Listen to the world on Radio Aporee

Last week we took a look at SoundTransit, a website with many location based recordings, and I wrote about having a similar idea and how I was surprised to find out this already had been done. Apparently I wasn’t the only one, as I found a couple of similar projects.

There’s one of them I’d really like to share with you, as it comes closest to my vision of it. Radio Aporee shows us a large map, and each red dot resembles a sound recorded at that location. You can listen to the sounds by clicking on the dots, and add your own recordings without having to create an account.

One little problem: I tried to upload a sound myself, but it didn’t work. Hopefully a temporary bug? I really like browsing the sounds of the world like this.

Update on Tuesday, June 16, 2009 at 21:05 by admin

I was too fast, in order to make my upload work I had to click a link in an email which was sent to me, for confirmation. Now my sound is visible on the map!

Go on a sonic journey with SoundTransit

I like to share my own recordings of the places I traveled to in the 'Places' category. I've been thinking of creating a system to collaboratively share these 'sonic pictures' from all over the world. It would be very inspiring to be able to listen to any part of the world.

But it seems I'm too late! SoundTransit, a project created by Derek Holzer, Sara Kolster and Marc Boon, does exactly that. You can search for sounds by keyword, country, city. You can also book a transit: choose your point of departure, a destination and an amount of stopovers, and your journey will be ready in a moment. I just went from Marrakech to Antwerp via Vienna. It basically just crossfades the files, but it's a nice idea.

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Listen to the streets of Mexico City

We are looking down at the intersection of Av. Juan Escutia and Calle Zamora in Condesa, Mexico City, from a window on the third floor. Normally I'm not that interested in the sound of cars driving by. But this urban soundscape is so remarkably different than the western European one I'm used to!

We hear lots of trucks, big ones, with loud diesel engines, fuelling the air with smog. We hear the typical sound of the green and white Volkswagen Beetles which form the majority of the taxis in Mexico City. And then we hear a melody. A man is selling some sort of corn product down on the street. The melody stops and the man starts to recommend his goods using a megaphone, followed by the same melody. I guess it's lunch time!

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Places: Amsterdam Central Station

This time we’re at the Amsterdam central station. While making our way to the platform the lady with the nice voice tells us a train is delayed by five minutes. We keep walking. Half a minute later we hear her again, this time telling us the same train is delayed by ten minutes. It doesn’t matter, we’re not traveling to Rotterdam anyway.

At the platform trains are coming and going, people are waiting, but we can’t hear them because the sound of the trains fills up the big hall. Towards the end the lady starts announcing another delay, we don’t know if it’s our train though, as her words drown in the overwhelming sound of another train passing by our platform.

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Marrakech: People singing in the streets

This week I’ll take you to Morocco again, where the sound in the streets can be so very different from what I hear every day. While sitting in a small hotel room in Marrakech, resting after a long walk in the city, this is what I heard.

Is it a wedding? Can someone tell me what they are celebrating? The group passes and moves away. While we can hear the music speed up in the distance, the sound in the street returns to normal.

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Mexico: San Miguel de Allende

This week sounds from another place in Mexico. Drive a few hours from Mexico City to the northwest and you will arrive in San Miguel de Allende, a beautiful and colorful little city. It's sunday, I walk over the square in the heart of the city and it's very crowded. Lots of Mexican tourists seem to spend their weekend here. People are selling icecream and al kinds of other things.

Suddenly the band begins to play in the middle of the square. Their lively sound fills the square, people gather around and couples start to dance to the music. Do they play out of tune? No one seems to notice or no one seems to care. Hey, it's sunday, the sun shines, we have music! I wish I made a longer recording of that magic moment.

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Birds singing in the spring forest

I recorded these birds singing in the forest last weekend in Belgium. It was a calm day, with some sun now and then and a few drops of rain. It seems like the birds never get tired from singing their songs all day. On the left there are some people talking in the distance, enjoying a walk in the spring forest.

After a minute a few drops come down from the leaves above me, but it doesn't really start to rain. This recording nicely illustrates my previous post Sound and levels of annoyance.

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Morocco: Crowded Jamaa el Fna square

Join me for five minutes on the Jamaa El Fna Square in Marrakech, Morocco. It's one of the busiest places I've ever been. At the entrance of the Medina (the old city) of Marrakech, the Jamaa El Fna Square forms the hot-spot of the city for tourist planning to go shopping, dining, or riding a horse carriage.

Groups of musicians play traditional Gnaoua music, there are a lot of stands with food, orange juice, olives, and motor scooters try to navigate their way through the crowd. Children are running around, even late at night. The smell and the smoke of the grills is surrounding us.

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Mexico City: Coyoacán market by morning

In the Places catergory I will share recordings I've made of places I've been to. It's inspiring to hear how different parts of the world sound. If you close your eyes the sound takes you there for a moment.

In this first part an easy, sunny morning at the beautiful Coyoacán market in Mexico City. I was sitting there, enjoying a freshly made cappuchino, when an organ player came by with his interestingly tuned instrument.

Street musicians change the atmosphere of a place. They create a context in which you look at things. Sometimes it just fits, like in a movie, in which a quiet scene gets accompanied by music. But you need to take the time to let this happen.

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