Gordon is on tour with his new book One Square Inch of Silence: One Man’s Search for Natural Silence in a Noisy World co-written with John Grossman and published by Simon and Schuster.  Gordon spoke at length about his journey into becoming an outspoken advocate of natural quiet, from following in the footsteps of John Muir to creating the One Square Inch of Silence project in the Olympic National Forest.

We heard some wonderful recordings, notably a beautiful coyote duet recorded in Gordon’s backyard and an unearthly Sage Grouse mating ritual.  You can listen for yourself in our podcast.

We discussed the act of recording as a state of active and still receptivity – akin to meditation in many ways – and the physical and mental discipline required.  The ways in which the recordist’s sphere of awareness expands to include more and more of the world around – the margins, the periphery – and the things you notice while in that state to which you’d otherwise be oblivious.

After, I find myself thinking of how our culture has so reduced the likelihood of entering that state, a state any other animal probably spends a good deal of time: simply observing.  Which ties back to the idea we discussed last summer with the folks from NYSAE of listening itself as a potentially radical act amidst industrialized consumer society.  To simply quiet onesself and listen.

The event was our most conversational salon to-date – a great success.  Thanks to Gordon for coming, to Aaron for inviting him, and to Dan and Sharon for hosting us in their home – and just before the big NAB conference at that.

-Jeremiah Moore, San Francisco 2009

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Gordon Hempton is an acoustic ecologist and Emmy Award-winning sound recordist who has provided audio services to Microsoft, Discovery, National Public Radio, and other organizations, and who has been profiled by major media including CBS News Sunday Morning, NPR, and People. He lives in Joyce, Washington.

Links

http://onesquareinch.org/ – website dedicated to the One Square Inch of Silence project

http://onesquareinch.org/book/ – Links for buying the book

http://soundtracker.com/ – Gordon Hempton’s site, where you can buy his recordings

Ideas

During discussion at the meeting, a couple of ideas came up for possible future events:

• A technical salon in which we DO focus on gear and techinique for once, topics being things like field recording technique, fieldwork habits and ideas, recorders, microphones, windscreens, editing technology etc.  Perhaps we could work with the Nature Sounds Society on a DIY Microphone Windscreen workshop.
• A conversational BASEbot salon organized around, for lack of a better term, “the zen of recording.”

Anyone interested in the above, please chime in via email or the mailing list.

A 2-hour sound collage for radio hosted by Jeremiah Moore and Aaron Ximm

Orignally broadcast February 22, 2009 on free103point9.org, an episode of Giant Ear, the radio voice of the New York Society for Acoustic Ecology.

Last August, Jonny Farrow, Ned Mooney and Andrea Polli of our New York-based sister organization New York Society for Acoustic Ecology (NYSAE) [1] were visiting San Francisco.  We had a meet up and mind-meld, out of which came an idea:  Could BASE produce a two-hour show for Giant Ear))), NYSAE’s monthly radio program on free103point9.org [2]?

The theme of our show was very clear from the start:  we would focus on the sounds of the place where we live, the greater San Francisco Bay Area.  We live in an area full of clear soundmarks and vast contrasts juxtaposed.  The Bay shores of Alcatraz Island, the swells of the Pacific on Ocean Beach, the wharves and marinas; the grit and tourist-charm of Chinatown, the ice cream carts and taquerias of the Mission, the sound exhibits of the Exploratorium, the windmill fields of Livermore and Pleasanton.  Group social sounds of public ceremony, celebration, protest and everyday life.  And closer times like a Mah-Jong game, a family dinner, and the last notes of a funeral dirge.  The sounds of getting around, footsteps, subways, cable cars and of course – like everywhere – trucks, cars and planes.

To realize this idea, we called on members of our community to send us their sounds.  And we scoured our own libraries for favorite material.

About 45 minutes of our show (from 0:03:34 to 0:53:23) was performed by Jeremiah Moore and Aaron Ximm live on-the-air on Pirate Cat Radio [3].  Thanks to DJ Yuri G for having us on – check out his show Psionic Dehiscence.

In keeping with the “Imagined” part of our concept, in several places we played composed works in their entirety.  At 1:18:38 “Sweeper” by Jeremiah Moore, at 1:35:24 “Maritime Suite: Port” and at 1:46:37 “Maritime Suite: Starboard” both by Aaron Ximm.

And so, it’s with great pleasure that I present our program.

Thanks for listening.

-jeremiah moore

San Francisco, Feb 2009

[1] NYSAE www.nyacousticecology.org
[2] Free103Point9.org Transmission Arts
[3] Pirate Cat Radio www.piratecatradio.com

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Credits

Produced by Jeremiah Moore
Hosted by Aaron Ximm and Jeremiah Moore
Engineered by Jeremiah Moore at Listen Studio, San Francisco

Contributors (alphabetical by first name):

Aaron Ximm [quietamerican.org] – Various field recordings including Bernal hill owls; composed works “Maritime Suite: Port” and “Maritime Suite: Starboard”

Andrew Roth [naturalsounds.org] – “Exploratoraphone” a sound-collage exploration of the sounds of… the Exploratorium

Chris Watson [chriswatson.net] – Three perspectives on windmills near Livermore, CA

Claire Schoen [claireschoenmedia.com] – Two episodes of her radio series Earthtones, on Elephant Seals of Point Año Nuevo and on the Wave Organ

Dan Dugan [dandugan.com] – “May 22, 5:29 AM, West Road of Alcatraz Island. Roost of herons and egrets. Also Western gull, white-crowned sparrow, others.”

David Silberberg [d4doc.com] -Berkeley Traffic, UC Berkeley Campus ambience, Cordonices Creek Berkeley CA.

James Goode – “Belt_Railroad_Tarp” is a field recording made on June 22nd, 2008 near the entrance to Heron’s Head Park. A black and yellow San Francisco Belt Railway diesel locomotive, covered in plastic tarpaulin ripped to shreds in some places, sat idle amongst chest-high weeds and pillaged tracks. I placed a stereo microphone in a

Jeremiah Moore [jeremiahmoore.com] – Various field recordings; composed work “Sweeper” exploring harmonic structure of mechanical street sweeper

Jim LeBrecht [berkeleysoundartists.com] – Foghorn, Thanksgiving Dinner

Jim McKee [earwaxproductions.com] – Recordings of Doyle Drive, Aquatic Park, Green Street Mortuary Band, and Tuvan sound check at Grace Cathedral

Joseph Lawrence – Saratoga Rain “Recorded a couple days before Christmas in Saratoga right after a lot of rain had fallen…the sound of water falling about 10 feet through a typical sheet metal drain pipe and hitting the angle at the bottom, flowing out onto the ground. Plus a little bit of light rain in the background.”

Robert Beahrs – Chinatown to the Embarcadero soundwalk “I recorded this soundwalk on May 5th, 2008 with binaural microphones, ducking into shops here and there while generally walking down California Street. Listen for the juxtaposition of musical worlds, languages, street sounds, as well as the California line cable car that passes by me. It is chronological, and, besides a few splices, unprocessed.”

Thanks To:

Jonny Farrow
New York Society for Acoustic Ecology
Free103point9.org Transmission Arts
Giant Ear)))
DJ Yuri G of Psionic Dehiscence
Pirate Cat Radio

post updated: photo added