The sound of the Spanish Campo on a sunny afternoon is one of my all time favourites. It is so full of life and natural beauty. Absolute calm and tranquility, full of noise but completely peaceful. I could sit there for hours just listening to everything going on. No two days the same but always graced with a warm familiarity.
Although my personal preference is for unaided listening, a few minutes focused listening through headphones can be quite overwhelming as you hear the detailed nuances of the cacophony that surrounds you. Below is my recording of "An afternoon in the campo". Just a few minutes unedited field recording that provides a sonic glimpse of a truly beautiful place.
The vibrant calls, twitters and patterns of a thousand birds conversing, overlapping and interacting in absolute panorama, rarely seen but heard as clear as the baby blue sky. The gentle flapping of wings, rustling amongst leaves or brittle snapping of dainty twigs remind me that they are really there and occasionally draw my gaze to a nearby bush or tree.
Usually though it is the distance that attracts my focus. The hills, shades of brown and green dotted with the white specs of Hacienda's and the iron shacks of nearby goat farms.
The gentle warbling, paddling and squelching of chickens and ducks sporadically interspersed with the piercing scream of a cockerel echoing across the valley, engaged in a verse of call and response, territories and hierarchy claimed and defended through sound.
Dogs bark across the hillside, building a great ambiance of tones and timbres, asserting themselves, defying their size and shape with ferocious growls and throaty, gravelly barks that rise and fall with the peaceful purr of the occasional campo van, putt putting along dusty roads.
Wednesday, 10 February 2010
Sunday, 7 February 2010
Bird Vs Flying Machine - Some more thoughts
Here are a few of my thoughts inspired by listening back to "Bird vs Flying Machine" (see post below).
The birds created this beautiful cacophony , so varied and intriguing, beautifully intertwined and harmonious, melodic and tuneful, full of varied tones, rhythms, pitches and counterpoints. Giant timbres overlapping in the air. And then there was the plane above. A continuous hum, drone and roar. The sound of grey looming overhead, casting a giant cloud over the soundscape.
This got me thinking about how man borrows from nature, recreating what we need in machinic form. The plane allows man to fly as the birds do but it cannot sing. Is is louder, bigger and more powerful, but it doesn't spread seed, converse with its neighbours or breed new life. It doesn't glide and sing in harmony amongst others, choosing instead to chug on alone, avoiding contact and interaction .
We can emulate the function but we cannot recreate the beauty. But then I suppose this is the purpose of commerce. It is not to primarily look or sound, but to carry, to make and save money and to streamline and tighten at every opportunity.
But is this to not look close enough? Given closer thought our modern form of flying en mass shares much more than just the sky with the birds. For they don't really fly alone, but as part of a complex system, at different heights, speeds and times, monitored, organised and conducted by air traffic controllers. I suppose the airport is their tree branch, a place to rest, refuel and catch up with fellow fliers.
And in a way planes spread their seed to as they deliver people from place to place, sharing knowledge, ideas and culture, spreading new life across the globe. Carrying food across continents, filling supermarket shelves or delivering aid. There are also the planes that do literally fly together in sequence, be it for artistic purpose at air shows or in combat situations during conflict.
I think what intrigues me so much about this is the fact that it has taken so much time, money and resource for man to emulate something that birds can do so effortlessly and without capital. What makes this particular example so interesting though is that of all the means of travel we have, flying is the only one upon which we rely one hundred percent on technology.
Cars, trains, lorries and buses all allow us to move quicker and carry more but we could still walk instead if they didn't exist. The same for boats. Ok, we may not be able swim around the world, but we can swim, and some people do so over extraordinary distances.
But however many times we try jumping and flapping our arms, we always come back down.
The birds created this beautiful cacophony , so varied and intriguing, beautifully intertwined and harmonious, melodic and tuneful, full of varied tones, rhythms, pitches and counterpoints. Giant timbres overlapping in the air. And then there was the plane above. A continuous hum, drone and roar. The sound of grey looming overhead, casting a giant cloud over the soundscape.
This got me thinking about how man borrows from nature, recreating what we need in machinic form. The plane allows man to fly as the birds do but it cannot sing. Is is louder, bigger and more powerful, but it doesn't spread seed, converse with its neighbours or breed new life. It doesn't glide and sing in harmony amongst others, choosing instead to chug on alone, avoiding contact and interaction .
We can emulate the function but we cannot recreate the beauty. But then I suppose this is the purpose of commerce. It is not to primarily look or sound, but to carry, to make and save money and to streamline and tighten at every opportunity.
But is this to not look close enough? Given closer thought our modern form of flying en mass shares much more than just the sky with the birds. For they don't really fly alone, but as part of a complex system, at different heights, speeds and times, monitored, organised and conducted by air traffic controllers. I suppose the airport is their tree branch, a place to rest, refuel and catch up with fellow fliers.
And in a way planes spread their seed to as they deliver people from place to place, sharing knowledge, ideas and culture, spreading new life across the globe. Carrying food across continents, filling supermarket shelves or delivering aid. There are also the planes that do literally fly together in sequence, be it for artistic purpose at air shows or in combat situations during conflict.
I think what intrigues me so much about this is the fact that it has taken so much time, money and resource for man to emulate something that birds can do so effortlessly and without capital. What makes this particular example so interesting though is that of all the means of travel we have, flying is the only one upon which we rely one hundred percent on technology.
Cars, trains, lorries and buses all allow us to move quicker and carry more but we could still walk instead if they didn't exist. The same for boats. Ok, we may not be able swim around the world, but we can swim, and some people do so over extraordinary distances.
But however many times we try jumping and flapping our arms, we always come back down.
Wednesday, 3 February 2010
Bird vs Flying Machine
Listening back to some field recording I have been doing in Southern Spain recently, I came across a really interesting section of sound that I want to share with you. What you can hear is a plane flying overhead and a cacophony of birds twittering and singing away in the foreground.
This was recorded just with the stereo mic of my portable recorder, and the way that the two distinct sounds are so well balanced has set off so many thoughts and questions for me regarding the relationship between man and nature, how we emulate, recreate and then feedback so many things from the natural world, and how nature continues to adapt and interact with the things we throw at it.
I know studies have been done that prove that birds sing louder and higher pitched in cities than the countryside, and I wonder if the roar of an aeroplane has the same effect.
Monday, 14 December 2009
Turn it Down...
A story causing a bit of a stir in the news today is that of the EU suggesting an enforced cap on the volume of MP3 players due to an increase in hearing damage amongst the young.
I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this. On the one hand it is probably a good idea, it may well stop a few people damaging their ears, and even better it may stop so many people drowning out the sound of their environment with music, increasing public and social interaction, tactility and perception. If volume was capped at 85db, the sound of trains and traffic would seriously impair the clarity of music being played, particularly in cheaper headphones, to the point where people may not find it all that much of an enjoyable experience anymore. But then neither is listening to traffic for prolonged periods of time overly enjoyable either so I'm not sure who wins out of this, because 85db would still completely drown out the more beneficial sounds of our environment anyway.
On the other hand though this has got the smoking ban written all over it. Do we actually need to take away the option of listening to music loudly? Can't we just be a bit more educational about the possible repercussions. In fact, can't we just stop banning things and work harder to grow a society where people feel comfortable and happy enough not to want to walk around in their own private sound world all the time. Can't we work harder to make cities in particular sound better, less abrasive and claustrophobic.
And surely it isn't just MP3 players damaging young peoples ears? Are we not attending many more live gigs than we used to? and from a younger age? Is our daily life not pretty noisy in general, with less quiet time and space than ever before? And is this ruling really thinking of those wearing the headphones, or those who sit across from them, annoyed by the sonic overspill into their own piece of private/public space.
I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this. On the one hand it is probably a good idea, it may well stop a few people damaging their ears, and even better it may stop so many people drowning out the sound of their environment with music, increasing public and social interaction, tactility and perception. If volume was capped at 85db, the sound of trains and traffic would seriously impair the clarity of music being played, particularly in cheaper headphones, to the point where people may not find it all that much of an enjoyable experience anymore. But then neither is listening to traffic for prolonged periods of time overly enjoyable either so I'm not sure who wins out of this, because 85db would still completely drown out the more beneficial sounds of our environment anyway.
On the other hand though this has got the smoking ban written all over it. Do we actually need to take away the option of listening to music loudly? Can't we just be a bit more educational about the possible repercussions. In fact, can't we just stop banning things and work harder to grow a society where people feel comfortable and happy enough not to want to walk around in their own private sound world all the time. Can't we work harder to make cities in particular sound better, less abrasive and claustrophobic.
And surely it isn't just MP3 players damaging young peoples ears? Are we not attending many more live gigs than we used to? and from a younger age? Is our daily life not pretty noisy in general, with less quiet time and space than ever before? And is this ruling really thinking of those wearing the headphones, or those who sit across from them, annoyed by the sonic overspill into their own piece of private/public space.
Sunday, 13 December 2009
Bells sound out against climate change
Churches across the globe rung their bells at 3pm today as part of the protest against climate change. Read more about it here
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