Singing Bowls and Musical Stones

Went on a road trip with Iain McNicol and his singing bowls today and ended up at Cathedral Quarry in Langdale. We went to record the singing bowls but as we walked into the quarry (which is more of a cave) we were greated by someone playing flute.

Here's one of the recordings I made of the duets between Iain and the mysterious flute lady - I hope she drops me an email so I can send her the recordings - wonderful stuff. I also recorded the most amazing song the lady sang with singing bowl, water dripping and a plane going past overhead.

If you love great natural reverbs get yourself along http://www.visitcumbria.com/amb/cathedral-cave.htm and have a play/sing - just beautiful ambience.

We also nipped into the Ruskin museum to record the harmonicon or musical stones that were presented to John Ruskin by the Till Family.

More fun at Meet The Artist

I had fun working in the kitchen at Lanternhouse for another Meet The Artist day today.

I've been wondering about the amount of effects/processing I use on field recordings and after working with Steve & Mary the other day and not using much in the way of effects I thought I'd revisit the loops I've been working with on the project and try and do a 'dry' improvisation, so you hear the actual sounds more. Here's a little workout from the stuff I recorded whilst jamming about which for the sake of it having a name I've called Drystone Welding.



Iain McNicol popped in today and we have arranged to go and record his singing bowls around the county on Monday, he knows some really interesting places so expect some brilliant results :-) We may even try and do a live broadcast somewhere along the way.......Talking of which I will be performing a live internet TV broadcast from Lanternhouse at the last Meet The Artist day - I will post more details soon.....

Barrovian poet Ann Wilson came along in the afternoon with her loop station pedal and we had a bit of a jam - we had a play with a couple of poems and then a general inprovisation. It was good fun and interesting to see how we could work together. 

Lanternhouse I

My first track made using found sounds recorded around Lanternhouse in Ulverston, imaginatively called Lanternhouse I.

The way I have been working for this track and for a number of years now is to start with field recordings. At Lanternhouse I recorded a host of sounds from kettles boiling, the lift going up and down, banging on handrails, playing the instruments in the music room, anything that catches my ear really. This was done with binaural and contact mics. I then use an audio editing programme to find small interseting parts of my field recordings to chop into loops - it may be that the rhythm is interesting, there's a kind of melody, or is just plain weird. I then have a bank of loops that I can then improvise with.

Lanternhouse I features piano, hamonium, traffic noise, fridge, fire extinguisher and hand rails.



I will be releasing the Lanternhouse field recordings as a remix pack so everyone can have a play with the sounds, I will feature some of the best on the blog - let me know if you're interested at info@shaunblezard.com

First day at Lanternhouse

Spent my first day at Lanternhouse yesterday making sound recordings and filming around the building.

I wanted to start getting to know the building better so went for an exploration with binaural mic and a flip camera collecting material for a piece about Lanternhouse.


This was a great way to start looking at the building with fresh eyes and ears. I've had some sort of relationship with Lanternhouse since it opened so it was refreshing to get to know some bits I'd never been to before like the tower and to stop and really take in small parts of the building.


One of my favourite parts of the sound of the building is the amazing sound of the metal handrails that run up and down the stairwells - really fantastic resonance when hit.


Got some really great binaural recordings along with testing out one of Lanternhouse's Flip cameras, which I used to film some nice looking abstract footage looking at close ups and geometric patterns around the building. My initial thought for a piece was people's relationship with the building and how the building sits within the community of Ulverston but after reviewing my collection of sound and film I was drawn more to just the building itself. To the bits most people don't see, to the bits we walk past and not notice. With this in mind I retraced my steps and recorded a series of contact mic recordings of the building paying attention to things like the noise of the computer server and the rumbling of the lift.


Looking forward to getting back there next week to get some more recordings, especially with contact micand starting to pull my first work of the residency together.

Furness Abbey Binaural Edit

A trip to Furness Abbey to do some field recording using binaural mics.

This is a quick edit of some of the interesting parts of the trip.

Such a lot of sounds of journeys in a space I went to thinking of it a quiet place. There's planes, trains, automobiles plus walking and jogging.....

I also did some recordings of Barrow town centre and had a play with a contact mic in the car whilst driving, will see if anything good comes out of that. At the moment I'm really just playing around with recording methods and thinking of ways to use field recordings in my work. Really happy with the Abbey recordings on the whole, need to get used to the stillness needed to make good field recordings again, I do seem to have a habit of walking about too much.....

A Return Journey Of Sorts

A track from my first field recording session round Ulverston and bus journey from Ulverston to Dalton. Nothing really interesting in the full recordings so I chopped them up into small sections and put them into Ableton Live and had a play to see if anything came from that. This is from my first session so thought it should be documented as a starting point of my residency at Lanternhouse.

The title is about the bus journey but also a reference to a home coming of sorts, growing up in Ulverston and how doing this project got me thinking about places of my youth that I'd like to revisit and record and add to the project.