Songs from natural in rainy day
Reason of chosen this topic & aims:
Living in a fast-paced city every day, we are usually busy working on many things from the moment we wake up in the morning. Everyone seems quick, busy and has their own things to do at every moment. We have uncountable deadlines, messages, and activities to finish every day. It seems we do not care or notice much about the tiny things beside us, such as the basic nature. Therefore, I would like to use the opportunity to make this project to discover some sounds of nature, such as birds, winds, water, and rain, to remind us that these tiny but usual sounds are unique and interesting in our daily lives.
Field recording is a way to let listeners get into an immersive experience that brings them to different places and moments. Referring to the history of ambisonic, recordlist are strived to represent ‘nature’ at its most natural in the beginning, so there is the earliest recording of birdsong in 1889 by Ludwig Koch in 1889 (Taylor, 2023). Therefore, inspired by the concept of capturing nature sounds and field recording by Junichi Oguro (Rainforest in Amami Island), the theme of this project is a song from nature. I also recorded birds’ sounds in the beginning, to let listeners step into the moment in the morning. It is hoped that this soundwork can recall our notice of capturing some tiny things surrounding us and don’t forget to discover more beauty in our busy lives.
Content & what sounds I recorded:
In this project, all recordings are recorded with Zoom H3VR microphone and encoded in 4 channels first order ambisonic in Reaper. There are two parts of the recording, the first part is the daily life routine. In the beginning, there are some birds singing in the morning, and a clock alarm wakes “me” up. This is followed by many message notifications and typing sounds, meaning that it is time to start the busy day. Some people dance in the park, some students play in the playground, and the rain suddenly comes, then moves on to the second part. In the second part, I recorded many sounds of rain and water. I recorded these sounds in Typhoon No. 1, so there are also some wind sounds. Different forms of water have different rhythms and speeds; they form the unique melody of a song of nature. Time flies when it is raining, finally there are other sounds of birds appearing meaning to stop raining and a new day again. In order to edit those soundtracks more nicely and creatively, I have tried using different IEM plugins such as multiEQ, multiband compressor for doing equalization to add more effects and also use
RoomEncoder to let the alarm and message notification sounds more like to ring next to the listener, just like the phone is putting next to you when you are wake up.
On the other hand, for the sound of birds, dancing and playing in the playground, I recorded them in Choi Hung Estate, with a 360 degree camera and zoom H3VR microphone. That is an interesting experience that I need to make sure the students won’t break the microphone and camera as they are playing baseball that time in the playground, so I recorded them carefully. There are some photos that I recorded that day in Choi Hung Estate.
References
Taylor, H. (2023). Field recordings as invitation and transportation. Continuum, 38(1), 24–36. https://doi.org/10.1080/10304312.2023.2234112