Dec Highlights

The December Listening Lounge was another great one! And a beautiful way to wrap up 2021. An unexpected theme emerged connecting all the audio shared throughout the night! a sort of space/natural world connective through line.

We started off the evening going around introducing ourselves and sharing a sound that we might describe as “quiet” (though the adjective can certainly be relative)

Steve- the quietest birdsong in ambi within the mix of a story he published recently
Jocelyn- ¼ volume dog barks from the neighbors sweet pup downstairs.
Tanya- a mysterious electrical buzz stumping both her and her husband. This lead to a description of “anoyatrons” which may be an exciting new word for our community to employ.
Barry- is actively sanding the stairs in his house with an orbital sander which has an awful drone, “akin to hours and days at the dentist” so at the end of that each day is the quiet sound he delights in.
Neal- recalled the quiet sound of a musical prank that was pulled on him a long while back-- when someone tucked in a noise-generating greeting card under his bed. The pesky (impressive) prank played for 4 weeks before being uncovered.
Henry- rocks moving over water when the bicycles stop passing by


Audio:

Tanya shared some audio from an ongoing project that she's crafting using archive.org audio along with original music and design.

• There was a thoughtful conversation of the contrast of the familiar / well known clips surrounded and remade into something altogether new and artistic and about how and when religious text can become a secular part of public life (and if it can? If it should be?)
  
• Tanya explained that the project was/is inspired by drives in unfamiliar places and the obscure radio you can stumble upon, and number stations and comms back and forth to space. She's working on a personally curated “station” herself : tantroniq.com/seta
  
• https://soundcloud.com/tantroniq/tantroniq-hello-good-earth/s-IRini0dKuij?si=7257307fc8914f8d93eecd58fa46203c&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
  
• Henry recommended this terrestrial radio station MUSIC WITH SPACE on WPRB, 11pm-3am EST.
  

Neal, worked at the Crystal Bridges Museum, and for the 10 yr anniversary they wanted to bring the 120 acres of the property into the museum and he proposed and produced a work drawn from days and days of field recordings from that property and shared a clip with the group this evening.
https://soundcloud.com/vanwinkletunes/tandg-soundscape-final/s-hEHdmKxJba3?si=3b71df3cdf9e414b8328c61155612c9b&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

• discussion included appreciation for the separations of seasons and silences- to keep visitors' ears engaged that this is intentional art work - not to be tuned out
  
• beautiful distinct audio within the field sounds composed together
  
• led to some debate of whether we are hearing frogs, goats or other animals. (later revealed to be spring peepers and bull frogs)
  
• Neal used an audio moth recorder (https://www.openacousticdevices.info/audiomoth). And he's excited about ways to help the audio live on in fresh settings.
  
• A discussion of how to handle a year of recordings, how to file, organize and make one's way through them. Neal uses a spectrogram to scan- bc humans can look faster than we can listen to bulk information and he learned to ID the sonic shapes of certain creatures along the way
  
• discussion about how to create work that is “discoverable” and how to use data to make work available to the world beyond the immediate audiences.
  
• Mentioned Phonography Austin and Barry and Tanya mentioned the Field Recording zoom meet up for field recordists which may start up again after the holidays (keep yer eyes and ears peeled!)
  
• Neal is going to lead some sound walks in the winter too.
  
• 
  
  

Time was flying with all the great discussion so we headed into the last audio clip of the evening shared by Henry. A beautiful wrap up to a captivating evening of sonic inspirations.


Henry shared his original sound and video work https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n5YGZV0rHA
featuring an electric balalaika. Inspirations included Christmas and Pink Floyd

• Neal pointed out the nostalgia of the sound... reverb and bright strings which really captured a winter night in all it's beauty.
  
• Henry also used a cymbow and an alto Yamaha venova (here is an image:
  

https://www.amazon.com/Yamaha-YVS-100-Recorder/dp/B074R86GRQ)


Barry shared a parting listening link to an online show he was a part of. The show was organized around a prompt to create a 5-7 min piece just using field recordings. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF-KmybqivE&t=9052s


Looking forward to listening with you in January!