This month I have begun my MA program and so far it seems like it’s going to be loads of fun.

The other folks on my course all seem very nice and they have a diverse range of interests in all kinds of things sound related, from the super high tech, to the very low tech.

So far, aside from the obvious beginning of essay writing, I have mostly been focusing on making some underwater recordings.

I hired out some Jez Riley French hydrophones from the uni’s asset store and have been making lots of recordings with them. Mostly this involves trying to get them to stay underwater by sticking them in slightly awkward places like this:

Results have been varied to say the least but I’ve got some recordings that I’m pretty happy with and the process itself really encourages you to listen and experiment with placement a lot, which has been very fun.

I’ll update this post with some of the recordings I’ve made in the next week or so.

Update: Here’s a recording I made at Bristol Harbourside from the end of a pontoon. I dropped the hydrophone about 4 metres down into the water and came across this terrifying scraping sound. Ten nerd points for anyone who can identify it. My best guess is some kind of sluice/valve thing or some part of a boat (although there were no obviously moving or loud boats around at the time)

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