Give it about 30 seconds to kick in...

Harp, two violins, clarinets, alto and tenor sax

Performed by orquesta tipica Selecion del Centro, directed by Julio Rosales Huatuco

Recorded by Dale Olsen on Sunday, June 24 1979 in Acolla, Junin, Peru, during the festival of San Juan Bautista

"No Lo Cuentes A Nadie"

This guy rolls through the streets blasting this music, letting you know the water truck is outside. If you're out of drinking water, you just run outside and buy a 5 gallon jug for the house, as the tap in San Cris is not potable.

"Agua pura! Agua fresca!" water truck (San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas)

Walking along the road in Palenque

I was roommates with Pepe for a month in San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas, Mexico and he would jam out like this on his little keyboard for hours!  This is a recording of him.  At the end of the recording I climb the spiral stairs to the roof and then come back down--still jammin!

Pepe jammin' in San Cristobal

This is a recording of a man selling herbal medicines and cures in the market in San Cristobal.  As he talked a crowd began to gather around...

Curadero

birds, rain in the Palenque jungle

Palenque rain

Antigua market

A tassajara monk covers Bob Dylan on ukelele in the forest at dusk, crickets sing along!

Oh Sister, creekside recording, Tassajara Zen Mountain Center

unedited field recording sitting by Tassajara Creek at dusk 14 miles deep in the Ventana Wilderness, Santa Lucia mountains, California

Symphony of crickets, Tassajara Creek

This recording is taken from the roof of Maya Pedal in San Andres Itzapa, Guatemala.  We were located up the hill from the town's center on the main street leading from the church to the graveyard, so every few days we would see and hear funerals passing by, with people taking turns carrying the casket up the hill.  Sometimes they'd sing, sometimes they were silent.  Some funerals were all black, some had everyone wearing the colorful textiles of Guatemala. I think this was a colorful one. 

All of my recordings on this site are unedited because I have no computer, so there is a lot of wind towards the end.  I had to post this one anyway as the song is so beautiful in the rain.  

Maya pedal raining roof funeral song

These are a bunch of raw, unedited recordings taken with a Marantz flash recorder using the internal mic. 

Someday I hope to edit these, when I have the means, into "soundscapes" of the places I've been.  Meanwhile, here's the raw material, work in progress.  

 You'll notice the sound of me hitting the record button at beginning of each track (it has a 5 second pre-record feature), on the rain tracks you may hear rain hitting the recorder, and the audio peaks on some tracks, so be warned.

I'm still recording and still uploading, so stay tuned!  Sounds of a zen monastery in the mountains to follow, and maybe a "sound diary" of an apprentice trail crew in the California wilderness....

Comments and recording tips are welcome!  I'm in the market for a cheap, but quality stereo mic.  Alas, I am extremely low budget (i.e. broke) these days.  The Marantz flash recorder is the most expensive thing I own!

ifnotnowwhen

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