Bernie Krause wrote:
> 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.
these seem to me to be powerful distinctions, the problems only arise if
they are taken to be in any way definitive or exhaustive. there are many
ways one might divide up the sonic universe depending on your
intellectual, moral or scientific focus.
many people on this list seem to have as their ideal 'pristine
recordings of the calls and cries of animals' (because of the focus on
pristine quality, i lurk on this list mostly for the technical
information :-)
some people i know are interested in the sounds of an idealised 'nature'
which is supposed to be interesting because it is uncivilised. i find
that interest a bit dull because of the way it fetishises the
distinction between man and nature.
others are interested in the musical qualities of unintentionally
musical events (much phonography seems to have this focus).
interestingly, the focus here is as much on the perceiving mind that
hears a sound rather than the sound itself (it's perhaps a very Cageian
approach).
others may be interested in 'soundscapes' as such, whether human,
'natural' or mixed. they may be interested in the soundscape for musical
reasons (they find interesting musical qualities), for scientific
reasons (they are interested in the impact of the soundscape on either
human or natural / animal behaviour), or for historical reasons (for
what soundscapes and our relation to them reveals about historical
sensibilities)
whatever the motivation or goal, these are all interesting and useful
ways of dividing up sonic experience.
my own interest is a particular kind of stochastic, chaotic sound,
whatever the source. so i may make use of many different kinds of source
materials without preference. i have great recordings of the sea at
Chesil beach rolling the pebbles there around in ways that sound
interesting to me. i might be equally interested in the sound of a group
of frogs or a group of children calling together, for similar reasons.
my compositions often use the sounds of things being agitated in various
ways (stones falling in unison, tin foil being crushed, etc., etc - ie.
sources treated from the point of view of musique concrete.)
on holiday in Norway recently i made hours of recordings but my
favourite was one of a field full of sheep all with bells ringng,
bleating together while a kind of 'field of bells' sounded around them.
the sound is produced by sheep, not humans, but it is produced by the
sounding of a human device (the bell), yet the sound i am interested in
is that of the mass of bells, not any particular bell or the pattern
produced by an individual sheep. it is not the sound of humans, not the
sound of nature - just interesting because of the physical properties of
the situation (bells being sounded at 'random' in a wide stereo space).
the fact that there aren't hard and fast boundaries in principle between
these different centres of interest, doesn't however mean that the
various mailing lists don't have fairly well defined focuses - it just
means that these focii aren't established on first principles, but
emerge informally out of the economic, philosophic, scientific, etc.,
interests that unite the participants.
--
Everybody gives lip service to the idea that people are
the most important part of a software project, but nobody
is quite sure what you can *do* about it.
[][][] Andy Wilson | Mob: +44 (0)7739 908 253
[][] Managing Director | Tel: +44 (0)20 7729 7060
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