**Sound is compresses and quite because of soundcloud,SoundCloud recommends exporting at 48kHz when they know it ruins the audio that people work tirelessly on*
Caradon Hill Cornwall UK
Wind and pylons: interference and resonance
Sounds in the wires

Sound Devices 302 D mixer
Zoom F3
X6 contact mics

I harbour a profound appreciation for pylons and wires. It seems to me that pylons are a great example of multifaceted noise.
The Sonic noise above my head out of reach fizzing and crackle in the ether as high voltages zip and zap along the cables. It’s a noisy sound. crispy crackly textures, at once constant and moving, static and dynamic. 

The wind and rain at Caradon hill as every visit are intense and unrelenting, fog obscures the towers, sheep and landscape, closing down my visual field and opening up my auditory perception. I attach my contact mics directly to the wire as the wind whistles off the wires and send vibrational drones that I record and listen to over hours attuning to the rhythms, harmonies and dissonance vibrations.

The natural frequencies of the wire are determined by the integer harmonics of the fundamental. In very long wires such as the wires here reach at their pinnacle 780ft which are also very thick the fundamental is well below one Hertz. As I listen to wind, and tension of the wires as the wind contorts them creating higher harmonic frequencies which fall into the auditory range of humans (I am interested how the sheep and birds perceive these sounds). The very high harmonics become so crowded they cease to have discrete frequencies but rather tend to beat together, creating second-order frequencies of lower pitch. the length of the wire a family of interacting segments, each with its own fundamental within the auditory range sing in the wind. There is a vocal-like quality of the wires vibrating in the wind containing the sound of numerous ‘voices’, each competing for harmonic dominance.

The method of fixing the contact mics is an art in itself with  no single best method. Rather, attunment and knowledge of wing and weather patterns in which different conditions require different methods, which are established by rre-visits and experimentation.

Caradon Hill Transmission Mast Cornwall UK

Listening with ancient trees.
Starting our journey to this ancient forest at midnight,scrabbling o ver large granite stones and undulating paths.

A night walk in a temperate rain forest in Dartmoor Devon UK.
Close your eyes and take a sonic journey of deep earthly time  with this ancient tree that's been a silent witness to layers of history.

The sounds you here are after a warm day are  tiny popping  that is the sound of water passing through the cells of the xylem tubes and cavitating as it mixes with air on its way upwards.

I have wanted to capture for years what goes on behind the bark of a tree,I spent hours with this ancient trees at night to escape as much human noise as possible.Using highly sensitive contact microphones and hydrophones,handmade pre-amps and probes  to make audible the inner workings of trees. I first heard the moss layers of the bark as it  hydrated and dehydrated  then the rumble of the tree moving and the popping of the water,and the odd plane going past.

Jerv16

Kjeff

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