Reading:
Francis Crick – Life Itself
Edward Grey – The Charm of Birds
Research on use of the term ‘dawn chorus’, for which this is the earliest instance I can find.
John Webster – The White Devil
First time I’ve read it since playing Flamineo in 1989.
Grimms Fairy Tales
Revisiting, looking for themes of bird symbolism and aurality.
Listening to:
Fun Frequency – Chronicles of Decay
Petra Haden’s a-capella series
Watching:
Random outdoors stuff on YouTube e.g. Fandabi Dozi’s Overnight Survival as a 17th Century Highlander
Working on:
Fact Liverpool remote collaboration with Daniel Thorne
Culture in Quarantine BBC commission ‘a birdsong garden’
Chapter for Mike Collier’s (ed) book, The Dawn Chorus: songs of time and place
Contribution to the Urban Tree Festival
Developing a proposal with poet Katrina Porteous for audio pieces for a sculpture trail on the Northumberland coast
Remastering my audio guides and CDs from 1990s
Considering the phonological syntax of starling song. (extract)
Geoff Sample is a field recordist, natural history author and sound artist, with a special interest in birdsong and the cultural history of hearing music in nature.