The Hylaeus Project

1. Acromyrmex species in lab, UFAM, Manaus, Brasil 
2. Ectatomma species in field, with ultrasonic microphone, Rio Negro RSD, Amazonas, Brasil
3. Same Ectatomma species, played back at 96 kHz
4. Pseudomyrmex species. Rio Nego RDS. 
5. Myrmecinae (unknown)
6. Cupin (termites!) with soundscape
7. Pheidole species
8. Atta (metal and mic: Olodum)
9. Beetle (Cerambycidae)

All recordings made by Lisa Schonberg with Erica Valle and Fabricio Baccaro. Photo by Hunter Daniels.

ATTA: field recordings

The 87 Bridge

Music composition featuring anthrophony and ant acoustic communication recorded on the UFAM campus in Manaus, Brazil in August 2021. The anthrophony is the sound of the air conditioning system from nearby campus buildings recorded from inside a nest of Atta sp. (leafcutter ants), alongside the sound of the same ants from inside a nearby nest.

HVAC (segment)

Documentation of juxtaposition ant acoustic communication and human sound (anthropophony) in Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn, NY, July 2021.

Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn, NY (segment)

Recorded by Lisa Schonberg on the UFAM campus in Manaus, BR. 
Microphones were placed within nests of Acromyrmex sp. ants (fungus-growers/leafcutters). In addition to ant stridulations, you can hear anthrophony *through* the nest, including an air conditioning system from a nearby building and human voices.

Acromyrmex sp ants and anthrophony

HVAC features sounds of leafcutting ants in the genus Acromyrmex and an air conditioning system, both recorded from within leafcutter ant nests on the UFAM campus in Manaus, Amazonas State, Brazil. Vocalist Jane Paik and drummer Lisa Schonberg respond to and mimic the sounds, speculating as to how ants hear anthrophony, how it fits into their vibratory soundscape, and how we might understand them and communicate with them, if we could. Arrangement, drums + field recordings by lisa schonberg. Vocals by Jane Paik.

HVAC

composed by lisa schonberg 
field recordings by lisa schonberg
from a collaboration with Allie S. West

(Bio)Plastic Music

Acromyrmex stridulation

Pheidole stridulation

Atta stridulation

Ectatomma stridulation [played back at lower Hz]

Soil Sound Example 3

Soil Sound Example 4

Old Growth Playback

Floodplain Restoration (the creek restores itself)

Canopy Litterfall/ Needle Cohort Study

Pseudomyrmex concolor locomotion, on Tachigali myrmecophila

This is a binaural mix of a recording of a performance of Springtails/Crematogaster/Snails with live percussion and spatial sound at Studio 1, EMPAC, Troy NY in May 2024. This composition was generated by a composition system that interacts with the sounds of insects, other invertebrates and our shared environments in real time. The systems that comprise this work were recorded in a window planter of a house in Manaus, Brazil and in a root-ball at the base of a tree at the Amazon-FACE research station in Brazil. It features anthrophony, ants, springtails, snails, and other biophony & geophony. The live percussion was performed according to a improvisatory score, with the live sound subsequently spatialized in the room.

Springtails/Crematogaster/Snails at EMPAC

5.1 Springtails/ Snails/ Crematogaster at EMPAC

1.1 Dolichoderus Ghost of Dinoponera

3.1 Mangroves_Manguezal

2.1 field_

6.1 Tachi

composition and field recording by lisa ann schonberg

Wave Farm Thurs Eve (for Union Docs Exhibit)

Secret Drum Band

Pepeiao Cabin

Polihale - Kīlauea - South Point

Kīpukapuaulu

I was an artist in residence with Labverde in the Brazilian Amazon in 2017. These are the compositions I have thus far written for this new body of work. During my time with Labverde I made audio recordings of ants and the soundscapes of their habitats. I composed percussion and ambient music based on these recordings, supplemented by observations of the movements and form of the ants and my surroundings. Ants are doing so much of the vital work maintaining Amazonian ecosystem functions: herbivory, seed dispersal, predation, decomposition - which are in turn crucial to global climate regulation. By amplifying the sounds of ants perhaps listeners will be able to better relate with them; there is so much disdain among humans for insects, when it should be the opposite. Can listening to ants generate empathy and encourage us to do our part in countering climate change? Myrmecologists Fabricio Baccaro and Erica Valle at Universidad Federal do Amazonas produced and analyzed spectrograms of the ant recordings and are using the recordings as the start of new research on ant acoustics.

The compositions: Atta is based on the recordings of leaf-cutter ants; Multispecies is a collage of only ant sounds; Surface of the Abyss at Ducke represents passive listening of the penetrating diurnal soundscape of Reserva Ducke; Terra Firme is my response to sitting still and closely investigating this same soundscape.

1. Atta : Composed and performed by Lisa Schonberg. Mixed by Anthony Brisson. 
2. Multispecies: Composed by Lisa Schonberg. Mixed by Anthony Brisson. 
3. Terra Firme: Composed by Lisa Schonberg. Performed by Leah Bowden, Shannon O'Brien and Fiona Digney; recorded at the University of California San Diego. 
4. Surface of the Abyss at Ducke: Composed by Lisa Schonberg. Mixed by Anthony Brisson.
5. Pheidole biconstricta (field recording): recorded by Lisa Schonberg

Schonberg/Labverde: Atta

Lookout Creek: Eighth Notes

This work is modeled after HJA resident Leah Wilson's work, Ambient (2014), which hangs on the wall outside the apartment I stayed in at HJA. Andrews researcher Fred Swanson suggested that I create an audio piece based on her approach. Leah had examined and represented the reflections of light and color in and around a small stone placed in the stream. I became excited about this idea of looking at one physical space and taking readings/documentation of the myriad of sonic textures, pitches and combinations that can occur in that one point - and thus making a tangible representation of what might ordinarily seem like a indecipherable stream of noise. Through this work I have thought about the immense musicality of stream acoustics, how we might grow more familiar with each stream site's acoustic details through isolation and repetition. I re-visited Leah's approximate sampling site on Lookout Creek, at the water gage. I placed a Hydrophone in one spot on a flat rock at the stream bottom, and took one 10 second recording every two minutes. From each 10 second sample, I extracted 4 recordings of eighth-note value at set points across samples, and built a loop of each eighth note set. The composition begins with the 1st sample's loop, and moves through each subsequent loop, with sections of overlap between each consecutive pair. I did not effect or process the sounds beyond using an equalizer and adding a touch of reverb. Anthony Brisson did the final mastering of this work.

lookout creek (eighth notes)

Lookout Creek (Eighth Notes)

Kickball - Underground Husbands

1. Acromyrmex species in lab, UFAM, Manaus, Brasil 
2. Ectatomma species in field, with ultrasonic microphone, Rio Negro RSD, Amazonas, Brasil
3. Crematogaster species in field at bait, MUSA/ Reserva Ducke, Manaus, Brasil. 

All recordings made by Lisa Schonberg with Erica Valle and Fabricio Baccaro. Photo by Hunter Daniels.

Acromyrmex species, lab colony

Chuva

Multispecies (Ants)

composer / recordist: lisa schonberg

Bio(Plastic) Music is a speculative music composition project that considers the sounds of plastics - both petroleum and bio-plastic, alongside the sound of freshwater invertebrates in a river strewn with plastic waste. The origins of the sounds is eerily difficult to distinguish, blurring conceptions of "natural" sounds and "disturbed" soundscapes.

Commissioned by BBC Radio 3 for broadcast on Slow Radio in June 2020.

Formiphony (Reserva Ducke Ants And Soundscape) for BBC3: Slow Radio

www.secretdrumband.com
www.lisaschonberg.com

Lisa Ann Schonberg

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