Majorna is the part of Gothenburg where the trams go up a hill and the houses are wooden and the rain is a permanent resident with its own key. We lived on the third floor. My father was a piano tuner, which meant a man who listened for a living.
When I was nine he sat me at the open window during a storm and said: 'Don't listen to the rain. Listen to what the rain is hitting.' The tram roof was a snare. The tin gutter was a hi-hat. The lid of the neighbour's bin was a bass drum played by somebody who'd never learned but had enthusiasm. The whole street was a kit.
I have a recording from that window, made twenty years later with proper gear, in a proper storm, and it's good, and it's not the one I remember. The one I remember has my father's breathing in it and the kettle going in the kitchen.
Field recording is the art of noticing what a place hits. I learned it on the third floor in Majorna from a man who tuned pianos and, on Sundays, tuned me.