Sound Research

"Some conduct musicians - Pierre Sauvageot conducts the wind. He explains why his startling land art is as carefully composed as any symphony"

"Roman Jakobson (1942)"

"In 1948, Moses Asch founded Folkways Records with a self-proclaimed mandate to record the sounds of the entire world. From the Sounds of North American Frogs to Speech After the Removal of the Larynx, Folkways documented the audible nooks and crannies of existence on hundreds of LPs produced by field recordists, scientists, and experimentalists probing the margins of the human soundscape. Seventy-five years later, electronic music duo Matmos have diced, looped, stretched, and recontextualized these recordings on their new album Return to Archive, which was assembled entirely from the so-called non-musical sounds released on Folkways. On just the album's first track, dolphins, beetles, telephones, humans stretching the limits of their vocal cords, a shortwave radio, and metal balers co-mingle in a fantasia of sound both everyday and extraordinary. Each track on Return to Archive morphs its source material into something completely unexpected, honoring and expanding on Folkways' legacy of sonic exploration. Featuring Evicshen and Aaron Dilloway."

"In 1983, the Brooklyn Bridge made continuous sounds created from the oscillating drones of cars moving over a steel grid roadway, which later was silenced in the late 80's by being paved over by blacktop."

"Organ of Corti is an experimental instrument that recycles noise from the environment. It does not make any sound of its own, but rather it attempts to draw our attention to the sounds already present by framing them in a new way. Named after the organ of hearing in the inner ear, it uses the acoustic technology of sonic crystals to accentuate and attenuate frequencies within the broad range of sound present in road traffic or falling water. By recycling surplus sounds from our environment, we hope to challenge expectations of what might constitute a piece of music by adding nothing to the existing soundscape but rather offering new ways of listening to what is already there. This instrument is a device that, for us, rematerializes our experience of sound, inviting us to "listen to ourselves listen"."

"There is a parallel city beneath our feet, connected by pipes and caverns, carrying rainwater, electricity, (un-)sanitary waste, and utilities. In St. Paul, It has been carved into the limestone rock for over a hundred years and extends for many miles. Above-ground pedestrians rarely notice the openings--manholes, gratings, and outfalls--and can barely imagine the subterranean spaces. That is where sound comes in: ears can judge volume,materials, shapes, and space better than eyes, in this case."

"Julianne Swartz's work is rooted in emotion, vulnerability, and the provocation to recognize and connect to one another as feeling human beings. Over the years Swartz has returned again and again to using the human voice, recording singers both professional and amateur to create moving works that embrace visitors with sound and emotion."

Chapter One: An Acoustics Primer Sound waves reflect off of harder surfaces the same way billiard balls bounce off the bumpers of a pool table-the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection. A sound wave hitting a flat wall at 45° will reflect off it at 45°. These bounces will continue until the sound has been completely attenuated by the inefficient reflection (called damping) of the surfaces along with the normal falloff of the sound waves themselves."

Described as an electro-acoustic sound installation, Shawn Decker's Prairie recalls the sights and sounds of its namesake via a field of speakers and thin, swaying metal rods. Thin, tall brass rods glisten in the light as individual motors, with small speakers mounted to the top, cause them to vibrate and sway. Each brass stem operates independently, and the entire installation--including hundreds of these rods--is programmed to operate in randomized patterns of sound and movement. "It is much more fun as a creator to compose a piece that is continuously surprising you," Decker noted. "I will often laugh out loud when it does something I don't expect. The element of change and indeterminacy allows you to become a much more active listener." Prairie is more than a soundscape. It is an environment that will entrance both eye and ear. The concepts presented in the installation--nature and technology, sound and movement, sculpture and performance--come together to enchant the viewer and invite a reconsideration of the elements that make the prairie unique.

"Sound is everywhere in tropical forests. Rain drips from water-slicked leaves, birds screech, monkeys titter and bellow, branches crack, wind moans, and insects chirp and buzz. Vibrations pierce the humid understory and echo through the airy canopy, creating a symphony of sounds that speaks to both artist and scientist. Monacchi is harvesting artistic inspiration as well as data. The chirps and rattles contain information about how species interact with the environment and each other, as well as the health of the habitat. Sometimes Monacchi uses his recordings to inspire the public, sometimes to inform ecological research. "I'm trying to be at the edge of both worlds," he says."

"A film by Duncan Ward and Gabriella Cardazzo 1989"

"Recent years have seen a worsening in the decline of honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) colonies. This phenomenon has sparked a great amount of attention regarding the need for intense bee hive monitoring, in order to identify possible causes, and design corresponding countermeasures. Honey bees have a key role in pollination services of both cultivated and spontaneous flora, and the increase in bee mortality could lead to an ecological and economical damage. Despite many smart monitoring systems for honey bees and bee hives, relying on different sensors and measured quantities, have been proposed over the years, the most promising ones are based on sound analysis. Sounds are used by the bees to communicate within the hive, and their analysis can reveal useful information to understand the colony health status and to detect sudden variations, just by using a simple microphone and an acquisition system. The work here presented aims to provide a review of the most interesting approaches proposed over the years for honey bees sound analysis and the type of knowledge about bees that can be extracted from sounds."

"Honey bees are one of the treasures in the world. An increase of waveform communication leads to good information exchange of mankind. In the biological view, it causes a lot of side effects and lifestyle changes in other living organisms. The drastic changes are causing the natural imbalance in the ecosystem and become a global issue. There are significant reasons for bee colony collapse disorder (CCD) like pesticides, disease and climate change. Recent studies reveal that a cell phone tower and mobile phone handset are also causing side effects to honey bees due to radiation emission. Most of the researchers concentrated on biological and behavioral changes in a honey bee due to radiation effects. For that, the real-time radiation levels have experimented but the different technical perspectives such as radiation emission levels, handset radiation emission measures and multi-sources of radiation are needed to be considered during research. This study aimed to provide possible research extensions of colony collapse disordercaused by cell tower and mobile handsets."

"Image to Audio, Spectrogram Player This app allows you to convert an image to audio file, and Decode, Play a audio file via spectrogram. You can make a sound image that is viewable on a spectrogram. With this app you can convert your images to audio and secretly send them to others. In order to convert an image, you just need to select an image from your computer, Google Drive, Webcam, and Clipboard. This app provides a standard spectrogram audio player. You can also play multiple audio/video file (mp3, m4a, mp4...) with a spectrogram. Supported formats: jpg, jpeg, png, gif, bmp, webp, mp3, m4a, ogg, mp4, webm... A spectrogram is a visual representation of the spectrum of frequencies of sound or other signal as they vary with time. Spectrograms are sometimes called sonographs, voiceprints, or voicegrams."

"Researchers in Indonesia have developed an innovative way to remove microplastics from water without the need for expensive filters. It works, says Dhany Arifianto, an engineer at the Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember in Surabaya, Indonesia, by passing contaminated water through a pipe, while underwater speakers make the pipe vibrate like the sound board of a guitar."

"Fabric/Fragment of An Urban Wilderness is a sound work and an investigation of the built environment, produced by giving voice to the city's thickly layered range of electromagnetic fields (EMFs) projected by cell phone base stations."

"In May 2019, Kathy Hinde invited people to join her on a 'Deep Listening Walk' to focus on the hidden sounds of Europe's largest blanket bog in The Flow Country in the far north of Scotland. Using specialist listening devices such as hydrophones, she made audible the sonic qualities of peat gently moving, and tuned in to the minuscule sounds emitted by small organisms living within this rich and biodiverse ecosystem. Blanket bog is a very special ecosystem, and the idea of 'Deep Listening' in this context was to listen into the peat at different depths, and to think about listening 'back in time' as these deep layers of peat have taken centuries to form, preserving organisms within its layers. What is it like to listen to these layers and different depths that hold deep time?"

Kathy Hinde is an audiovisual artist inspired by behaviours and phenomena found in nature and the everyday expressed through audiovisual installations and performances that combine sound, sculpture, image and light. Composed of hand-made objects, electronics and a blend of digital and analogue systems, her work represents a cross between kinetic sound sculptures and newly invented instruments. She frequently works in collaboration with other practitioners and scientists and often actively involves the audience in the creative process.

"This study examines evidence of the health benefits of natural soundscapes and quantifies the prevalence of restorative acoustic environments in national parks across the United States. The results affirm that natural sounds improve health, increase positive affect, and lower stress and annoyance. Also, analyses reveal many national park sites with a high abundance of natural sound and low anthropogenic sound"

"Encountering a boxing match projected on the wall of a darkened room is pretty unlikely while roaming around Chelsea galleries - unless you're at a Paul Pfeiffer show."