soundings's posterous

This last post for the Roofless Soundings contains a variety of excerpts from the last two walks which ranged from 30-40mins in duration, all made together with the walkers improvised in the moment, a selection of subtle, playful and fierce sounds that give a sense of moving within the sonic geography of the city.  Time now to digest the experience and feedback and to look forward to more Soundings permutations.. Thankyou everyone who participated &/or helped make it happen.  Will add photos of people Sounding soon..

Some pictures today - of the shop window sound map..words and sound to come another day - off back to Chatham, it's been a really strong encounter between the Derive Tour artists, the Saltmarket regulars, UZ team and the DeriveTourists.  And of course Glasgow itself, I always feel uplifted and aware of life when I come here..

Yesterday was such a good day. Did two walks with two quite different groups, one with several people from community choirs – great to have people who like playing with their voices and comfortable with directing the sounds within the group.  The other was a very mixed group of individuals who were open, experimental and touching.

My head is teeming with so many thoughts..how well it went..how wonderful the participants were, funny, thoughful, playful, poignant..the potential for other Soundings and the situations it would also work well in – with choirs, inside buildings, in residence, as a film etc etc. but this morning I've run out of time so the edited clips from 23.7.11 will do in place of words.

( Had the most amazing jam packed bus ride back to Abraham's flat last night, with a crazy clarinet player and a chinese salsa dancer, even more reasons to love Glasgow.)

Edd & Diane joined me yesterday

in an intro to Soundings test run, along with Paul they're going to be Sounder Guides. All three have varied practices based in Live Art and sound so it's also an opportunity to share practice and ideas behind our work. How we make what we make and who we make it for and with.

 

For Merchant City Soundings the group size is limited to 16, having made Soundings with smaller groups before I'm introducing Sounder Guides to keep a cohesion as we move through the streets, and to filter the found and vocalised sounds out to the group.

 

It's great to alternate from being the Sound Gatherer/Transmitter to the receiver/transmitter, having an insight into how another person hears the world and then how they translate that into a vocalisation..which sounds they pick and which ones you were dying to use but had to let go. There is a feeling of being utterly present in the moment with the group, open to sound and transmission, connected as auditory beings.

 

Edd & Diane's feedback helped me decide to plan a rough route or area to walk in encompassing different sonic spaces, rather than a complete drift and to open the opportunity to be a Sounder out to the whole group, both things I'd been uncertain about. I also helped focus my method of describing Soundings and enabling the intital steps into becoming auditory beings for an hour.

 

I'm very excited to be making the first public Soundings today, all those unknown voices that are coming to join us and utter wonderful noises.

 

As usual I recorded the whole walk, some short extracts here.

 

Witnessed the 3pm prison van ritual again yesterday – during the meeting for all the Derive Tour artists the van came up from the court, stopped at the lights and the inmates began hammering on the window while some of their mates walked alongside or banged back. Wasn't quick enough with the recorder it's an affecting racket. Apparently they do it everyday. Saying goodbye to the world for now, heading for Barlinnie.

 

The empty shop is now ready and waiting for the public to come and interact with us all, give feedback, draw a sound map, make footprints, tell a story for the Pint of no return and meet the Bird Man...

I've been writing these blogs in the Jive Cafe on Argyle St (West End), along with my breakfast..today they've totally spoilt me with extra coffee and two tables - one for breakfast and one for computer..hehe what a routine

Took myself on a listening walk yesterday to get a sense of the sonic geography of Merchant City.  Although there won't be a set route for Soundings and sounds can't be guaranteed to be in the same place at the same or different time another day, streets and spaces do have specific and varied acoustic qualities and I'd like the Soundings participants to experience the richness of this and tap into the timbre of Merchant City.  Saltmarket alternates between stillness and flow (traffic and people) depending on the traffic lights at Glasgow Cross, other frequent passers by go back and forth greeting or cursing depending on their state of mind – as ever Glasgow is a friendly place and I had lots of unexpected converstions along my route, Trongate is fiercely busy with buses throbbing and pwssss-ch -ing a Gull colony dominates the roof of T.J.Hughes and the empty site across the street wheeling and Keaarring north to south – I wonder if they've had to alter the frequency of their calls to rise over noise pollution, like other urban birdlife, or if their calls were already suited to this level of volume..I'll post some field recordings soon.

On the North side of Merchant City I drifted up and across catching the sounds of air con and other extractors, expensive car wheels rumbling across stone sets, ever present Gulls, the buses and clammer of Trongate filtered by buildings and lack of activity except the occasional cough or comment bursting from a pub door.  I ended in Tontine Lane where the high buildings form a courtyard that contains it owns sounds and funnels in some from elsewhere. 

Met Paul one of the Sounder Guides in the evening to share a bit about our practices and interest in making this kind of work with the public in public spaces and give him an overview of what to expect. Looking forward to meeting some of the other guides this morning and doing a workshop/test run with them to re-discover the places I visited yesterday and re-invent them with our voices.

First visit to 16 Saltmarket, Glasgow yesterday, the empty shop base for Soundings and the other Derive Tours in the Roofless at Merchant City programme.  Going to make a cumulative sound map drawing with the participants on the window at the end of each tour with a Listening post in the window on the right.  Off now for a scout about.