SoundsField recordingsFrequenciesDecibelsInstrumentsGlossaryToolsLearn
  1. Home
  2. Field recordings
  3. United Kingdom
  4. London
  5. Parallel sonic worlds: Birchtrees & Tate… – London
Field recording · United Kingdom

Parallel sonic worlds: Birchtrees & Tate Modern riverside

London Borough of Southwark, Greater London, England, United Kingdom

A 6-minute field recording by Peter Cusack made in London, United Kingdom on 16 May 2022, in the afternoon. Soundscape: wind, forests and contact-mic recordings.

Listen

Parallel sonic worlds: Birchtrees & Tate Modern riverside
6:09
Spectrogram of Parallel sonic worlds: Birchtrees & Tate Modern riverside
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

The bright green birch leaves looked beautiful as they shimmered in the wind on this sunny day. The sound is quiet but easy to hear. The movement also creates a vibration in the wood of the tree. This track uses a combination of normal and contact mics to crossfade from the outside atmosphere, where a distant guitarist entertains in front of the Tate Gallery, to the internal fluttering as picked up by a contact mic on the tree itself. When the wind drops the vibration in the wood disappears too.

Written by Peter Cusack on radio aporee ::: maps.

About the place

London is a city of about 8,961,989 people in England, United Kingdom. OttoAnna lists 171 field recordings from here.

Equipment mentioned: Contact microphones. Piezo pickups that record vibrations in solid materials instead of airborne sound.

Recorded nearby

More by Peter Cusack

More wind recordings

Sources & credits