I have had the privilege of hearing two of my favorite “soundbites” tonight:
- two geese honking at one another as they flew side-by-side
- the train (horn and clackety-clacks) in the distance going over the Delaware River
Yours?
I love the sound of the central air starting up during the night.
And maybe because I was married to a paramedic and I knew he was good at his job, I always find the sound of distant sirens kind of comforting–even though I know it means trouble, it also means help is on the way.
When I lived in an apartment, the neighbor’s new baby would wake up for her middle-of-the-night feeding. It was as soothing for me as the air conditioner thing–I think because my own kids were older, and I knew that this time, it was someone else’s job to get up! (But I also worried when she’d cry a lot, because then I knew she was sick and Momma had to be tired.)
Our CA is broken, so tonight I’ll just have the sound of the fan running, but I love that too.
I love the high delicate tinkling sound of small glass objects shattering. And tiny metal chimes.
I also love hearing my budgies do that happy sleepy bird beak-grinding at night in the dark (they sleep in my room).
Wind blowing through pine trees
We have fox moving through our little valley and when they home in to each other they make a scary retching sound that’s disconcerting at first. It’s awesome. Truly awesome. In the winter mornings stragglers will team up to hunt in our north pasture and leap straight into the air only to dive like twisted pipecleaners and occasionally pop back up with a mouse. That cry is probably the best primal comm link of all time.
Musical saw. Literally takes my breath away.
The sound of fingertips sliding on the strings of an acoustic guitar. Most people I know are bothered by this sound, and find it irritating (at best) or ruining (at worst). But whenever I hear it I’m transported to my childhood living room, and I’m five years old again listening to my dad strumming an endless flow of music that segues from Wish You Were Here to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to While My Guitar Gently Weeps to Rainbow Connection. (Or whatever songs he felt like playing at any given moment.)
I was coming in to say this exact thing about my parrot. It’s better than a cat purring, even. Completely relaxed and content birdies.
My two-year-old saying, “Hi.”
The TARDIS 
Oh yes.
The TARDIS.
Happy chickadees, and the similarly squeaky sound that is the great symbol of the USA, the ever cheepy bald eagle. (It sounds like a scared mouse!) Also, the sound everyone who doesn’t know better THINKS is a bald eagle: red tail hawks!
Chalk on a chalkboard, as long as it’s more of the tappy sound than the scratchy sound.
Clicky shoes on shiny (Costco type, is how I think of it) concrete.
Certain computer keyboards that clack properly.
Armonica- it’s like an automated version of playing wine glasses.
The shaky gourd that my friends Colin and Estha have in their temple. (If you watch the video “Spells are Like Prayers” on the MTV website you can see Colin shaking the gourd, but I can’t recall if you can hear it properly in the video.)
Rain sticks.
Rain on skylights.
The ocean.
I have a lot of bestest sounds.
My boss has the most beautiful whistle I’ve ever heard. He whistles complex lilting and warbling tunes with every note absolutely perfect. I love it every time he starts up. I only wish he’d whistle more and for more than a few moments at a time. I told him how much I liked it one time and must have made him self-conscious. He didn’t whistle any more that day.
I used to live near St. James Cathedral in downtown Seattle. It used to be that three or four times a day, they would have hymns played on bells over a loud speaker that could be heard blocks away. They were recordings but they were beautiful and I always loved hearing them. Then about ten years ago, they got a real bell and the hymns stopped. I miss them.
I love the sound of the wind blowing off of Puget Sound and into the pines that line the bluffs around here. And there’s certain rocky beaches where the waves come in hard enough to roll the 5- or 6-pound rocks around. It makes a deep clunking sound that I enjoy hearing. Of course, waves, big or small, make wonderful sounds too.
The classic War of the Worlds Green Bolts of Death. “DOO-DOO-DOO ! !”
The call of a cuckoo or a wood pigeon heard across the fields early in the morning.
Also the distant chime of church bells.
Best by far however is the roar of the crowd when my football team score
Well p’raps not the best but close
- A whole heap of railway stuff
- a steam loco working hard up a mountain in the crisp early morning air, with the whistle echoing off the sides of the valley
- a heavy freight train roaring past at full speed feet from your face
- pretty much everything else
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My fifteen month old niece saying “Hi”. It was one of her first words, and she really hams it up.
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Kookaburras
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The sound of a gun being cocked
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Submarine “pings”
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Those old-timey “blurka blurka” car horns.
The giggle of a toddler, you know, the full-bellied chuckle that gurgles through their throat.
The sound of waves crashing on the seashore.
Guitar Mommy cooing.
Car tires on rainy streets.
Children laughing in the FAR distance.
Birds chirping in the FAR distance.
Church bells.
When a shower first starts up.
My friend John’s hysterical laughter.
Deglazing a pan. Sizzzzzzzzz!
Morgan humming to herself while she eats. Actually, any of Morgan’s sounds, of which there are many. She’s a rather chatty cat and it never fails to make me smile. 
Xylophones.
Babbling brooks, and running water in general.
Foghorns in the distance (it takes me back to the summer I lived in Halifax).
Crackling fire.
Cats purring.
My nieces breathing when she’s riding piggyback.
My wife snoring.
The planes taking off and landing at Nellis AFB.
A finely tuned V8 engine running.
The wind blowing through the pines in my back yard.
The sound of birds farting in the morning. When you sit there in the thickest forrest waiting for the morning light to bring the deer past your hunting post, you hear the forrest waking up. And the birds are quite noisy in their morning activites 
The sound of the freezer door closing on an old Good Humor ice cream truck.