Maps and Microphones

Research notes, thoughts and links on sound mapping and related topics

[comccaff]

New blog

I have migrated to a wordpress blog; you can now find me at https://mapsandmicrophones.wordpress.com/

[comccaff]

Bob Gilmore (1961 - 2015)

The musicologist Bob Gilmore, who died last week, was from Carrickfergus originally, studied and taught at Queen's and went on to a professorship at Brunel University London.

As well as an extensive written output over many years, last summer he produced a series of podcasts (or audio documentaries as he called them), titled Tentative Affinities. He used the series to introduce new and challenging music from the late 20th and early 21st centuries (by "composers whose music I like", as he put it).

One episode, as good a way in as any to this wonderful world of musical material, charts the use of field recording in new music, starting with Pierre Schaeffer in the 1950s, through R Murray Schafer, David Dunn and Annea Lockwood, before arriving at more recent composers like Joanna Bailie and Dan Warburton.

In this hour-long episode, he mostly lets the music do the work, demonstrating the power of the documentary medium, in the right hands, to explicate and uncover, shining a light on the meanings and motives of the musical work.

Mostly letting the music speak for itself, he shows what an erudite commentator and a selection of interesting works can do in a short space of time. The episode profiles a selection of artists whose work with field recording reveals the music all around us, if we choose to listen for it. It's a really enjoyable listen. Available here (episode titled 'Field recordings and new music').

I look forward to listening to the rest of the series, and am saddened that this remarkable voice has been silenced at only 53. RIP.

[comccaff]

Sound maps: List of lists

Above: Screenshot - Écouter Paris sound map

As part of this research project, we are starting to pull together a database to help with comparative analysis and to get a sense of the field of sound mapping - what is out there, who is producing sound maps, what purposes are they being put to, who are the contributors, who are the users?

Listings of sound map projects appear from time to time on message boards and blogs and in journal articles: each of the sources listed below has proven invaluable to this process. (This list compiled last year by Brandon Mechtley is a particularly good starting point, citing authors for each map and filterable by region, year, content types and more.)

Our own list so far, focusing on urban, web-based sound maps, numbers about sixty. In the process of creating our own list I've chanced across some gems I hadn't seen before, including: Indy Sound Map, which maps personal narratives of Indianapolis; the beautifully-realised Écouter Paris; and possibly the best-titled sound map so far, Bolognoise.

More to follow on the blog in due course about our own list & database...

***

Sound Maps: List of lists (updated 1 Dec 2014)

ACOUSTIC ECOLOGY INSTITUTE (2010). “A Topology of Sound Maps”. Blog post dated February 1, 2010. Retrieved 20 November 2014 from http://aeinews.org/archives/685

Delicious user Beau Bruit (2009 - present). “Current Filter: #sound #map”. Delicious list dated 2009 - present (last updated August 2014). Retrieved 20 November 2014 from http://delicious.com/radiophonie/sound+map

KALLIMOPOULOU, Eleni, et al. (2013). SonorCities: Learning Culture Through City Soundscapes - A Teacher Handbook. Published online - retrieved 1 December 2014 from http://sonor-cities.edu.gr

Metafilter user Bora Horza Gobuchul (2010). “worldsoundsurround”. Blog post dated September 6, 2010. Retrieved 20 November 2014 from http://www.metafilter.com/95485/worldsoundsurround

Metafilter user agatha_magatha (2010). “Sounds of the City”. Blog post dated February 3 2010. Retrieved 20 November 2014 from http://www.metafilter.com/88882/Sounds-of-the-City 

MECHTLEY, Brandon (2013). “Sound maps on the web”. Retrieved 20 November 2014 from http://bmechtley.me/websoundmaps.html

OUZOUNIAN, Gascia (2014). “Acoustic Mapping: Notes from the Interface” in Gandy and Nilsen (eds.) The Acoustic City. Berlin: Jovis.

PREBBLE, Tim (2010). “Sound Maps”, blog post on Music of Sound. Retrieved 15 November 2014 from http://www.musicofsound.co.nz/blog/sound-maps

RUSSO, Frank, et al. (2012). “Around the World” page on Toronto Sound Map website. Retrieved 15 November 2014 from http://torontosoundmap.com/aroundtheworld.php

TAUSIG, Ben (2010). “Atlas Sound: A Typology of Sound Maps”. Blog post dated January 10, 2010 at Weird Vibrations. Retrieved 20 November 2014 from http://www.weirdvibrations.com/2010/01/10/atlas-sound-a-typology-of-sound-maps/

TAUSIG, Ben (2010). “Sound Maps: II”. Blog post dated January 13, 2010 at Weird Vibrations. http://www.weirdvibrations.com/2010/01/13/sound-maps-ii/

***

PS: If you know of more such listings, they would be more than welcome - you can contact me via Twitter (@comccaff) or email comccaff [at] gmail [dot] com

[comccaff]

Super logo for Sonic World, a long-defunct sound map project from the late 1990s.

Sonic World maps the planet with sound. Listening to the ambient sounds of the world within this site is an invitation to travel, to be entertained and to learn. Sonic World is a theatre experience on one level, an archive of human experience on another.

Via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

[comccaff]

Welcome

My name is Conor McCafferty, a musician, film-maker and researcher from County Donegal in Ireland. I've recently begun a PhD studentship on the acoustic mapping of cities. This blog will be home to research notes, readings, links, bookmarks and any other thoughts or stray material longer than tweet-length, as I research sound maps and the intersection between sound art, sonic studies, planning and urbanism over the next few years.

My research is part of Recomposing the City, a research group led by Dr Gascia Ouzounian and Dr Sarah Lappin. I'm based at the Sonic Arts Research Centre, Queen's University Belfast.

You can expect a lot of what I post here to be provisional and scrappy. I might also go completely off-script from time to time to talk about music, films, radio, TV, events, concerts, foodstuffs...

If you're interested in this research, please feel free to get in touch! comccaff [at] gmail [dot] com. You can also follow me on Twitter.