What is the chord of a place? It may be unanswerable, but in investigating this question, I made various field recordings on repeated visits to a particular location: a traffic 'island' called Frideswide Square, in Oxford.
Click on a red map locator below to launch a sound file.
You can mix the sounds and 'play' the location using the red map locators above, and the Soundcloud list below...
Explore the map locators and their associated sound files above, then try mixing one of the sounds above, with one from the SoundCloud list below...
Frideswide Square: Sound Map by Laurence Colbert
If you are a composer, why make a sound map? It seems so passive, so un-related to music and composition. But the planning, the recording, the editing, the interacting with the site, and the sharing of the results in a world-wide medium, are just examples of a very pro-active process. And ultimately in my choices of location, objects, and surfaces to record, I am 'composing' my own sound image of a particular site. For example: I chose also to include some of the electromagnetic topography of the site, certain areas 'underneath' the site, resonant surfaces within the site, and physical 'movements' and gestures specific to the site itself.
New technology allows for new forms of composition. Satellite imaging, the increasing integration of sound into the Internet, and ever developing computer technology bring us closer to a simulacrum or hyper-reality of the world we currently live in. Right now, it is still all up for grabs. I made this sound map, to arrange recordings in a logical and relevant fashion. If these were all on a CD one might hear them in a certain way; but in making a sound map, one can move around the location itself, and explore it on the way that one wants to. You can also mix your own version using different aspects captured. It is a sound diary of the time I spent documenting this place, but also mapped and documented as movement and investigation around a particular area.
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