Evening Prayer

The sunset prayer outside of the American Moslem Society, Dearborn.

St. Ladislaus Haiku

Another riff on the St. Ladislaus haiku. Feels closer, but still missing something. Thoughts?

Cypress Knees

Cypress Knees

Dogsledding Profile

Preliminary Haiku Take 2

*** featuring no zipping noises

Preliminary Hamtramck Haiku

Outside of St. Ladislaus church Hamtramck. Last church bells of the night.

A new take on Apple Picking

A more concrete version of the apple picking haiku. I plan over the week to play with the verbal clips and try a few different versions—see what feels right. This feels like it's missing something big.

I put ambient orchard noise below the track to make it sound fuller/ without awkward dead pauses.

Indian Summer

A new riff on the ducks haiku I posted earlier, this one includes some crunching leaves and a few words about beautiful fall days. Feedback appreciated. Thank you,

Steph

Just Clips, super Rough

Okay so here's the problem... I have spent all week editing down and editing down clips of two really cute kids picking apples. I'd like some feedback at this point to figure out which clips are particularly strong.

After that perhaps I can apply a structure that involves more picking sounds and field recording from the orchard. I'm looking for the strongest clip or two that can fill the haiku space without having too many words.

Clearly I am at a super rough point and will be working all weekend—Steph

Brawling Ducks

Hi all,

Last night I went for a long walk in the arb to record the sound of walking through the leaves. However, it was rather balmy out, and the leaves just were not up to being crisp and fall-like. Instead, my friend and I witnessed ducks fighting on the Huron river. This is a really really rough draft of the ducks fighting, mixed with the sound of a U of M emergency helicopter leaving the hospital. Feedback looked fondly upon—Steph

these are some rough owls

a few barred owls telling us to get away from their nest. i had the microphone up very loud, so there is a lot of extra noise in this...but if there was a way to smooth it out, i think the owl calls are hauntingly beautiful.

saganaki draft 2

are the volume levels too quiet at the end? is there enough happening towards the end?

Community Farm of Ann Arbor Final?

So here is the piece with a little more room at the front for the intro music. I think i finally decided that the laugh was not appropriate for the piece because there is not really anything to giggle about, I suppose. haha.

Fourth of July Bees

So this piece is peaking at around -6. I think Rob's voice hits -4 at one point. I think the bees sound fine, but I'm having trouble beefing up the voice.

beekeeper rejuvenated

ok here is a new version of the bee keeper.

the levels of the vocals may not be good enough yet.

the last bit of narration may be the best choice out of the other bits i had to work with.

thoughts and suggestions please and thank you!

christine

Community Farm of Ann Arbor draft 2 with music intro and outro

here is another draft. this time i have included the intro and outro music. i toned down some of the abrasive digging sounds.

how do the two pieces of music work together at the end? i tried to leave a small amount of space in between them.

they vaguely end and start with notes that work together.

suggestions?

Ice cream shop haiku

I don't really know if this is an effective haiku in terms of bringing you to a place really quickly and leaving you with an impression. There is a lot going on and I'm just a little unsure about the piece as a whole. It's too long right now so I will have to edit it down. Any ideas about what's not working or what I should cut out? I have more rough drafts coming up soon as well. Let me know what you think.
Hannah

Community Farm of Ann Arbor

here is a rough draft from the farm.

is there too much talking?

the singing in the background represents the singing that the farm workers do as they weed the field of the beans. however,

i do not know if it fits into the haiku....if it's too abstract.

i am still working on the ending as well. i could let the singing finish the piece, i could add some

more soil/weeding sounds, or i could add in the giggle of the Annie, the woman who is talking...just because it's a nice laugh.

suggestions?

Busy Bees

Here is a rough draft of the bees and their beekeeper.

What kind of energy level does this draft have?

christine

Summer travels?

Is anyone headed towards Saugatuck this summer? A listener wrote in with an idea for a sonic haiku, but she doesn't have recording gear, etc.

For that matter, if you have travel plans in and around Michigan, let us know where you're headed so we can brainstorm ideas for recording.

-stephanie

here we go

aloha.

so short's brewery turned out to be a recording flop. i called and sent an email to them before i traveled up north, but no one read it. i stopped in to say hi and try a beer, but caught them off-guard. they finally sent an email back, but i was out of email contact and out of the area. so. oh well. i have learned my lesson about giving people more notice.

believe it or not, this thursday is the first date that rob, the bee guy and i could meet up. so that recording is happening thursday night.

also happening on thursday, most likely, is some recording at the ann arbor community farm (they just called me back today as well) i spoke with the man in charge of the farm at the people's food coop about a week ago, and he was all for the recording. he said they are always planting and harvesting, and they have cows, which is something i am interested in capturing. i know there is already a barnyard haiku, so i will probably head in a different direction.

what i do have at the moment, are a grandfather and his granddaughter talking about s'mores as they are making them around a campfire. i found the camping haiku after i did this s'more recording, but maybe this would be a little different? i will post a clip asap.

a slow start for a busy lady, but i hope to move more quickly with these this weekend.

christine

Sonic Haiku attempt one

I accidentally put this up as an empty post. But I also wanted to say that contacting people about recording in a place is very difficult and I am looking for advice. I called the bingo location plenty ahead of time but they were very resistant what with worrying about me disrupting the game. They didn't want me wandering around during the game and bugging the players. Also the age difference was a huge thing to get past in terms of approachability and them taking me seriously. Is there any advice on this front or is it something you just get past with time and experience?

Sonic Haiku Attempt One: Bingo. Game Play.

So here it goes. The first sonic haiku attempt of what I'm sure will be many for me this summer. Okay. There are a couple factors that have been a little difficult to work around since I've been back home. The weather. And the fact that I have no car. The sonic haikus that involve recording outside have been hard to start. It has literally been raining and cold for the last week so ice cream shops aren't open, no one wants to golf or sail with me, etc. I tried recording at the dunes the other day when the rain let up but it was so windy still. I really want to find some way to use the material but I am still working that out. However, I talked to my boss (the sailor) and he said he would take me out on the lake when the weather cleared up and I also talked to some people at the yacht club. Excited about that one. In terms of this haiku though, I had no idea what I was getting into. I thought bingo was going to be kind of a smaller event especially in Traverse City. Wrong. There were like two hundred and fity people there. This made it difficult in terms of recording because there was a lot of chatter for getting specific sounds and I couldn't necessarily plan to be around the person who said bingo when it happened. Also each game lasted 40 minutes so I tried to do the best I could with it. I am thinking about going to a bingo event in Cedar because I know for sure that it will be smaller and hopefully more intimate making it easier to get better material. I plan on getting some interviews for this haiku as well. I know that I am kind of off to a slow start but I should be able to pick up the pace after getting a car (by the 19th) and now that I am adjusted and all moved in at home.
Let me know what you think of this one though. There are some nice moments but I'm not really convinced this is what I want. You're input would be great. Thanks so much.

Welcome to this experiment

For a while I've had a hunch it would be nice to have a place online for Sounds of the State contributors (and potential contributors) to share their in-progress audio and give each other feedback. I'm not sure a blog is the best way to do it, but it can't hurt to give it a try.

I recommend posting your mp3s using DivShare --it's free and allows you to embed code with a nice little audio player.

Here's a refresher on the Sounds of the State submission guidelines.

I think it's best to keep audio posts under a minute each, keeping in mind that completed sonic haiku for the series are about 20-21 seconds (30 seconds when packaged with the music intro and outro.)

Let me know if you have ideas about how best to use this blog space. I'm looking forward to trying it out.

-stephanie