Katy,
I want to discuss some of your points. To begin, most people who
take my class find that they notice more natural sounds and more
details of those sounds than they did before taking the class. I
believe they strengthen their connection with nature which is the
outcome that I hope for. You can think about the many ways to
learn music. Kids can start by singing and listening. Next,
they may learn to play an instrument, and learn to read music.
Some years later, they might dive into studying the score of a
Bach cantata to help them understand the magic of that music.
There are many paths to gaining that level of competence, but the
kids need to start somewhere.
I chose to start with an introduction to bird songs because it
was something I was interested in and could do, and it
accomplished what I was trying to do. I want to keep expanding
it and plan to add multi-species choruses.=20
An on-line introduction to biophony and soundscapes would be
great. I would be glad to help you do that. But, it is a
different course than the one I built.
I am also one who was inspired by and learned from Luis Baptista.
And, I agree he was concerned with understanding and protecting
natural biophonies. I think it is also fair to say that he
appreciated the details of how individual species -- in fact
individual animals -- function in natural soundscapes. The whole
is important and the individual details are important.
I was puzzled by your reference to Cornell Lab. In the first
place, they are not responsible for any deficiencies in my
course. Secondly, their contributions to education, research and
conservation are impressive.=20
Recently Bernie Krause sought recordings of South African Cape
Penguins. That appears to be a search for a single species
recording, and I am sure he will make good use of it.=20
Right now there are not enough people who understand, appreciate
and work to protect natural soundscapes. I think there is enough
room to allow multiple approaches to addressing that need.
Regards,
Rick Johnson
Osprey Ridge Studio
P.O. Box 981
Inverness, CA 94937
Email:
www.hearbirds.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Wild Sanctuary
Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2004 4:40 PM
To:
Subject: Re: [Nature Recordists] Presenting sounds on the
internet
Cool web site, Rick. But, regarding the subject of birdsong, you
might want to check out Bernie Krause's new book, "Wild
Soundscapes:
Discovering the Voice of the Natural World." In it, he gets well
beyond the older models of deconstruction and abstraction of the
single-bird idea the Cornell folks have been touting since the
late
19th C and begins to explore how, through the effect of the
entire
biophony of a habitat, birds learn their songs and calls as an
integral component of a cohesive and discriminating soundscape as
much as any factor. This niche idea posits that if the voice
doesn't
with the rest of the critter orchestra (my term), the bird (or
other
vocal creatures) won't survive too well in a given biome. It was
a
concept that the late, great Dr. Luis Baptista was looking into
at
the time of his death and found most intriguing as it addressed
many
of the puzzles he was still investigating. Others are now writing
doctoral theses on the subject.
He's out at the moment, but I also believe he's giving a two-day
workshop in the Sierras as part of the Yosemite Association
program
this June in Tuolumne Meadows although I don't have the exact
dates.
Check it out and thanks for the great work. I'll turn Dr. Krause
onto
this when he returns to the lab tomorrow.
Katy Gygi
>About ten days ago there was a discussion on this list server
>about presenting bird songs on the web using HTML and mp3 files
>as compared to using Quicktime.=A0 I want to mention another
>option, using Flash.=A0 Before getting into that, let me start
with
>an introduction, since this is my first posting.
>
>I am Rick Johnson of Inverness, California.=A0 I started recording
>by attending the Cornell Lab sound recording workshop in the
>Sierras in 2001.=A0 Thanks to Greg Budney, Randy Little, and David
>Herr for getting me started on what has turned out to be a
>fantastic journey.=A0 Once I started paying attention, I noticed
so
>many more sounds, both pleasant natural sounds and irritating
man
>made sounds.=A0 I also like to do video recording although in any
>given scene I usually concentrate on one or the other.=A0 I use a
>Sennheiser ME 67 mic and Marantz PMD222 recorder, and have been
>satisfied with the set up. Most of my work experience has been
in
>product development for application software companies.
>
>Eighteen months ago I decided to build an on-line Introduction
to
>Bird Songs.=A0 I considered using HTML and MP3, Quicktime, or
Java.
>None of them really gave me what I wanted in terms of designing
a
>responsive, graphical user experience.=A0 I decided to use
>Macromedia's Flash.=A0 Flash allows you to mix in images,
>animations, along with sounds.=A0 Flash does a great job at
>compression and at providing portability to most browsers and
>platforms (PC and MAC).
>
>You can check out the results at my web site, www.hearbirds.com.
>On the home page there is a simple example to play a Hermit
>Thrush song.=A0 In the lower right section of the home page there
>is a link to test your Flash version and that leads to a site
>where you can get the needed free plug-in, if necessary.=A0 There
>are more complex examples too.
>
>This next link goes to an article that talks about spectrograms
>and illustrates one for a Green-tailed Towhee recording:
>http://www.hearbirds.com/content/sono1.htm
>
>This next page has a demo of the types of recordings used in the
>course:
>http://www.hearbirds.com/content/dstart.asp
>
>HTML and MP3 seems to be the best way to build a catalog of
>sounds and to share them.=A0 But if you want to build something
>more graphical and mix in other media, Flash does a great job.
>
>Rick Johnson
>Osprey Ridge Studio
>P.O. Box 981
>Inverness, CA 94937
>Email:
>
>
>
>
>
>"Microphones are not ears,
>Loudspeakers are not birds,
>A listening room is not nature."
>Klas Strandberg
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
--
Wild Sanctuary, Inc.
P. O. Box 536
Glen Ellen, California=A0 95442-0536
Tel: (707) 996-6677
Fax: (707) 996-0280
http://www.wildsanctuary.com
"Microphones are not ears,
Loudspeakers are not birds,
A listening room is not nature."
Klas Strandberg
Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
ADVERTISEMENT
Yahoo! Groups Links
=95 To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/naturerecordists/
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