Quoting from his own personal website:
“Using intuitive composition, field recording, improvisation and photography, Jez has been exploring his enjoyment of and interest in detail, simplicity and his emotive response to places and situations for over 3 decades.” When growing up he was a choir boy and before every session they were all made to ‘listen to the church’ for 20 minutes, and at the time it drove him absolutely mad but now, as he looks back, he’s realised that it had a very big impact on his life. Paying attention to the sounds that are almost overshadowed and lying underneath.
Jez-Riley French is, as I would describe, a sound explorer, and throughout his talk it was evident that he enjoys exploring sound deeper than most would. He began his talk with explaining contact microphones, developed by Jez, that instead of picking up air vibrations they pick up solid object vibrations. This he says is beneficial because the manage to pick up a full range of frequencies – also they don’t pick up hardly any air vibrations – this was also displayed by another of his recordings he showed us, which was on a print rack. They can pick up sounds from almost 2 miles away, which was proven by a gunshot in a piece of his from a score that he recorded in Italy. Another of his recordings he played us again used contact mics where they were placed on barbwire with the sounds being produced by insects and leafs touching the wire; the same way the noises were created for the original Star Wars. He also briefly spoke about hydrophones, which are microphones that can record in liquids; then playing another piece of work that is his, of water with vinegar in to bring out the minerals (dolomite).
Most of his work is durational, which has been played in galleries and exhibitions such as Tate Modern and organisations in Iceland and Italy, and this is because he is interested in the psychological attention we as humans have, especially in relation to music and sound. From this he recommends that when doing field recordings to keep recording for longer than you’d originally think, because if you record for 30 seconds you will end up wishing you had 10 minutes of that recording. More sounds means more use for more projects. While on the topic of field recordings Jez was very clear with making his opinion on the definition of what most view field recordings as, and that he disagrees. He says it is “not just nature and the serenity of the countryside” because we are all part of nature. Environmental recordings should also, in his opinion, be played at the volume in accordance to reality, so basically do not mess with it; when it is untouched and at it’s real level from the recording you hear more, because our brains psychologically recognise the sounds as reality.
He goes a little bit more in-depth on the topic of nature and field recordings by saying that since we have evolved, and technology along with us, we have “ruined our ears”. This he states has been caused by too much heavy compression; and even jokes that cows could wipe us out by sneaking up on us, because we just wouldn’t hear them. Then talking about infrasound (frequencies too low for the human ear) and ultrasound (too high for the human ear) French makes known that we can not hear infrasound’s but we can sense them; using an example from scientists who believe that if the world stopped turning we would die in two weeks from the lack of vibrations we are so used to yet so unaware of constantly throughout life. He also played a recording for us he did in the mountains, where there was no traffic etc. using geophone’s, of just the world passing by. Then telling us an amusing story of bird experts who spent time arguing over what species they could hear in his recording at Fjallsarlon Glacier Lake, but yet those so called birds were actually in fact the ice melting; this played on the fact that we get used to hearing what we want to hear rather than what’s really there.
I really enjoyed this talk, even though in all honesty I wasn’t expecting to because of my lack of previous experience in field recordings, but it really gave me a bit of confidence in a way for me doing it for my project. Also when he spoke about hydrophones and then I found out the university now has them I am interested in using those. And on his end comment when asked about the pictures used for his recordings and scores, he said that he feels still images work better with sound, and as this being something I am doing for my project it made me feel more confident in what I’m doing.
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