Taiwan Soundscape

In a Foriegn Land: sometimes what I hear is different from what I see

I have left Taiwan for London for some time.

The atmosphere of the London market sometimes reminds me of my auditory memories of Taiwan.

When my ears naturally 'travel' back to Taiwan, what I hear is sometimes different from what I see.

Perhaps this is an auditory difference between the foreigner and the native!

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Here comes an opportunity!

A well-known Taiwanese record company Wind Music recenlty is running a rare and exciting event: "Hear Taiwan: telling your stories, listening to Taiwanese sounds".

They have prepared many great prizes, including bikes, to attract the public to upload videos that have "sounds with a sense of Taiwan" to their official website. The call is open between 15 Oct and 17 Nov 2009. Please act soon! For more information, please see:
www.heartaiwan.com

Whispering: I've been invited by Wind Music to make a soundscape video for this event. Please have a listen and view! Your feedback would be very welcome and appreciated!

I wonder if you will be free on 23 June...

I would like to invite all the sound enthusiasts to do something together!

It's about producing a CD! The theme is about having enthusiasts recording a piece of environmental sounds, between 1 sec and 10 mins, in anytime on 23 June at any place of Taiwan. The content can be natural or artificial, but no musical pieces. The computer effects such as flanger should be avoided but normalisation, amplifier and fades are fine to be used. There is no limiation on the recording equipment and methods, as long as the final sound piece can be saved as a wave, aiff or mp3 file.

Regarding to the method of producing the CD, because I don't have the experience (I have only produced 'personal collections' haha!), I hope that we can discuss possible ways to realise it. If we cannot release the CD, we can still use the method used last year-- having 'personal collections' for all the participants! Well, at lease the goal of exchanging ideas can be reached!

Whoever has the interest, pelase leave a messae! (I wonder if anyone bothers... haha!)

Waiting for your participation! Thank you! 

World Forum for Acoustic Ecology annual meeting is coming to Asia! The meeting place is in Japan, which is only 3 hours away from Taiwan and no visa is required!
Now it is calling for proposals. Hope people can participate it to make our colourful environmental sounds of Taiwan resonating in the international stage! At the same time, to introduce and share our sounds with friends around the globe.
The proposal is limited to 300 words. The deadline is 15 May 2006. Everybody Go Go Go!

First of all, I have to apologise to everyone. Because I have been busy at doing fieldwork recently, the development of the blog has been ignored for a while. Please forgive me.
So far, 4 people have shown their interest in participating Yen-Jun's plan. I wonder if anyone else is also interested?
To keep the collaboraton going, I think, it would be nice to have Mr Yen to give a detailed explanation on this blog first and then people who want to participate shall respond and discuss with each other and also with Mr Yen to reach a common agreement. If you are fine with this approach, lets begin!
For discussions about the CD collaboration, please leave your messages under this article. Thank you and enjoy the collaboration!

Mr Yen-Jun from China contacted me a few days ago. He wonders if he can fund and release a CD for us. Here I display the e-mail he wrote to me. See what you guys think. Then we can decide what to do next.
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Did you record yesterday? Before you submit, please edit it and set the length of the work for no more than 5 mins.
The purpose of the edit is to select the part that you want to present most. If you prefer, you can add some effects to express some thoughts or emotions. Of course, you can keep the recording in tact to describe a story or a documentation. In brief, it is like the way you consider the photo-- art, documentation, diary... whatever way you would like to present it is fine!
To edit, you can use the free sofware Audacity or any other softwares. Here I enclose a simple guidance of using Audacity.
After editting, please write a short paragraph to talk about your relationship with the sounds you've recorded. Also, please indicate the following information: 1)the place of recording; 2) the time of recording; 3) the equpiments used for recording.
Please send the required information and the work to wei224@mac.com; If the file is too big, please upload it to www.yousendit.com. (Thank worKing for pointing out this resource.)
Thank you for your participation and cooperation!

The conditions for the call from SPNM is very 'generous'-- so long as it is sound is qualified. Hope you won't miss the chance!

Female sound artists, please pay attentioin! Here comes an opportunity for you! Get ready for the application! Go Go Go!
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A few opportunities for you:

Sound Cafe is calling for works. If you have any field recordings, consider for the submission!

Leonardo Music Journal (2006) is calling for papers. Got any article ready?

Good luck!

In Nov 2006, WFAE is going to organise a meeting in our (Taiwanese) neighbour's place, Japan! It will be great if we can go together! The website enclosed has a few Japanese experts whose websites are very interesting to have a look! (not for listening though)