Field Recordings

Despite popular belief field recordings do not have to happen in fields. A field recording can be recorded anywhere and with any type of recorder except maybe wax cylinders which are awesome!

The first Field Recordings were done in the mid 1800s by Thomas Edison in a train station before the invention of recording technology. The recordings were made on tinfoil covered in soot by a hair from a pig. The recording apparatus was very large and awesome looking. Although the recordings were never meant to be listened to with ears, but instead with eyes only, our modern future technologies such as laser beams and robots have allowed us to aurally view the recordings. They sound like harsh noise. At least a hundred years later, Fluxus or the SI or somebody used Field Recordings to make concrete poetry.