“First, some basics. A soundscape essentially consists of three sources: the “geophony,” or the non-biological sounds of any habitat, such as the wind in the trees and the waves on the beach; the “biophony,” or the collective sound organisms make in their collective wild habit; and the “anthrophony,” which is the sound humans make. ” Bernie Krause

His work in California’s Sierra Nevadas is just awe-inspiring. It turns out that even when the visual landscape has hardly changed after selective logging, the sonic landscape is much changed. What this means and the impact it has is the subject of research. We were particularly interested in something Cosmo Sheldrake ( we don’t think this will be available outside the UK) says when referring to these soundscapes: The healthy forests have a biophony with sounds that use different frequencies so that all sounds can be heard – animals always leave space for each other; that when you hear pygmy singing in the forest the singing blends in such a way that the human sound integrates but does not silence any of the other sounds; and finally that human noise pollution is causing a breakdown of this symphony in different ecosystems – we no longer sing with the ecosystem we live in (like the pygmy music we explore tomorrow) but over each other and drown out others and non-human noise. The implications for how we interact with each other are mind blowing: what would it mean to ‘find our frequency’ in our interactions online or in physical life? How do we find a frequency that allows all participants to be heard without drowning out any of its actors? Enough human noise for us today.

You heard this yesterday:

Today, you can compare the soundscape of the same space after selective logging in the same conditions.

You can just listen to the soundscapes, you can reflect on how the differences affect your state of mind and even without reflection you may find yourself feeling calm and at ease after listening or you may not…You can read more about the sound of a damaged landscape in this article written by Bernie Krause.

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This Daily Stillness has been recycled from previously published ones:

#tds1653 Soundscape Ecology for stillness (Jan 8, 2020)

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