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Re: Some prescient words from Murray Schafer

Subject: Re: Some prescient words from Murray Schafer
From: "Aaron Ximm" aaron_gmail
Date: Mon Apr 19, 2010 12:16 pm ((PDT))
On Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 11:48 AM, Bernie Krause <> w=
rote:
> Murray concluded that, "Technology has made it easy to record. Any
> idiot can do it and produce an interesting document. But to produce a
> historical recording of value takes time and patience. Many recordists
> are merely tourists in the soundscape=97unfortunately."

As a frequent tourist and self-described idiot who has produced
interesting documents, I take issue with the generalization.

In fact I reject it outright, and with all due respect to RMS for whom
I have the greatest respect, I think it inadvertently reveals a set of
assumptions about how good investigative and documentary work can and
should be done that are rapidly becoming antiquated.

For one thing, I think there are other reasons that data-gathering to
make recordings ~ in particular, aesthetic ones. And there is a great
deal of potential nuance within that domain. Much of my own work is
explicitly about the experience of being out of one's depth when
traveling outside of one's comfort zone -- regardless of location.
There is much that I might (and do at times) record within blocks of
my home that is rich with cultural (not to mention, biophonetic)
intricacies I am totally ignorant of.

For my money there is great value in capturing high-quality documents
of those things, even in the absence of my own understanding --
precisely because I anticipate (and have indeed experienced numerous
times first-hand) that within them others will, years later, find much
they value -- and can explain.

Small example: I recorded a private ritual taking place in the Bayon
temple in the Angkor complex one afternoon. Sad to say I understood no
Khmer, so the words -- both ritual and casual -- that the small
collection of people gathered were saying were opaque to me.
Nonetheless I thought that particular recording captured a moment
worth listening to...

Years later, finding it on my website, someone of Cambodian ancestry
wrote me up to tell me how moved they were by the recording, and
translated every word in it for me.

To have value like this, though, recordings must be shared ~ they must
be accessible. For me, that is the great worth of the 'net and our
progress towards lowering the cost of sharing large quantities of our
work freely with as many people as possible. This is not to downplay
the legitimate question (I know this has been a challenge for you
Bernie) of how to make a living out of one's life-work...

...but it is to say that the inter-connectedness the 'net allows means
that it is not as Schafer contends necessary for every individual to
acquire expertise in order to make recordings of value. To make a
contribution, in other words.

The point in sum being that expertise is not longer required to reside
in each individual, but within the network of those with ready access
to the network's resources -- of which raw recordings and domain
expertise are just two examples.

This list itself is a perfect demonstration of my point... :)

For some of us it should be enough to be good recordists. We will miss
what is most of interest to certain experts, but as long as we are
diligent in at least noting what where and when we recorded, who knows
what gems we may inadvertently uncover...

aaron

--
  
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   9% disgusted
   6% fearful
   2% angry






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