Ramblings about sound

Posts by Milena Droumeva

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GRIEF – Sonic expression of loss, pain, and sadness

Listen to some academic audio essays on grief - among them, my piece on Ukraine with Svitlana Matviyenko

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How We Use Sound to Help Protect Elephants from Poaching

MORE ABOUT THIS TOPIC The rainforests of Central Africa are home to forest elephants, an endangered species. Each year, poachers kill

Amazing uses of sound in animal conservation.

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Hole in the head, Bodega Bay

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Soundscape: birds chattering on, distant birds, doves, a silent groundhog digging a hole. Cars passing the #1 freeway, and across it Spanish speaking men are trying to fix a car in a garage, hollering away. Behind me two elder staff mill around the lodge rooms restocking, fixing. Ducks and seagulls in the distance by the shore. Gotta look up those birds.

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Long waves at the south most Oregon point are also longer sounds …. the rise and fall is probably twice the ocean waves crashing on shore that you’re normally hearing. And the wind ….

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Apparently for real, throughout the Lower Mainland people are reporting that entertainment venues are too loud for them. Covid silenced a lot of indoor activities in the sense that it brought them into less than omnipotent sonic presence; and surprise, surprise, our collective threshold shift healed and now we want quieter cafes and restaurants and concerts and events.

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Silencing and Forgetting

In the book Traditional Tales of the Portuguese People by Teófilo Braga, there are many popular and traditional Portuguese folktales…

Via Claude Schryer. And a question I’ve been thinking on and off. Do we need to hear it to believe it? Do we really need fancy contact transducng mics to attach to plant leaves so that we hear their screams when a leaf is torn … Can’t we hear that with our hearts?

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Friday at Pallet. The sonic off gassing of open industrial kitchen combined with seating space. It’s really more akin sonically to a factory than a cosy cafe. What i really wonder is do people like this industrial drone soundscape? Do they find that familiar and productive? Does it hearten to the simple productivity of factory work? Or does everyone hate the sound but like the vibe and aesthetic?

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Introducing Season, a game about capturing that fleeting moment

Experience the final moments of different cultures before they disappear.

So far, I have placed myself on a game tester list, as I believe the game is still in production and beta testing. I truly am looking forward to it for several reasons. The animation and soundtrack seem great. The concept is interesting: an apocalypse game that isn't about zombies. What I'm most curious about are the mechanics of play. How open is the game? Can the player record anything they are inspired by, or are there designated "sources" to capture, that will gain points? This will be the crucial difference I think, between a game that has a predetermined narrative for what it is to be captured, and a game that allows the player freedom to capture "their" version of extinction. We'll see!

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Podcast: Indigenous bioacoustics listens to the land for conservation and tradition

Today we listen to some bioacoustic recordings informing Indigenous-led conservation initiatives. Listen here: The world is increasingly com

We don't need David Suzuki to tell us that indigenous-led conservation is the way towards environmental sustainability. And that is, if the damage isn't too far gone. But listening to the land isn't the goal itself I think. It can more be said to be a manifestation of a more authentic connection with the land and environment. That is, when we cohabitate we listen. Listening is part of sharing space.

In short, "listening" or rather acoustic monitoring of wildlife, here is utilized in order to serve as evidence of biodiversity, as data indicative of change, towards justification of protective legislation. The listening is done with automated long-term recording units: a very different type of listening than the sort of meditative listening that acoustic ecologists imagine when thinking of indigenous ways of life. It just goes to show, for me, that listening isn't a single concept or a practice in and of itself that will "save us".

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#Stayhomesounds Review

Regretfully it's a paywall article in Sound Studies, but I really enjoyed writing this review of Cities and Memory's collection of pandemic soundscapes. The range of themes is impressive, as is the geographic reach, making this, in my opinion, one of the most authentic, critical, and poignant reflection of our collective impressions, anxieties, and sonic realities during covid-19 lockdowns.

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What can sound do for the climate crisis?

These are my ongoing ruminations and ramblings about the role of sound art, sound research, and the "soundscape perspective" in general, in the movement to reverse (?) the climate emergency we are rapidly heading into. I'm not even sure climate change can be slowed down, or reversed, or if it is inevitable. What I do know is, it is futile and arrogant to use words like "fight climate change", "combat" or other militaristic language. That just obfuscates the fact that WE caused it. This isn't some alien invasion that we can bond over; this isn't a threat from the outside. It is a result of a system we put in place, that requires us to overproduce, exploit natural resources, valorize disposability, and manufacture the desire for endless convenience. Rachel Carson wrote "Silent Spring" in 1962. Bernie Krause founded Wild Sanctuary in 1968, around the time that Schafer conceived of acoustic ecology as a concept and a movement. The late 1960s were a timely wake up call for a climate emergency. We are now 60 years later. Still talking about "raising awareness" of climate change. No. More sound art installations about the disappearing wildlife and birdsong isn't going to do anything. It is preaching to the choir. More compositions that "center" field recordings are not what's needed. As sound scholars, as sound researchers, we need to stop fetishizing nature sound while the world tumbles forward into doomsday.

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Did you hear the Olympics? Advanced technology brings Tokyo’s action into living rooms like never before

A staggering number of high-tech cameras and microphones overcome the awkward silences of empty stadiums. Even without fans, this means ever

Just a few years ago the sound studies community was flooded with articles about the noise impacts of vuvuzelas in prominent (olympic) soccer games. The intriguing reality of sport sound was finally in the spotlight. Granted, sound of sport is not a new topic as even Michel Chion wrote about tennis in Audio-Vision. But this year, sports have no audience, making way for a complex techno-apparatus of cameras, drones, AI video analysis, and precision miking. Where sound would ordinarily be drowned in crowd noise, song, and chants, the capture of Tokyo's Olympic games is a feat of audio engineering:

"Technicians have installed 3,600 microphones across the 42 venues of the Tokyo Games. They are positioned in electric cars to capture the sounds of cycle races. They sit shoreside at rowing events, bringing each oar stroke to life. They are installed inside the vaults that spring gymnasts into competition. They are tucked in nets and buried in sand. “Eyes tell you what is objectively happening. But ears create more of a sense of emotion,” Mr. Exarchos says."

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There is more to come on this but I’ve felt unable to record birdsong or use it in any creative way. Even last year I did a lot of recordings but this year I just listen. Helena’s piece is to me a perfect thematic for this anthroposcenic moment. The idea of drone hatchlings learning how to surveil from their “parents” in the same way bird hatchlings will learn how to eat and fly from their parents, that is a perfect metaphor for this moment. Wild fires are raging, a gift from unsustainable logging and exploitation. Birds are “singing” because life goes on and they are intertwined with our life world. This piece is to me about, what is the life world of this ambient technology - drones - that is now part of our environmental, our habitus. Skipping the part that we pretend we are in control of technology, let’s just ask how devices propagate and exist and make lives for themselves alongside us. This piece is like a secret listening in to the lives and times of drones, lives that are going on apart and despite us.

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Resuming my series of sensory postcards, road trip edition. I’m reflecting a lot on what it means to listen on the land, where you are, and what does it mean to record. The result is I record less and less. I dwell more and more on my own sonic and environmental impact in any given place. Do I add or subtract anything? Is that even the right way to think of it. I’m also more conscious of anthropogenic impacts of infrastructure: rail tracks, noise from trains piercing the wilderness, tourism developments animating serene lakes. How do animals and birds listen to our presence in their territories? How does the land listen.

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Serene location in Port Alberni during early salmon run. Only a few birds chirp from inside the forest echoing in the riverside canyon. Small waterfalls can be heard in the distance.

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Submission deadline extended to June 15!