July 18 is World Listening Day and to celebrate I thought I’d upload an unusual sound for you to listen to:
It’s a bit hissy, but then I was trying to record something incredibly quiet. My recording was inspired by sound artist Lee Patterson. I interviewed Lee by a pond in the English Lake District last year while researching my new book on amazing sounds. Lee was making recordings for his composition The Laughing Water Dashes Through, a work work prompted by the devastating floods that had hit the nearby market town of Cockermouth a few years previously.
Spectrogram of sound
The underwater world is very sound rich. As sound travels very effectively through the water it is used by all aquatic animals. To capture underwater sound you need a hydrophone (preferably a more sensitive one than I have so the recording is less hissy) and a digital recorder. The audio clip you heard was the sound of tadpoles munching and nibbling on my hydrophone while they searched for algae to eat.
You can hear some of Lee’s recordings on The Wire, including burning peanuts. Can you think of a stranger sound than that?
The Sound Blog 