The Nature Sounds Society has started a weblog where we will be posting various blogs from events we attend as well as our own such as the annual workshop and tech talks. We will be creating a page on this site that will redirect to the actual blog page but in the meantime please visit http://naturesoundssociety.typepad.com/ to see it. We will be putting video clips from events up there as well.

New Season - begins May 5, 2008

Montclair Presbyterian Church

Close to Home offers monthly public lectures and subscription field trips to various locales in the Bay Area which focus on wildlife and ecology of these areas. For more information and the 2008 schedule, please go to the following link:

http://www.close-to-home.org/

The Nature Sounds Society will be ensconsed in one of the many rooms of Julia Morgan's Chapel of the Chimes in Oakland for the Garden of Memory concert on June 21. The event is mostly musicians who are scattered throughout the columbarium playing by themselves or with others. This year Sarah Cahill who organizes the event was happy to have us back for the second time. We'll be playing soundscapes from Dan Dugan's vast library of sounds in one of the garden rooms.

4499 Piedmont Ave., next to Mountain View Cemetery, in Oakland on Saturday, June 21 from 5 to 9 pm.

Admission is $12 general, $8 students and seniors, $5 kids under 12 (kids under 5 are free).

Audio Workshop

Urban Horticultural Center, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington

This workshop is sponsored by naturesound.org, the University of Washington and the Burke Museum. Focus of the workshop is on teaching state-of-the-art techniques for recording the sounds of wildlife. There will be daily field recording sessions and lecture discussion. Mark Oberle from the University of Washington, Curt Black of Bats NW, and Martyn Stewart of naturesound.org will be the instructors for this workshop. More information about registration and activities may be found at the following link:

http://naturesound.org/Audio_Workshop.html

San Francisco State University Field Station, Yuba Pass California

The Nature Sounds Society (NSS) presents the Twenty-Fourth Annual Field Recording Workshop June 27-29 at San Francisco State University's Yuba Pass Field Station, in the beautiful Sierra Nevada Mountains. This year's theme is "Art and Nature".

Featured speakers include Lea Cox, MFA UC Santa Cruz, who recently made a career change from science to installation art that uses natural sound to educate; Hugh Livingston, composer who uses nature sounds in his installations; Steve Sergeant, Sierra Club activist and producer of Wildebeat, a podcast journal/radio show exploring various aspects of nature; Martyn Stewart, recordist and sound engineer who travels the world on various nature sound projects both scientific and esoteric; and Dan Dugan, sound engineer, on the latest technology in field recording. Workshop participants learn about nature sound recording and technical equipment during daily sessions in the field with experienced recordists. Evening lecture sessions will cover topics in biology, including a discussion of the environments in which we will be recording, recording techniques, natural quiet and soundscape measurement. The participants will also learn about equipment and microphone handling techniques as well as being introduced to the current work being done by the National Park Service for the preservation of natural soundscapes. The workshop is open to both amateurs and professionals, and families are welcome. Accommodations are in comfortable tent cabins in a beautiful setting beside the Yuba River.

This year we have an exciting add-on feature to the workshop, thanks to Steve Sergeant and the Sierra Club: an overnight backpacking trip Sunday night June 29th-Monday June 30th to areas not impacted by vehicular traffic for an opportunity to record in a more natural surrounding. This trip will not only provide a more pristine recording environment but also provide participants with the opportunity to test and improve their field skills under the aegis of a both a master outdoorsman (Steve) and techhead (Dan), and is available to anyone with the physical skills for a moderate to moderately strenuous hike and in possession of recording rig.

The Nature Sounds Society is an organization dedicated to the recording and creative use of natural sounds.
Cost of the workshop is $185 for NSS members, $210 for non-members (includes one-year NSS membership).
For more information, the Nature Sounds Society at (415) 821-9776; on the web at www.naturesounds.org, or e-mail events@naturesounds.org

Workshop Registration Form (.doc)

Cost is $185 members, $210 non-members. Contact events@naturesounds.org or (510) 821-9776 for further information.