Recorded on Saturday, September 5th for NPR’s Morning Edition invitation to share a minute of daybreak sounds from where you live, part of its Close Listening series http://www.npr.org/2015/09/03/436981928/what-does-daybreak-sound-like-where-you-live. My recording was not selected broadcast on the September 11th show. However, since it was made to be publicly shared and in spite of its shortcomings, I thought the recording provided something worth listening to. From the standpoint of energy transfer and acoustic communication, I hear the dynamic relationship of voices in the soundscape playing upon and within me. Its strength and weakness shift. 

As a regarding of the dawn chorus, only one gull's voice can be heard for a single, brief moment. There is no "chorus." For my verbal description, I spoke close and softly to the microphone. The sound of the waves on the beach obscure my voice, but the gull’s interruption is clear. Perhaps this shows simply that the source of sounds that define my sense of place are physically tied to my own proximity. Changes in this will effect their personal meaning and value.

Morning Edition’s call reminds me of a site-based micro radio event, “SoundTent at Camp Sherwin” for The Radius Episode 63 http://theradius.us/episodes. It was part of the real time streaming International Dawn Chorus Day event organized by soundCamp | REVEIL. 

Daybreak at camp Sherwin Sept. 5, 2015

Leonardson is a composer, radio artist, sound designer, instrument inventor, improviser, visual artist, and teacher, who has devoted a majority of his professional career to unorthodox approaches to sound and its instrumentation, with a broad understanding of texture, atmosphere and micro-tones. As a practicing artist and educator he has an interest in the elusive lines that separate art media and disciplines; the promise of technology to enable new possibilities in art, discovering connections between physical action, sensory perception, and ideas.

Leonardson performs regularly on the Springboard, an electroacoustic percussion instrument made from readily available materials. Applying his percussion skills and a piezo pickup to coil springs, wood, plastic combs, and rubber bands he creates rich tones and timbres that, in the words of Nicolas Collins, “evoke the sound world of a Balinese Gamelan orchestra.” Others compare these sounds to industrial vibrations and animal voices. 

Daybreak at camp Sherwin Sept. 5, 2015

eleon