SoundsField recordingsFrequenciesDecibelsInstrumentsGlossaryToolsLearn
  1. Home
  2. Field recordings
  3. United Kingdom
  4. Reading
  5. Clanging wires inside a lamp post – Reading
Field recording · United Kingdom

Clanging wires inside a lamp post

A33, Reading, Reading RG2 0JZ, UK

A field recording by Felicity Ford made in Reading, United Kingdom on 12 January 2015, in the morning. Soundscape: wind, streets & traffic and contact-mic recordings.

Listen

Clanging wires inside a lamp post
0:00
Spectrogram of Clanging wires inside a lamp post
Spectrogram of the full recording (time left to right, frequency bottom to top), generated by the Internet Archive.

Tip: press play to see the sound's live frequency spectrum in blue over the waveform.

Recordist's notes

On several occasions I'd noticed that the cables inside a lamp post on the A33 clang interestingly in the wind. It is as though long cables travel inside the lamp-post, and clang and swish around in high winds... it's quite a subtle sound and because it's on a dual carriageway, bordered on each side by dense, fast-moving traffic, I thought that isolating the sound from the environment by using a contact microphone might better help me to hear it. In this recording I attached a contact microphone to the lamp post with blu-tack and recorded in mono to my EDIROL R-09. I think it's amazing - you can really hear the wires twisting about inside the lamp-post, and whipping in the wind. I recorded from outside too, so you can hear the contrast, but I love knowing that this sound is happening whenever there is wind. I also love that it seems like a mistake - none of the other tall lamp posts make this sound, so maybe something isn't secured. Maybe one day someone will mend this and then the sound will disappear... but for now it's here to enjoy when the wind is blowing.

Written by Felicity Ford on radio aporee ::: maps.

About the place

Reading is a city of about 318,014 people in England, United Kingdom. OttoAnna lists 153 field recordings from here.

Equipment mentioned: Roland / Edirol R-05 & R-09 and Contact microphones. Compact Roland/Edirol recorders that were popular for early sound-map contributions.

Recorded nearby

More by Felicity Ford

More wind recordings

Sources & credits