more on field recordings...

"suddenly dissatisfied with the fluid form that had evolved in the fifth [symphony], he [sibelius] began to dream of a continuous blur of sound without formal divisions - symphonies without movements, operas without words. instead of writing the music of his imagination, he wanted to transcribe the very noise of nature. he thought he could hear chords in the murmurs of the forests and the lapping of the lakes; he once baffled a group of finnish students by giving a lecture on the overtone series of a meadow..."

alex ross on sibelius in the rest is noise.

"i have seen
a curious child, who dwelt upon a tract
of inland ground, applying to his ear
the convolutions of a smooth lipped shell;
to which, in silence hushed, his every soul
listened intensely; and his countenance soon
brightened with joy; for from within were heard
murmurings, whereby the monitor expressed
mysterious union with its native sea."

w. wordsworth, from "the prelude"
image: cdv, circa 1880

before deep listening...

detail from a printed postcard circa mid 1930's or so, featuring some engineers testing radio reception from within the depths of "endless caverns", new market, VA. the men in the image are listening to the radio, nearly a mile from the entrance to the caverns. the back states clearly that "musical reception" was "exceptionally good".

like the incredible music of the magnetospheres that stephen mcgreevy has recorded with his VLF receivers aimed at the sky, i have to wonder what potential soundings this set up might have encountered from the depths of the earth. certainly it would be nice to listen to recorded music in such a setting, but i think it would be a lot nicer to actually be able to listen to such a setting generate its own music.

field recordings of music were certainly part of the recording world by this time (actually much sooner). location recordings were in production, but mostly towards sound effects and environments for radio theatre than for straight listening. i do have several nice 78's of weather sounds, and other supposed natural landscape actions such as ocean waves (most of which are faked), but unfortunately no gannett sound effects disc labeled "endless caverns and men manipulating radio equipment"!

of course, in light of recordings in cisterns and abbeys by the likes of pauline oliveros and stuart dempster (stellar recordings, i might add...), i can't help but think that these listeners might have made some music of their own in these depths, even if it was only their mumbling, whistling, and dragging around of equipment...