Jan
1
2019
HNY 2019!
Wishing all AWSRG members and friends a fulfilling 2019. May the natural world sing for your microphones, or even better, just for you.
This year we will be holding our biennial workshop/conference. The organising committee are still considering venues (although we have one which looks very suitable), and our anticipated dates are the second week of July (a little earlier than usual). This time will hopefully allow researchers who would normally be in the field during spring to attend, plus allow a pre-eminent visiting recordist from overseas to be our keynote guest.
More details of all this as they are confirmed. But for now, lightly pencil the 8th-12th July in your (digital?) diaries, and we’ll look forward to gathering again.
Nov
28
2018
Freshwater Listening Concert
Recently, several AWSRG members – Leah Barclay, Bob Tomkins, Vicki Hallett, Melinda Barry and myself – joined interested folks from near and far for a weekend of environmental listening and creative sound making in central Victoria.
The event was titled ‘Freshwater Listening’, an initiative of acclaimed sound artist (and also AWSRG member) Ros Bandt. The venue was Australia’s first – only? – ‘Acoustic Sanctuary’; as Ros has designated her property near the small village of Fryerstown, near Castlemaine.
Oct
19
2018
Audiowings – out now!
Thanks to our amazing journal editors – Sue Gould, text and Tony Baylis, audio (with John Campbell proof reading) – the latest edition of Audiowings (plus accompanying CD) is now available.
If you’re a paid up AWSRG member, you will have received it recently. Its arrival in the post may also be a prompt for a few members to renew their membership! If you’d like to receive the journal, simply get in touch with us (via contact form) and become a member.
So, what’s in this edition? A personal reflection and summary of our 2017 Baradine workshop from Bob Tomkins, articles on environmental music practices by Vicki Hallet and Nicole Carroll, Sue Gould discusses song variation in Cicadabirds, Michael Mahony details his research on the intriguing vocalising of the Green-thighed Frog, pioneering field recordist Les Gilbert converses with John Campbell, and I recall my recent experience in New Guinea’s cloudforest.
Then there’s the CD, featuring humpback whales, flamingos, froglets, curious crows and acquatic soundscapes. And a diversity of vocalisations from our cover bird, New Guinea’s White-winged Robin.
And finally, a reminder that past editions of Audiowings are digitally archived and available to members on this site.
May
11
2018
The Dance of a Newly Discovered Bird-of-Paradise
Differences in vocalisations are increasingly being investigated as to whether they indicate hitherto unrecognised new species. In this case, the visual display is just as significant. And amazing.
I can imagine how many hours went into locating and filming these birds to capture the high-resolution images and audio on this video. That it is such an iconic bird makes me wonder how many other discoveries await patient naturalists and sound recordists.
Click here for the full research paper. Thanks to Tony Baylis for alerting us to this new research.
Apr
27
2018
Here’s the buzz on recording bees!
by Vicki Powys
I knew about buzz pollination from watching David Attenborough’s Life of Insects on TV a few years ago. Some bees could buzz at a certain pitch to release pollen from certain flowers. “Middle C…”, said David Attenborough, “…the pitch has to be Middle C”. I was intrigued as I’d never heard about this before.
Then one spring morning in 2016, on my woodland property in Capertee Valley, New South Wales, yellow guinea flowers began to bloom and I could hear the conspicuous flight hum of a very large and shiny black bee. It buzzed loudly as it settled on each flower, before zooming off to the next one. This was a female Australian carpenter bee Xylocopa aeratus, and I was keen to get a photo and to record its buzz.
Female carpenter bee Xylocopa aeratus buzzing a guinea flower Hibbertia obtusifolia, Capertee Valley NSW, 8 November 2016.
I waited amidst the low-growing guinea flower shrubs, seated on a folding stool, camera and recorder at the ready. It became a daily ritual – at dawn each day I’d go off to watch bees buzzing. As well as the big, black carpenter bees there were also smaller native bees, all buzzing the guinea flowers and collecting pollen. I took photos and made videos with my Lumix pocket camera, and recorded the buzzing sounds on my Olympus LS10, using its built-in mics or a Sennheiser ME66 gun microphone.
My bee recording kit – folding stool, Lumix DCM-TZ60 camera, Olympus LS10 audio recorder and Sennheiser ME66 supercardoid microphone in pistol grip.
Of course I was keen to know if all my bees buzzed at Middle C, so I analyzed the recordings to find the fundamental pitch of the pollination buzz for each bee species. For this I downloaded free Praat software, and learned how to use it from a YouTube video.
My findings were exciting! These Capertee Valley bees buzzed at a wide range of frequencies – up to one octave either side of Middle C! The pitch of the buzz did not relate to the size of the bee, nor to the size of the flower.
Audio: Female carpenter bee, Xylocopa aeratus. The higher-pitched pollination buzz alternates with the flight hum.
30 October 2016, 7.19 am EST, ME66 gun mic to Olympus LS10.
Apr
7
2018
Join us! – Ecoacoustics Congress, Brisbane, June 2018
How can sound deepen our understanding of the environment? What role can acoustic monitoring play in helping identify the presence of animals in a habitat? What indications of ecosystem health may analysis of soundscapes offer? And how can artists and musicians respond to the natural environment and scientific data through creative engagement?
These questions and more will bring researchers and artists from the world to Brisbane this June for the biennial Ecoacoustics Congress.
Mar
23
2018
Is Birdsong Music? – book & CD reviews by Michael Hannan
AWSRG member Michael Hannan has written two reviews of recent publications by zoomusicologist, composer, violinist (and fellow AWSRG member), Hollis Taylor.
Hollis’s work presents insights and responses to the songs of Pied Butcherbirds, and essentially poses the question; do birds display a sense of aesthetics? It is an intriguing question!
Click here for Michael’s review of Hollis’s book, ‘Is Birdsong Music?‘
Michael himself is a composer and performer, and had one of his pieces premiered at our recent conference by clarinetist Vicki Hallett (which can be heard here – scroll down to audio file #19)
Feb
20
2018
Vicki Hallett attends Sonic Mmabolela
In 2017, Australian composer and musician Vicki Hallett attended the 5th Sonic Mmabolela workshop. Sonic Mmabolela is a residency for sound artists and composers with previous experience in sound recording and experimentation. It is held annually at Mmabolela Reserve in the Limpopo valley of South Africa.
Click here to hear some of the compositions from Sonic Mmabolela 2017
Live at Mabolel Rock from Vicki Hallett on Vimeo.
Jan
28
2018
Presentations from the 2017 AWSRG Conference, Baradine
Each of the presentations at our 2017 conference were audio recorded as a document of the event, and are presented here in program order.
The acoustic in the room makes it difficult to hear at times, but hopefully the audio will be clear enough. Thanks to Bob Tomkins for making these recordings.