The other day I went down to the creek to record some frog sounds with my kids, who are 11 and 6. And I discovered (not just the eastern common froglet) but a crack in the fabric of the universe that my children have been visiting for some time.
I didn’t recognise it as a portal to another world at first - I thought it was just my son’s tendency to exaggerate - to call the impermanent creek near our house “a raging river”, the mound with a few weeds on it a “perilous mountain” and the patch of remnant degraded bushland “a foreboding forest”. I wanted to correct him - he was messing with the script in my head of this sound recording… then I stopped myself… and just sat with being taken to a magical parallel world in his imagination.
I’ve been thinking about the power of subjective viewpoints in sound a bit - I gave a lecture recently where I waxed poetic about how audio-only media constructs immersive, frameless worlds… viewpoints you can’t refute because all you can go by is what the subject tells you… as a listener you are arguably more vulnerable - as the only way to make sense of it and fumble forward in the dark is to trust them.
So now I’m down the rabbit hole working on a piece about a little bit of bushland by the creek near my house. I like the idea of highlighting and contrasting the different ways we regard the natural world around us… a resource to be used, a canvas marked by our hands, a lore and truth to be respected - or, like for my kids, a place of mystery, adventure and discovery.
Recording different people for the piece has been fascinating - everyone I talk to is a whole universe unto themselves. So far everyone responds to the question of ‘what do you see’ by talking about what is invisible to me. They describe a relationship or a memory or a desire for the place rather than what they see with their eyes….
The short piece above is an extract I’m working on today - as well as little bit of my heart melting. I was trawling through these rushes thinking ‘there is nothing in here - I’m cutting confetti and wasting my time’ - and then I press play and I’m transported somewhere else - a place that that reminds me of my own childhood experiences running in bush creeks - and a world that makes me smile because these brave travellers navigating alternate worlds and time warp continuums are my very own children, and when I’m quiet they let me tag along with them.