Finding hidden sounds in central London - covering: Strand, Embankment, Northumberland Avenue, Trafalgar Square & St Martins Lane. Using a contact mic and two telephone pickup mics.  Walking around holding two telephone pickup mics you walk through pockets of nothing to suddenly the air full of electromagnetic sound. Moving the mics towards the sky and ground helped figure out the source. 

Tracks include: Pedestrian crossing accessibility buzzer, an office door buzzer, a cash machine, just the Air, Christmas market fencing & a theatre billboard.

Embankment Tube - Cash Machine.WAV

Embankment - Door Buzzer.WAV

Strand Accessibility Buzzer B.WAV

A short journey in listening, recording and compiling sound. A range of microphones were tried out including: Binaural, Shot gun, contact, coil pick up and the built in mics in the recorder. The recordings were made in a range of environments mostly in central London with varied weather conditions. I captured sound as it happened with the exception of my field trip to Dungeness where I played World War Two plane sounds through a shower speaker into the environment to see how the environment would behave. This is not a polished composition – you can hear all the faults of sound recording from me breathing too heavily, to talking, sounds that grate or are too muffled, but it kind of works. 

The recording covers the following trips: 
1.	Queens Funeral- Recording on The Mall on the day of the Queens funeral a Military Band marches whilst the funeral service is played over loud speakers. You can hear Westminster Choral Singers. 
2.	Piccadilly Line- Cockfosters to Holborn. Recording London Tube Stations designed by architect Charles Holden built in the 1920s-1930s. Trains arriving and leaving the platforms, escalators, the space in the stations – corridors, entrances, tunnels. You can hear the pages of a newspaper turning as one train leaves a platform and another trains arrives at another. 
3.	Walking around the streets of central London and the general movement of people including a stop in a central London coffee shop. 
4.	Trafalgar Square – standing with my back to Nelson recording with Binaural Mics. You can hear the street performers by the National Gallery, tourists milling about the fountains, a Heritage Warden blowing his whistle to stop tourists climbing up onto the Lions for photos and traffic going around the square. 
5.	Hidden sounds of central London including the barriers being erected ahead of the Christmas Huts going up. 
6.	Seagulls – they always seem out of place but with the river Thames London has plenty. 
7.	A field Trip to Dungeness in Kent – an RSPB site to record the WW2 Sound Mirrors. The weather was awful – severe wet weather and flooding. You can hear – water, birds, aggregate, rain, wind, WW2 planes – Foche, Messerschmitt, Hawker Harrier, Spitfire. They were played through a shower speaker quietly into the end of the 200ft mirror and then louder directly in front to see how the sound would work. 
8.	A 30min walk from Regents Park, down Tottenham Court Road to Covent Garden – leaves, dogs, sports matches, sirens, people, traffic, bike bell, a group of young men messing about near a recently smashed car, deliveries, Freedom protest. In Regents Park a fox was playing with the magpies – they are quite tame but is was still unusual to see it just sat on the grass in daylight. 
9.	Tube Journey from Kings Cross to Covent Garden – trains arriving and departing, people talking loudly, trains, announcements, walking up the steps of Covent Garden Tube. 
10.	Covent Garden Piazza – recording tourists looking at the Christmas Tree and taking pictures of loved ones. I then stood with my back to against the oversized Christmas Tree pot with those having their pictures taken – you can hear excited children screaming for Barbie and adults marveling at the size of the tree whilst they have their picture taken. Christmas songs are played by a mulled wine cart.

A short journey in field recording and soundscapes

Snippets from a hydrophone project mixed locations

Chapter 1: Cadogan Pier, North Bank of the river Thames, beneath Albert Bridge near Chelsea Embankment.  Built in 1841 Cadogan Pier has been Chelsea's only river transport link for over 150 years and currently it is served by the Thames Clipper Uber Boat service to Putney and Canary Wharf. This is a Hydrophone recording (recording under the water) taken on a sunny February afternoon - you might hear boats, traffic on the bridge, a few birds, the pier, wind and waves.

River Thames Cadogan Pier, Chelsea London

Cadogan Pier, North Bank of the river Thames, beneath Albert Bridge near Chelsea Embankment.  Built in 1841 Cadogan Pier has been Chelsea's only river transport link for over 150 years and currently it is served by the Thames Clipper Uber Boat service to Putney and Canary Wharf. This is a Hydrophone recording (recording under the water) taken on a sunny February afternoon - you'll hear boats, a helicopter, traffic on the bridge, a few birds, the pier, wind and waves.

Chapter 1:  Cadogan Pier, North Bank of the Thames, Chelsea Embankment London

Chapter 2: Greenwich Pier, South Bank of the river Thames.  Originally built in 1836 to service paddle steamers ferrying visitors to Greenwich from the city. Today a variety of services run from the pier including  sightseeing trips run by City Cruises and the Uber Boat run by Thames Clipper operating as a Commuter Service. Services from Greenwich Pier run down river to the Thames Flood Barrier and up river to Battersea Power Station.

Chapter 2: Greenwich Pier, South Bank of the Thames, London

Change Here

A second visit to the RSPB reserve in Dungeness, the Lade Pits site of the WW2 listening devices - the early radar Sound Mirrors.

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