sound diaries newspaper #1

7/29/2019 Sound Diaries Newspaper #1

1/12

www.sound-diaries.co.uk

Wednesday February 27th, 2013

Sound Diaries was set up in 2008 by Felicity Ford and Paul Whitty and

is a research project of the Sonic Art Research Unit at Oxford Brookes

University. Sound Diaries is dedicated to recording everyday life in

sound.ContentsOpen call for papers for 2013 Sound Diaries

Symposium - How are we using field-recordings

to change the world?

..pg.02

Recommended Sound Diaries listening

..pg.03

The HEARth diaries and Audiograft 2013

..pg.04

Valeria Merlini talks about Audiograft 2012 and

her sonic memories of the festival

..pg.05

SOUND BANK centrefold

..pg.06 - 07

Listening to Roma Tearnes book, The Swimmer

..pg.08

Make your own entry for SOUND BANK & Sonic

breakfasts, as drawn by children at Fir Tree

Primary School in Wallingford

..pg.09

James Saunders talks about Audiograft 2012,

Make Sound Here, and his sonic memories of

the festival

..pg.10

The imminent sounds of everyday objects

..pg.11

Saving an EDIROL R-09 with silicon dessicant

..pg.12


2/12

Open call for papers for 2013 Sound Diaries Symposium - How are we using field-recordings to change the world?

Sound Diaries Symposium: How are we

using field recordings to change theworld? SARU, Oxford Brookes University,

Monday 3rd and Tuesday 4th June 2013.

Field recording practices have multiplied and diversified in response to the new possibilities presented by

increasingly affordable recording gear, developments in software, and the constantly changing cultural landscape

of the Internet. Field recordings can be shared on Facebook, burned onto CDs, linked to on Twitter, and added to

playlists; at no time in history have so many ambient recordings detailing the sonic textures of everyday life been

available to us for usage and contemplation.

So who is listening to these recordings? What kinds of cultural practices are developing in relation to them? How

are field recordings being used by different practitioners to explore ideas of place, specific cultural or historic

contexts, and other contemporary issues? Put simply, how are we using (or how could we use) field recordings to

change the world?This symposium will explore some of these questions, looking at recent projects by practitioners who are working

with field recordings specifically to explore social or cultural contexts. The morning and early afternoon will be

given to presentations by practitioners, and then there will be an informal skills-sharing session, in which

practitioners working with field recordings can share their practical experiences and answer questions from the

floor over tea and coffee.

We welcome submissions to present at this symposium about the following:

Online projects which use field recordings as a principal component

Workshops or other learning endeavours which involved field recording as a practical activity

Projects which used field recording as a main research tool

Experiments in listening to, and disseminating, field-recordings

Political uses of field recording or political field recordings

Measuring audience engagement with field recordings

Stories relating to the collection and production of field-recordings

Deadline:Please send a 200 word abstract plus links to your project to [email protected] by the end of April 2013.

Cp.01 (rewind to) ap.02 (play here) bp.03 (fast forward to)


3/12

Recommended Sound Diaries listening


Heard aroundIn considering the themes for the forthcoming Sound Diaries Symposium, we thought it would be apposite for us

to select some of the sounds that can be heard online and which relate loosely to the question how are we using

field-recordings to change the world?. These recordings draw our attention to technology; to noise pollution; to

the sounds connected with environmental damage and repair; to moments of wonder in everyday life; and to ourconnection with the natural world.

The QR codes will take you to some of the sounds featured on the list; the rest can be heard by typing the URLs.

John Grzinich -contact mic

recording of wind

on a dead pine tree

at the Lithuanian

coast.

Peter Cusack| Power cable crackle

http://sounds-from-dangerous-places.org/chernobyl.html

http://www.petercusack.org/

Mazen Kerbaj | Minimalistic improvisation feat. trumpet / the Israeli air force / bombs

http://www.muniak.com/mazen_kerbaj-starry_night.mp3

http://mazenkerblog.blogspot.co.uk/

John Levack Drever | Litany of the hand dryers

https://soundcloud.com/john-levack-drever/litany-of-the-hand-dryers

http://www.gold.ac.uk/music/staff/drever/

John Grzinich | Wind on a dead pine branch

https://soundcloud.com/maaheli/wind-on-a-dead-pine-branch

http://maaheli.ee/

Joe Stevens| Mothers central heating

https://soundcloud.com/fifty1joe/mothers-central-heating

http://51degreesnorth.net/Ian Rawes | Sirens at Coryton oil refinery, Essex

https://soundcloud.com/london-sound-survey/coryton-oil-refinery-sirens-essex

http://www.soundsurvey.org.uk/

Patrick McGinley | Spontaneous fermentation

http://www.gruenrekorder.de/?page_id=7183

http://www.murmerings.com/

Claudia Wegener | Brixton Vigil 19 Jan 2008

https://soundcloud.com/radio-continental-drift/06-brixton-vigil-19jan08

http://radiocontinentaldrift.wordpress.com/

William Cheshire | Bowls at Southend

http://www.soundsurvey.org.uk/index.php/survey/estuary2/

Ernst Karel | Materials Recovery Facilityhttp://thewire.co.uk/audio/tracks/listen-to-ernst-karel-recordings

http://ek.klingt.org/

Joe Stevens -

straight recording

of noisy central

heating system.

Ian Rawes -

Sirens at the

Coryton oil

refinery in Essex

undergo a

weekly test,

making strange

whale-like

noises.

John Levack

Drever -

Litany of the

hand dryers.

Claudia

Wegener -

A memorial for a

trader who was

killed at his stall

in Brixton market;

rec. 2008.

Recommendedreading-

SonicJournalism

-PeterCusack

http

://sounds-from-dangerous-places.org

/

son

ic_journalism.html

Politicsandthelimitsoffieldrecording-

IanRawes

http

://www.soundsurvey.org.uk/index.php/survey/

blog_comments/1777/


4/12

The HEARth diaries, Sound Diaries and Audiograft 2013 by Felicity Ford


The HEARth diaries

Before I travelled to Estonia in 2011 for the Tuned City festival, my friend Stav

(Stavroula Kounadea) made me a little guidebook, introducing the kinds of places

I might enjoy frequenting around the city. She concentrated on practical stuff like

where I would find knitting shops, and where the best coffee shops are.

The little book gave me a way in to Tallinn and took the edge of that sensation

of being alone in a strange city. To celebrate, I created my first field-recording in

Tallinn in what Stavs recommended Best Coffee Shop in Tallinn (Kohvik Must

Puudel, Mrivahe 20, Tallinn, Estonia). I went there with Valeria Merlini to plan

our field-recording activities together and we listened to the plastic, retro bucket

chairs; the clean the clink of the china; the percussive the espresso machine; and

the laid-back reggae beats. Listening to the recording, I still remember the

bitterness of that strong coffee, and Valeria studiously trying not to laugh while I

was recording as her chair squeaked outrageously at any movement.

Valeria and I ran a workshop on behalf of framework:radio together that year, exploring sonic documentation and field

recording with a group of participants. In our work we related the art sounds of the festival with the surrounding context and

everyday soundscape of the city. We mixed up the coffees, the banter, the acoustics and the texture of everyday life in

Tallinn with the sounds introduced there by the artists who played, improvised, performed, spoke and presented.

Before Paul Whitty travelled to Berlin to perform it pays my way and it corrodes my soul with Stephen Cornford, he decided

to make a Sound Diary of the entire trip. Whenever he could, he stopped and recorded his situation, detailing everything from

the raucous queue outside a nightclub in Oxford to the escalators at Stansted and a Mexican dinner in Berlin.

The resulting collection of recordings contextualises the performance of it pays my way and it corrodes my soul within thesounds and stories of the world, blurring the distinctions between life and art. Rather than merely evidencing the performance

of it pays my way and it corrodes my soul, the Berlin Sound Diary becomes a piece in its own right, extending the function of

documentation to include the circumstances around the performance; the travel and sustenance of the artists involved, and

all the places involved in transit.

These events have led to the development of a creative events programme called HEARth, specifically designed to mix up

art, life and every sounds, as in the Tuned City documentation workshop and the Berlin Sound Diary.

HEARth is a project by Felicity Ford and Stavroula Kounadea under their joint alias, STELIX, and is about how the little

things (making your friend a guidebook and going for a coffee together) often lead to the big things (forming International

working partnerships and making art together). As the exaggerated HEAR in HEARth suggests, HEARth is also aboutlistening together, and listening toone another, and therefore about exploring the social side of sound.

HEARth celebrates all the contexts around Audiograft, (the friendships, the hanging-out-afterwards, the eating, reading, and

partying together) as well as the work that features in the main festival programme, and provides pre-event activities and

after-event socials. HEARth will also feature a Sound Diaries component. Starting with the field recording created in The

Best Coffee Shop in Tallinn, HEARth stories will document the everyday sounds that visiting artists attending Audiograft

2013 might experience between performances, concerts and sound installations. Stay tuned to hear the soundworlds of

Oxfords finest pubs, interior spaces and walking routes, and for field -recordings celebrating the work of our field-recording

comrades, James Saunders and Kathy Hinde. The HEARth stories and recordings from the Sound Diaries archives will also

be a focus in the forthcoming Audiograft

Sound Diaries podcast series, which will bepublished at www.sound-diaries.co.uk

throughout Audiograft 2013.

BY

HEARth URLs

sound-diaries.co.uk

valeriamerlini.tumblr.com

stavroulakounadea.com

kathyhinde.co.uk

james-saunders.com

felicityford.co.uk

tunedcity.net

audiograft.com


5/12

Valeria Merlini talks to Felicity Ford about some of the sounds remembered from Audiograft 2012


Sound memories of

Audiograft 2012 with

Valeria Merlini

Q: What are three sounds that comes into your headwhen you think back to Audiograft 2012?

The sound of "Snow" by Daphne Oram. It was our dailysoundtrack in the car driving to Audiograft. It was theperfect warm-up for a day long workshop.

The sound of "Ricercare"* by Paul Whitty heard inrelation to the urban environment. You could perceivean organic mixing of the concert held at the entrance ofModern Art Oxford and the sound of pedestrianspassing by carrying their shopping bags and trolleys. It

was possible to walk along the street deciding how tomake a real-time mix between these two contexts:everyday life in the city centre during the weekend, andthe temporary sonic situation built by the players. Themusic was giving space to urban sound, throughinterruptions/changes/pauses during the execution ofthe score. During my mobile listening in the street Iexperienced a very nice transition between the sound ofthe church bells coming from a square near by, thefootsteps, the voices, and the music of "Ricercare".

The sound of the Holywell Music Room. It has a niceacoustic.

Q: About Audiograft 2012... three words?

Fun, intense listening experience, academic context.

Q: Do you have a favourite field recording memory fromthe festival?

Yes, laughing with a man in front of a pub while talkingabout recording footsteps sounds. It was a joyful,unexpected experience to share with somebodyuninvolved in Audiograft what my interest in thatmoment was.

Specifically related to the festival, I remember thesounds of the performances held at Modern Art Oxfordperceived from the kitchen next to the concert room. Iremember the sound of shaking glasses, caused by thelow frequencies played by some musicians.

Q: Were there any sounds in Oxford city whichespecially stuck in your mind?

The sound of a plane passing by, fading in and outsmoothly. We had a nice conversation about that during

our workshop, because that experience was perceivedby all of us in different ways.

http://valeriamerlini.tumblr.com

Born in Bolzano, Valeria Merlini is a sound artist, DJand curator based in Berlin. After completing her studyin Architecture in Florence, she obtained a Mastersdegree in Sound Studies at UdK, Berlin. In her work sheexplores sounds of the everyday within an urbancontext through an interdisciplinary and criticalapproach. She is co-founder of Studio UrbanResonance, is a member of the Italian label BurpEnterprise and co-runs Staalplaat Radio.

In 2011 Valeria Merlini & Felicity Ford collaborated asford&merlini to run a framework:radio documentation

workshop for Tuned City, Tallinn; in 2012, ford&merliniworked together at Audiograft 2012 to run adocumentation workshop. Valeria Merlini is producing amix to open up the Audiograft 2013 after party - this mixwill feature some field recordings from Audiograft 2012.

You can read about many of the sounds in Valeriasinterview at the following URLs:

http://www.sound-diaries.co.uk/2012/03/footsteps-from-the-peripheries-of-performance/

http://www.sound-diaries.co.uk/2012/03/ricercare-recorded-by-valeria-merlini-at-audiograft-2012/

http://www.sound-diaries.co.uk/2012/03/recordings-from-lost-found/

*Ricercareby Paul Whitty is a text-based score for anynumber of players, using found scores; recordings;turntables; and any other appropriate sound reproduc-tion devices. Players select specific events in theirfound scores and then search through their recordedmedia to find and play that particular event out loud.There is more information here:

http://www.sound-diaries.co.uk/2012/03/synchronised-record-player-recordings-of-ricercare/

Valeria Merlini in The Best Coffee Shop in Tallinn, 2011


6/12

SOUND BANK - an archive of recorded sounds by Felicity Ford


SOUND

BANKHave you ever tried to write

about, draw, or notate a

sound?

Did you find that thinking about

the sound as you wrote, drew,

or notated it changed how you

felt about it?

In 2008, Felicity Ford

embarked on SOUND BANK -a Sound Diaries project

designed to explore these

questions; the idea was to

record a sound on paper every

day for a year.

SOUND BANK is still in

progress; the original idea was

to have a years worth of

records and there are still gaps

in the archive where no

sounds were recorded.

However over time the paper

envelopes hand-printed and

filled out with notes, words and

drawings become interesting

objects in their own right,

speaking from their place in

history about sounds still

remembered or long lost.

Here are some SOUND BANK

records from February 2009 &

2010, some in the special

edition SOUND BANK

envelopes printed for the

Love is Awesome gallery

show, (red) and some in the

regular blue stationery.

You can make your own

SOUND BANK record on p.09.

27 FEB 2010 - Rain on drama studio roof

(Words & Drawing) - The thin roof of the drama studio,

plus its large, boxy shape, make it act a little bit like a

biscuit tin in the rain a resonant sound box for the

weather. Its such an amazing space, sonically, because

inside it is sort of dulled by the thick, dusty curtains & old

piles of costumes & dark, absorbent surfaces. Yet very

near, outside, are trees absolutely full of birds and

wasps whose buzzing can be heard clearly. Cracks in

the corners let light & birdsong in & there is a curious

mix of the dullness of the ambience (dark, dusty, boxy) &

the constant infiltration of weather & wildlife into the

space rain is a delicate series of pitters & patters,drumming gently on the roof. Often followed by the clear

trilling of birds.

28 FEB 2010 - The floorboards

at Marks house

(Words & Drawing) - because of the

way the rooms are organised and

because of the wooden floor boards,

the downstairs of Marks house

sounds very distinctive. The wood is

hard - it doesnt creak at all. But

walking around has a warm, wooden

tone & I always notice the dampening

effect of the floor rug in the living room

& the way the boards echo more in the

Dining Room.


7/12


SOUND BANK - an archive of recorded sounds by Felicity Ford

01 MAR 2010 - The kettle boiling for tea

(Words) - When I put the kettle on, it always seems

at first as if very little is happening. Then there is the

excitement as the element begins to make a fizzy,

droning, whoosh kind of noise, & I find myself run-

ning for a cup and a teabag in readiness for the hot

water. As the whirring sound of the water heating

commences, I normally find some task with which to

occupy myself while Im waiting. I usually pick up a

few things that need tidying in the kitchen, or go into

the Dining Room to finish an email. The sonorous,

rumbling boil quickly comes to an end with the

surprisingly loud CLICK which tells me it is time tocome and pour the boiled water onto my teabag, &

drink my tea.

28 FEB 2010 - The specific sound of my

keys in my door

(Words) - When I get home from shopping for food,

there is a particular relief about grinding my keys

into the stiff, Yale lock & feeling the door give way.

It is like an END POINT to the outdoors/shopping

component of the day. My hallway is large & tall &

Victorian and cavernous, & the heavy door always

rattles a little as it thuds dully shut. (Or thuds shut,

dully if you prefer.) My keys rattle when I stand

outside the door; there are many keys & they

jangle, the sounds somehow bouncing off the

ceramic floor tiles or something its echoey &metallic & then suddenly youre in the PEACE of

the hallway! Magic.

03 - 06 MAR 2009

The rice pot going dry

TRAFFIC

BBC Studio

soundproofing

Late Blackbird


8/12

Listening to Roma Tearnes book, The Swimmer by Paul Whitty


I am sitting at my kitchen tablesomething I do a lot of primarily because it is my principle workspace at home.As I sit here I am assaulted with a barrage of sound. I can hear jets of water inside the dishwasher as they sprayagainst an old baking tray and a glass bowl. I cant resist putting my ear to the door and listening to the detail inthe sound the drone of the motor; the gurgle and drip of the water from the jets as it finds its way to theoutflow I dont know when it happened, but at some point it seems that I began to privilege sound as theprimary means of engagement with my surroundings. Amongst other things this led me to start reading for sound

whenever I read a novel. Reading a novel became as much about routing out the fleeting references to thesoundscape inhabited by the characters as about appreciating the ebb and flow of the narrative. This attitude toreading led to the development of a project with Roma Tearne based on her novel The Swimmer and thesoundscape of the Suffolk Coastline where the principle action takes place. The following text is an extract from acatalogue essay written when the project was featured at the 54thVenice Biennale.

and I heard as if for the very first time,

the sound of surf, a pebble falling into water,

Standing on the shore at Aldeburgh I cast my hydrophones into the surf. There are fishermen on either side.They eye me suspiciously with my cables and headphones. The boom-pole Ive attached the cables to looks likea fishing rod. Well, I am testing the water - fishing for sound. The hydrophones are swept back and forth by theswell, they crackle into life

I aim my microphone at the shoreline. The detail it reveals reminds me of looking at sand under a microscope,grains becoming pebbles then rocks as the magnification is increased. I can hear the white noise of the waveand then the sound of the pebbles being pulled back towards the North Sea as the wave withdraws. I start tothink about location does this sound only belong to Aldeburgh? Ive heard it elsewhere of course but thisseems distinctive. The size of the pebbles, their shape, their geological characteristics, the mixture of smaller andlarger pebbles revealed at low tide, and then sand.

The text Roma Tearne has written for The Swimmer: A True Storybursts with references to sound - the Suffolkcoastline; the marshlands around Aldeburgh and thorpeness; the domestic soundscape inhabited by Ria. It ispunctuated by the sound of a slide projector the drone of the fan and the sound of the mechanism as thecassette moves on to the next slide. I set out to collect the sounds I have read about in the text.

Here, where the winter winds blow

and the river foam leaks

spoonful by spoonful underfooton the marshland bed

I am walking through the Aldeburgh marshes it is getting dark. I have headphones on and point my micro-phone towards the waters edge. Everything is amplified I can hear an oystercatcher a long way off just as if itwas pacing the mudflats at my feet. The sound of water trickling through the marshes is more elusive but I canhear it now along with the gentle slap of the waters swell against the banks of mud. I step off the path approach-ing the waters edge. The light is fading from the sky but I have to follow my ears. I move closer to the source ofthe sound taking several steps forward and sinking slightly into the mud my feet are wet but Im at the source.

I stand still for five, ten, fifteen minutes, listening.- Paul Whitty


9/12

Make your own SOUND BANK recording


Of all the sounds that you heard today, which one comes quickest to mind and how would you document that sound? For

inspiration, you could always just try to record in detail what you had for breakfast - which is what the talented class at Fir

Tree School did during our Sonic Kitchen Sound Diaries workshop with them in 2012. You can see the documentation

some of the class produced below.

My Sonic Breakfast by Oliver (clockwisefrom top) - rue, (cereal packet) CRACK,

(as I eat it) Crrrunch, music PLOP, Gentle

tap, (against the bowl) Chink, (as I put it

down on the table) Tinkering sound, slush My Sonic Breakfast by Stella (clockwise

from top) - RIP, (cereal packet) pop,

crunch, bang, lapping (at the spoon)

clang, Splashing milk

My Sonic Breakfast by Kim (clockwise from

top) - Milk Splash, bang, (spoon) and shackly

crunch, (yum yum ) slorp, (drink) shaply and

shackly (words invented to describe the

sounds of bran akes pouring into bowl)


10/12

James Saunders talks to Felicity Ford about some of the sounds remembered from Audiograft 2012


Sound memories of Audiograft

2012 with James Saunders

This year James Saunders has launched Make SoundHere, a project which makes use of the GPS and audiorecording facilities on mobile phones, and the audio

recording platform Audioboo, to create a map detailingthe sonic potentials of places. Put simply, you go to aplace, you make a sound there by whatever means youlike, you photograph the situation with the label MakeSound Here displayed prominently, and you record thesounds you have created there. If you use asmartphone to take the photo, record the sound andupload to Audioboo.fm, the sound will automatically begeo-tagged. However its also possible to createrecordings using another device and to manually add inphotos, geo-location etc. via the Audioboo.fm uploadchannel created especially for this project. All theinstructions are provided here on the Make Sound Here

website, where you can also download the labels.

As part of the HEARth programme, Stav (of STELIX)will be leading a soundwalk from Modern Art Oxford onFriday 1st March at 1pm, taking a route which haspreviously scoped out by us for its sonic potentials,using Make Sound Here as a basis; the results of thisrecording process are on the Sound Diaries website.Here is James talking about Audiograft and MakeSound Here.

Q: In the "Make Sound Here" project which we are go-

ing to be exploring during Audiograft 2013, what so farhas been your most memorable sound-making/fieldrecording experience?

Probably the first one, which is the noticeboard outsidemy office in Bath. I was putting up a poster a couple ofyears ago and pressed the drawing pin into the cork.The centre of the board buckled, and on release suckedair in around the frame to produce this wonderfulwhistle/inhalation sound. It just brought a big smile tomy face. The bonus is that I have immediate access toit, and have correspondingly shown it to lots of people.The other one I really enjoyed was the posts behind the

M Shed in Bristol. I'd just decided to start the project atthat point, and was looking for things to hit. I walkedalong the row of posts and was really pleased by thevariation in pitch - my knuckles hurt by the end though!

Q: Have you noticed any trends or tendencies in thetypes of sound-making activities that you tend todocument or explore as part of the "Make Sounds Here"project?

Yes, and this is something which I think is revealingabout project like this. I think mainly I like frictionsounds and have a tendency to gravitate towardsscraping things, but for this project I find myself hittingthings more. I guess this is the main issue though: do I

just keep hitting things until I find interesting sounds,and is hitting a load of different pieces of metal, forexample, really that special? I'm torn between trying tofind really individual sounds, and just ones that I like,regardless of similarity to, or repetition of, others. But sofar there arent many sounds, so I imagine this willchange as I add more, and other people do too: thereason it's a collaborative project is that I want to make

sounds which other people have enjoyed, and whichare different to the ones I might find.

Q: You have been to Oxford for a few visits in the past;are there any sounds or sound-making activities whichspring to mind when you think of the city?

Not really I'm afraid. I do find that I tend to add soundsto this project and my ongoing sound diary whentravelling to new places, rather than those which I mightexperience every day (although perhaps I should makemore of a concerted effort in that regard). I have done abit of geocaching around Oxford though which is arelated activity. Most memorably, I went looking for acache next to the Carfax Tower (it seems to have beenremoved since). The cache was magnetically attachedto the back of a phone junction box. Unfortunately, Iwas looking for this the day Michelle Obama wasdriving right past the location, so looking a bit shiftywhilst attaching a magnetic box to a utility withAmerican and British intelligence prowling around maynot have been such a good idea with hindsight.

Q: Finally, you performed during Audiograft 2012; doyou have any particular sound memories associated

with the festival or the city

I guess rummaging around boxes of junk and hittingthings Tim Parkinson found in the green room as part ofhis Songs 2011 is a strong memory. I'm really drawn tothe sonic properties of everyday materials, andexploring their possibilities in isolation and combination.The sign in the park and ride was added that day too,so that was a lovely end to the visit.

http://www.james-saunders.com/

James Saunders is a composer with an interest inmodularity. He performs in the duo ParkinsonSaunders, and with Apartment House. He is Head ofthe Centre for Musical Research at Bath Spa University.

Parkinson Saunders played at Audiograft in 2012, andthis year, James Saunders participatory project MakeSound Here will be the focus for a listening walkorganised as part of the HEARth programme, and alsothe subject of several field recordings for the SoundDiaries podcast.

Further information:

http://parkinsonsaunders.wordpress.com/http://makesoundhere.com/


11/12

The imminent sounds that surround us by Paul Whitty


Sound is latent in the objects thatsurround us. The sounds ofm a n u f a c t u r e - m e m o r a b l y synchronised with our experience ofthe finished object by Robert Morrisin his Box with the sound of its ownmaking (1961); the sounds of use; ofinstallation; of location the

soundscape inhabited by the object;of its journeys potentially acrossthousands of miles. At the BritishEthnomusicology Forum Conferenceat the Pitt-Rivers Museum this year Ipresented a paper examining howthe objects we encounter in oureveryday lives if we know how tolisten to their sonic and auditory pastcan become Sonic Time Capsuleshidden in plain sight. Here is an ex-tract from the paper in which again I refer to my kitchen - Ireally must get out more

I sit in my kitchen surrounded by alatent cacophony sound isimminent in all the objects that sharethe space with me. Yes, I can hearthe sounding space and canrecord it in words or as a sound file -the slow creaking of the fridge, a tapdripping onto stainless steel, the lowdistant hum of the rotor blades of ahelicopter overhead, a neighbour

watching television, the occasionalcall of a blackbird These are theresounding sounds of the kitchen inthis moment the slowly shiftingsoundscape. Exploring these soundswas the subject of a Sound Diariesproject unspectacular February in2009. Sound Diaries, a co-authoredresearch platform developed withFelicity Ford examines everyday lifethrough our experience andrecording of sound. I am interestedin the sound implied by the sonic

history of the objects in the kitchen,their manufacture, transportation,use, and their consideration asauditory vessels carrying with them asonic history that can be imaginedand proposed. Throughout myvarious encounters with soundscapestudies and in my bid to findmethods for investigating the soundsof the everyday I have found GeorgePerecs Species of Spaces to be aninvaluable tool. His observational

techniques can become mobilemethodologies to be applied to amultitude of different encounters with

the everyday. The chapter from thebook entitled The Street includes anepisode describing a series ofpractical exercises for the observer:

The street: try to describe the street,what its made of, what its used for.The people in the street. The cars.

What sort of cars? The buildings:note that theyre on the comfortable,well-heeled side. Distinguishresidential from official buildings.

The shops. What do they sell in theshops? There are no food shops. Ohyes, theres a bakers. Ask yourselfwhere the locals do their shopping.

The cafs. How many cafs arethere? One, two, three, four. Why didyou choose this one? Because youknow it, because its in the sun,because it sells cigarettes. The othershops: antique shops, clothes, hi-fi,etc. Dont say, dont write etc.. Makean effort to exhaust the subject, evenif that seems grotesque, or pointless,or stupid. You still havent looked atanything, youve merely picked outwhat youve long ago picked out.

Perec moves on from observation ofwhat can be seen to the imaginative

terrain of what cannot be seen:

Make torrential rain fall, smasheverything, make grass grow,replace the people by cows, andwhere the Rue de Bac meets theBoulevard Saint-Germain, makeKing Kong appear

Or again: strive to picture yourself,with the greatest precision beneaththe network of streets, the tangle ofsewers, the lines of the metro, the

invisible underground proliferation ofconduits (electricity, gas, telephonelines, water mains, express lettertubes), without which no life wouldbe possible on the surface.

Underneath, just underneath,resuscitate the Eocene: thelimestone, the marl and the softchalk, the gypsum, the lascustrianSain t -Ouen l imestone, theBeauchamp sands, the rough

limestone, the Soissons sands andlignites, the plastic clay, the hardchalk.

The way that Perec reaches out tothe invisible, the unseen presseshimself to perceive what is bothimplied and known about a locationor object but not visibly presentsuggest a form of listening in whichwe reach out to the inaudible, the nolonger heard, the sound that is

temporally just out of earshot orperhaps passed out of earshothundreds of years ago.

As I glance around my kitchen I seemyriad objects hundreds,thousands perhaps I dont havetime to count them I will nevercount them even if Perecsexhaustive methodologies mightsuggest that I should. Each objecthas both a sonic and an auditoryhistory. The sonic history of theobject relates to sounding associatedwith it through manufacture and use;whilst the auditory history relates toits location history the history ofthe soundscapes it has inhabited what it would have heard if it wasable to hear.

The objects in my kitchen hold withinthem a cacophony of sounds. Themanufacture of Stainless Steel,earthenware, enamel, moulded

plastic, Perspex, bone china,cardboard. The sound of use thecreaking metal of the stove topcafetierre, the intense sound ofboiling liquid and escaping steam;the opening and closing of the firstaid box They have travelled fromthe indian sub-continent, Japan,Italy, China, Staffordshire by plane,boat, lorry in freight containers,packing cases, bags Some ofthese objects have had severaldifferent owners, some I have had for

years and they have travelled withme to Canada, Italy and France others grew a few meters away fromthis shelf in our back garden. TheSonic and auditory diaspora of theseobjects is global in its reach Manyyears could be spent researching theimminent soundscape of theseobjects investigating the latentsound, the resonant spaces theseobjects have occupied, the travelsthey have been on

- Paul Whitty


12/12

My EDIROL R-09 by Felicity Ford

Cp.11 (rewind to) ap.12 (play here) p (read in reverse)

My EDIROL R-09

I forget exactly how long Ive been using this EDIROLR-09. Long enough, at least, for it to have developed itsown nickname* whenever I bring it on any adventureswith my partner and comrade in walking, Mark.

Nominally it belongs to the SARU audio equipmentcollection, but I borrowed it in 2007, and since nobodyelse needed it then, and since now the headphone jackonly works intermittently, the buttons are worn so youcant see what they do, the protective rubber sectionson the body are loose, and one side of it is heldtogether with gaffer tape, I doubt they do now. Its asgood as mine.

This EDIROL has taught me invaluable lessons aboutfield recording; how to be aware of my hands so thatmy recordings are not just all the sound of plasticcreaking while I wave it about; how to angle my body inobnoxious wind or rain to protect the mics from theblast; how to ingeniously devise solutions for gettingclose to things I want to record; and how to experimentwith device placement in all situations...

My computer and all the external hard-drives that Ikeep projects on are full of files organized by theEDIROLs default filing system. Files calledR09_001.wav, R09_002.wav, R09_003.wav, etc.run into the hundreds, in folders with names likeSept09. In most of the folders, just clicking throughthe individual files and remembering roughly what I was

doing during that era is enough information for me torecollect the exact recording circumstances. TheEDIROL is a faithful recorder of sounds. Like anendless sound-poem we have generated together,those R09_#.wav files represent a beautiful synthesisof imagination and technology.

I know now almost at once what level I should set theinput at for most circumstances; if Im recording Mark, itneeds to be set at around 23; or 21 if we are reading aradio script and he is adding extra enthusiasm. If I wantto record our peaceful street I can set it at the full 30,but it will be hissy because the pre-amps are not that

quiet on the EDIROL R-09.

I also know the places where it will give me hugeadvantages above more unwieldy kit, and quiet pre-amps can be over rated if the bigger, heavier kit thatthis invariably entails presents greater barriers to yourfield recording activities than a little light hiss.

Cunning little Hebridean sheep run away at once if theysee a recordist wielding a gunshot microphone with agiant, necessary wind-gag attached, but you can buryan EDIROL R-09 in their hay and walk off to return anhour later for beautiful close-up sounds of ram-hornsclanging against metal and the ponderous sounds ofsheep chewing hay. Likewise, the EDIROL R-09 caneasily go into a handbag so that if I am walking home

from town and hear a Robin singing, I can seize theopportunity to document that moment and still bring mygroceries home (much harder with more cumbersomekit). My EDIROL has been stuffed into crevices in theold city walls of Tallinn; cable-tied halfway up severaltrees; dangled from a bag in the forests of Estonia, andeven on a jaunt into the Olympic Stadium all in thegood name of field recording. It has returned from all

these ordeals with its little blue SD card rammed withamazing sounds and I love it.

I cannot imagine field recording without it. I can see thewarning signs that such a grim day draws near loosehinges, dusty and inaccessible compartments, someominous damage to the HOLD button which means Iam obliged to bring tweezers if I want to make sure Ican use it... However I maintain that the EDIROL stillhas life in it yet, and this was proven when - during afield recording workshop at a primary school - it took anunfortunate tumble into a pond.

Fortunately the EDIROL wasnt on at the time, so thecircuitry wasnt instantly frazzled, but it was clear thatthe water had fully permeated the device. I maintaineda round-the-clock vigil of warmth and dryness. TheEDIROL was first wrapped in a scarf and kept over theheating fan of my car until I got home. Then it wasbandaged in massive sachets of silicon desiccant andfurther woolen scarves, and placed on a radiator withseveral towels beneath to act as padding. I waited andwatched, and after a week, tentatively put somebatteries in and switched the power button to theglorious sight of it sparking into life, the little screen

lighting up with not a trace of water, and not a trace ofdamage.

So the miserable day when I must replace my faithfulsonic buddy has been delayed a little longer, and thescary incident has left me only more impressed at theEDIROL R-09 build quality.

- Felicity Ford

*Eddie is the nickname; Im sure this was Marks idea.

EDDIE sparking into life and proving the amazingresurrecting powers of silicon desiccant sachets for

audio recording equipment.

sound diaries newspaper #1

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