The Music Education Podcast
Listen for authentic and challenging conversation on all things music ed. Brought to you by Charanga. Hosted and produced by Chris Woods of The Chris Woods Groove Orchestra.
The Music Education Podcast
Episode 41: 'In Your Own Space' Field Recording - Catherine Smith
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In this episode Chris chats to composer and field recordist Catherine Smith about field recording . This episode has an accompanyiong article in Music Teacher magazine, just head here to read... https://musicteachermagazine.co.uk/
Welcome to the Music Education Podcast. I'm Chris of the Chris Woods Groove Orchestra, and this podcast is brought to you by the Soundstorm Music Education Hub. Now, this episode has an accompanying article in Music Teacher Magazine, and you can find the article by clicking the link in the podcast description or simply heading to musicteacher magazine.co.uk. In this article, I offer five different lesson ideas which can translate to working at home. So introducing an idea at school that can be continued in the student's own space simply because however hard we try, the classroom is usually not a truly inclusive space for creating. Even simple things like time constraints or peer pressures or lighting or noise can actually make the classroom a fairly painful place to create for even the most sort of neurotypical student. So these ideas are about offering an opportunity to students to create in their own space and in their own time. Now one of those lesson ideas was field recording, and that's what we get stuck into in this episode. And what do I mean by field recording? Well, actually, in this episode uh we discussed that, but for now, as a simple explanation, I mean going out into your environment and recording something, maybe like this. Field recording isn't something that you see cropping up in the classroom very often, but it really is something that can change a student's entire perspective on music, on sound, and even how they perceive things that they see and hear in day-to-day life. And the really wonderful thing is it's super simple to do. You don't need to use any seriously high-tech stuff or buying any special gear using a tablet or a phone or just anything that can record audio will be a great starting point to start experiencing field recording. But we'll get stuck into more of what we can do and how we can do it when I speak to my guest, Catherine Smith, who is a composer who works with field recordings and also happens to work at the British Library in audio cataloguing of field recordings. I hope you enjoy listening. Catherine, thanks so much for joining me this afternoon. Can we start off with a bit of a who you are and what you do?
SPEAKER_00Thanks for having me. Um my name is Catherine, and I work as an audio project cataloguer at the British Library Sound Archive. And I'm also a musician and composer, um, particularly experimenting with field recordings at the moment.
SPEAKER_02Wonderful, wonderful. Super concise. Um and I think we'll give everyone a very clear understanding of what you do, unless, of course, they have no idea what field recording is. Um I don't know. Do you do you wanna do you wanna throw out a a dictionary definition or a a wider sort of what is it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's a good question.
SPEAKER_02Um weirdly tricky, isn't it? You know, I I I if someone asked me, I'd probably just say, uh recording stuff.
SPEAKER_00Um I mean, I try to stick with the idea of recording in the field, sort of the an environment outside of a recording studio or like a So like recording stuff out of a situation that you would regularly record and almost uh Yeah, I mean that's definitely not the official definition.
SPEAKER_02Let's look at it slightly deeper by asking two very specific questions. One about your work at the British Library. So what is it that you're cataloguing really? What kind of stuff? And secondly, why?
SPEAKER_00There's a huge range of different areas within the sound archive of the kind of recordings we're archiving. Um I'm specifically spend most of my time actually cataloguing a lot of music. World and traditional music is the department I work in. Um, but that does actually include because it's a lot of ethnographic recordings, um, quite a lot of those are also field recordings.
SPEAKER_02So sort of people recording coming across music in a part somewhere in the world at a time and place and recording that, and then the library are sort of categorizing that to be remote.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I've I was I was employed to work on unlocking our sound heritage, which um a five-year project um basically where we're we're preserving recordings which for various different reasons have been prioritized because either the formats themselves are obsolete, so they need to be digitised urgently and then I'm cataloguing them. Um or they've just been considered to be of particular value or like for whether that's for research or um because they might be rare, you know, or rare documentation or of that particular music or recording, but yeah. I should point out though that you know I'm working in Wild and Traditional Music, there's lots of other curatorial areas.
SPEAKER_02Sorry, sometimes how far does that sort of go go then, like from the whole spectrum of audio and uh field recordings that the library has. Do they go from uh yeah, sort of uh cultural moments of significance to here's the sound of a bath?
SPEAKER_00So there's yeah, so there's as well as uh world and traditional music and wildlife and environmental sound, there's also other areas including uh radio and drama and literature, and classical and pop and uh oral histories. So those can include field recordings and also more formalized um sort of sort of you know traditional recordings as you'd expect in terms of being um released, either released published recordings or um sessions and things. So it's a quite mix.
SPEAKER_02It's really interesting how because as far as a a library or I guess I guess we're almost coming from a a museum angle here, right? Of of keeping a snapshot, snapshots of history and cult cultures as they change, basically, and keeping uh uh yeah, uh a snapshot of that. And I use the term snapshot because I suppose when uh when I think of that archiving and museum element, I think of visual references, be it a skeleton of a T-Rex or uh you know pictures of and films of of war or you know those significant cultural events.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02It's kind of it's kind of a neglected part, I guess, isn't it? In people's minds.
SPEAKER_00I think so, yeah. I think I mean even at the British Library a lot of people still associate it mostly with books, so or Yeah. Yeah, so it's not I mean when yeah, when I've given tours before, it's been quite like quite eye-opening to some people that that we have a sound archive as well as um but yeah, no, um I hope hopefully there's more being done now to sort of incorporate that into people's learning and enjoyment and sort of research of libraries as well as just going for the sort of more obvious what better way to yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Well what better way to sort of see something rather than someone writing a description of something to actually hear, to even hear someone just giving that description at a time, the articulation of words and the surroundings, like I guess must just give such a picture uh of what's happening. So well, we've talked about uh field recording in the sort of archiving sense, which is super fascinating. But let's bridge over into the more artistic sort of element of it because as uh you know, this uh episode is linking to the article about uh educating students about things that they can then do at home and in their own space. So the idea of here's field recording, you can do this anywhere. Um what's your sort of experience of that as a musician, as a composer, as someone who's into field recording and and using it? Because I I I'm gonna hazard a guess that quite a lot of people listening to this won't even understand then how, and I mean that in the most respectful way possible, but how um these seemingly almost administrative recordings can then fit in into an artistic way it makes sense as a snapshot of culture and time, but how does it how do they then bridge into the sort of artistry element? The archival recordings themselves, or yeah, or like Yeah, it could be, or even just the the concept of just going out and recording, you know, the sound of a tree. Oh right, yeah. You know, you know, what's what the what is the point of that other than just going, okay, British Library, I've recorded an oak tree in Ealing. I think you want to keep this. And you know, is is there a point beyond that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean there's d um I mean this is a quite a subjective thing, I think, about how people view how these how they want these recordings to be used. There's definitely people uh making recordings for more purely documentary reason of like having this as a field recording of this species of bird that we want to do. And collecting something, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Which is obviously also important because we want to like for educational reasons, but also you know, things wildlife is becoming extinct, so it's a about preserving record like preserving sound.
SPEAKER_02Should we reverse climate change? No, no, let's just record everything and it'll be just like this never happened.
SPEAKER_03No, oh my god.
SPEAKER_02That's great, isn't it? But uh that there's gonna be some kind of beautiful nostalgia to all those the sounds, isn't there? Anyway, I'm digressing. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So there's there's that element, and then yeah, there's the there's the with the field recordings I make a definitely um intention of doing something, um presenting them in like a more creative context for um like yeah, a piece of music or a soundscape. Um I have I have colleagues of mine who are very good sort of wildlife recordists and they make very good recordings of all kinds of different wildlife, and those yeah, those work very well as well, you mean you can do things creative with those too, and they also would be very good as a more of a sort of scientific document. But I think yeah, the kind of recording I do tends to be a bit a bit more um uh I'm I'm not doing it with the like sort of in the most official sort of perfect, making the kind of perfectly recorded environmental recordings. So I'm I'm I'm more interested in if just getting a recording that maybe has a certain musicality that I got to it or that I can that I can even sort of manipulate later and do something with even if it doesn't sound like perfect originally. So it's kind of there's very different approaches to it about whether how you know you want to make the the recording itself has got to be pristine and perfect originally, or if you just want to use it as a starting point and then go and do something more experimental with it. So um, because there's a lot, you know, there's a lot to that there's a lot that can be done um with that field recording once you've made it. Or I mean but it's like equally there's a lot of really interesting things you can do without doing anything too technical with it either. So just having the sort of it in its original state. Um and I yeah, I like to do both, but I definitely wouldn't put myself forward as like uh somebody that was making the most like the highest quality uh wildlife recordings because a lot of people would be doing that really well.
SPEAKER_02I'd love to go down the rabbit hole of um then manipulating and crafting the sounds, but to sort of hang out on the idea of just uh recording for creativity and art rather than the categorization that we've moved the wildlife thing. I mean it just feels like pretty profound stuff, actually. You're talking about it not being perfect, which then I think culturally again, especially music educators spent a lot of time you know learning how to uh record well to impart that knowledge to other students, or I don't know, even in recording your own music that you make, and then the idea of just recording something, of just capturing. Are we talking about just capturing feelings of vibes of what you know, go on.
SPEAKER_00I mean, this is something that I've only really kind of properly recently started to embrace and acknowledge in my own like approaches to music making that is kind of a bit a bit messy really because I did think that um yeah, I do tend I like I like to Yeah, I am going more for something that I call either getting a recording or or manipulating that recording to Yeah, to put over um Yeah, a certain atmosphere or feeling that I want to rather than um Yeah, rather than you know, and kind of actually that coming about through experimenting with it and like you know afterwards, rather than having everything perfect in the recording, make but I'm whether that's outside recording, for making field recordings, or if I was just recording some friends experimenting with their instruments or something, because I'm not always trying to say, right, this is exactly how it's got to be on the in the recording. I'll often hear something that's in the recording that I didn't mean to record, but I could just take that and sample that and do something with that, and that could become the main path and that could become the main the main feature. So I'm sort of reworking that into something that's almost a surprise, really. So and then that and yeah, it's something I think creating something that is like my like personally quite like to create things that are quite um that aren't always like really clean and perfect, and maybe could be a little bit rough around the edges. And so, you know, one of the things I experimented with recently was as I mentioned, I think we talked about before was um like different ways of trying to capture wind, which can often sound a little bit rough around the edges. If obviously like you're not you wouldn't want it to just r ruin your recording having wind in it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but you there are ways of getting wind, you know, capturing the sound of wind passing through things, and that can sound quite atmospheric, but not necessarily clean and like a really good perfect recording. Like I did, I yeah, so that's something uh we could talk about later, maybe, but um well no no, this is cool, this is super cool.
SPEAKER_02So so looking at again distancing ourselves from this idea of purely seeing field recording is something that's for archive and for reality, like taking a snapshot of reality, seeing recording as kind of an instrument itself. So that example of wind being okay, we can get this amazing recording of wind that sounds like you're in the woods listening to the wind, or actually, maybe that that distortion on the microphone actually becomes a quality and a unique experience in itself.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I can do, yeah. I mean, um, within reason, I've definitely ruined some quite nice recordings with wind that I would have liked not to have been in, but like, but yeah, I I got um I managed to capture the sound of some wind passing over the microphone when I was recording a tree recently, which is definitely not what I think I didn't really expect that to be recorded, but actually did sound very atmospheric and was probably one of the more interesting things about it because it was it wasn't just completely distorting, but it was sort of capturing something that you wouldn't necessarily think that you wanted to, but um but yeah, I'm not sure if I'm really answering your question.
SPEAKER_02It doesn't matter, it doesn't I I can't remember what a question was, but yeah, let's double down on the fact that you recorded a tree, Katherine. Yeah, because that's I mean, I I think that's cool. Some people listening might think that's like what are you doing recording a tree? Yeah. But if if we're talking from a music education perspective, with the idea of going, okay, you're going to give students um iPads or whatever, we can talk about the tech a little bit in a mo, can't we? And go out and record something. That in itself as a task is quite interesting and probably pulls back interesting results. But in sort of inspiring students to have new perspective on sounds, I doubt many students will go and record a tree. They'll go and record the sound of the lunch hall, or they or they wouldn't go and record the sound of of wood or something still, uh, or or seemingly still. Um let's let's talk about why you record trees and how that can be communicated, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, um, okay. Um definitely told a few when I've told a few people about this, they do look at me a bit funny.
SPEAKER_02They're like, why are you recording trees? Um I think it's amazing.
SPEAKER_00I mean, especially bearing in mind that I did probably was sat with this probably the same tree for several hours. So if you've got the time to be doing that. Um at that point I was actually trying to experiment with some contact mics, so that's why I thought um I saw an opportunity with that tree to put the contact mics into the bark because it would just for somewhere to slot in and see, thinking that maybe I would get something activity from inside the tree.
SPEAKER_02Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00Um, which I did a little bit of, but it was also really interesting to get um the sound of the wind either going passing through the tree or actually like over the contact mic. So um I was drawn to the tree because it was actually um the creaking that was what I wanted to record.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00It sounded quite musical. It sounded um sounded to me like a double bass, like being bowed. Because it was rubbing against another tree. Uh-huh. And um rather than but I couldn't record it in that situation just by using um a regular microphone because it was quite windy, and also I wanted to see what it sounded like. So that's why I put the contact mics in. But you could also record just the sound of the creaking without just doing it from the inside. So I just was interested in trying to get a different perspective, really. So yeah.
SPEAKER_02Well, that different perspective idea that's super interesting. That's almost like a a third level, isn't it? We've got the sort of collecting perfect recordings of this is what you're hearing, then this artistry just capturing a sound as a whole and just the experience that that gives you, but then this other perspective you're talking about putting microphones inside a tree. Um I mean, I talked about the idea of putting a phone in a jar, you know, and audio recording there. That's can we can we can you give us some insight into that and how people use that and the hydrophones and all this kind of stuff? I mean, if it can link to more simplistic technology as well, that would be really cool.
SPEAKER_00As far as the contact microphones and the hydrophones are like that is it's definitely something that's quite easy, I think, to use to make start making recordings with, but it's uh as you say, it's another it is like another level beyond just making a recording with your phone or a mic, like a regular microphone. So not everyone's gonna be able to do it.
SPEAKER_02But even just the idea there of like for people not knowing what a hydrophone phone is, even But it's just just that concept of recording a sound that you wouldn't imagine makes a sound. A sound that you've never heard almost.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I'm um I think that like, yeah, whether or not whether or not you've got on you like a a hydrophone, which is an underwater microphone, or a contact microphone. Um it's a it's I think it's interesting. The way the way I start before I had either of those things, I was start I was interested in thinking about maybe record tr trying to record things that weren't immediately like obvious or like things that like like hidden sounds, maybe, or things that like like you can. So things that are m are making um that's the name for a podcast, isn't it? Yeah. I mean we yeah, I mean this is that's actually probably like a whole other thing, but um that was something I was interested in doing, but I was still kind of mostly doing that through using um you know, like a handheld recorder or a phone or something that you know, if as I came across them, but as I I learned more about studied field recording more and I came across more extended techniques, I was starting thinking about sounds that that um yeah, we just can't the human ear can't normally just hear regularly within our frequency range, but then you can so that's why um people people like um Jez Riley French, who makes the contact mics and the hydrophones I use, um his work and others kind of um encouraged me to to start experimenting with yeah, putting microphones in water or in trees or on or you know on various different surfaces on um to to pick up on um well it's first it's just quite fun to do for a listening point of view, before even if you're not about to make it into music, just to start thinking about how you listen to things what's around you. Um but also you're starting to use that um creatively too. Um but yeah, I should say before any of this, any of the make going about making these recordings, like and trying to make a do something creative with it, I do think that the listening side, like first just listening to how something sounds is like a really fundamental thing to start off with, and just going and listening to your environment before you even try making a recording is quite important. Like I wouldn't even necessarily go and make recordings immediately if I found some I was interested in. Like, there's definitely a few places I've gone for a walk around, and I thought I want to go and record that. Some of them I still haven't actually recorded yet because I just wanted to experience it first. Um I think you can get a bit too kind of bogged down into like got to immediately make the perfect recording, but I probably don't have that many like amazing recordings in comparison to the amount of time I've spent there just having a listen or an experiment with what different perspectives and different ways, angles and things. So I wouldn't I wouldn't get too hung up on like trying to get um go go and get too technical immediately about about trying to get the perfect recording immediately. I think listening is a listening is the first most important bit.
SPEAKER_02I th I think that's that's super advice, especially in the context of music education as well. So just getting well all ages of students to to listen to space well just getting students to listen is obviously sort of challenge number one for a teacher anyway, but actually to sort of yeah, pay attention to a space.
SPEAKER_00Yes, and one of the ways that a lot of I mean it's become a bit more popular now is is um you can do it on your own. You don't need to some people lead sort of sound walks where you can either go as a group to go and listen to a place and focus in on different sounds and you're either in a city or you know, by the sea wherever it is. But you don't need to, I mean you can do that on your own as well. So but so definitely soundwalking um is a uh something that was made popular by uh um a composer called Hildegard Westerkamp. But yeah, a lot of it's become I think a bit more popular now, but um, you know, that's not necessarily recording initially. She was she was interested in the idea of yeah, doing doing soundwalking before actually trying to record something because just familiarising yourself or wow, that's so cool.
SPEAKER_02So she she her gig would be come and meet me here at seven o'clock and then I'm gonna take you on a I'm gonna take you on a journey.
SPEAKER_00Kind of Yeah, yeah, sh I think she's yeah, she's she's still doing it, I think, actually.
SPEAKER_02I mean she sounds cool, doesn't she?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I just thought it was worth mentioning that kind of the list the um let's do that kind of close listening is can in and of itself be a be a very inspiring um practice to do with even before you go out with a recorder. Um and and yeah, I think um it also I think it's I think it's it's it's good to like to know to see the difference as well because it's there's a difference between how something sounds on a recording, like on a you know, when you're listening with a microphone to when you're listening yourself, so it's good to have that. To do like you know what you're going for, but that you're um you know, you're trying to create a realistic as realistic as possible um capturing that environment as realistically as possible, or if you are actually trying to create maybe m more more of a focus on a certain sound, or so yeah, I mean that's something that wildlife recordists definitely think about a lot. Um you know, I'm not a professional wildlife recordist, but um, you know, I've had a go with sort of some of the different microphones, and some, yeah, some like you could use a parabolic reflector, for example, would be focusing in on a on a on a bird that you to it enhance and amplify that bird. She wouldn't it doesn't sound like that from where you're standing without a microphone. But yeah, so um but yeah, look you could you don't need fancy equipment to do that though, you can um it's just kind of also put kind of about mic placement where you put the recorder as well. So um and then and then of course if you are using more extended techniques like with contact mics, then you are recording something that you can't hear anyway, including human ears. So it's kind of it's good to think about um to think about these things about if you if you um you know how maybe how realistic or how much you want to to go for the capturing what you can hear in the environment or if you want to kind of just be more experimental with it. If that makes sense.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_00Um definitely I think um I've definitely been guilty in the past of just wanting to make recordings immediately and then not yeah, just not not like listening, immediate not listening first, just sort of getting out of recording. I mean sometimes you you have to do that if it's just h you know something's just spontaneously happening you want to record it, but um but but uh but yeah, if you can, I think it's good to like to listen.
SPEAKER_02I mean that that that's that's super cool. I'd I love the sound walk thing. Um I think uh we're almost building up to a lesson plan here, I think. Yeah. Of a kind of you know, a guided sound walk, the idea of looking at sounds in an archiving realistic way, then the idea of looking at them in a creative way. And this idea of hidden sounds.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02It's super cool to talk about the different uh the as you you described, extended techniques, hydrophones, or the what's what should you say, a parabolic Oh a parabolic reflector.
SPEAKER_00That's something that is often used by wildlife recorders to get us very like to focus in on an individual species. Like so from quite a far way away because of the way it the Yeah it reflects the sound, means that you can just focus in on where you're you know pointing it.
SPEAKER_02It sounds amazing, also just very cool, doesn't it? I'm just just using my parabolic uh reflector here. Um but how do we then for music teachers who are giving their students an iPad or actually you know an old dictaphone or something? Yeah, how do how do we then apply finding these hidden sounds? You know, are we uh put but leaving them recording in places that we're not accessible to and then observing them later? What what would you what would your top tips be for finding hidden sounds with limited tech be?
SPEAKER_00Obviously, like there's limitations from if you wanting to record these other these other doing you you can't necessarily do what a contact microphone does or a hydrophone does with the with a regular recorder, but you you can still be quite um adventurous in terms of like how you might choose to place the microphone from different different perspectives and different like different like levels of proximity to a sound and and and and and and and um different frequencies will emerge. So that's um and become and but you can then also enhance once you've got the recording, you can sort of choose you know elements of that to bring out more, maybe more artificially, in the way that you wouldn't have heard it when you were making the recording. So that's something I've liked to experiment with, but also I mean literally just trying to yeah, record rec record places that are maybe like in your very immediate environment. I mean, that could just be you know, you could get some quite interesting recordings from like mechanical sounds in your house, like in like from like a boiler or something, you know, like putting it in a cupboard or like or like when I did made some actually really interesting recordings of air handling units at my university. So brilliant. So like they sound quite mundane, but actually you're not aware of these things all going around your day-to-day, but it makes you think about your environment a bit differently, and it's even if you're not making like an amazing composition out of it, it's quite a fun way of just listening to things differently and and um can be quite like inspiring if you think of different sort of textures and things that you and of different rhythms.
SPEAKER_02So whether you use that recording or not, like I think this would be the next natural place to go as a sort of a final destination for us as well, is that element then of moving our uh field recordings, the sounds that we've captured, be it for you know creating that perfect recording of the dodo, because you know it's important to know what they sound like. Is there any recordings of dodos? Um are dodos even real? Were they just enrolled dog or I'm just making it up?
SPEAKER_00Um I think I think they might have yeah, don't know what was what recording equipment was around then, if any.
SPEAKER_02If any, okay. Oh, yes, it's shame, isn't it? Um I'd I'd love to think of some things that I would uh that you're gonna have for the library that I would love to hear what they sound like. Um I'm slightly disappointed no dodos. Um but anyway you should there is a website with a certain amount on this you can go and have a listen to some of some of the I've completely digressed and revealed a deep ignorance as to when sound recorder came around and when dodos were people will be turning off now. I'm not listening to these people, they don't know anything about dodos. Um so aside from the well taking the recording that you've made, be it from this uh perfect way of trying to capture something, or this creative way of just trying to uh capture something, something new, a different perspective, a hidden sound. Looking at taking all those elements and then what we then do with them. I guess in a classroom sense, we can do it as just a listening exercise. I think in the article I mentioned the idea of just uh presenting them and going, can you guess what this is that we've captured? Um uh which is you know a simplistic, slightly obvious but you know, in interesting uh thing that can be applicable. But actually, what about what happens afterwards we meant that is possible? You obviously talked about manipulating sounds. Well there's just for me, there's so much music I listen to as well that uses found sounds and feels what you tell me, what can you do with it?
SPEAKER_00She can like really dramatically change the sound just by doing some fairly well, what is now quite easily available um techniques in music software, which don't necessarily need to have. I mean, I think a lot of them you can do in things like garage band and stuff. There's obviously much more complicated software. Yeah, yeah, but just out there.
SPEAKER_02But just even with um quite accessible.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. So I mean something that I think um I've had from some workshops I've done with sort of younger children and and also um adults that are new to it, is um using just just by just by experimenting with um eq eq and reverb and then also reversing the sounds and experimenting with pitch, changing the pitch and layering different sounds. And there's it's it sounds complicated if you've not done it before, but it's quite now that we're not working with tape and things, like digitally you can do these things quite quite quite um quite simply, like you know, within like one class, we had I was quite impressed by something that these quite like the young students were putting together, um, which sounded really um quite professional actually. They were taking a lot of pre- they did this was actually using archival, pre-existing archival recordings and some environmental sounds and sound effects, but um you could do that with your own recordings and um yeah, I think that for us for a starting point, just with the so without actually manipulating it, using EQ can really drastically change the sound. And they reveal different different parts of the sound that you that you might want to focus on or remove. But then um yeah, experimenting with the more doing more experimental things like reversing and slowing down or speeding up the so or or um yeah, yeah, changing the pitch. They're like pretty good starting points for you know using those starting to use maybe a sound, a found sound, as an instrument. You could have I've made a whole piece before from a one-second recording like that. It's doing those things really. So wonderful. Yeah, just of some typing.
SPEAKER_01Just some typing, yeah, yeah, yeah. What? A rhythmic sort of playground, right? Recording something like that.
SPEAKER_00You can you can start to make that sound like a drum or like a really high-pitched sort of gesture, and like it doesn't necessarily like um yeah, like more of it, you could really you could really draw something out. There's actually a free software called pull stretch where you can stretch something as long as you like, and it becomes you can start making something sound like it's got all of these different um starts revealing all these different uh like uh frequencies that you know you haven't really heard in the sound before. So and you can use that as like an ambient background. And then um but then also have it, you know, use it more as quick gestures as well as using and that could that could literally all just you could do all these things just with one recording. So um and so whether and you know whether it's I mean I've I've definitely done it with instruments as well that I can't actually play really just by making an interesting sound out of it. So um you can take that approach to to like yeah, whether you're trying to do something that's more melodic or like more, you know, still sounding sort of so you know using still using like uh harmony in some kind of way, but also just from like a rhythmic you could make a more rhythmic or just ambient piece that way, or like a small just a soundscape. So um but yeah, it's also good can be quite good to like you could also without making recordings yourself, if you don't have all the recordings that you want to be using yourself, there are there are ways of uh there's a certain amount of like um there is uh like websites and online archives of field recordings which you can also experiment if you just want to practice arranging them into a soundscape. I mean, I do that, I mean I at the library arrange recordings that I haven't made into like a musical piece by arranging them into a soundscape, and you can create your own narrative with that, even if you're not using your own field recordings.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So that's quite in terms of learning, just the sort of practice of doing that. If you want to have a specific type of recording in that you don't have to be capturing it yourself.
SPEAKER_02Let someone else do the work for you.
SPEAKER_00Well, yeah, I mean obviously it's great. So you it's more satisfying to use your own recordings. It's just if you want something to it's worth it's worth yeah, it's worth knowing about that if if you want to just have a have a fiddle.
SPEAKER_02Like we we seem to be like yeah naturally stumbling into the the doing the work on your own element, doing it in your own space and doing it in your own time. Um because obviously those things aren't quite so easy to do in this ridiculously unhelpful one hour window or 45 minute window of 30 students. Yeah. Three of whom are engaged, two who yeah, um that's a slightly negative outlook. But yeah, what do you we were to we were actually chatting, weren't we, before we started about that element and your personal experience?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I um wasn't necessarily consciously aware of of of the reasons like why when I was at school, but did find busy busy classrooms and um sort of the time pressure of having to produce something immediately quite um stressful and not very helpful to being creative as well, whether it's just dealing with too much noise and things going on at once or or just in if l literally not having the time to really focus and start to experiment like in your own time. But I think there's definitely a lot to be you can get out of you know a class, like having a demonstration and things like um you know in a class, in a in a lesson, and um being made aware of the different possibilities. But um yeah, the good thing with working in this way with um with field recordings or just yeah manipulating them in software is like being able to have that time have that time on your own to to experiment and and yeah, that's that's like as like a neurodivergent person, that's like something that I found really helpful, but I think even neurotypical people probably will also benefit from. So I think it's kind of uh to to different amounts. I mean, some people thrive in different ways, but in terms of creativity, and I do still like to collaborate with other people. Um, but I tend to say I like to see maybe like I might record with somebody else, but then go and do what I can in my own time with that recording and spend as much time as I like or I can with it to see what the possibilities are rather than having to have the be able to perform. I mean, it's also how it's also a way of being able to to compose that's not having to have everything perfect, like you know, immediately in the session or like when you're recording. Like you can you can um you know, even like I actually one of my favourite sounds I made, I recorded was from my friend's mistake when she was like playing the flu, and then just took that and made that into like the main motif.
SPEAKER_02So she was dead chuff with that, wasn't she?
SPEAKER_00Well no, because I made it, I changed it so much actually. It was like I changed it. So I changed I it was actually I think when she was warming up and I sort of pitched it down a lot. She was playing a bass flute. And um and so I treated that, you know, I made it into a different a different sound, but it was really had such a nice quality to it that I sort of was able to use it, but that's kind of how I end up composing with sort of things that I wasn't expecting to read from recording in the first place. So that's like I say, whether or not I'm you know, recording an instrument or whether you're recording water or whatever it is, um, things do emerge. And yeah, I personally feel like I need that time on my own to experiment and actually realise that you know I often felt like I wasn't very good at really coming up with things like on the spot immediately. So I've had having that time to yourself to listen and experiment really and just see what emerges when you have the time to f I mean it's it's something that I also find really helpful with um it helps me focus in like really because I'm interested in it, like a lot of people don't want to sit with a tree for three hours, but like I find I find it quite I find it easier than is it I find it has similar effects for me that than than um than maybe like doing meditation or something, which obviously has its benefits, but it's like an easier way for me to kind of take my mind onto something else.
SPEAKER_02So this whole conversation has basically been about mindfulness, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's just it's just um it's my it's my way of trying to do mindfulness, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Wonderful, perfect. Catherine, thank you so much. I think it's been an enlighten conversation, and I think anyone listening to this would be mad not to go and do some field recording with their students um after I j the phrases hidden sounds and sound walks and they're just they're just so cool, aren't they? You know, they're just so exciting. It's just uh it's yeah, perspective shifting and changing. It's brilliant. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_00Thanks, it's really really good talking to you about it. I hope it's inspiring in some way.