any ideas for unusual recording locatio

29 Mar 01 - 08:50 PM (#428883)
Subject: any ideas for unusual recording locations
From: GUEST,gigafone

We're looking for new ideas for musical locations in which to record acoustic music. If music is a living thing, and has a natural environment, where would it reside?

The Gigafone Record is a CD periodical featuring original music recorded in natural settings. The first two issues featured recordings from the street, in a luthier's shop, in a banjoist's houseboat, in a songwriter's bathroom, and in an abandoned grange hall. We're putting together the summer issue now.

Thanks for the input.

Robert Sylvain Artistic Director Gigafone Records http://www.gigafone.com

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29 Mar 01 - 08:58 PM (#428885)
Subject: RE: Help: any ideas for unusual recording locatio
From: Allan C.

Here's a link.

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30 Mar 01 - 12:02 AM (#428965)
Subject: RE: Help: any ideas for unusual recording locatio
From: Tom D.

I would recommend any of the walkway tunnels in either Prospect Park in Brooklyn, N.Y. or Central Park in Manhattan. They range for 10 to 20 yards in length and have nice rounded ceilings. It is not unlikely that the NYC Parks Department would grant a permit for a nominal (or no) fee if use were to be more than casual (hour or more?) I often play pennywhistle in these venues, and the accoustics are great. The underground walkway between the Chambers Street subway stop and the World Trade Center also has great echo. Pedestrian Traffic at night is not massive. (An added bonus, for music lovers, is that you get to "Take the 'A' Train" to get there --no kidding.)

Happy Hunting,

Tom D.

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30 Mar 01 - 05:38 AM (#429070)
Subject: RE: Help: any ideas for unusual recording locatio
From: GUEST,Sam Pirt

GO to Sweden, find a lake with tree's around and play. You won't find a better location than that, truly amazing, atmospheric, haunting and deeply moving.

Cheers, Sam

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30 Mar 01 - 05:52 AM (#429073)
Subject: RE: Help: any ideas for unusual recording locatio
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler

Cautionary tale from Mike Raven on the joys of outdoor recording:
Air Wars and Videos in Wales

I think we all know how noisy the countryside can be, but it is not until you really want a modicum of silence that you appreciate just how relentlessly rowdy our hills and greeny vales are as a norm. As well as video filming at festivals, I have been recording a lot of my own guitar music in beautiful and dramatic locations in Shropshire and Wales. More than once I have travelled many miles, set up all the gear and then had to contend with a rehearsal for World War Three as RAF jets scream overhead. On a visit to Lake Vyrnwy I had to give up trying to record the sound live and resorted to miming to one of my CDs, with the sound going straight into the camera. A little later that day it was the roar of a waterfall that necessitated the same devious ploy. (Don't sneer too loudly: even royalty, like John Kirkpatrick, have done a bit of this.)

On another occasion I had found an idyllic spot by the River Tern, near Newport, and had just started to record myself reading poems when two very large and very noisy helicopters flew in from the RAF Tern Hill Training School and practised manoeuvres over my very head. They were joined by a flight of honking geese, a love-lorn cock pheasant in full croak and Bruno, my Rottweiler-Great Dane cross, splashing merrily in the cooling waters of the river. And that was not all. In the occasional lull between these near sounds one was then able to hear the distant howling of hounds from the Hunt Kennels and the hum of a tractor on the western horizon.

I kept some of the takes for two reasons: one, I had to project my voice strongly and was pleased by the result, and two, some of it was rather funny. Oh, I nearly forgot, there was another rogue sound, namely a breeze that blew up spasmodically. Wind and microphones are not the best of buddies, and it cost me a poem. I was using original manuscripts and one was caught in a gust. I had to watch helplessly as it floated away downstream, and had romantic thoughts about it having been claimed by the God of the River. I still don't know which poem it was but am hoping it is one that I recorded before the Water Spirits claimed it for their own.
(c)Mike Raven

RtS

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30 Mar 01 - 06:57 AM (#429086)
Subject: RE: Help: any ideas for unusual recording locatio
From: Mr Red

I knew a guy who busked on a Fri in a pedestrian underpass in Wellington NZ. Among his observations were that the legth of the tunnel was well suited to his melodian and people fell into a cheery step on Fridays as he played morris tunes.
Mike Raven - aren't you at Upton-u-Severn FF this year? Or was it Alcester I saw you billed at. Personally I would have thought waterfalls and honking geese were all part of the fun of "location". Still as one wag put it years ago:
"Noise covers a multitude of dins"

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30 Mar 01 - 07:53 AM (#429114)
Subject: RE: Help: any ideas for unusual recording locatio
From: John P

I've played a few times in the guitar room at a music store. There's something really nice about playing unamplified acoustic music in a room with a couple of hundred guitars, mandolins, and banjos hanging on the walls all around you.

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30 Mar 01 - 08:03 AM (#429119)
Subject: RE: Help: any ideas for unusual recording locatio
From: Margaret V

Does your location in Maine mean you are limited to North America in your search, or do you sometimes travel to other countries? I'm thinking of the slate quarry at Blaenau Ffestiniog in Morth Wales, Llechwedd Slate Cavern I believe it's called, which you can visit by getting on a tram and descending "down in the dark, deep underground," to borrow a phrase. Perhaps after the tourists went home for the evening you could arrange to stay late... I don't know what the acoustics would be like, but I like the idea of it, especially because in times past the quarrymen were known for their lunchtime gatherings that were like a mini-Eisteddfod--competitions in singing, recitations, bible quoting, extemporaneous speech-making, etc. So there is a history of the space being used artistically. Margaret

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30 Mar 01 - 08:05 AM (#429121)
Subject: RE: Help: any ideas for unusual recording locatio
From: Margaret V

That would be NORTH Wales, not MORTH Wales.... Margaret

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30 Mar 01 - 08:07 AM (#429122)
Subject: RE: Help: any ideas for unusual recording locatio
From: Liam's Brother

The "doo-wop" singers of the 1950's used to practice in stations of the New York City subway system. I doubt any ever recorded there.

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