The Relaxing Silence in the Woods

Nature for the most part is pretty quiet. The exceptions to this rule are large events: storms, migrating birds, floods, earthquakes, and eruptions. But for the most part, mother earth is a quiet gentle place. Someone once wrote to me that it was the silence between the sounds that was the most healing, which is an interesting thought, because we tend to automatically focus on the events we hear, and that reflex causes us skip over giving our attention to the silences.

My most quiet memory goes back to when I was outside walking in a wooded valley. It was winter. Snow was falling. Nighttime. No breezes just calm. Big fluffy flakes were floating down and covering everything. There was no sound. I stopped and listened... Except for falling snow and me, nothing moved. It was so quiet I could hear my heart beating. I could hear the blood circulating in my ears! I started to walk slowly, almost daintily, so as not to change the feeling, the environment. The Silence in the Woods. It was a wonderful night just like reading a Robert Frost poem. It really is something you cannot capture or record, bottle, or box and sell, because if you had a completely silent room lined with several inches of fluffy white stuff - then you would almost have it.

However complete silence is not automatically the most relaxing situation. Finding complete silence is so rare, that it seems to be more of a “special event”. That is, it becomes something to experience, explore and note. I guess having more elements of familiarity is a requirement of deeper relaxation. The more peaceful sounds have some tangible sound or sounds for the mind to focus on. Silence does play a role, by creating spaces between the sounds, and thus creating a very slow tempo. One sound comes to mind that is created by a large lake on a very calm day. A large body of water always has a slight undulation to its surface, even on a perfectly calm day. That slow undulation creates a swishing and sizzle as it caresses a sandy beach. Add some heat, and sunshine… and that is the scene where I recorded Whispering Waves. A free sample and more information is here.

Another relaxing sound is bird songs. There are many different birdcalls ranging from single chirps and peeps to never-ending long soliloquies. I am thinking of the type of call that has a pure musical quality that engages, and then is separated by rhythmic periods of silence. I went deep in the northern woods far away from human habitation to record such a sound. The sound is a beautiful musical trill that is repeated about ten seconds apart. It is part of a recording called Boreal Forest Birds. More information and a free audio sample is here.

Having regular periods of silence creates tempos. And slow tempos have been shown in experiments to create physical relaxation responses. The heart beats slower and breathing and respiration slows. The beauty of nature sounds is that there is variability in nature that creates Rhythmic Randomness. It is this quality that potentially creates deeper relaxation, and it is why nature sounds are especially effective. For more information about rhythmic randomness, please see Friday October 16, 2009 in this blog.

Karl Hamilton BFA
Nature Sounds.ca
www.naturesounds.ca
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Rhythmic Randomness - Introduction

When you look at where we have originated, as a species, humans have evolved (or have been created - if you prefer that wording) to function within the natural environment. Therefore, it seems only natural to assume that we perform better when we have a natural environment around us, and that we will feel most relaxed in certain types of natural environment. As the world becomes more industrialized, and more and more people live within a human-made environment isolated from nature, questions about the qualities or properties of natural phenomena that has this beneficial effect on us become more relevant and important. What is it that makes nature relaxing, refreshing, and otherwise beneficial to our well-being?

Rhythmic randomness. Rhythmic randomness postulates that all natural phenomena exhibits an inherent variability and repetitiveness within its structure. The variability aspect suggests that there is a uniqueness to each and every instant, event, and entity. The repetitive characteristic suggests that all natural phenomena have cyclical aspects to their form, structure or reoccurrence.

For example, in the image of a forest the vertical lines of the tree trunks form a visual rhythm. However, there is a natural randomness in tree placement, that is, the trees are not equal distance apart. So the visual effect is of a natural rhythm but with an element of variability within that rhythm. This is what I call rhythmic randomness. Also there is a variance in tree thickness and straightness, creating more randomness in the visual rhythm.

Another example is the latest recording from Nature Sounds.ca. Creek Relaxation features the rapid flow of water over a creek bed, which creates a sound of random
splashes. The random tones and pitches of the splashes are caused by the creek bed
which is composed of randomly sized rocks. The constant volume of water combines with the unchanging rock positions to create the rhythmic aspect of the sound. The sound has a high degree of totally random aspects to it, yet has enough repetition in it so that it sounds exactly the same from beginning to end. Creek Relaxation page.

Our senses are optimized to deal with these types of complex stimuli. The repetitive nature of the sound is reassuring and relaxing, while the randomness creates the interest and holds the attention.

Karl Hamilton BFA
Nature Sounds.ca
www.naturesounds.ca

New Beginnings - with Nature

It is a new day as I write this. A beautiful dawn is unfolding on a summer day. Delicate golden sunshine is poking through tree branches and across dewy leaves. The birds are singing. The sound is drifting through blue sky and the still cool air. This is the Boreal Forest. (One of the nice things about summer here is that the nights are always cool.) This is a good place to begin.

Perhaps it should be mentioned here, at the beginning, what it is that I actually do. Yes, recording and producing nature sounds is a large part of what I do, as well as that, there is website writing (to advertise and sell the sounds), plus there is the photography and graphics for the website and CDs. Customer service is an important part of the job. So, life is divided between sitting at the studio workstation and being outdoors.

I will be writing about the adventures, the joys, perhaps the challenges, always about nature, and about the nature of recording natural sounds. Ideally, it will be an interesting and thoughtful read.

Karl Hamilton BFA
www.naturesounds.ca/
www.youtube.com/NatureSoundsCa

Every Moment is Unique

August 7, 2008

One of the first lessons that one learns when recording nature sounds, is that every moment is unique. Breezes ebb and flow. No two waves of the ocean sound exactly the same. A bird doesn’t sing his song exactly the same each time. No trickle of water is the same sound from one moment to the next. When one starts to add up all the little events that are happening simultaneously in a particular audio environment, then the possibilities seem endless. I find myself going out and recording 3, 4, 5 hours or more to find just the right nuance that invokes that feeling of “being there”. Ideally I try to have a finished product of about 70 minutes long and perhaps even 130 minutes long with no looping.

Sometimes though, nature does not co-operate. Many animals, particularly birds and amphibians, are only vocal at certain times of day, or when environmental conditions such as temperature or amount of daylight are in their comfort range. This can limit the length of time that an audio environment is present.

One recent example of this is “Spring Owls and Frogs – Boreal Forest ©”. I had the equipment set up over a number of evenings at a particular pond starting in the evening in the spring of 2008. The wood frogs and peepers only call in the spring as the evenings get milder. However, it was only for about 20 minutes of twilight on just one evening, that three great horned owls discussed where their mating territories were. The result is a delightful evening recording.

Link to Spring Owls and Frogs at Nature Sounds.ca

Karl Hamilton BFA

Nature Sounds.ca

www.naturesounds.ca

www.youtube.com/NatureSoundsCa