Nature's Violins

My soundwalk took about 2 hours, so naturally it was dark by the time I returned home. At the very end of my walk, as I was walking past the Columbia dorms, I heard a chorus of crickets chirping really loudly! At one point, I stepped on a stick, and they stopped for awhile, which made me nervous because I wanted to record them. When they started again, I crouched down on the sidewalk and held my microphones out in front of me to record. I almost fell over at one point, which made the cricket's songs halt for a very short bit of time. In the background are some voices (probably from the Sandburg dorms on Maryland Avenue) that I didn't hear without my microphones, which proves how well the mics truly pick up sound!

Click HERE to listen to the sound!

Fly Away!

This is my favorite sound that I recorded while on my soundwalk. As I was heading towards home on my walk (purple line), I ended up walking through a park in Shorewood, right off of Oakland. It was surprising to find such a nice, calm park, because Oakland Avenue is a really busy street!! Even though it was so close to the busy street, the park was secluded and quiet, and I found a big bush that turned out to be the home of thousands (seriously, thousands) of little birds. I held my microphones up into the bush and pulled down on one of the twigs, causing the birds to fly out of their nests. This probably wasn't especially considerate of me... but nevertheless, the sound is so awesome. I am really happy with how this recording turned out!

Click HERE to listen to the sound!

Yellow Bouquets

Right outside of Sendik's grocery store in Shorewood, there are baskets of flowers with huge bunches of yellow bouquets. They look so full and so inviting, and without even thinking about it, I started to pat the bunches of yellow flowers. Well there are other colors too, but the yellow ones are my favorites. Immediately I thought, "that is a cool noise!" so I recorded it. I held the microphones in one hand while I put the mini-disc recorder down on the table that the flowers were on. With my other hand, I tried patting the flowers first, but wanted my sound to be more varied, so I began to rub the flowers across the tops of their petals. This caused the pot they were in to rock a little bit, which is the rapping type of noise you hear a little over half way through the clip. Then I went back to patting the tops of the flowers. The result is an almost crunchy sound, like walking on leaves (which I also recorded), but softer. I was happy with the result.

Click HERE to listen to the sound!

Preparing for Winter...

On Menlo Blvd, I came across a woman mowing her lawn. I decided to record the sound, hoping it might sound cool. As it turns out, the lawn-mowing sound isn't especially exciting, but the sounds that were made as I walked are exciting! I walked past her yard on the sidewalk, on which there were MANY leaves that had fallen already. Here comes winter... I was holding my microphones in either hand, and I had my hands down by my sides. The leaves were really thick, actually, and I was wearing moccasins. The combination of these two factors make it sound like I was shuffling through the leaves, but I was merely walking! The microphones just picked up the sound really well.
Once again, because I was walking, you can hear a little bit of the microphone/cord sounds as they moved. I was unaware that this would be such a prominent sound in my recordings, but now because I know, it will not happen in my other drifts.
Not only was I experimenting with sound, but also with images. The above photograph was taken a few blocks down from the lawn-mowing lady's house. I found a beautifully colored autumn tree, and I held my camera up while I spun in a circle and released the shutter with a 1/30 of a second exposure time. (This was taken with a Canon 40D DSLR camera, not a point and shoot digital camera). I thought it was a lovely image to accompany this sound!

Click HERE to listen to the sound!

The Bobcat is on the Prowl

As I walked North on Cramer Street, I came across a cement mixer truck and a bobcat working on someone's driveway. I went and sat on the sidewalk steps of the neighbor's house and turned on my microphones to record the sound of the bobcat dropping cement and smoothing it out. Unfortunately, soon after I began recording, the bobcat stopped moving and the driver got out and walked around, presumably looking at what he had to do or where he was going or something. His footsteps made the leaves crackle, which the microphones picked up beneath the drone of the bobcat's engine. Despite the fact that this wasn't exactly the sound I was expecting, I still think it turned out kind of neat. Sadly, I didn't get any photo of the bobcat (I didn't really want to freak out the construction guys more than I already was), but on the google map below, there is a marker to show where this noise was found, just as there are markers for all the other noises as well!

Click HERE to listen to the sound!

Drift Map

I went on my Drift One Soundwalk on October 6, 2008, beginning at approximately 6pm. Posted is my drift map that I made after I did my soundwalk. A better way to do this would be to make the drift map BEFORE setting out, because then you won't get turned around. However, I figured it best to make mine after because my drift strategy is so unique. I started out at the corner of Maryland Ave and Newport Ave in Milwaukee, WI, as displayed by the yellow push pin in the map below. If you click on the map, you can see what all the icons mean. The green line represents my walk away from home (the first half of my walk), while the purple line represents my walk back towards home. Granted, while flipping a coin, I wasn't REALLY sure of which way I'd be heading... but I still got home safe and sound. :]
I would flip both coins, so for example I could get both "S" and "L." Then I would flip a third coin to tell me which of the coins to pick from. From the third coin, heads meant the "right/left" coin and tales meant the "straight/backwards" coin.
I was surprised to get more coins telling me to go "straight" than I expected. For some strange chance reason, I rarely got a backwards coin, but every so often I did. My drift strategy worked out excellently, to say the least.

Drift Strategy

After reading the various articles on soundwalking, I have decided try a more complicated type of soundwalk as I go out to record sounds in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I want to try a complicated one simply because "first right, second left" seems to me like it would get a little boring after awhile, plus it's too easy to determine which way you'll be taken. For my drift strategy, I am going to take two pennies and use a sharpie to write "R" on one side (right), "L" on another side (left), "S" on another side (straight), and "B" on the last side (backwards). I have yet to go on my soundwalk, but hopefully this will be an effective drift strategy that will enable me to record the most interesting sounds possible from Milwaukee!