Lots of confusion here, folks. The soundscape, first described by R.
Murray Schafer in his seminal book, Tuning of the World, 1977,
described the soundscape as comprised of all sound reaching the human
ear. We've broken that down into three components: (1) the biophony,
meaning all of the sounds emanating from biological sources in a
given biome =96 marine or terrestrial. (2) the geophony, non-biological =
sources of sound coming from (mostly) undisturbed habitats, and (3)
the anthrophony, comprised of human-induced sound from whatever source.
I'm currently writing an article on the development of this thesis
for Science Magazine, and which should appear sometime in the spring
of 2008 assuming all goes well. It's under peer review at the moment.
So far, so good. Some of the information related to this subject can
be found in my recent book/CD, Wild Soundscapes: Discovering the
Voice of the Natural World, Wilderness Press, 2002.
Bernie Krause
On Aug 21, 2007, at 6:35 PM, Syd Curtis wrote:
>
> In a sense, all sound is "natural sound", and that seems to be what
> Rory is
> saying.
>
> However, one may distinguish sounds of nature from sounds resulting
> from
> human artefacts. I was not an original subscriber to
> naturerecordists, but
> my guess is that the list was set up with sounds of nature in mind.
>
> Our moderators have been remarkably tolerant and the list is very
> democratic, so it's whatever subscribers want it to be. My interest
> is in
> sounds resulting from any living organisms that deliberately make
> sounds.
> But wind, waves, and thunder are equally sounds of nature.
>
> But a fog-horn is not? If a fog-horn is included, then why not a
> bugle or a
> fiddle? An emergency siren? A chain-saw? A symphony orchestra? Traffic
> grid-lock? The term "natural sound" becomes all inclusive, and just
> means
> "sound".
>
> My computer is running Internet Explorer and I don't know what other
> software may offer, but I can delete a message with a single click.
> And do
> so when I can tell from the "Subject" that it is not of interest to
> me. So,
> OK by me, if Rory wishes to introduce a foghorn recording; I'll simply
> delete.
>
> But if <naturerecordists> is intended to be a mailing list for nature
> sounds, and the term 'nature sound' is to define a class within all
> sound,
> then a possible distinction is between sounds that occur and always
> have
> occurred in the world at large, and sounds resulting from human
> artefacts.
> (Other than artefacts used to record and reproduce the natural
> sounds.)
>
> Syd
>
> > From: "Rory" <>
> > Reply-To:
> > Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 23:56:42 -0000
> > To:
> > Subject: [Nature Recordists] What is a natural sound?
> >
> > This may sound like a dumb question, but I'm curious about where
> people on
> > this site draw the line between recordings of nature and
> recordings of
> > non-nature, and why the line is drawn where it is.
> >
> > Is a recording of a fog horn on topic on this site?
> >
> > A recording of a ferry and the water through which it is moving?
> >
> > A recording from the 30th floor balcony of a New York apartment
> of the city
> > breathing at night?
> >
> > A recording of crickets with the sound of city traffic in the
> background?
> >
> > A recording of torrential rain from inside a car? From under an
> umbrella?
> >
> > To give a specific example...
> >
> > Last week I recorded nesting seabirds at Cape St. Mary's in
> Newfoundland. I
> > made a separate recording of the Cape St. Mary's fog horn. If I
> upload the
> > first recording to this site, would it be "off topic" to upload
> the second
> > recording? If so, the distinction strikes me as a bit odd. Hence
> my question.
> >
> > Cheers
>
>
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