Overhear

I built a MacOS menubar app called Overhear that lets you filter the audio on your computer so it sounds like it’s playing in a more nostalgic, ambient location.

I was inspired by two things: this YouTube video of Toto’s Africa playing “in an empty shopping centre” and this quote by Witold Gombrowicz:

To me, art almost always speaks more forcefully when it appears in an imperfect, accidental, and fragmentary way, somehow just signaling its presence, allowing one to feel it through the ineptitude of the interpretation. I prefer the Chopin that reaches me in the street from an open window to the Chopin served in great style from the concert stage.

Here’s a browser-based version so you can hear Chopin through an open window.

Grab the source on GitHub.