On Saturday the 28th of may I conducted a sound walk based on my plan in my last post. I started by borrowing the new aquarian h2a Hydrophone which also has a contact mic adapter which I’m eager to try, alongside a Korg contact mic, it has a clip which makes it easier to connect. I also took out the Zoom H5 for portability as I didn’t want to lug a big SoundDevices machine around. As well as this I had a regular contact mic and telephone pick up microphone just to see if I needed it.
Here are the mics I took out and the equipment.
So with my bag all packed, I headed out towards Richmond station, I cycled to Waterloo and got a train to Richmond. When I arrived I cycled to the closest section of the river which was a bridge and my recording began. I decided to cycle as walking would have taken forever, but I made sure to not listen to any music or wear headphones apart from recording, and to make a consistent effort to listen at all times. I was listening and not speaking but soaking my environment and cycling slow, and when if found a sound that lured me in, that was interesting I would stop and record. Similar to how Annea Lockwood described, she didn’t record the whole length of the Hudson River it would have taken ages, instead, she recorded parts that felt relevant, and that offered a different contextualization or soundscape than the previous.
The first location was Richmond Bridge as I arrived, it was a busy Saturday lunchtime and as I went under the tunnel, the sounds of the bridge reverberating against the boats waiting to be rented captivated me. I recorded this moment and few times and attempted to use my contact mic on the barrier but it didn’t have enough resonance to capture anything.
After recording under Richmond Bridge I carried on cycling, slowly and listening to my environment. Attempting to see what lured me in, what captures me. Thinking also to Peter Cusack’s work with Sonic Journalism and perhaps if any areas of importance came to me. I started to think about how my own sound map could be? How can I make it my own, well firstly using different mics such as contact mics and hydrophones? And make it about what’s around the river Thames rather than just the river Thames.
I came across Richmond Lock and Weir and there was a sign explaining the importance of this lock. How it operates and when it was built, there was a long history of flooding and protecting the river from low tides and floods from high tides. I believed it had an interesting soundscape. I could hear the water slowly making its way through the barrier and the high structure interested me. I locked my bike and went up towards the top walkway and recorded some sounds of the barrier from above. I did feel perhaps it didn’t offer anything of any considerable amount so I didn’t take any photos. I went further down the path and saw a perfect place to test this new Aquarian hydrophone.
I placed the hydrophone within the river and felt captivated by its clarity, others I have tried have not been as good. I could hear the water trickling and the sounds of boats moving across the barrier. The waves that the boats would leave as well.
After doing this Hydrophone recording I did then decide that a varied sound map of different microphone types would be more interesting than just a conventional XY microphone collection of sounds. I think at this point I understood that perhaps my sound map wouldn’t be as conventional as others and this intrigued me to what it could represent.
After the Richmond Lock and Weir, the Thames path went along behind Kew Gardens. I was excited for this part as I’d never done this cycle before and wasn’t sure what I’d come across. It was quiet and full of nature and trees covering the path, I could hear so many birds and trees swaying in the wind as I was listening. It really captivated me and offered an interesting take on my sounds so far, there were so many points I wanted to stop and record and looking back perhaps I should of. But I considered what artist KMRU spoke about in his visiting practitioner lecture about waiting to record and listening more than just recording. So when I arrived at a specific point with a walkway into the bushes that is the Thames path I pointed my recorder into the forest right next to the Thames and recorded.
The recordings sounded great, but I did feel awake to the aeroplane sounds coming over it. Something I hadn’t really noticed before. I’m not sure if this was my practice evolving and my listening becoming better through doing other things. But I found myself frustrated, there I was cycling on a beautiful day, birds tweeting and I’m field recording and every few minutes or so a really loud plane comes over. The juxtaposition between nature and man-made sounds is a real thing you notice in cities. It feels like a battle of humans taking over and nature fighting back, even in a sanctuary of nature such as Kew Gardens, you could still hear human sounds still taking over the sounds of nature.
Next along the path, a common sonic experience is the Rowers coming by, always with a small boat at the front with a megaphone communicating to them. Now I’ve never rowed by I’ve cycled from my house in southeast London to Richmond park a few times. I’ve always found it a funny and interesting sound, something you don’t hear as you go east of Tower Bridge or even in central London. Only really heard west of Battersea Park. I recorded it and logged it in my notes.
I continued on until I arrived at Barnes Bridge. I hadn’t used a contact microphone at this point and I wanted to attempt this Korg one as it has a clip which makes it easier to actually get a solid connection to achieve resonance. I’ve realised that in order for contact microphones to sound or pick up anything there needs to be resonance and vibration through an object. If you put it on a piece of metal or anything solid and if it is not moving you won’t have any sounds, so I looked for things that vibrated, in my journey to the Thames Tidal Barrier in Greenwich I would tap things and interact with my environment. The train station and bridge that goes over the Thames interested me sonically. I walked up the bridge and found a fence that I could stick my hand through and attach the Korg contact mic to a piece of metal that was attached to the railway. I googled the train times and waited until a train approached, arrived, and then left. And the sound was great! Really interesting and made me want to use the contact mic even more.
I continued cycling along the Thames path, once I left Barnes, I found the soundscape to be continuous and not as interesting or perhaps in my head I had found that it was more of the same. We were getting close to central London and I was aware the soundscape would change heavily. I was approached by a large group of curious swans and geese while attempting to clip a contact mic to a water reed that was swaying in the wind.
I hadn’t recorded any of the wildlife apart from the birds and everywhere along with Richmond and surrounding areas, there was a lot of wildlife. More than central London. It was important to represent these areas with honesty and this is why I recorded these animals.
I continued on and recorded a rower teaching younger rowers and explaining how to make the correct movements with the paddle. Again a very prominent sound across the Thames path so I felt it was relevant.