[78-L] The Fading Sounds of Analog Technology

[Michael Biel]

On 3/5/2011 8:07 PM, Kristjan Saag wrote:
> Keep up the good work, Martin!
> The idea of initiating a sound museum was presented by the Swedish
> Musical Academy in 1995, as part of their "Sound Manifesto", in which
> different aspects of our audio environment were targeted: everything
> from noise to silence.

Someone once said that it would have been impossible to again record an 
uninterrupted side of bird sounds in the Reich Avery like on those early 
Victor/HMVs because of the planes and street noise.  When I was a kid I 
used to love sitting out and hearing the propeller planes overhead, 
probably going to Newark and Teterboro airports, and at night hearing 
the trains from across the river in Hackensack.  I still hear distant 
trains at night when I visit relatives in Birmingham, Ala.

In the early 60s there was a great LP on American Philips by a vocal 
comedian Wes Harrison "You Won't Believe Your Ears" where he did a 
routine about putting a loudspeaker in the grill of his car and driving 
thru small Texas towns at 2 AM with the sound of a screaming steam 
locomotive at high volume.  The punchline was "Those towns hadn't had 
tracks for years!"  In the early 80s they stopped using the tracks going 
through our town and there was a gala event as the last train went 
through, with people putting coins on the rails for the train to 
flatten, etc.  About two weeks later I am teaching a class in a room 
facing towards the tracks about two blocks away and we hear the sound of 
a train and its whistle.  What the . . .  I stop and everyone turns 
around and looks out the window to see if we can see anything.  It turns 
out to have been a work train pulling up the tracks.

In the early 50s Columbia had a pair of 78s in their kids series doing a 
sound story of taking a train ride and taking a plane ride.  The train 
was still a steam train, and they repeated the same effects record at 
every station!

Mike (train leaving on track five for anaheim, azuza, and cuc--omonga) 
Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com

> One idea was to favour the establishment of positive urban soundscapes,
> the equivalent of physical parks in a city, where you could relax your
> ears. Another was to create a sound museum for endangered sounds.
> Unfortunately there has been very little political interest to realize
> any of these ideas. But then again, who took the manifestos for clean
> air seriously in the 1950's?
> Kristjan
>