Phonography: First Recorded Sound

First Recorded Sound (:10) The 10-second recording by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville, is   of a singer crooning the folk song “Au Clair de la Lune”. It was discovered  in a Paris archive by a group of American audio historians. It was made, the researchers say, on April 9, 1860, on a phonautograph, a machine designed to record sounds visually, not to play them back. But the phonautograph recording, or phonautogram, was made playable — converted from squiggles on paper to sound — by scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif. Source: NY Times and YouTube

Soundscape Composition: Urban London

Recording the Urban Soundscape (2:33) In this short documentary a City Music student explains her love of cycling around London and recording the rich urban soundscape, including the sounds of the River Thames. Her objective is to use the recordings in a composition on which she is working.

Soundscapes: Austin, Texas

Soundscapes (1:39:02) This YouTub page organized by Alive Arkhive contains 21 soundscapes averaging a little over a minute each apparently filmed in the Austin, Texas area. Most of the videos focus on natural acoustic events such as bird song, thunderstorms and rain fall. Source: YouTube.

Soundscape: Tribute to John Cage

4'33" A John Cage Centennial Panama (4:37) This video from Panama is a tribute to John Cage's 100th Birthday and is performed on the street. Although it is most often "heard" in a concert hall, Cage may have appreciated the soundscape in which this work is performed.   4′33″ (pronounced "Four minutes, thirty-three seconds") is a three-movement composition. It was composed in 1952 for any instrument (or combination of instruments), and the score instructs the performer not to play the instrument during the entire duration of the piece throughout the three movements. The piece purports to consist of the sounds of the environment that the listeners hear while it is performed, although it is commonly perceived as "four minutes thirty-three seconds of silence. Click2Read more about this composition. Source: YouTube

Soundscape Composition: In The City

In The City (1:55) Shots of Leicester City on a dreary day in September to which a soundscape composition by Bill Newsinger  has been created. Leicester is a city in the East Midlands of England along the River Soar. It is the largest city in the region. According to the 2011 census Leicester had the largest proportion of people aged 19-and-under in the East  Midlands with 27 per cent. Today, the city has a large ethnic minority population mainly from South East Asia. 

Soundscape Composition: Train Delay

Train Delay (1:23) A sontage of rail related soundscape recordings by Ann McDougall of Canada. Source: YouTube

Soundscape Installation: Are You Listening Leeds?

Are You Listening Leeds? (39:42) This is a public soundscape project based in an empty shop unit in Leeds Shopping Plaza in the city centre. It took place on 12th June 2010, with an accompanying window installation running until 29th July 2010.

The idea for the project came about as the result of a discussion about the sounds of city life, whether sounds were afforded the same aesthetic status as visual culture, and how sounds were used and heard in a city.  The project involved devising a 24-hour soundscape of the city reduced to 24 minutes, recording in 24 different locations. This was then combined with simultaneously projected 24-hour timelapse of the Leeds skyline, equating with the time of the sounds, to emphasise the multitude of changing sounds in one city. Source: Vimeo

Soundscape: Hoi An Vietnam

The following videos present soundscape experiences by visitors to Hoi An Vietnam. Hoi An has a pedestrian-friendly Old Town area closed to cars. The city is an exceptionally well-preserved example of a South-East Asian trading port dating from the 15th to the 19th century. Its buildings and its street plan reflect the influences, both indigenous and foreign, that have combined to produce this unique UNESCO heritage site. Hoi An is located on the South Central Coast of Vietnam along the South China Sea and is home to approximately 120,000 inhabitants. 

Quiet Streets of Hoi An (1:02) A night time stroll down a street in the historic district reflects a time past without cars and shops open to the passing of pedestrians.

Hoi An (8:16) This video presents a daylight view of the historic district and then moves out into the surrounding area. The contrast between the soundscape of night and day is an interesting exploration.

Source: YouTube