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I like as a student?
I think I was, uh, I think I was curious.
I recall that I wanted to do everything when I was a student.
I wanted to play the piano, I wanted to
play in the jazz bands, I wanted to do electronic music,
I wanted to do composition,
et cetera, so I kind of did everything.
Umm, soundscape composition is actually, uh
very strong in Canada and in the whole world, if you look at the whole world
then soundscape composition and acoustic ecology is, those are
big things centered in Canada.
There's a lot of activity here, uh, interestingly and, uh
it was something I've been interested in for quite a long time
but didn't have the resources to kind of do.
You needed, I mean when I started
you needed a portable recorder, hah, tape recorder
that you could, and microphone, that you could take out to, uh
into the field and record stuff.
I, I mean, uh, there's lots of interesting
sounds around so, umm, the idea of being able to use them in
composition is, is fun and, umm
and it's a different, it's, it's a different kind of, umm
source of material than say
synthesizing things in the studio.
But, umm, there's lots of music that combines both and, uh.
So I got into it because I
I was interested in, you know, in
in the richness of sounds that are out there in the world, and, uh
and being able to sort of, I guess you develop
a sensibility for them and then
uh, get into recording them,
trying to listen, then you need to listen to them more carefully and then decide "Oh
can I use something, uh, from this to
in, in some kind of composition?" and.
So in my case I end up
umm, in my compositions, uh, that, that are
what you could call soundscape compositions
they're not that realistic in the sense that
this is a representation of me out in the woods, you know
observing the mating calls of the prairie chickens.
But I use prairie chicken mating calls, haha, in a context that's got
other sounds that weren't there, so I'm layering
different kinds of sounds in and then often
manipulating them quite a bit so that they're not sort of, umm
representative completely.
Umm, so it's, it's kind of a world that goes from the real into the
I guess into the, umm, fantasy.
Uh, it's, it's a lot of fun, umm, to do, I must say
and in, in this studio it's great, uh
to have such a nice listening space, and then
uh, in my case I'm interested in
spacializing the sound and having it move around so when I'm sitting here I'm
hearing the sounds coming from all around me
and moving across the listening space and that kind of thing.
So these eight loudspeakers that we have here, umm
make for a really nice environment to do that kind of thing.
I'm hoping that people will find it in engaging
to listen and especially in a, in an immersive
environment like with eight loudspeakers
because it's very special to have the sound all around you.
So that is what I hope for and also, um,
you know we want to draw attention to the environment, to, to, uh
to the disappearing environment, the disappearing soundscapes, I, I mean
it's, it's just one aspect of all of that and people are
are recording how much
well taking note of all of the
the encroachment of the urban onto the rural and then
and the fact that, in fact if you're listening
you realize how noisy it is out there
even in our, in our university environment, it's
very noisy and, umm
and we should be aware of that because it's, it's not good for us, umm
it's, it's not healthy and it's also, you know, partly-.
So that's what we're trying to draw
some attention to that, if we can sensitize people to listening in general
then they might be more aware of
listening that's danger- or sounds that are dangerous.
Also that we're not hearing all of the frogs that we used to hear
uh, out there in the, around the ponds and that kind of thing.
One would hope that it could make for a better planet.
We have to try.