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Listening in the Field: Recording and the Science of Birdsong
The transformation of sound recording into a scientific technique in the study of birdsong, as biologists turned wildlife sounds into scientific objects.
Scientific observation and representation tend to be seen as exclusively visual affairs. But scientists have often drawn on sensory experiences other than the visual. Since the end of the nineteenth century, biologists have used a variety of techniques to register wildlife sounds. In this book, Joeri Bruyninckx describes the evolution of sound recording into a scientific technique for studying the songs and calls of wild birds and asks, what it means to listen to animal voices as a scientist.
The practice of recording birdsong took shape at the intersection of popular entertainment and field ornithology, turning recordings into objects of investigation and popular fascination. Shaped by the technologies and interests of amateur naturalism and music teaching, radio broadcasting and gramophone production, hobby electronics and communication engineering, birdsong recordings traveled back and forth between scientific and popular domains, to appear on gramophone recordings, radio broadcasts, and movie soundtracks.
Bruyninckx follows four technologies—the musical score, the electric microphone, the portable magnetic tape recorder, and the sound spectrograph—through a cultural history of field recording and scientific listening. He chronicles a period when verbal descriptions, musical notations, and onomatopoeic syllables represented birdsong and shaped a community of listeners; later electric recordings struggled with notions of fidelity, realism, objectivity, and authenticity; scientists, early citizen scientists, and the recording industry negotiated recording exchange; and trained listeners complemented the visual authority of spectrographic laboratory analyses. This book reveals a scientific process fraught with conversions, between field and laboratory, sound and image, science and its various audiences.
Scientific observation and representation tend to be seen as exclusively visual affairs. But scientists have often drawn on sensory experiences other than the visual. Since the end of the nineteenth century, biologists have used a variety of techniques to register wildlife sounds. In this book, Joeri Bruyninckx describes the evolution of sound recording into a scientific technique for studying the songs and calls of wild birds and asks, what it means to listen to animal voices as a scientist.
The practice of recording birdsong took shape at the intersection of popular entertainment and field ornithology, turning recordings into objects of investigation and popular fascination. Shaped by the technologies and interests of amateur naturalism and music teaching, radio broadcasting and gramophone production, hobby electronics and communication engineering, birdsong recordings traveled back and forth between scientific and popular domains, to appear on gramophone recordings, radio broadcasts, and movie soundtracks.
Bruyninckx follows four technologies—the musical score, the electric microphone, the portable magnetic tape recorder, and the sound spectrograph—through a cultural history of field recording and scientific listening. He chronicles a period when verbal descriptions, musical notations, and onomatopoeic syllables represented birdsong and shaped a community of listeners; later electric recordings struggled with notions of fidelity, realism, objectivity, and authenticity; scientists, early citizen scientists, and the recording industry negotiated recording exchange; and trained listeners complemented the visual authority of spectrographic laboratory analyses. This book reveals a scientific process fraught with conversions, between field and laboratory, sound and image, science and its various audiences.
- GenresAcademia
256 pages, Hardcover
Published April 27, 2018
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About the author
Joeri Bruyninckx
5 booksJoeri Bruyninckx is Assistant Professor in the Department of Technology and Society Studies at Maastricht University.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
November 23, 2019
One thing to note, this book is a rewriting of the author's dissertation. As such, it has an academic bent and can be a bit inaccessible to laymen. My rating does not reflect the academic nature of the book, but I include this disclaimer because other commercial audio professionals I know did not expect it. I come at this from the angle of being a commercial sound designer and recordist as well as someone interested in sound history and studies.
The book itself is organized around 4 major modes of technology that scientists have used to analyze birdsong. The analysis and history is interesting, though I had hoped for a little more depth on how the different techniques were integrated during their time periods. Part of me wished that the author explored the role of modern day computing, machine learning and autonomous recording arrays integrate into how scientists operate in the contemporary field. As it is, his analysis of technologies ends around the 70s-80s.
I think this text is a good jumping off point for further studies into technologies and methodologies around sound recording in science. It is by no means, and does not purport to be, a text about the broader field of study.
My 3/5 reflects that I like this book (as the subtitle says). I am very selective with using the "really liked" 4/5 and "it was amazing" 5/5.
The book itself is organized around 4 major modes of technology that scientists have used to analyze birdsong. The analysis and history is interesting, though I had hoped for a little more depth on how the different techniques were integrated during their time periods. Part of me wished that the author explored the role of modern day computing, machine learning and autonomous recording arrays integrate into how scientists operate in the contemporary field. As it is, his analysis of technologies ends around the 70s-80s.
I think this text is a good jumping off point for further studies into technologies and methodologies around sound recording in science. It is by no means, and does not purport to be, a text about the broader field of study.
My 3/5 reflects that I like this book (as the subtitle says). I am very selective with using the "really liked" 4/5 and "it was amazing" 5/5.
Displaying 1 of 1 review