Save Our Sounds
We thought we should help promote a fantastic project from BBC World Service that aims to preserve sounds...
Hello, I'm Kate Arkless Gray and I'm working on an exciting project for the BBC World Service called Save Our Sounds. There are so many photographs and words to capture the world, but barely anything in sound. We want to put that right and so we're asking people to help us preserve "endangered sounds" by recording them and sending them in to us. We've created an interactive map that allows you to upload your audio and place it exactly where it was recorded. Other users can then click around and travel the world in sound.
Getting people to actually record sounds for us is a bit of a challenge, so we're trying to make it as simple as possible. The map uploader is very easy to use and allows you to submit .wavs and .mp3s. The .wavs get automatically converted to mp3 before appearing on the map, so that it doesn't collapse under the weight of the files.
The really exciting bit is that we've been working with AudioBoo which is a free iPhone app that allows you to record an upload sound to the web. If you do this, and tag your sound with "BBC_SOS" it gets fed straight into our map (well, the moderation queue at least) via an RSS feed. Geotags then enable the sound to be placed exactly where it was recorded. Clever stuff.
We have to remember that this is a worldwide project and we have to be wary of assuming that everyone has access to the latest gadgets and high speed internet connections. To help people over the technical hurdles we're also offering a postal option and giving out the World Service phone number so that people can "ring in" their sounds. Their calls are converted and delivered to us as mp3s so that we can check them and add them to the map. Admittedly the quality of phoned-in sounds won't reach broadcast standard, but we don't just want our audiomap to reflect technologically advanced areas of the world.
Digital Planet is featuring Save Our Sounds in next week's programme and they're asking for your help to presvere the sound of 56k modems, dot-matrix printers and floppy disk drives. Can you help?
You can visit the Save Our Sounds map at http://www.bbcworldservice.com/saveoursounds and follow them online at http://www.twitter.com/bbc_sos.
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~11~RS~)
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Who is paying fore the MP3 licence to create these upload files?
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Hi Kate, Thanks for uploading my little 2 min projects 'Streets of Taipei' (Taiwan) and 'Causeway Bay to Kowloon' (Hong Kong). Before finding your/this BBC blog, I found your 2007 "travel/doc/journalism" projects on the Lonely Planet website. Your work is really great, a real mixture. I note you wrote the word "cacophony"... I haven't heard this word in a long time, prob because I've lived around Asia since 2006 and am starting to forget some English, even though I'm a fifth generation NZ-er!
A couple of notes: I'm so glad the BBC decided to coordinate Save Our Sounds; it gives people like me a great opportunity to share our work. I've been recording sounds for many years, especially since the advent of smaller digital recorders that can be nicely tucked away. Now my bigger/second note: I can't say too much on this public blog, but I think you get the idea that recording with bulky, "professional" looking equipment is not always appreciated in countries where concepts of freedom of speech, basic democratic liberties and democracy are still rather vague notions, often heavily degraded with a local slant.
I've had experiences in HK and Singapore where I had to avoid trouble by really emphasising that I am "doing nature recordings" of birds and animal-life (with my small handheld recorder). If I had used any word like "documentary", "report" or worse "Journalism" - I'd immediately be in trouble... I know from experience that people would be asking to see "the right permit" which simply doesn't exist for what I have been doing. These people (regimes) just don't "get it" that a "foreigner" might be only interested in documenting sounds and events from a cultural or perhaps anthropological perspective. Recording a Buddhist parade (which can be very political in some jurisdictions) or the sounds of families chatting, as they walk along the wharf (where ones presence can be easily interpreted as being a spy for foreign intelligence) can bring real trouble. My ready supply of excuses about recording seagulls/wildlife and my small handheld "normal looking" recorder have saved me several times!
But I should add that all the ready-made answers and types of equipment are no guarantee of "whatever" happening. If I remain unobtrusive, I can be accused of doing something unlawful. If I use bulky "seen" equipment, it can be considered that the work I am doing must be for a major broadcaster - and I get undesired attention. So for the people who have enjoyed the Save Our Sounds projects from around the world, don't think that it's simply a matter of going outside and pressing the record button. Just as recording the grunts of a gigantic guerilla in its natural habitat are difficult to obtain, it is often equally difficult to obtain the sounds of their human relatives.
Glen Clifford... Extended info on my projects at my homepage www.soundandtext.com
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