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Music
& Sound . In winter the wind may howl and the sleet may fall, but overall, it is a quiet time of year. ...
Not so Spring. ... From the time the peepers begin to sing, and the warblers and other songbirds return, there is no mistaking it: The world has awakened. If you live near a pond or close to the woods, then it's almost inevitable that you'll hear the sounds come pouring through. The birds sing their morning matins and evening vespers. The disconcerted crows and jays, and even the usually meek chickadees, all suddenly seem a little unnerved by their lack of talent for melody. The peepers, on the other hand, are indomitable. It seems as though, once they start, they forget how to stop. Only now and again do they appear to lull off into the dream-world. Then the air goes still for a bit. But not for long. ... I hear them at dawn and dusk ... in the mid-morning and late afternoon ... and on those nights when I'd rather be sleeping but have to meet deadlines, I hear them all through the night. And, make no mistake. They are, as, I suppose, they ought to be, unashamed. ... This month's Sounds Around actually came about somewhat by accident. We got our hands on a new, though relatively inexpensive piece of digital recoding equipment -- a small Nomad II digital recorder. The basic idea is that, as we hit the bricks for our occasional interviews, it might be nice to be able to put up, not only pictures and quotes, but actual recordings, as well. So, partly to get a sense of the limits and possibilities of this new gadget, we took it out and tried to see what we might be able to pick up, not from human chat, but from that chorus of sound going on around us. ... The results were mixed. On the one hand, with only a small {tiny!?!} built-in mic, we didn't have the option of plugging in something better. Also, as with many recording devices, there's a definite background noise that persists. {We tried editing it out a little, but didn't have the software to discriminate that finely to pick up the precise frequency and edit it out, though we were able to do some useful editing on some of the files.} On the other hand, the little piece was not only able to pick up the peepers in the frog pond, it also picked up things like a woodpecker {loud enough, for sure} ... the morning chorus of birds around dawn ... and even a ruffed grouse -- amid the peepers, no less, though we toned them down a little to let the grouse stand out. ... So ... Here are five recordings we made of, quite literally, 'Sounds Around'. We present them here with images of the sound waves for those of you who may be interested in such things. Whether you are or not, simply click on the image to listen to the recordings. {They're in Real Audio format, so, if you have Real Player installed -- which most of you probably do, even if you don't realize it -- the files will 'stream' to your computer, meaning you won't have to wait for them to download before you start to hear them.} ...
. ******* ******* If you would like to submit something for Sounds Around, or if you simply would like to suggest a performance you'd like us to cover, e-mail us at ... music@downstreetmagazine.com. ******* ******* If you would like to advertise in this section, or throughout the magazine, please visit our Advertising Info Pages ... or call, write, or e-mail ads@downstreetmagazine.com. ******* ******* |
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