The human experience in the wild, with all of our senses playing a
role, is one model and medium. Capturing a fragment of that
experience with either a camera or mic abstracts the moment and
splits it away from the human illusion of reality. Sound typically
comes out of one or two sources (speakers)...sometimes more if one
has surround capability. But when you modify the medium, you need to
adjust for the alteration of what is experienced. Sound is the most
problematical, in that regard. What you hear/record in the field is
hardly ever what you get when you play it back on a system in your
studio/home. It has been reduced, transformed, and distorted in terms
of its spatial relationships and it is thus never the same. Just be
happy with a satisfactory illusion and one that tends to express your
experience rather than the Platonic belief that what one has is pure,
real, the cat's meow, etc. Trust me, it ain't never gonna happen with
audio recording.
As expressed and developed in my new book/CD, "Wild Soundscapes," the
soundscape idea, first posited by R. Murray Schafer, is divided into
three interrelated components: (1) the biophony - made up of the
symphony of critter sounds in any habitat, (2) the geophony -
non-biological sounds such as the effects of wind, water, rain, etc.,
and (3) anthrophony - human-induced sound. Wholistic recording of
whole habitats consists of anything from one to all three components
in various permutations. The human mind filters noise (a form of
denial) in the environments we typically create in order to retain
the necessary informative signal. The energy our brain uses to create
and apply this filter is one source of our constant irritation,
stress, and disorientation.
Speaking of anthrophony, today, we got good news that polution and
noise of snowmobiles in Yellowstone, a project with which we have
been intimately involved on behalf of the National Park Conservation
Association, will no longer be an issue in Yellowstone National Park
by winter of 2004. The Bush Administration dismantling of the ban
created by the previous administration, has been overturned by a
Federal judge. The victories in this country are small these days,
but that is certainly one to celebrate.
Bernie
>From: tony baylis <>
>>
>> At first reminded me of lots of recordings I have
>> discarded as noisy, but got more interesting as it
>> progressed.
>> Tony Baylis.
>
>This is a common experience. Most folks got into nature recording to
>record the calls of some animal, usually birdcalls. They get out and
>make a recording and it does not sound like they remember, there is all
>this extra noise. Only later do they realize that their minds had been
>filtering out the normal noise of the bird's environment and giving them
>the call pretty much without it's environment.
>
>We talk about wind noise as if it's a contaminant, for instance. And it
>is if we look at the effects directly on the microphone. But all the
>wind noise through the vegetation is perfectly natural and belongs
>there. Our microphone has given us a true picture and our mind a
>filtered one.
>
>In another sense I like to introduce folks to nature recording and have
>them discover all the extra noise. They become much more aware of the
>extent of noise pollution by recording. One can only hope more active in
>trying to do their part in curbing it.
>
>The tricky bit is to make a recording that includes both those calls and
>their environment and still sounds "natural" to us. That's the sort of
>thing that makes ambient recording much more challenging than call
>recording.
>
>Walt
>
>
>
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--
Wild Sanctuary, Inc.
P. O. Box 536
Glen Ellen, California 95442-0536
Tel: (707) 996-6677
Fax: (707) 996-0280
http://www.wildsanctuary.com
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