Bernie Krause

Finding the Origins of Music in the World's Wild Places

Great Animal Orchestra

A Life in Music & Natural Sound

Into a Wild Sanctuary

The artificial noise in our lives is a debris field of arbitrary and often harmful signals. Our lives are riddled with sound: heavy-footed neighbours, an ambulance screeching nearby, white noise from the television. Unsurprisingly, the noisy environment in which we live has an immense impact on our concentration, alertness, and feelings of anxiety. To help us manage the rubble that hinders our mind and well-being, Bernie Krause whisks us through the practical steps that each one of us can take to reduce the unhealthy noise in your life and realize the healing powers of certain acoustic encounters. Along the way, we explore the difference between harmful noise and the signals that make us feel good, between noise as a stressor and soundscapes that serve to boost our emotional and physiological health and stimulate our productivity. By following his suggestions you'll discover what a wide variety of sound signatures represent; which ones you like, which ones you don't, and why. Thoroughly researched and accessibly crafted, THE POWER OF TRANQUILITY IN A VERY NOISY WORLD will show you how to gain control over your sonic experiences and live a more tranquil and enduring life.

The Power of Tranquility in a Very Noisy World

Hans Ulrich Obrist

Gilles Boeuf

The fascinating story of The Great Animal Orchestra, a work created in 2016 for the exhibition spaces of the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain in Paris.

Bernie Krause and United Visual Artists, the Great Animal Orchestra

Bernie Krause is the world's leading expert in natural sound. Beginning by recording the sound of wheat growing in a Kansas field, he has spent the last 40 years recording ecological soundscapes and the sounds of over 15,000 species. Due to human actions, half of the wild soundscapes he has on tape no longer exist. Krause divides natural sound into three categories. Biophony is the sound made by animals and plants, like the shrimp whose underwater clicks are equivalent to a Boeing 727 taking off. Geophony is natural sound - made by wind, water and rain - which led different tribes to have different musical scales. And anthrophony is human-generated sound, which as it has rapidly increased has affected animals - for instance, causing disoriented whales to become beached. In The Great Animal Orchestra Krause invites us to listen through his ears to all three as he showcases singing trees, contrasting coasts, and the roar of the modern world. Just as streetlights engulf the stars, human noise is drowning out the sounds of nature, and our focus on the visual today blinds us to this. The Great Animal Orchestra shows why it is vital we preserve our remaining natural soundscapes - and will make you hear the world entirely differently. Loved by experts from E. O. Wilson to Norman Lebrecht, this unique book - now out in paperback, combines music and cultural history with science to appeal to everyone from David Attenborough fans to music lovers.

The Great Animal Orchestra

Since 1968, Bernie Krause has traveled the world recording the sounds of remote landscapes, endangered habitats, and rare animal species. Through his organization, Wild Sanctuary, he has collected the soundscapes of more than 2,000 different habitat types, marine and terrestrial. With powerful illustrations and compelling stories, Krause provides a manifesto for the appreciation and protection of natural soundscapes. In his previous book, The Great Animal Orchestra, Krause drew readers’ attention to what Jane Goodall described as “the harmonies of nature . . . [that are being] one by one by one, snuffed out by human actions.” He now explains that the secrets hidden in the natural world’s shrinking sonic environment must be preserved, not only for our scientific understanding, but for our cultural heritage and humanity’s physical and spiritual welfare. Krause’s narrative—supplemented by exclusive access to field recordings from the wild—draws on a compelling range of personal anecdotes, histories, and examples to document his early exploration of this field and to lay the groundwork for future generations.

Animal Songs, Human Din, and the Call to Save Natural Soundscapes

Voices of the Wild

This enhanced edition of The Great Animal Orchestra contains over sixty of Bernie Krause's breathtaking recordings of natural sound 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.

The Great Animal Orchestra (Enhanced)

A founder of soundscape ecology offers a pioneering field guide for listening to and recording the sounds of the wild Through his organization Wild Sanctuary, Bernie Krause has traveled the globe to hear and record the sounds of diverse natural habitats. Wild Soundscapes, first published in 2002, inspires readers to follow in Krause's footsteps. The book enchantingly shows how to find creature symphonies (or, as Krause calls them, "biophonies"); use simple microphones to hear more; and record, mix, and create new expressions with the gathered sounds. After reading this book, readers will feel compelled to investigate a wide range of habitats and animal sounds, from the conversations of birds and howling sand dunes to singing anthills. This rewritten and updated edition explains the newest technological advances and research, encouraging readers to understand the earth's soundscapes in ways previously unimaginable. With links to the sounds that are discussed in the text, this accessible and engaging guide to natural soundscapes will captivate amateur naturalists, field recordists, musicians, and anyone else who wants to fully appreciate the sounds of our natural world.

Discovering the Voice of the Natural World

Wild Soundscapes

Wenn Bernie Krause seine Mikrofone in ein gesundes Korallenriff senkt, ist der Reichtum der Klänge überwältigend. Das kristallklare Wasser pulsiert mit der akustischen Bandbreite von Geräuschen, die Krustentiere und Fische, ja selbst Seeanemonen erzeugen. Einen Kilometer weiter, wo die Zerstörung sichtbar ist, hört man nur den Klang der Wellen und ein paar Krabben schnappen – trostlose Geräusche einer sterbenden Umwelt. Seine Leidenschaft für die Natur hat den Musiker Bernie Krause, der einst die elektronische Musik erfand und mit Popgrößen wie The Byrds, The Doors, Bob Dylan und George Harrison zusammenarbeitete, zum Forscher und Pionier der »Biophonie« gemacht. Vierzig Jahre lang hat er die Welt umreist, um den Reichtum der Arten und die einzigartigen Klanglandschaften ursprünglicher Habitate, aber auch deren fortschreitende Zerstörung zu dokumentieren. Er hat am Amazonas Jaguars bei ihrer nächtlichen Beutejagd belauscht, Diane Fosseys Gorillas besucht und den Gesang der Buckelwale aufgenommen. Sein Buch liest sich wie ein Abenteuerroman und ist zugleich ein leidenschaftliches Plädoyer für die Erhaltung einer übersehenen, aber nicht minder bedrohten Ressource: der Musik der Wildnis, die am Ursprung der des Menschen steht.

Bernie Krause

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