Sound Diaries

The Summer is festival season and from August 27th-30th i’m going to be at Greenbelt Festival in Cheltenham, England. During the festival i am going to be recording a sound diary. The first recording includes my favourite Greenbelt Sound - the candle-powered steam boats often found in the village. Greenbelt has a distinctive soundscape… the sounds of the tiny tea tent; of the walk to the campsite; of running water; of frying up at breakfast time; of hi-fiving; of hymns and beer and toilet doors; of searching for friends; of queueing for tea; of walking past the ice-cream van…

 

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Alvoco Kids Park

Penalva Water Wheel

Porto Covo Sea, 2010

Porto Covo Pessegueiro Island, 2010

All recordings in this post by Luís Antero

 

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 Penalva Water Wheel: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

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 Porto Covo Market: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

My favourite holiday ever was spent walking The West Highland Way last summer with my partner, Mark.

I didn’t make many recordings on the trip. Firstly, the physical exertions of walking in the Highlands carrying all our camping stuff was not conducive to stopping regularly to make recordings, and secondly, the trip was so peaceful and full of so many amazing sounds that picking just one or two to focus on was impossible, and felt like breaking up something perfectly beautiful and continuous. I mostly just walked and listened and enjoyed being in such an epic and remote landscape.

However at night, when we lay in our tent, I found listening to the sounds of the weather around us through my Edirol to be very soothing, and I often fell asleep to that sound.

These recordings were made in this fashion last year, along the West Highland Way. The first recording is of rain falling on our tent when we wild-camped beside Loch Lomond, and the second recording is from the wind on Rannoch Moor, rustling our shelter.

 

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This recording is from my holiday in San Stefanos, Corfu. The beautiful bay of Agios Stefanos is surrounded by sweeping hills covered with Olive groves, and with an early sighting of a eagle right at the hilltop, I was encouraged to set out for a walk up into the hillside to try to capture some sound recordings before the sun got too high.

Whilst on my way out of the village towards the dirt track which led up to the hillside, I was surprised by the sound of a tree which was emitting the low hum of many bees at work.

This recording was made with the OKI Soundman binaural microphones and an Edirol R-09 recorder at 48khz/24bit. In the spirit of the Sound Diaries concept, this recording is presented in it’s full unedited form, directly from me sticking my head into a tree full of bees for your entertainment.

Martin Franklin
martin@codetrip.net
www.codetrip.net

 

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Throughout August we are inviting you to contribute Holiday Sounds. Over the last few years i have always tended to record sound during my holidays and can even remember my Father recording me and my brother on his ITT Cassette recorder during one of our Summer visits to Paignton, Devon. These sounds could have been recorded this year or they could be sounds from other years… anything that captures the essence of your holiday experiences. As a start here’s the sound of a rainstorm from my holiday in the Dordogne, France in July. I put my Edirol on each of the window ledges of the house in turn - here are three of the recordings…

 

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Commuting is often seen as ‘dead time’, for some years now I have made recordings of being in transit.
Often being ‘between places’ is much more satisfying than the actual arrival.
Whilst working at Kingston University I used to travel from Surbiton train station on the number K2 bus. I particularly liked the female automated voice that announced destinations.
This short field recording has been processed to emphasis the ‘sing-song’ qualities of the automated voice and that of a rather talkative toddler who I regularly shared my bus journey with.

Kevin Logan

 

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Early Morning Shanty Town: An unedited sound diary that captures the early morning bustle of activity of Pachacutec, a large shantytown in Callao, about 1 ½ hours from Lima, Peru. I spent 10 weeks living as part of a group living and working in the community and the recording captures many of the characteristic sonic occurrences that I experienced on my short commute to the building site where I worked.

The recording encapsulates many elements of life in the community: the hubbub created by the early starters; various modes of transport; instances of lively conversation and the spirit of its people; the wild dogs that roam the streets; and the plethora of animals kept in almost every home, that signaled the beginning of each day. This is the soundscape that I enjoyed every morning and will remind me of the time I spent in Pachacutec.

Aidan Deery

 

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I was up late one night in early june and when i finally went upstairs i could hear the dawn chorus. The sound was so vivid that i had to capture it. I balanced my Edirol R-09 on a temporary Lego platform on my window sill - the sill tilts downwards so the Edirol wouldn’t stand up and Lego was the closest thing to hand. I set the levels; pressed record; and went to bed…

 

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On 28th July on Soundart Radio, sound-diaries will be featured on the Gene Pool programme at 7pm. A version of this same feature will be downloadable as a Gene Pool podcast, where Felicity Ford and Paul Whitty discuss sound-diaries with Martin Franklin in the run up to the forthcoming Sound:Site conference.

Layered recordings made weekly as I walked to my office during the 14 weeks I was lecturing in human computer interaction at UQ. The path took me through the cemetery, across a bridge over the Brisbane River, then through the grounds of the University to my office in GP South. I was struck by the three distinct zones of the soundscape: cemetery, bridge, then University, and wanted to bring out that structure. Yet on listening back to my first recording the differences between the sections of the walk were not so apparent. It was a great example of how integrated and multi-modal consciousness of perception is. Without vision, and the feel of the different surfaces beneath my feet, my orientation to the ground as I climbed up through the cemetery or walked along the flat bridge, the soundscape was not as strongly differentiated in isolated listening as I felt when making the walk itself. To bring out the differences more – I layered 14 of the walks, aligned to the end of the walk when I opened my office door. The walking time was surprisingly consistent at about 20:30 +/- 30secs.

Greg Hooper
www.greg-hooper.com
greghpratyahoo.com.au

 

 Greg Hooper, walk to work, layered, Australia: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download