The sound of humanity

Long time (again!) since my last post. Recently, I have become interested in recording nature. That is not quite right as I have been interested in this since being little more than a child. I had an LP (do you remember those?) by Ludwig Koch, a pioneer of recording the sounds of nature, one if my many heroes of the past. I would play this many times during my early years and, more recently, have tried to locate the record but have no idea what became of it. More recently, I began trying to make my own recordings after I bought a secondhand solid state recorder on eBay, an Olympus LS-10.

Loved that little recorder but found I needed a separate microphone as the built-in microphones were not good enough. So, I bought a secondhand shotgun mic on eBay, which worked quite well. Why the past tense? Well, the recorder suddenly stopped working a few days ago, which upset me a little as I had planned some recordings over the next few weeks and months. I have checked out an alternative, which, at a bit over £100, is a bit out of reach at the moment. Soon, maybe?

Before the Olympus died, I had made a few recordings, some of which are now on SoundCloud. While out and about recording the sounds of nature, mostly birds at this time, the sounds of civilisation became very evident. I would often find myself out early in the morning in the hope the more natural sounds would dominate. Even then, there would be the occasional aeroplane flying over or light traffic on nearby roads, all aiming to put their imprint onto my planned recording!

Later in the day, the sounds of humanity would become all encompassing and it would be quite difficult to make a recording outside without unwanted sounds polluting it. I guess this is a penalty for living in such a densely populated part of a densely populated little country. It has, however, made me realise the impact sound has on the landscape. Before making my own recordings, the sounds were there but I guess I must have simply been acclimatised to them and almost blocked them out as the filtering mechanisms in my brain focused on that singing robin just up in that tree.

Don't want to dwell on this too much, though often think it would be interesting, and quite novel, to experience an environment where the dominant sounds are natural, rather than mechanical. Where nature's orchestra is not polluted by the roar of engines, large and small. As I live fairly close to six airports that I can think of and appear to be living under the routes aircraft take to and from these and their faraway destinations, I don't think that will be something I will experience close to home, though you never know!

Once I get another recorder, I will make more recordings of nature and will most likely include comments amongst my ramblings here. In any case, I am aiming to post here more regularly that I have been doing.  See you later and have a very good New Year!