Taiwan Soundscape

A friend sent me a very Taiwanese joke that has the rarely mentioned element in it-- sound:
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I have a colleague called Mi-Cu-Hwai. After more than 3 years of marriage, a sudden accident took this loving couple apart.
This colleage took medicine to commit suicide once. Luckily he was discovered soon and no regret was made.
After being rescued, he was absent-minded all day long and almost got his job lost. Several friends wanted to help him but without a success. Later on people had an idea, that was to persuade him to hold a calling-spirit ritural. Although it was a bit superstitious, it is a kind of psychological treatment.
People thus donated some money and hired a pretty alrigh Toaist monk (at least someone who did not make a fraud). The retural was hold in the evening. A few colleagues came to company Ku-Haui.
Two little monks set up the alter.
The old monk adjusted the mic hung on his chin and burn a few pieces of ghost paper. He started to rang the calling-spirit bell with 'lin-lin-lin' sounds.
After just a moment, the old monk suddenly grabed the table very tightly and shivered with his whole body.
The little monk standing next to him said to us with axiety: 'it's alright, it should be the ghost mounting his body...' The old monk started to shout out: 'Mi...Mi... Micu...Micu...'
Having heard his late wife calling his own name, Ku-Hwai wanted to run forward. His colleagues hold him and Ku-Hwai shouted out loudly with tears: 'Shiao-Fan... Shiao-Fan... I am here... I...'
The old monk was shivering even more seriously, he shouted out all the time: 'Mi...Mi..Mi...Mi..Micu..Micu.....Micu... Micu is leaking...' (the electricity of microphone is leaking)
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Ha-ha, sorry, it is not a very funny joke... However, with this example, I would like to ask you:
1. Who would record that 'lin-lin-lin' sounds? Would you think about recording while family and relatives holding a funeral ceremony? (In fact, I ....)
2. Is it possible to have an electric leakage from the microphone?

Kuan-Hwah Business Plaza was demolished on 15 Jan 2006. I wonder if anybody recorded its environmental sounds in January. The social environment of Taiwn changes very quickly. While new sounds are generating, many sounds are disappearing at the same time. Hope everyone can cherish every opportunity of listening. If you have noticed any sound that has a social or listorical value, please record it and turn yourself as a sonic-cultural volunteer of Taiwan! Everyone Go Go Go!

2005 is coming to an end. I wonder what impressive sounds you have heard this year? In the land of Taiwan, have you discovered some new sounds that you have never heard before? For you personally, what sounds are worthy of remembering?
Wish you all happy listening, happy New Year!

The album of sound walk that is planned to post out in Jan is editing at the moment. In the CD disk, there are still some space available. Please come to join us!
The recordings you would like to submit has to be recorded within the last 2 months. All kinds of daily life sounds are welcomed. The length of the the sounds work is limited to 5 min max. Please save the files as .wav, .aif or mp3.
Please upload the sound file to http://www.yousendit.com/. If the file is samller than 10MB, you can send the file directly to wei224@hotmaill.com.
Please also send another e-mail to explain the time, place, events, recording facility and motivation of the submitted sound.
Thank you! Hope we can use this opportunity to learn from each other and make friends!

The oil field explosion happened on 11st Dec in Hertfordshire, UK is considered as the largest scale of explosion in the peace time of Europe. Believe it or not, there were people being in Holland and Belgium, which was 200 miles (321.8688Km) way, claimed that they could hear the explosion!
The environmental consultant Tim Wilton said, it was because that at that time, there was a layer of hot air (generated by the explorsion and the direction of the east wind) that surpressed sounds not being able to move upward. Instead, sounds return to the ground and spread out.
The changes of sounds of the nature are waiting for you to explore!

How do you design a professional voice message for yourself or a company? For sure, it depends on WHO is your customers! Have a listen to this anonymous version made for a funeral director. It's very amusing!

Dance does not give the audience only the visual information, but also the auditory! Tap dance, river dance and the opera Stomp are good examples. Next time when you see a performance, try to listen carefully!
...繼續閱讀

The Sound Tracker is the official website of Gordon Hempton, who is a winner of Emmy Award for field recording. Check it out!

It's November. What a cool and nice autumn! Lets take a sound walk! It is about taking a walk and at the same time, listening to surrounding sounds such as sounds of nature, traffic, people, machines, etc. The aim of this activity is to awaken peoples' awareness of the relationships between human beings and their daily-life environmental sounds. Also, the aesthetics of daily-life environmental sounds will be asserted. You are encouraged to bring any kind of audio recorder to collect sounds that are going to attract you along the walk. After the event, there will be an expert to guide you how to transfer the collected sounds into digital audio files via a computer. After people sending the files to wei224@mac.com (please do so before 10 Dec), we will produce a CD and send it to all the participants as a souvenior and an expereince-exchanger (Will be post before 10 Jan 2006). All are welcome!
Meeting Time: 2pm, 26th Nov 2005
Place: we will meet in front of Hon-Shu-Lin station (MRT red line) and stroll from Hon-Shu-Lin station via the bicycle path to the skating rink in Damsui MRT Park. The duration is no more than 30 min.
Equipment: 1) A mind and a pair of ears that enjoy listening! 2) Any kind of audio reocrder such as MD, MP3, cassette, mobile phone, pen recorder, digital audio recorder, video recorder, digital camema etc.
Note: If you cannot come to Damsui to walk with us, you can record sounds on the same day in the place where is convenient for you.
For further details, please contact: Miss Chen Tsai-Wei (wei224@mac.com) of Taiwan Soundscape (http://blog.roodo.com/taiwansoundscape)

Although these articles are a bit cliche, they mention about the idea that sounds do not only include the audible, but also the unsounded sounds such as the imaginary, moral, personality-related... etc. Have you every thought about some sounds in your mind and resulted in noisy thinkings?