Dear Paul,
I'd really love to see on the net a webspace dedicated at
collecting well documented nature recordings and any other sound
recording able to document acoustic events related to human history
and cultures (I mean examples of all languages of the world, sound
cuts of musical instruments, of machines too... e.g. old typewriters
or trains or a morse code or the noise made by traditional works....).
I think the best would be to have both compressed cuts for fast
access and browsing and longer uncompressed files for those really
interested in top quality sounds to be used for fun or for teaching.
I often download sound cuts for my personal collection and I often
use them for teaching. I would suggest to all recordists that publish
sound cuts on the web to provide a downloadable short text or pdf
file with the same namme of the audio file with all the required info
about the sound: where, when, the environment, the equipment, etc.
I teach bioacoustics and I talk about sounds of individual species as
well as of natural soundscapes, but I never forgot the importance of
sound (and noise) in our culture; with a short recording you can jump
instantly in the noisy traffic of Cairo or in a Tibetan temple, or in
the Amazonian forest or in an Italian Opera Theater.
Your archive could become quickly a really important resources to all
us and for many others. I hope all members of this list will
contribute. It is a long time I have in mind something like your
project and I'll be happy if you'll do it.
A permanent archive is a completely different project that requires a
long term effort to preserve recordings and requiring a continuous
check and backup of the media. Institutions like the Natural Sound
Archive of the British Library are exactly devoted at preserving
sound recordings for the future generations.
I wish and hope your project will start soon and I'll love to
contribute and to listen to the archive.
Gianni
At 16.18 04/05/2007, you wrote:
>Re: A Teaching Society
>
>Chris and Anton recently wrote:
>
> > > 3. If Anton recently had to delete 400Mb that is hardly a
> > > permanent sound archive either is it ?
>
> > I use the same acount for other stuff. I shouldve been more clear. I just
> > deleted 400 meg of my bands jammings . . . . I don't ever delete
> > stuff from the nature sound part.
> >
> > Anton
>
>Dear Group:
>
>Along this interesting, continuing thread of creating various
>permanent archives that are
>teaching, learning or historical resources for the future, we must
>remember that both
>biodiversity in general, and sound environments in particular
>(including human lingustic
>and culture diversity sounds), are decreasing exponentially. Any
>climate change event will
>no doubt shock our system much more. My intuition says that our
>lifetime, but more
>directly impacting our children's generation, will see a major
>"phase shift" or "warp" in
>Earth's life system.
>
>WHOA! That is heavy stuff and a downer, especially early on Friday
>morning. Let me be
>clear: I enjoy having fun and partying and working and living and
>being a dad more than
>dwelling on such things. But deep down inside, this is what I sense
>as TRUE about our
>special time in history, and must acknowledge it -- even though it
>is a bummer. We
>should live for the present but occasionally acknowledge the likely
>future. Strangely, out
>of the several billion of people on the planet, probably only a few
>hundred are really
>experts in natural sound. Probably 10 or 20 are the truly great
>sound recordists, maybe
>less. This is a small group. Others make an occassionaly good or
>great recording, that
>could also be featured.
>
>What I would like to do is to perform a methodical search, relying
>on the vast individual
>and institutional knowledge out there, and create a website with
>history's greatest
>ecosystem and other natual sounds on it -- without anyone trying to
>make money on it. I
>will fund it and try to marshall other's collective knowledge and
>wisdom. It will inure to
>the collective benefit and ego gratification of the group.
>
>This would include recordings from many different sound recordists.
>I think the key to
>this is that everyone is trying to make money on their projects.
>This makes sense if it is
>your profession. If it is your avocation, it is not necessary.
>Making individual profit keeps
>things splintered rather than generating the power of combination.
>This dynamic is true
>even of, or perhaps especially with, the museums and universities.
>They have started to
>horde their recordings and certainly don't do an effective job
>teaching with them. They
>are archivists, rather than teachers on a societal scale. But if no
>one searches the archive,
>or only movie sound track guys who want Hermit Thrust recordings,
>what use is it?
>
>Accordingly, if you freed yourself up from trying to make money on
>such a project, and
>highlighted just a few recordings from any one source and provided
>links to that source so
>that it was a win/win, you could create an aeshetically pleasing
>teaching resource that
>would hopefully be used by the industrialized world of the
>"connected" future.
>
>As just one example, many tens of millions of homes in the West are
>wired for 5.1 sound.
>In 3 or so years, many if not most of those sound and HDTV systems
>will be wirelessly
>connected to the home computer, both screen and sound. How many
>really great 5.1
>recordings are out there? Why not identify those, and the best
>stereo and mono
>recordings, and put a few of them someplace where everyone knows to
>go if you want to
>put on an Ecuadorian rainforest, or a deciduous North American dawn
>chorus, a night
>crickets, or amphibians from the Southwest?
>
>Query: Is this a threat to the economic viability of other's
>projects, and would they
>therefore not participate?
>
>Such a project would take a litte work and is a multi year effort. I
>am hoping that the
>many great recordists who participate and even who "lurk," on this
>site will consider
>nominating their own recordings, or other's remarkable recordings,
>as candidates.
>Everyone knows what her best recording is, or his top 5 or 10 or
>100. They also know
>their buddies' best recordings. I have heard Geoff Keller's sage
>grouse recording, for
>example. Ted Parker played his Little Nightjar recording for me in
>his home in Baton
>Rouge. I heard Bernie Krause's Allogonquin wolf recording right here
>on this Group.
>
>Hope you will consider this idea and not chuckle too hard at it.
>
>On other matters I will report on the success, or failure, of the
>upcoming 4 day, 25 mile
>hike into a remote section of the Grand Canyon, the backpacking
>solution discussion. I
>only wish I had much better microphones ( I am bringing an Audio
>Technica 835ST). If I
>get into heavy treefrog and red spotted toad country, the signal to
>noise ratio will be fine.
>If I am recording warblers and flycatchers in a quiet, mesquite
>filled wash, I may be
>severely disappointed. I go there once a year so no problem. Will be
>upgrading
>microphones this summer, and will be auditioning the Sennheiser pair
>when I visit Geoff
>Keller in four weeks.
>
>Geo Paul
>
>
>
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Gianni Pavan
Centro Interdisciplinare di Bioacustica e Ricerche Ambientali
Universita' degli Studi di Pavia, Via Taramelli 24, 27100 PAVIA, ITALIA
Phone +39-0382-987874 Fax +39-02-700-32921
Email
Web http://www.unipv.it/cibra
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CIBRA organizes the XXI IBAC Congress, Pavia, 15-18 September 2007
http://www.unipv.it/cibra/xxi_ibac.html
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