I was having a conversation offline with John Hartog concerning
anthrophony in nature soundscape recordings and I wanted to open it up
to the broader community. As you might have guessed, John and I have
different approaches/aesthetics concerning the presence of anthrophony
:).
I am curious how each of you deals with the sounds of man and machine
in your recording practice.
Do you edit it out?
Do you minimize it through EQ?
Do you practice extreme patience and wait out the sounds of man
looking for tiny slivers of "quiet"?
Do you reconstruct a scene from fragments?
Do you leave it in?
In my own recordings I typically try to seek out places where
anthrophony is minimal, and the sounds of non-man are dominant. This
is not nature for nature's sake, but rather to get sound scenes that I
find interesting to listen to. For me, an area with a wash of traffic
noise is not particularly easy on the ears and I have not yet been
particularly interested in recording the sounds of man and machine.
But whether we like it or not, the sounds of motor vehicles,
airplanes, boats, and general human schenanigans are pervasive, not
only in North America, but almost everywhere on the planet.
Anthrophony is a part of our soundscape and natural environment.
Giving it a first class position in Soundscape Ecology recognizes this
implicitly. Sometimes anthrophony is pollution, disrupting breeding
populations. Other times it is completely benign. But whatever it's
affect in any given situation, there it is.
So my general aesthetic currently is to leave it in, although I do
minimize sections where the anthrophony is particularly annoying. I
also happen to do this with sections that have been blown out by wind
or with birds that are just way too close to a microphones. They just
get edited out. This is not to say that my recordings are littered
with airplanes and cars, but often I find that the process of editing
a soundscape for anthrophony destroys something about the soundscape
itself. Sometimes hours of continuity (place) can be lost waiting for
a completely "quiet" moment. This can be particularly acute during
light transitions.
I have another concern though regarding editing/waiting out
anthrophony. The documents we create through patience and careful
editing portray a world that does not exist (or exist in incredibly
limited quantities - and perhaps herein lies the value). Arguably, all
recordings are biased anyway and there is no way to avoid creating a
fantasy. We often lament the growing noise in the world, environmental
destruction, and devastating losses of species and habitats, but by
and large the recordings we create show a world untouched by man. I do
not want consumers of "nature sound" to be disappointed by presence of
anthrophony that sometimes appears in my recordings, however I am
concerned about the message sent when soundscapes are redacted to
exclude anthrophony.
This of course is just my opinion, so I wonder your collective
feelings on this topic.
Sincerely
David
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