Jez Riley French
I had been looking forward to this lecture for a while, as I knew Jez and his work related heavily to what I wanted to do for my project. His websites and recordings had featured in my blog previous to the lecture, so it was nice to put a name to a face, as it were, and to understand his reasoning behind his recordings and the use of contact mics (as well as many other more unusual types of microphone) instead of the more conventional recording techniques.
His reason for this was simply because he “got bored with the sounds [he] could hear with [his] naked ears”. He suggested our ears are getting weaker over time due to compression, and the lack of dynamic range in the sounds we hear. Jez considered using contact microphones to be a “re-opening” of the ears.
During the lecture, he gave several bits of advice, which I hope to take into my own work. The big one was listening and recording for durational periods. He likes to do this so he stops “imposing ideas” onto the sounds – in other words, stops letting his prediction of what the source will sound like affect what it actually sounds like. In the past, I have been guilty of only taking short recordings for a variety of reasons, including lack of time, not wanting to stand in a busy area for a long period of time, and hardware-related issues, such as lack of memory or battery power. Since his lecture, I have been recording for longer periods, where possible – though this has been difficult on windy days, as the wind hitting my headphones was often louder than the sound coming through them.
Other advice included practical pointers for recording, including not setting the volume above 7 – if you feel you need to go higher than that, you should move closer. This prevents the internal sound of the recorder becoming noticeable in the recording. Also, the headphone level should be set to the same as the level you listen to your television at. If you keep the headphones the same all the time, instead of changing both that and the gain, then you get a better understanding of how loud the source really is.
Whilst he was playing through his recordings, I also got several ideas about other places or objects I could record. The big metal warehouses just off from Boultham Avenue sound great when the motors inside are working, but could even create some interesting noises when they’re not. Equally, the metal fencing surrounding a lot of Tentercroft Street might have a lovely resonance travelling through the length of the line of fence sections. After hearing the wonderful cable sounds Jez captured, I will also look for long sections of cables or wires. I hope to have another recording trip soon.