JAN 25 | Recording Modernity

---

Read Before Class

Discussion led by: N/A

• Introduction from “All That is Solid Melts into Air”, Marshall Berman
• “The Industrial Revolution” chapter from “The Soundscape”, R Murray Schafer

Optional:

• “What is Sound Art?”, N.B.Aldrich.  Introduction to interview series with several artists.
• Audio Art in the Deaf Century, Douglas Kahn. A detailed stroll through the art-historical precedents for Sound Art (1990)
• “Humphrey:The Rescue” chapter from “Notes from the Wild”, Bernie Krause
• “An Intro. to Acoustic Ecology” from Soundscape journal vol 1, Kendall Wrightson
• “The Niche Hypothesis: How Animals Taught Us To Dance and Sing”, Bernie Krause

In Class

• “Cage Talk” (introducing facilities, responsibilities)
• Introduce Marshall McLuhan, technological determinism, and semiotics.
• Introduce Acoustic Ecology and its proponents.
• Explore Deep Forest and Hugo Zemp via Steven Feld’s article “A Sweet Lullaby for World Music”.
• Intro to recorders and mics: Mic types + patterns, basic recorder info like level control and monitoring. Make 3 voice-recordings in class (shotgun, cardioid, omni) and listen to the results.
• Intro to digital audio formats: uncompressed (WAV. AIFF) and compressed (MP3, AAC).

Screening

• Hugo Zemp’s Solomon Islands recordings, Deep Forest and Jan Garbarek’s reinterpretations
• Chris Watson – tracks from “Outside the Circle of Fire”
• Hildegard Westerkamp – “Kits Beach Sound Walk”
• R Murray Schafer’s “On Acoustic Design” from the 1973 LP titled “Vancouver Soundscape”

Useful trivia: The MP3 compression system was developed at Fraunhofer IIS in Germany. They used the acapella version of Susanne Vega’s “Tom’s Diner” to tune the algorithm (see Vega’s blog post, Fraunhofer’s press release). A human voice is complex, but it’s a lot simpler than a full band, and much easier to compress. Here is an analysis of the sonic mangling of data-compression (with bird-songs and pretty graphs).

Why you should never record in MP3 format.

Melodian Toy (MP3 links will launch an inline flash player)

WAV file (sorry, no inline player)	uncompressed original, with sharp attacks and complex buzz in the background
320k MP3 Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.	highest quality MP3 option, generally indistinguishable from the original
128k MP3 Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.	default iTunes setting, smeared attacks and swishy unstable background noise
64k MP3 Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.	whoa, it sounds like a cell phone!

Paris Subway Station (MP3 links will launch an inline flash player)

WAV file (sorry, no inline player)	uncompressed original, with dense crowd noise and occasional sharp bursts
320k MP3 Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.	highest quality MP3 option, generally indistinguishable from the original
128k MP3 Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.	default iTunes setting, smeared attacks and swishy unstable background noise
64k MP3 Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.	whoa, it sounds like a cell phone!

-

Further Research

• World Forum for Acoustic Ecology – Check out their journal for a survey of the field.
• The World Soundscape Project (“WSP”)- Schafer’s 1970′s research group at Simon Frasier University
• “Listen” documentary about R. Murray Schafer, from the National Film Board of Canada
• Sounding Places with Hildegard Westerkamp (Ph.D Dissertation by Andra McCartney) – Interviews and media clips relating to this original WSP member and contemporary composer.
• Audio Interview with Hildegard Westerkamp – by Ned Bouhalassa
• The Handbook for Acoustic Ecology – from Barry Truax
• Steven Feld’s biography page from The Acoustic Ecology Institute
• Bernie Krause interview from Electronic Musician magazine – with lots of practical info about field recording
• longer Bernie Krause interview from Electronic Musician magazine – less technical
• Gordon Hempton is an acoustic ecologist who founded the One Square Inch landmark inside Olympic National Park, dedicated to focusing attention on noise pollution.
• Biologist Peter Tyack’s TED talk about how whales use sound to communicate over thousands of miles of ocean.
• naturerecordists Yahoo group – a great resource for info about field recording
• Aaron Ximm, AKA “Quiet American” has an amazing links page that provides thorough advice on field-recording, from history to gear recommendations.
• Swedish TV interview with Chris Watson, and an online magazine interview too.
• “Ludwig Koch and the Music of Nature”, a BBC 4 Radio program on the sound recordist who brought recordings of nature to British radio audiences throughout the 20th century. (Here’s an article with further information.)
• An Atlantic article: “The Quest to Find the First Soundscape” about contemporary sound-mapping and its early predecessors.
• audioboo.fm is a web platform (there are several) that facilitates audio uploads from mobile devices or computers, organizing them by tags, location, etc. (Like flickr but for sounds.)
• On the topic of politics v. formalism (see Marshall Berman’s critique of John Cage), here’s a link to a 2009 piece by composer Peter Ablinger: Speaking Piano is an automated piano that is operated like a voice synthesizer, speaking the text of a UN declaration on the environment.
• Annea Lockwood’s CD “A Sound Map of the Hudson River” traces the length of the river through 15 recordings, from the Adirondacks to the Atlantic Ocean.
• Blogs devoted to field-recording pop up all the time. These are more sfx/sound design oriented:  Noise Jockey, Sonic Terrain, Field Sepulchra, jedsound and some are more nature oriented: Sound of Critters, Wild Echoes
• Xeno Canto is a huge online database of user-submitted bird sounds oriented toward bioacoustic research.
• My recorder recommendations in case you are looking to buy a portable recorder or microphones