Soul Music

The oilfield can be an entire symphony of different sounds, all of them very unique to the trained ear... and quite mesmerizing to the untrained ear.

The sound of a gas flare during a test, of air slips and tongs, of tubing sliding down casing, of triplex pumps wound out and gauge-line plumb bobs hitting the bottom of stock tanks, of a squeaky tail bearing on a pumping unit; I would no longer need to SEE to know exactly what was going on around me in the oilfield. I could hear it, and know.

The clip at the 0.16 second mark is a draw works drum squalling in the middle of a drilling break (oil sand); the reflection is that of a flood light into a mud pit.

The clip at the 1:35 mark are hydraulic jars going off down-hole, inside production casing, trying to jar loose a stuck fish. It is a hell of a lick and it will shake the entire rig, and the ground around it. Sometimes you have to jar on stuck shit for hours and hours before it will come lose, if it ever comes lose.

These are all oilfield sounds. Soul music.