When is a forest not a forest? When you can listen to it wherever you are in the world and be transported to a green paradise. A new global soundmap, Sounds of the Forest, compiled by ordinary people, is unveiled today.
Georgina Wilson-Powell
Thu 2 Jul 2020
Timber Festival has spent the lockdown collating people's recordings of their local forest to create an incredible global Sounds Of The Forest soundmap of that charts birdsong and wildlife across the world, many of whom are thriving in our disappearance.
People were invited to record one minute of sounds in their local wood or forest, supported by Arts Council England to create the soundmap which launches this weekend. Musicians, artists, authors and radio presenters have already taken part.
Let us know in the comments below if you've contributed or listened to the soundmap and what you think.
Anyone can add to or borrow from the sounds of the woods soundmap
The sounds will form an ongoing open source library which anyone can add to, or borrow from, and the team hope that they will inspire and form part of new audio work which could be presented at next year's Timber Festival.
What sounds would you capture in your local woods?
Rowan Cannon and Sarah Bird, directors of Wild Rumpus, partners in creating Timber Festival, say: "We’re thrilled with how many sounds have been contributed from forests and woodlands all over the world for our digital global forests sound map."
"We wanted to inspire people to get outside and really connect to nature, to tune into the bird song, wildlife and sound of the wind in the canopy, but I’m not sure we realised how compelling and inspiring it would be to sit in our homes, during these strange and uncertain times and to be transported to a forest in say Panama, Montreal or Hong Kong."
"We’ve started new conversations that might flourish into future collaborations and this is just the beginning. The sound map will remain open for contributions and then later in the summer we’ll be talking to musicians about how they might interpret and use the sounds for new compositions, which can then hopefully be performed at Timber Festival in 2021."
Timber Festival takes place on a 70 acre woodland site near Ashby de le Zouch in the heart of the National Forest, which was the first forest to be created at scale in England for over 1000 years. It will take place 2-4 July 2021.
