Today I'm going to write about Chris Watson,who specialises in recording sounds ambiences , natural and other location sounds and the recording session we had with him during Iran-Uk sonic residency at sound department of LCC.
Watson is one of the world's leading recorders of wildlife and natural phenomena , and for Touch he edits his field recordings into a filmic narrative. For example the unearthy groaning of ice in an Icelandic glacier is a classic example of , in Watson's words , putting a microphone where you can't put your ears. He was born in Sheffield where he attended Rowlinson School and Stanningtone College (now part of Sheffield College) . In 1971 he was a founding member of the influential Sheffield-based experimental music group Cabaret Voltaire . His sound recording career began in 1981 when he joined Tyne Tees Television . Since then he has developed a particular and passionate interest in recording the wildlife sounds of animals , habitats and atmospheres from around the world. As a freelance recordist from film , tv and radio , Chris Watson specialises in natural history and documentary location sound together with track assembly and sound design in post production.
He started the workshop talking about the relation between sound and space and the importance of sound design in architecture.He knew that I'm interested in Acoustic Architecture so he recommended a book called " Spaces speak , are you listening?". He said it's a very good reference book and it's by Barry Blesser and Linda-Ruth Salter from MIT in Boston . Barry Blesser is the man who invented digital reverberation, helped start Lexicon in 1971.The book starts with the story behind cave paintings and the relationship between sound , image and space in them which led to the idea of cave paintings being the first experience of motion pictures and it moves on to contemporary architecture , the disaster that ends with the rooms like we live in everyday and unfortunately every other modern building as well.
He then introduced different type of recorders that could be useful for field recording.He argued it's much more challenging to get out and get a recording that encapsulates the sounds of a place than taking photos of that place. Being a recorder for long time he said he still finds it quite difficult simply knowing where to start. Before starting a record you should at least be sure about some factors such as perspective , dynamic range or...perspective is the relative distant between the source of the sound and the microphone and by that we have two kinds of recording in terms of perspective. "close perspective recording" and "distant perspective recording" . Dynamic range is a measurement of the difference between the quitese possible sound (silence) and the loudest possible sound that can be handled by a given medium.
After he shared his thoughts on kit and technique , playing various recordings of his own work. We'd then head outside in the afternoon , using the university's equipment to put the theory into practice.
Currently Chris Watson is
working on a new work to be installed at opera North in Leeds from the 27th
Feb. to 15th March 2014. The piece is titled Hy Brasil and will be an
Ambisonic sound installation re-creating the soundscape of an island that may
or may not have existed off the south west coast of Ireland during the 16th
century .He believes that recording can be an art form and it all depends on
presentation.
If you are interested in field recording I suggest you take a look at his works on his website where you can view archive videos and download various tracks. I'm sure you'll be fascinated by many of his works. http://www.chriswatson.net/
