In "The great animal orchestra - Finding the origin of music in the world's wild places" Bernie Krause tells more about his numerous audio recordings made in nature. His journeys led him to the Atlantic Forest in Brazil, to the Yellowstone National Park in the U.S. or to the mountain gorillas in Rwanda. Just to name a few. The book is captivating, impressing, and inspires. But it also makes its readers to think more about environmental destruction. As probably many people already know, we live in a world becoming louder and louder and louder...
Title: The Great Animal Orchestra: Finding the Origins of Music in the World's Wild Places
Author: Bernie Krause
Imprint: Hachette Book Group
Length: 304 pages
Published: 2013
Language: English
Blurb
Musician and naturalist Bernie Krause is one of the world's leading experts in natural sound, and he's spent his life discovering and recording nature's rich chorus. Searching far beyond our modern world's honking horns and buzzing machinery, he has sought out the truly wild places that remain, where natural soundscapes exist virtually unchanged from when the earliest humans first inhabited the earth.
Krause shares fascinating insight into how deeply animals rely on their aural habitat to survive and the damaging effects of extraneous noise on the delicate balance between predator and prey. But natural soundscapes aren't vital only to the animal kingdom; Krause explores how the myriad voices and rhythms of the natural world formed a basis from which our own musical expression emerged.
From snapping shrimp, popping viruses, and the songs of humpback whales — whose voices, if unimpeded, could circle the earth in hours — to cracking glaciers, bubbling streams, and the roar of intense storms; from melody-singing birds to the organlike drone of wind blowing over reeds, the sounds Krause has experienced and describes are like no others. And from recording jaguars at night in the Amazon rain forest to encountering mountain gorillas in Africa's Virunga Mountains, Krause offers an intense and intensely personal narrative of the planet's deep and connected natural sounds and rhythm.
The Great Animal Orchestra is the story of one man's pursuit of natural music in its purest form, and an impassioned case for the conservation of one of our most overlooked natural resources-the music of the wild.
Thoughts about the book
Buzzing. Humming. Gnawing. Squawking. Chirruping. Singing. Growling. Barking. Baaing. Scratching. Purring. Zipping.
There is an endless variety of nature sounds that can be described with words. However, sooner or later I would not have any further word for the description of any sound in nature. Our language would never reach the amount of sounds that exist to describe all the sounds in nature.
There are just too many different sounds in nature.
Sounds that even might change.
Or might alter because of us humans.
Therefore, I was very excited to read the book "The great animal orchestra" by Bernie Krause. At the end of the book I had learned many new interesting aspects of nature, but also listened to sounds I had never heard before.
How does a living coral reef sounds like?
And how do the sounds of deserts and rain forests differ?
Or what sounds do actually ants or the larvae of insects produce?
I have not only learned more about all the different sounds in nature, I also took my time to just admire and enjoy all the sound examples recorded in different parts of the world.
However, the book is more than just a collection of information and beautiful sound examples.
The author Bernie Krause is worried about how different sound landscapes ("soundscapes") have changed over the years or decades, respectively. According to his words, there are soundscapes he had recorded in the past that now do not exist anymore. But only in his archives!
I could empathize with his words. He wrote about his concerns and the continuing loss of nature and its sounds. It makes me immensely sad to know that we have already lost so many different species of organisms and that we are about to lose even more. I don't know the sounds 50 years ago, but regardless, I'm sad about these developments!
I think everyone has moments in which s/he thinks about how would it have been to be born in a different time. 50 years ago. 500 years ago. Or even 5000 years ago. No matter how many years ago.
We are losing species and with them the variety of nature sounds. And we will never be able to listen to them again.
I would so likely to go back in time and listen to nature back then. A time with fewer streets or without streets. A time without fragmented landscapes. And a time with intact and healthy forests.
What would I not give to listen to this nature years ago.
And that not only through an audio recording.
Our world is changing and with it all the sounds.
As we live in an increasingly louder world - I perceive noise as almost everywhere - I would very like to make you aware of this wonderful book by Bernie Krause. I was fascinated by his soundscapes and all the stories he could tell about them. Please look up this book and share its message!
Conclusion
Wonderful book with numerous sound examples. Impressing. But also thought-provoking. Important to read, as we live in an increasingly louder world. Thus, please read and acknowledge all the sounds you listen to in nature!
Is there a place on earth you enjoy to listen? If yes, what do you hear there? Have you known the book "The great orchestra" by Bernie Krause already? Please let me know in the comments!
