Sound Patterns

Artists

Album Info

Release Date: 1953

Label: Folkways Records

© 1953 Folkways Records & Service Corp. 117 W. 46 St. NYC
Comes with a 8-page booklet.

Excerpt from booklet: "Folkways Records in this series presents what it believes to be a departure from material generally issued on phonograph records. Like the photography and art ‘annuals, ' each issue will include the most unusual - and the most common - sounds that exist; and through aural interplay, Folkways hopes to be able to establish a mood not unlike that of seeing photographs and pictures. Taken out of content these sounds ‘stand’ by themselves in their uniqueness, and create new auditory dimensions.

These sounds came to Folkways Records from varied sources and were sent by many people . . . . . . many were recorded on scientific expeditions. Their compilation according to their character tends to make exotic and exciting listening.

Many recording techniques were used. Motion picture sound recordings were taken "on location." Peter Paul Kellogg had recording equipment mounted in the rear compartment of his passenger car and the parabolic reflector that he used was fastened to a spare tire rig. Robert Snedigar used a small, inexpensive tape home-operated—house current recorder with which he had his "Zoo show" copied 'off the air‘ in Chicago. Some of the sounds were recorded on primitive disc-recorders in the wilds of the Arctic and in Africa, others were "taped" (30 inches) with the latest Ampex, Telefunken or RCA studio microphones; many were recorded with the new "high-fidelity" Magnemite hand-operated battery recorder that weighs less than twenty pounds complete and which explorers frequently take now to inaccessible areas.

Peter Bartok taped the crickets in this album thus: He had a recording session in a barn in Connecticut with a string quartet; this was the only place where they felt they could get a quality of reproduction that would "sound real. " That night he heard the cricket chorus (with toads in the background). He set up his Ampex, rolled out a 30-foot cable with his microphone and got to work.

Dr. Peter Paul Kellogg was "on location" in Florida recording animal sounds. Just as he was "getting" the toad heard in this record, a storm broke. He rushed to his car with the microphone to protect it. Then he proceded to record the storm. After it was over, he "opened up" his equipment and caught the bird (aurally). It seemed a nice sequence to include."

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