A park, forest, or landscape might appear to look healthy, but what does it sound like, and how can this sound reflect the health of the wildlife? This question is at the core of Bernie Krause, who has recorded thousands of places making what he calls “biophonies” to describe these recordings.
His natural sound recordings, also called soundscapes can show what happens to animals in stressful environments, and also show where our language comes from.
He started as a classic musician, and later became famous for introducing the Moog synthesizer in the 1960’ to bands such as George Harrison, Simon & Garfunkel and The Doors. Each band learned how to use the moog from Kruase and his partner Paul Beaver.
When doing a recording for a album called ‘In a Wild Sanctuary,’ Krause recorded a natural soundscape as part of the orchestration of the album. This experience inspired him to continue to record natural landscapes and sounds from that point forward.
Since 1968, he collected over 4,500 separate soundscapes from all over the world. Many of these are considred rare, in that the locations and natural locations have disappeared since he recorded them;.
He is able to compare some of his recordings, to show the impact that our society has on nature. For example, he recorded an area in Northern California before and after logging activities took place. The recordings show the differences visually in a spectrogram, and also in listening.
He has recorded in the Artic, in Borneo, Zimbabwe, and the Amazon. He also has recorded underwater, and recorded animals such as shrimp (which are very loud), and a sea anemone. Sounds of a glacier cracking jaguars purring, and the sound of desert, forest, and other ecosystems have been recorded by Krause.
Do you hear what I hear? You can listen to some of his recordings in the Great Animal Orchestra Youtube video, and also hear soundscapes on his website.
Image Source:
www.wildsanctuary.com
Links:
The Great Animal Orchestra – Natural Sounds by Bernie Krause Youtube Video