don’t just look different. They create repeated sequences of sounds, which are described as urban soundscapes. Some sounds that are clearly identifiable in their area are called “soundmarks”, sounds that are the equivalent of a landmark.

How to Capture the Sounds of a City

They are also very easy to gather. Voice Memos, for instance, can record normal audio files as m4a files by default when Apple exports them. Convertio’s m4a to mp3 converter can convert an m4a recording to an mp3 directly from a browser if you’re recording audio on the road and want to access it later in an easier-to-share or archive format, or use it in other software. This isn’t always required, but it can help if the device or application you are converting to doesn’t accept the original format easily.

But what should you record?

Florence Sounds as Renaissance as It Looks

Florence is a particularly good example because it’s filled with sounds that seem to come from a distant time and place.

Begin with the bells. Seven bells still operate in Giotto’s Campanile, and the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore claims to ring according to a liturgical system. Since the Middle Ages, bells from the tower have dominated Florentine daily and festive life, and the bells associated with the Ave Maria traditionally mark the day by a time schedule that corresponds to sunset.

Then walk several hundred meters and the soundtrack changes. Street music is sufficiently embedded in central Florence that the city regulates designated performance locations for musicians, singers, mimes, and other performers.

Piazza della Repubblica, Piazza Santa Maria Novella, Piazza Santa Croce, Ponte Vecchio, and Piazzale Michelangelo have all been associated with busking.

It’s not just tourist-memory inflation when it comes to the number of street musicians in Florence. The city has purposefully opened up space for them.

Organized outdoor music spills into the same public areas. Traditional events in Piazza della Signoria use drums and trumpets, while city programming has brought jazz, gospel, orchestral music and marching bands into Florentine squares.

You could identify Florence through paintings. But bells followed ten minutes later by somebody playing saxophone under Renaissance stonework are not a bad alternative.

Yerevan and Istanbul: People Are Part of the Soundtrack

Yerevan, Armenia, also has streets with their own unique music geography.

On warm summer nights, Northern Avenue becomes part promenade, part performance space, with street musicians, pantomime artists, and other entertainers adding to the sounds of central Yerevan. During the warmer months, open-air concerts and music in public spaces add another layer to the city’s soundtrack.

However, an intriguing 2025 art project went beyond music. Over several days, artist Elaine Crowe recorded Yerevan on her cell phone, capturing the sounds of cars, the metro, water dripping from Yerevan’s drinking fountains, the waterbirds swirling overhead, and snippets of Komitas.

A good reminder that a city’s acoustic identity isn’t necessarily given by the national instrument playing nicely in the background.

Istanbul is even more well documented. Residents and visitors were asked about the sounds characteristic of the city, and they named traffic and horns, ferries, seagulls, waves, the call to prayer, church bells, the nostalgic tram, street vendors, markets, bazaars, and crowds.

Around Beşiktaş, near the Bosphorus, several of those layers can co-exist: ferry whistles, gulls, waves, conversations, traffic, and the ezan (call to prayer).

Recording a city can take a little more thought than simply pressing a button. Different phones and recording apps save audio in different formats, and not every editing or sharing program handles those files the same way. If you’re collecting sounds throughout a trip, name each recording descriptively, keep the original files, and organize them so they’re easy to find when you’re ready to edit, share, or simply listen again.

Tokyo and Mumbai Sound Nothing Alike

Tokyo gives us a completely different kind of soundmark: designed sound.

Railway departure melodies are tied to certain stations in Japan, and certain melodies are linked to certain platforms and stations. Some merchandise with JR East station melodies has even been available for sale. Japan also has audible pedestrian signals. By March 2026, Japan had more than 21,000 audible pedestrian signals, and about 99% used bird calls rather than melodies.

Some of the standardized sounds include the well-known birdlike chirping sound, piyo-piyo, and kakkō, “cuckoo.” Different sounds can be used on opposite sides of a crossing to help visually impaired pedestrians establish direction.

Mumbai, India, is pretty much the polar opposite. Its best acoustic moments can be completely unruly. The humming of the tracks and the whistle are joined by local train announcements, chatter, and vendors. The noise level on Mumbai suburban tracks has been reported to reach the mid-80-decibel range, even during non-peak periods.

Festival season changes the city again. Ganesh Chaturthi processions bring dhol drums, bands, amplified music and crowds into the streets. Maharashtra’s Pollution Control Board has repeatedly monitored festival noise and identified musical instruments, DJs, and processions as major contributors. Researchers have also studied festival sound as part of Mumbai’s broader social and political soundscape.

Record the Sounds You Want to Remember

Twenty seconds on your phone is enough. Record the ferry, the tram, the musician outside the metro station, the vendor shouting from a cart, or the bells that wake you at seven in the morning. Give the file a useful name rather than leaving it as “New Recording 47.” Keep the original if you care about preserving it, and when you need a more practical version for another device, an editing project, or easy sharing, Convertio can convert the audio into the format your next step actually requires.

Years from now, you may easily remember what Florence looked like. What you probably will not remember is what was playing in the piazza when you walked through it. Unless you have a recording.

Listen for the Wow Moments on Your Next Journey

The next time you explore a new city, spend a few minutes listening instead of looking. Capture the bells, trains, street musicians, market chatter, ferry whistles, and other sounds that give a destination its rhythm. Then explore more of our favorite destinations and cultural travel experiences on Wander With Wonder as you plan your next adventure—and discover the sights, sounds, flavors, and unexpected moments that create a true sense of place.

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