Field Recording Books

[Cheryl Tipp]

Hi everyone,

As far as I know, there's not a huge amount of printed literature dedicated to the craft of field recording. One of my favourites would have to be Ludwig Koch's 'Memoirs of a Birdman'. Koch shares his experiences of the highs and lows of recording wildlife and gives us modern day recordists a vivid insight into just how difficult (but rewarding) field recording was in the early decades of the 20th century. Have any other members read this autobiography? Do you have your own favourites? Of course we don't have to limit this to field recording. Why not throw caution to the wind and include literature that also deals with the art of listening as well as recording? Let's share what we've read and build up a decent reading list for the group!

Thanks

Cheryl

[Jez riley French]

well, there are a few on the technical side of things - but these don't, in my opinion, communicate well the joys of listening / recording. I'm having an email discussion right now around this subject & to my mind one of the issues is that most publishers are only interested in writings from academia & whilst this has its merits there needs to be more writing that doesn't read like a thesis & instead communicates that something 'more'. 

I'm reading Bernie Krause's 'The great animal orchestra' currently & its an enjoyable read so far.

There's also a discussion on this subject on the new facebook group for field recording:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/258610517559455/

[Cheryl Tipp]

Thanks Jez.

'The Great Animal Orchestra' is on my list of books to buy. I personally prefer those books that are more accessible when it comes to the style of writing, therefore not too heavy or academic.

Jez riley French said:

well, there are a few on the technical side of things - but these don't, in my opinion, communicate well the joys of listening / recording. I'm having an email discussion right now around this subject & to my mind one of the issues is that most publishers are only interested in writings from academia & whilst this has its merits there needs to be more writing that doesn't read like a thesis & instead communicates that something 'more'. 

I'm reading Bernie Krause's 'The great animal orchestra' currently & its an enjoyable read so far.

There's also a discussion on this subject on the new facebook group for field recording:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/258610517559455/

[Jez riley French]

indeed !

[Soundlandscapes]

I'm also reading Bernie Krause's 'Great Animal Orchestra'. It was Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4 recently and they did a very good job with it.

As far as listening is concerned, R. Murray Schafer's 'The Soundscape - Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World' is a bit heavy going but well worth the effort.

[Hanstein Mørkved Rommerud]

I did enjoy Schafer's "The Soundscape", but I agree it might be a bit heavy. Very much information, also quite philosophical. None the less, not very technical when it comes to the recording itself.

Haven't read Koch, but I would like to do that.

Still haven't read "Animal Orchestra", but I'm sure I'm going to. I have Krauses "Wild Sanctuary" as audio, I still haven't heard the complete book/file it, but I think it is very accessible.

I saw this one: www.amazon.com/Handbook-Field-Recording-Frank-Dorritie/dp/1931140200 The Handbook of Field Recording, have anyone checked this out? I wasn't able to purchase it.

When it comes to listening, we have many approaches. I like Pierre Schaeffer, but it is not very accessible, as I haven't succeded finding his main works in other language than French, which is quite inappropriate for me... As far as I can remember, Michel Chion has adapted his theories. Also, John Cage is quite interesting within the same cathegory. And, perhaps less heavy; I think Julian Treasure and his talks at TED serve as a good way of bringing out the joy, importance and art of listening, for instance this one: http://www.ted.com/talks/julian_treasure_the_4_ways_sound_affects_u...

But, as for the more technical point, it could indeed have been more. I think it is quite important to maintain certain metadata of the recording. IASA have guidlines for it, but I can't say it's to accessible when it comes to the use of XML files: http://www.iasa-web.org/tc04/audio-preservation But I think it is very important to provide the metadata.

[Cheryl Tipp]

Thanks for the link to Julian Treasure's talk, Hanstein! I've never watched this before.

Hanstein Mørkved Rommerud said:

I did enjoy Schafer's "The Soundscape", but I agree it might be a bit heavy. Very much information, also quite philosophical. None the less, not very technical when it comes to the recording itself.

Haven't read Koch, but I would like to do that.

Still haven't read "Animal Orchestra", but I'm sure I'm going to. I have Krauses "Wild Sanctuary" as audio, I still haven't heard the complete book/file it, but I think it is very accessible.

I saw this one: www.amazon.com/Handbook-Field-Recording-Frank-Dorritie/dp/1931140200The Handbook of Field Recording, have anyone checked this out? I wasn't able to purchase it.

When it comes to listening, we have many approaches. I like Pierre Schaeffer, but it is not very accessible, as I haven't succeded finding his main works in other language than French, which is quite inappropriate for me... As far as I can remember, Michel Chion has adapted his theories. Also, John Cage is quite interesting within the same cathegory. And, perhaps less heavy; I think Julian Treasure and his talks at TED serve as a good way of bringing out the joy, importance and art of listening, for instance this one: http://www.ted.com/talks/julian_treasure_the_4_ways_sound_affects_u...

But, as for the more technical point, it could indeed have been more. I think it is quite important to maintain certain metadata of the recording. IASA have guidlines for it, but I can't say it's to accessible when it comes to the use of XML files: http://www.iasa-web.org/tc04/audio-preservation But I think it is very important to provide the metadata.

[Hanstein Mørkved Rommerud]

Nice to share information! He's also written a book, Sound Business, which I haven't read either, other than a chapter. He's working on how sound is being used in branding/trademarking, which I also find interestening, though a bit off topic here. Anyway, if you haven't seen it already, here's a couple of more TED talks by Treasure: http://www.ted.com/talks/julian_treasure_shh_sound_health_in_8_step... and http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/julian_treasure_5_ways_to_listen_b...

In the latter he presents the term he calls savouring, which I find very interesting - listen carefully to "boring" sounds, to here for more. I don't know of anyone knows of other terms for the same technique, but I read in Schafer's Our Soundscape a quote from Karlheinz Stockhausen, where he tells how much he enjoyed listening to harmonics in the noise from the plane he sat in. Don't remember the excact comment, but I noted it was on page 113. Schafer also draws links to Cage and Satie with the connection music - enviroment. I would also add Eno and ambient music. It might end up quite theoretical and philosophical, but I truely have been enjoying listening this way for a very long time whitout being aware of this as a "listening strategy" by theoretic means.

Anyway, maybe this got too off topic, I just find that part also quite interesting... More to the litterature - of course we also have the texts that are not printed, but on the web, as blogs for instance.

[Patrick Franke]

Hello.

I´ve read Koch´s Memoirs of a Birdman and most of the
time I enjoyed it. Beside his curious english for me
the stories about meetings with prominent people were
a little bit irritating...

Patrick

[Vicki Powys]

A good read is John Hutchinson's Save that Song - conquering the outback my way, 1988, ISBN 0-7316-1334-1. John is getting on in years now, but in the 1960s and 1970s he traveled in outback Western Australia, using an old station wagon for his home and recording studio, living primitively while he recorded birdsong on reel-to-reel tape, sometimes taking a week to decide on the best placement of a microphone for an early morning songster, suffering from 'Barcoo Rot' (scurvy) due to inadequate diet, describing what were then really remote places with NO extraneous noise from human settlement, traffic or aircraft.  Down to earth and non-academic!  John has produced some wonderful recordings from his outback travels.

[Cheryl Tipp]

Koch was quite a character! I know what you mean though. I was more interested in the parts which directly referred to recording in the field, mastering new publications, observing wildlife etc.

Patrick Franke said:

Hello.

I´ve read Koch´s Memoirs of a Birdman and most of the
time I enjoyed it. Beside his curious english for me
the stories about meetings with prominent people were
a little bit irritating...

Patrick

[Cheryl Tipp]

Wow Vicki, thanks for that. I hadn't heard of this book by John! This is definitely one I need to read!

Vicki Powys said:

A good read is John Hutchinson's Save that Song - conquering the outback my way, 1988, ISBN 0-7316-1334-1. John is getting on in years now, but in the 1960s and 1970s he traveled in outback Western Australia, using an old station wagon for his home and recording studio, living primitively while he recorded birdsong on reel-to-reel tape, sometimes taking a week to decide on the best placement of a microphone for an early morning songster, suffering from 'Barcoo Rot' (scurvy) due to inadequate diet, describing what were then really remote places with NO extraneous noise from human settlement, traffic or aircraft.  Down to earth and non-academic!  John has produced some wonderful recordings from his outback travels.

[Mark Peter Wright]

Not sure if this counts but I love JA Baker's The Peregrine: The Hill of Summer & Diaries. In terms of observing and documenting wildlife it's like a textual account of field recording itself.

Other than that, CRiSAP's Autumn Leaves publication is a nice one to dip into for various perspectives.