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Dyslexia Makes voices hard to discern, study finds. (BBC) People with dyslexia struggle to recognize familiar voices, scientists suggest. The finding is the first tentative evidence that small sounds in the human voice that vary between people are difficult for dyslexics to hear.
    Writing in the journal Science, the scientists say that many people could have some degree of "voice blindness". And by studying it, scientists hope to better understand how the human brain has evolved to recognize speech. Click2Read.

Tibetan singing bowls give up their chaotic secrets. (BBC) The water-filled bowls, when rubbed with a leather-wrapped mallet, exhibit a lively dance of water droplets as they emit a haunting sound. Now slow-motion video has unveiled just what occurs in the bowls; droplets can actually bounce on the water's surface. A report in the journal Nonlinearity mathematically analyses the effect and could shed light on other fluid processes, such as fuel injection (Photo: BBC). Click2Read .

Noise-Canceling Devices for a Good Night’s Sleep. (New York Times) Used correctly, these gadgets could change your life — you might finally get a reprieve from your snoring spouse, or vice versa; you might finally get your baby to sleep (so you can spend more time with your snoring spouse), or you might finally drown out those unashamedly loud neighbors. Click2Read.

Hildi Westerkamp Interview. (Ear Room) Mark Peter Wright interviews composer, radio artist and sound ecologist Hildegard Westerkamp for Ear Room, which features interviews exploring the use of sound in artistic practice. In this audio and text interview Westerkamp discusses her career and makes observations about changes in soundscape awareness. She discusses, at length, her own work as a composer of soundscape compositions. Click2 Read/Listen. (Photo: G. Ferrington)

Soundscape for patient therapy. (BBC) Chrys Blanchard leads patients at Nevill Hall Hospital in Abergavenny in a new art project to create a continuous wall of sound. Around 30 volunteers and musicians have been working on the Soundscape project where they use their voices and unusual instruments such as gongs and Tibetan singing bowls to create therapeutic sounds. Click2Listen.

Yosemite National Park: A Nightmare of Noise. (Noise Free America). Yosemite National Park--1,200 square miles of "deep valleys, grand meadows, giant sequoias, and a vast wilderness area"--has won August's Noisy Dozen award from Noise Free America for allowing thunderous motorcycles to ruin the right of other visitors to enjoy peace and quiet. (Photo: USNPS). Click2Read.

Theo Burt Interview. (Radio Web MACBA). Theo Burt talks about perceptual processes, visual music and intermedia art in this web audio interview. Theo Burt is a UK-based artist working with sound, video and light. His work draws on interests in perceptual relationships between sound and image and aesthetic applications of technology. Burt’s recent projects have focused on the use of related sound and video to create a transparency of process, and the effect of partial-predictability on perceptions of time. His work includes installations, live performances and fixed-media pieces. Click2Listen.

River Aura Symphony Documentary. The second performance of Simo Alitalo's River Aura Symphony is featured in a documentary by Juho Matilainen. The video is available on VIMEO. A short excerpt of the premier can be heard on the Kunstradio website. The River Aura Symphony was composed by Simo Alitalo for boat horns, sirens, a black powder cannon and church bells. This event took place in Turku, Finland as part of the Turku Is Listening sound art project. (Photo: Juho Matilainen) Click2View

Something you walk into, something that surrounds you. (Resonance – European sound art network). Stefan Rummel's 'Articulated Chambers' is a solar cell powered public sound installation, produced for the European sound art network Resonance, that can be seen/heard 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at the Bassin in Maastricht, the Netherlands. Read More.

Audio Bee Booths. (News Release) Canadian composer Sarah Peebles has created three Audio Bee Booths with two located in Ontario and one in Alberta (Canada). These are amplified habitat installations which allow the public to safely view and listen to solitary-dwelling, native bees and wasps, pollinators which are quite different than honey bees. Aesthetically compelling, immersive and informative, the booths intersect habitat interpretation, bio-art, sound-installation and sculpture. "Pollinator Wunder Station" is a part of the "Items may Shift" exhibit (2011) at the Tree Museum, near Gravenhurst, Ontario. A permanent Audio Bee Booth is at Greenway's Nature Centre near Waterloo, Ontario; and, a third is in Alberta, at the Calgary Zoo, curated by A.B.C. To see a preview of what's inside a bee booth, see Odes to Solitary Bees by poet/videographer Stephen Humphrey and myself. To learn more about the booth and about native bees (non-honey bees). (Photo: Sarah Peebles) Click2Visit Resonating Bodies.

Listening To Wild Soundscapes. (NPR) A new field of biology called 'soundscape ecology' has scientists recording all the sounds in a given habitat and listening for patterns and changes. Ecologist Bryan Pijanowski and bioacoustician Bernie Krause discuss what we can learn from listening to natural soundscapes. Click2Listen/Read

New England Phonographers World Listening Day Concert. (Boston Globe) The New England Phonographers Union, in collaboration with the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) and Mobius, performed a special concert on World Listening Day, Monday, July 18th. The concert was free and open to the public, and held in the Reception/Training Center of the Historic Pump Station at the Deer Island Treatment Plant in Winthrop, Boston Harbor. The Phonographers Union performed using only sounds that they have recorded throughout the vast Sewage Treatment Plant itself. A video documentary of the event by Scott LaPierre was published by the Boston Globe and can be watched on YouTube. (Photo: Scott LaPierre) Click2View

3D audio may revolutionise travel (BBC) Unlike "surround sound" speakers, 3D audio can precisely pinpoint up to eight people in a room and direct sound at each one individually by sending separate signals to each ear, so that each person no longer has the awareness that sounds are coming at them from specific speakers. The technology can make it sound as if a bird is flying around your head in a full circle, not just passing from one side of a room to the other. Click2Read.

Scientists Tune In To The "Voice Of The Landscape". (NPR) There's nothing new about studying animal sounds; biologists have been doing that for centuries. After all, if you want to understand birds, you need to understand how they communicate. But Bryan Pijanowski is now asking his colleagues to take a huge step back and, metaphorically speaking, listen not just to the trees, but to the forest.
   "We're trying to understand how sounds can be used as measures of ecosystem health," says Pijanowski, who teaches in the department of forestry and natural resources at Purdue University.
    He and some colleagues have written a call to action in the journal BioScience. It's time, they say, to formalize the study of "soundscape ecology."
   "We're interested in all the voices of the landscape," Pijanowski says. "Not just particular individual species, but really, the orchestration of those different sounds by biological organisms." Click2Listen/Read

Field Experiments: Richard Devine Interview. (Sonic Terrian) Richard Devine, musician and sound designer answers questions about his approach to field recording in this August 10th interview. Click2Read/Listen

Within a Grain of Sand: Our Sonic Environment and Some of Its Shapers (Sounding Out) Author Maile Colbert explores how several key field recordists define and explore the notion of soundscape in this online blog article. Click2Read

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