With reference to:
> From: Rob Danielson <>
> Reply-To:
> Date: Thu, 24 May 2007 14:37:23 -0500
> To:
> Subject: Re: [Nature Recordists] A Manifesto About Quality: Five Theses
>
> At 3:26 PM +0000 5/24/07, geopaul7 wrote:
>> In descending order of importance, these
>> elements affect the quality of a nature sound
>> recording: They have non-linear abilities to affect quality.=A0
>>
>> 1. Fieldcraft: This is the concept of using
>> one's natural history and ecological knowledge
>> to be in the right sonic place at the right
>> time. Do you know your subject? Can you get
>> close? Have you chosen a place where there is
>> little or no machine noise? Will you scare
>> your subject away? Do you know the likely
>> singal to noise ratio? Have you chosen an
>> interesing subject? Do you have a good ear?
>> Are you tuned into the biophony?=A0=A0
>> "Fieldcraft" is taken from Knapp, 2007. All
>> great nature recordists are masters in this area.
By co-incidence, earlier this week, I had occasion to email the National
Parks and Wildlife Service of New South Wales (Australia) seeking a
scientific permit to allow me to tape-record the song of lyrebirds in Uralb=
a
Nature Reserve, and I said this:
Any recording would be interesting to me, but to be fully useful it must be
a natural performance of the bird - not one that might have been
influenced by the bird's perception of my presence.
With few exceptions, all Albert's Lyrebirds are intensely shy. Certainly
the Uralba ones were when I recorded there in (I think) 1983 when the area
was State Forest. To get a recording of reasonable quality using a
parabolic reflector, I need to get to something less than 100 m, and
preferably less than 50 m, from the bird. So you can be sure I would be
doing my utmost not to disturb him.
But my main aim is to locate one of the bird's most-used display platforms,
and place a microphone no more than about two metres from it, with 50 m or
so of cable back to where I can be concealed from the sight of the bird.
You may be concerned that I might use play-back of territorial songs to
stimulate singing. I can assure you that I would not do so. Firstly
because the resulting performance would not be his natural song, but also
because of a much stronger reason which I'll now explain.
(I guess I need not include that stronger reason here.)
My experience endorses the view that field craft is of prime importance.
Cheers
Syd Curtis
(Brisbane, Australia)
"While a picture is worth a thousand words, a
sound is worth a thousand pictures." R. Murray Schafer via Bernie Krause
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/naturerecordists/
<*> Your email settings:
Digest Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/naturerecordists/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
|