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  artists
:: Jeph Jerman : excerpts from the sound diary
 sept.
15, 99
recording in cottonwood. bamboo, growing
alongside the house is dry andbrittle, giving out only dry clicks
and rasps when contact mic'd. the bigger mic sounds a little better,
but today, (after much rain the last few days), there is more tone
in the sound. more small subtlties; squeaks, groans, smacks...
found a "squeaky rock" and "squeaker"
in the no man's land behind the house. the yard is full of all kinds
of rocks, volcanic, quartzes, sandstones...some small pieces of
flint and chert. lots of dry, dessicated branches, pine cones, bamboo.
remains of wooden out-buildings (?), snakeweed and mesquite. a few
prickly pear, and large pieces of petrified wood.
a moth was laying in the dirt
and pine needles next to the front door, flapping it's wings continuously.
recorded the sound of it's wings slapping the ground/twigs alongside
it. the moth continued to move it's wings in this way, slower over
time, for several hours. i wondered if it was dying...
occasionally at night we can hear rabbits screaming.
prey to rattlesnakes?
grasshoppers clicking as they jump out of our way.
hundreds of tiny ones alongside the road, where datura also grows
in a few spots.
light rain falling on the air conditioner
sounds like an "out of tune" (or prepared?) kalimba or
xylophone, rain on pine needles in the tree outside the front door
has a similar sound, though much more subtle.
oct. 01, 99
at dead horse ranch state park, saw a
huge datura plant, fully 12 to 15 feet across, being attended by
large black bees, big as my thumb. low pitched buzzing. locked the
bike to a picnic table and walked to the river, lined w/trees, snakeweed,
datura, grasses, cattails... dragonflies w/bright red patches on
their wings that open out when they fly. recorded 30 minutes of
the river with cicada sounds. there were many of them in the trees
above my head, too far up to see. they tend to call in chorus, sounding
off for awhile and then tapering off a few at a time, leaving only
the river sound. then, a few minutes later, one or two will start
up again and then they're all in on it...not that loud in terms
of decibels, but almost deafening in density. i moved the mic a
few times, trying to pick up different areas of the sound mass.
the river a white hissing noise, but near the bank, where plants
dipped into it or grew out of it, the water would swirl and cascade,
making those dripping, bubbling sounds.
i've made my first instrument since arriving. a yucca-stalk
wind chime, very resonant. today it's hanging in the window with
a good breeze happening and it sounds great. i keep imagining a
room full of these chimes, of all sizes, with some sort of device
for moving air, a silent set of fans or something, so that the sound
is dense and continuous...
oct. 04, 99
finished another yucca chime, smaller,
using thinner stalk. got the idea today to try and make one with
a cross piece, which would give more chances of collision between
the chimes. still want to make a big one from agave. would be great
to find a way to get all "my" sounds together, like hanging
everything and moving them by means of strings and pulleys? -all
on cross pieces?-everything set on vibrating platforms?
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