Field Recording

Recorded at Howard CTA Station on 9 December, 2013 with a Sony PCM-M10 as I walked from the train platform through the station; outside past the bus terminal, and then into the adjacent parking garage. 

Howard CTA Station 9 December, 2013

At approximately 9 p.m. on Thursday, June 30, 2011 an unusually intense and massive hailstorm ripped through the East Garfield neighborhood, shattering car windows, sky lights, and making deep impressions on car hoods and roofs. Extensive and devastating damage was caused to trees and shrubs as the massive amount hail stones pummeled everything outdoors. The nearby Garfield Park Conservatory had all of its historic glass smashed, causing extensive and costly damage to all the plants inside except for those areas where new, stronger glass had been installed several years earlier. Electric power outages occurred across the city. High winds from the storm tipped over a couple of sailboats in Lake Michigan. My photo of one melting hail stone more than one inch in diameter indicates how billions of these caused massive damage as they rained down in a few minutes time. This YouTube video conveys the scene: http://youtu.be/XpGVUyxPL2A. 

Hailstorm June 30, 2011

Ice sheet spanning across lake pushing and crushing into shore at Sherwin on the Lake; Time start 3:32; Time end 4:37; Temp 22 F; Wind from SE; Microphone Røde NT4; location: 42°00'53.0"N 87°39'42.7"W
42.014728, -87.661854

Lake Ice Breaking February 28, 2015

Recorded 11am Sunday, May 24, 2015 in Bremen, Germany with a Sony PCM-M10 44.1kHz 24-bit. We were finally feeling the start of spring and some sunshine. Having just arrived from Chicago, I found the new sense of place remarkable.

Church bells, door opens in Bremen May 24, 2015

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

14 students exercising with loudspeakers and 9 volt batteries in their introduction to sound class. Sparks were seen and heard; a veritable electric storm in the studio.

Sounds from Thursday morning

Recorded with iPhone 5s in Jardín Botánica, site for Sounding Colombia, a workshop at the Universidad de Caldas, in Manizales, Colombia. Among the chorusing of frogs and city traffic a blue and green Andean motmot clucks a warning toward me. Later, a rufous-collared sparrow calls. Nearby, young people were rehearsing a physical theater performance.

Andean Motmot and frogs in Jardín Botánica

Recorded May 8, 2016 in Manizales, Colombia

6 PM Bells Over Manizales

Hildegard Westerkamp introduces our soundwalk on Friday June 18, 2010 in Koli, Finland, organized by Pessi Parviainen for the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology conference, "Ideologies and Ethics in the Uses and Abuses of Sound": http://www.joensuu.fi/soundscapes/

This recording can also be located and heard on the radio aporee maps: http://aporee.org/maps/?loc=7263  

Images from Koli and the soundwalk can be seen here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/eleonardson/sets/72157624295824960/

HW soundwalk Koli100619

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. 