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Re: dawn chorus show

Subject: Re: dawn chorus show
From: "Klas Strandberg" klasstrandberg
Date: Sun Feb 25, 2007 1:14 pm ((PST))
Let me first say a few words (?) on sync sound:

One of the strongest scenes in "The Godfather" is the very 
"effectless" scene where Marlon Brando plays with his grandson. It 
ends with a heart attack and the godfather dies.

When I first saw that scene, I reacted instantly, emotionally. As the 
micmaker I am, I had a quick look at the trees in the background and 
though "this is sync sound"! On the other hand I couldn't believe it! 
Sync sound in a Hollywood production???
Later I was told that this scene was improvised and that it was 
"easiest way" sound recording, Two mic's on the camera, sort of...

On the other hand, I sometimes see movies with explosions of sounds 
and effects and get all cold and un-interested. A sound producer once 
told me that if you have the correct human sound to a scene where 
someone falls down a skyscraper, the audience would probably vomit by 
instinct and leave. So, therefore, you have to distort the whole 
situation, by adding a typical "film-scream" to the scene.

I think you are quite right, Geoff,  when you speculate over my 
stress. Recording the way you have, you loose all "natural" 
background information which you need.
(Volker also made this observation, but explained it in another way.)

We humans (hunters, animals, as we are) - are terribly dependent on 
such matters! Once, long ago, this fantastic multi-functional feature 
-  "interpreting background information" - made us react in a 
lifesaving way, judging where a noise came from and how far away it 
was and how it was moving. Probably a lot more, too, which we never 
observe at a conscious level.

In psychology "we" talk about "perceptual constancy" which means that 
you can see a round wheel from the side, - that is an oval - still 
see it as round. The brain "knows", and compensates.
But you can also make a strange framework around this wheel, - 
figures and things, - cheating the eye to see an oval. Then, the 
brain gets the wrong data about what is around the wheel, and make a 
wrong conclusion.

Same with a dawn-chorus. If your brain doesn't get the correct 
"audio-perspective," something stressful is going to happen. On a 
totally unconscious level, the healthy brain with good ears (me??!) 
starts to deal with the question "what the f-k is going on here "???

I had a hard time believing that it was humans, singing! On the other 
hand, I visited your web-site,  - downloaded a file and got the same 
impression as Volker. So I said "why not"...
Life is fantastic...

Klas.


At 18:22 2007-02-25, you wrote:
>Volker, I should point out that the audio clips on my website are the
>actual field recordings of birds, not the audio from the installation
>at the Baltic, which is produced by humans. There has been no
>fiddling with time on the field recordings, nor any editing. The
>tracks have been panned within the stereo field to reflect the
>position of the mic in our recording space; levels were fairly even
>across the tracks, except where an individual bird was very close to
>a mic, then it was lowered.
>
>I'm interested that Klas found the one he listened to stressful.
>There are two factors that might contribute to this.
>
>First consider how these recordings were made. An array of 14 mics
>spaced out over an area of roughly 100m diameter, and placed in
>positions where we expected birds to sing. In any one sequence only a
>few birds were close over mics, others would be some distance off.
>
>Normally one hears the spacial array of a whole group of singers from
>a single perspective and the more distant singers will sound more
>distant and have less high frequency content in the sound that
>reaches the listener. In this recording it's like having 14 ears on
>the end of long tentacles, so the multiplicity of individual sound
>sources are less degraded. This could well contribute an overbearing
>effect on listening to the recording.
>
>But the second factor is simply down to the nature of the dawn
>chorus. Personally I find the peak of a dawn chorus in a woodland
>edge/scrub/suburban garden type habitat pretty cacophonous (in our
>temperate region). Sure it's an impressive phenomenon, but not the
>best time to appreciate the beauty of the birdsong - that comes
>later, once the intensity of the first wave is over. Say after 5am.
>
>This was one of the aspects we wanted to document accurately - how
>all the individual parts contribute to the whole in a real world
>chorus. One of the things we found was that there was more movement
>than we expected during this first wave (when it's still difficult to
>see) and birds seemed to sing from different spots than they would
>later.
>
>Our scientific adviser on the project was Peter MacGregor who had
>also tried recording with a multi-mic array as part of a University
>of Copenhagen study. They had 6 mics and were researching the use of
>space by singing blackbirds. He said they found it impossible to work
>during the dawn chorus since there was just too much going on and
>soon switched to working with great tits (much simpler song) later in
>the morning.
>
>We're hoping to put together a discussion about all this on radio to
>coincide with the Bristol airing of the show.
>
>What we were agreed on is that the dawn chorus is a more complex
>phenomenon than is generally given credit, particularly in such
>densely populated habitats as woodland edge. There is intense
>competition for acoustic space and it could well be that this is the
>most stressful period of singing for the birds themselves. So maybe
>Klas is close to the state of bird!
>
>Finally, we ended up using the Brada session for the show, mainly
>because we had 3 male blackbirds singing synchronously for a few
>periods within our miced arena. Which was unusually close together.
>So maybe that also is contributing to the overall competitive and
>sonic tension. One thing for sure, it's a dense tangle of sound. From
>my experience in selling CDs of my recordings (stereo), if someone
>wants some relaxing birdsong to listen to, I tend to steer them away
>from a literal *dawn* chorus.
>
>It might make for a more listenable mix if I treated it more like a
>symphony and picked one or two soloists and backed off the other
>channels. In many ways I don't think this is an audio document that
>bears easy listening, it's more something to investigate.
>
>Hope this maybe clarifies a bit what the recordings represent, Geoff.
>
>
>Geoff Sample
>
>Wildsong Studios
>Northumberland, UK
>
>
>http://www.wildsong.co.uk
>
>
>
>
>
>
>"Microphones are not ears,
>Loudspeakers are not birds,
>A listening room is not nature."
>Klas Strandberg
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>

Telinga Microphones, Botarbo,
S-748 96 Tobo, Sweden.
Phone & fax int + 295 310 01
email: 
website: www.telinga.com
         






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