I started a listening journal in September 2023 whilst on a residency in the Pyrenees. It wasn’t my first attempt to make ‘no microphone’* recordings, but it began a sustained period of recording sounds using words. Maybe it’s because it is relatively new compared to recording using microphones, which I’ve been doing for decades, but I’ve found the process has become my favourite way of connecting with listening.
My listening journal comes everywhere with me, and the feeling of opening it up to make a new entry is calming and invites a quiet focus I struggle to find anywhere else. I try to record in the moment rather than from memory, and find that this promotes a deeper listening and connection with the world around me, getting really inquisitive about what I’m hearing; the texture, rhythm, timbre, acoustics, time and spatial dynamics as well as exploring aspects of relationships, memories and place.
There is often no context in entries, just simple noting of things I’ve heard, with an attempt to record something of the character and detail of the sound. Sometimes it is important to describe the sound source and sometimes that won’t be so clear.
This is practice for me. Writing and listening.
I’m going to share extracts each month and begin with August’s recordings. I’m considering a number of bonus/subscriber content ideas including monthly extracts from the past year’s archive and an actual audio recording that accompanies each month’s extracts.
I’d be interested to hear if any of these recordings resonate with you and hope they might invite you to listen to the world in different ways. I owe a huge debt to Pauline Oliveros and other Deep Listening practitioners I’ve been fortunate enough to learn from and good friend and mentor Angus Carlyle, whose writing about sound has been inspirational.
*I read this term for the first time in Dirty Ear Report #2 last week. James Webb uses it to describe pretty much what I’m doing here.
Listening Journal August 2024
Four flagpoles create pleasing harmonies of ringing, pinging metal. Scattered pitches sounded by the wind moving thin ropes against poles.
Strange gurgles and wet creatures slip rhythmically through vents.
I notice how the acoustics change on the bright tiled stairs at the hotel. As the ceiling rises the clacking and plasticky slapping of flip flops expand to fill the enlarged space.
The saxophonist/DJ begins performing loud shrieks over a recording of ‘Can't Take My Eyes Off of You’. The wailing is soon cut short as the backing track slows down before sputtering and crackling to nothing.
Light scuffing, a two part rhythm, moves from left to right behind me.
A burbling white noise blown by strong wind gusts sprays my back and neck.
A sound made of two sounds. Those two sounds made of hundreds of minute sounds. The wet splash impact of a small body, followed by a wave of water thrown and spread over shimmering blue.
A beige cap scuffs softly across hot tiles, the rigidity of the cardboard in the peak noticeable.
An unexpected something. Was there even a sound or did my brain fill the silence? The adjustable section of the sun lounger to my right lurches forward, almost hitting my arm.
Hauser and Wirth Menorca gallery staff question the aesthetics of a cold drink dispenser in the shady cantina garden, as colleagues shift hollow sounding aluminium and dense wooden temporary stages.
The mumbling crowd nearby contrasts with the distant voices of the players. The latter lose their lower frequencies at distance, becoming thin and weightless, whilst the crowd around me blur into a warm murmur.
A four rolls and hits metal advertising boards near us. A clang, short, singular, followed closely by thundering footsteps.
Solid, rich wooden ‘tock’. Then thin, barely audible as the ball scrapes the edge of the bat.
Dull thud of a ball hitting leg pads, followed by hopeful shrieks that ricochet around the ground.
Metallic thud like an impact on a large metal filing cabinet.
Dad isn't scared to instigate the clapping, sending encouragement to the players. They finished their innings at over 200 runs.
I can hear creaks and cracks of the structure flexing. Those clicks flutter and surround me. A spatial non rhythm.
My listening changes when I'm anxious, I'm not so open. I have to work hard to stay sensitive.
I can see the microphone from where I'm sat across the other side of the hall. It looks alive, present and active against the left behind and discarded. I imagine it soaking up and capturing what’s in that space. Is it any more than the acoustics, the scientific and exact? Can it record anything of the history of where it sits? It actually looks a bit threatening, sentient. What is it listening for?
Not very inviting in here and I can hear piano scales nearby.
Another station announcement precedes the sliding, grating hum of a train arriving at the platform just feet from the front of the hall. A low, airy drone as the train stands static before the electrical whine and screeches build and rhythmic thuds move until the sound shifts direction and appears to come from behind me through the door.
I hear hissing and flow of water coming from the front of the hall, the toilets where my microphones are currently recording, filling, emptying, releasing.
Another train.
Soon I will get up from my fox stained seat and retrieve the microphone from the toilet’s harsh acoustics, avoiding the gloopy grey substance in the sink that looks alive with unnatural colors, and the troubling sinking floor where previous collapses already open up portals to the underneath.
I want to make some techno - So get a drum machine.
An unwelcome sound invades the train carriage, then the power of a smile.
A young voice sings along to music I can’t hear. Other voices mix and blur. A child calls out, Echo enjoys sweets, smacking his lips.
A new sound annoys me. Sharp, bright and fractured. Coins in a pouch? No a game, with metal pieces in a bag. The frequencies are high with many beyond my range of hearing, but now I know what it is I don't find it so distracting. There's a reason behind it, some purpose. My relationship with sounds out of my control can be difficult but I’m getting better at making friends.
Squelching impact into dense softness, was that a small hiss of gas?
An AI voice stutters and breaks up, syllables drawn out unnaturally (like a ‘90s Jungle timestretch), before reading us silly stories.
Echo plays stylophone, finding notes that work well together and repeating raw sawtooth phrases. At one point, he uses the pitch fine tune knob and makes fluid slides, pitch glides and sweeps like a Theremin.
The fabric flaps constantly, making conversation difficult.
Squelchy dance floor.
Engine straining as we navigate brown rivers of sludgy mud.
A light Bell tinkles, comes and goes and seems never far away, a part of the soundscape here. Sadly not enough to alert rabbits who arrive bloodied and beyond saving or shocked and able to limp away.
That pause, not knowing what to do or say, no space for listening.
Machine balanced precariously on a fold down table leads to uninspired techno fizzing out as travel sickness grows.
Listening in spaces I've only been outside of. Radio quality voice from out at sea. A pleasing industrial tone fills a high expanse, sustained and perfectly dull. I notice the most subtle shift as we move into a side room. It makes me smile. The spatial transition so delicious.
Starlings sit high and unseen. Their calls activate the acoustics, blurring with the sustain.