Monday 4 September 2017

Stuff On My Phone (2)

Yesterday morning, I was outside cleaning the windows (a visitor was due, which had swiftly promoted the task up the To Do list), when I heard a small flock of Skylarks go by, their gentle contact calls a mere shadow of the more well-know territorial song. And not long after that, another flock went by, this time Golden Plover, the plaintive notes of their progress receding into the distance.

These musical musings reminded me that we don't really hear 'normal' garden birds at Tense Towers, but I do still have several soundscapes of a suburban garden from times past squirrelled away on my phone. Just in case I feel the need.

This particular example, from a June evening in 2012 in Milton Keynes, features a Song Thrush, with a supporting chorus of Goldfinches, a Wren, a Blackbird, a Carrion Crow and, in the far background, the rumble of traffic on the M1 motorway.



Apologies for the lack of moving images, but it's taken me the best part of two hours to move the track from my phone to my computer, try to upload it as was via Blogger, fail, try to upload it to Youtube, fail, download Vimeo to discover that won't help either, download Audacity to convert the file format from mp4a to WAV, try to upload the resulting WAV file via Youtube, fail, say "Stuff it!", create a Powerpoint presentation with one slide (a screenshot of the Audacity project), add the WAV file, record the result, finally realise I can export that as a movie and... upload to Blogger. Hip Hoo-flippin-ray!

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Glorious. There is absolutely nothing else on earth to match birdsong for pure and simple beauty. I often sit outside and just listen to it. All for free too.

Imperfect and Tense said...

Technological progress doesn't often sit well with mindfulness, but at least the voice recorders built into modern smart phones allow the capturing of snippets such as this.

Spadger said...

Errr? You've lost me!

My skills at technophobia are beginning to know no bounds these days!

Imperfect and Tense said...

Not to worry, JD, the listening's the important bit :o)

Mark said...

Good evening Mr Tense, I hope all is well at T.T . I am sending you my latest poem blog as there is a poem dedicated to you!!! Here it is poemblog11.blogspot.co.uk Toodles, Mark.

Spadger said...

Ah - this reminds me! When recently pre-judged by someone as thinking I only listen to classical music I should have retorted yes - bird song! But instead I reeled a great long list of past and present bands I listen too with the comment of 'I could spend all night listing bands if you like'!

Imperfect and Tense said...

JD, Only classical music? You? Well, I guess some of those blues tracks are classics!

Imperfect and Tense said...

Mark, You're a bit prolific in the poem department, eh? I like how you use visual cues to define the shape of a poem.

Mark said...

Good morning Mr Tense, when we are up in the Motherland I just get full of inspiration and the words flow like wine! Just had 10 fabulous days on the Outer Hebs and I'm inundated however I have to have self control TWD complains I always have my head in the clouds🤔

The Dragons were both in our little garden in Lincoln! We'll be getting Purple Emperors next!

Best wishes to the Tenses, Mark.