The Domestic Soundscape making, listening, thinkingfelicityford@outlook.com
Listening
Rustles and Cheer…
Today’s morning bought lovely surprises when I switched on my PC and found Colleen’s beautiful Amaryllis, Kate’s gorgeous photo with waxing moon, Liz’s cheery, steaming coffee mugs and Caro’s amazing photos of her garden. Many of my friends are a drive, or a very long drive or sometimes a boat or an aeroplane trip away […]
SOUND BANK Advent Calendar
Last year around the end of October I created the stationery for my SOUND BANK project. To do this, I screenprinted SOUND BANK onto 365 glassine envelopes along with space for the date, a title and a record number. Then I created for each envelope a letterpress-printed card on which to record (by means of […]
Audible Fields
Last Sunday I made a journey to Bristol in the evening to attend Audible Fields, organised by Matt Davies as part of the All Around You festival. Audible Fields was presented in the cube cinema and involved all the seats in the tiny auditorium being fitted with a headphone jack through which binaural recordings could […]
Swaledale sea socks – a maritime yarn
This is the first sock I have made in which sound was an influence, and I think it may well be my very favourite sock. Last year when I was staying in Sussex, Kate and I took a walk on the beach and I found myself comparing the gorgeously light crunch of the seashells and […]
Anthem by Simon James French
I met Simon James French at Middlesex University when I was working on the Cut and Splice Domestic Soundscape podcast series. Along with several other artists he came to the informal workshops/classes I gave there about Sonic Wallpaper and contributed to the discussions on that topic which ended up in podcast #2 of the series, […]
Blackbird
Forgive me if I have already said any of this before; it is a favourite story of mine and is required here in order to contextualise today’s little creation… The first time I realised the magical role that everyday sounds could play in my life was 4 years ago when a Blackbird decided to sing […]
Saturday’s sad news
Yesterday, our long-lived and much-loved lurcher, Jenny, had to be put down. This is very sad for all of us, but especially my Dad who gave her a walk and some good painkillers and sat with her, keeping her company, during her last night. My Mum saw Jenny in the dog’s home around ten years […]
Music in everything you hear
This is a contemporary remix of a song from my own ABC record, which was released in 1972. It has been mixed live and post-mix on my computer and includes recordings from my own collection as well as from the wondrous sound effects record collection I have begun to amass. Listen out for: The telephone […]
Geekery
I have had a long-standing and largely unfounded fear of The Mixing Desk that has prevented me from learning to use one since the start of my soundart career. This weekend that fear was well and truly conquered and I am sold on the live-mixing of sounds as an amazing way to organise and present […]
Howling with Wolves
Yesterday I went to Beenham in Berkshire to meet with 8 wolves who reside there at the UK Wolf Conservation Trust. Thinking up features for our Halloween special on The Hub, I was initially going to go on some kind of scary walk in Oxfordshire and make field recordings along the way. There are certainly […]
Chicken Walk
The name of this post refers to Hasil Adkins’ song, Chicken Chicken Walk – which you should definitely check out. It also refers to my day yesterday during which I attended a ‘hen party’ with my parents, and walked along the route I used to take home from school when I was at secondary school […]
The A4074 walking project
When a traveler asked Wordswoth’s servant to show him her master’s study, she answered, “Here is his library, but his study is out of doors.” – Walking, a lecture by Henry David Thoreau I am reading many good books and I thought I should share them here. Thoreau’s Walking has some important ideas in it. […]
Saturday Post Part 2
We made sloe gin. After harvesting the sloes I can quite see how Colleen’s son mistook them for Blueberries as they are a superb shade of blue and the bloom on them is quite similar. We used this recipe and I especially enjoyed pouring the sugar in through a makeshift paper funnel. The sound of […]
Taking the time…
I have been trying to sew a top over the past few days and it has been most instructive in terms of patience. For a very long time I have had a large length of deep fuscia pink tweed, given to me by my Godmother when she realised she would never get a suit out […]
An experiment in podcasting…
A podcast by Felicity Ford exploring the various imaginative ways that one could create garments out of the landscape and history of London. This episode is entitled Episode 1 of The Wandering Maker: Singing Aplacas and Various Buttons.
Map Addict
I have been reading Mike Parker’s Map Addict and it is very inspiring (and surprisingly funny) in its consideration of the wonderful world of maps, and – in particular – Ordnance Survey maps. Amongst lively discussions on the politics and history of mapping, Parker’s prose rhapsodically celebrates the speculative journeys afforded by maps, and the […]
Walbury, Combe and Buttermere
On Monday we went walking. The extent of our forward planning involved me impatiently hunting for the densest patch of contour lines on the map and then directing Mark to them. Walking in The Highlands has given me a thirst for hills and although Walbury Hill is comparitively very modest at 297m, it is the […]
Sonic Gardening
Rustling flora Joe Swift recently had an interesting article in The Times about sound in the garden. Encouraging gardeners to open our ears, Swift talked about the joys of using all five senses in the garden and on my recent walking expeditions, I have found myself extending his ideas to the wider environment. Some things […]
The Knitting Tourist and some other Knitting News
‘This essay is meant for those who intend to work with their hands at any craft. Its subject is the serious and fundamental necessity of handwork as an essential function of the life of man.’ – Ethel & Philip Mairet, 1918, An Essay on Craft and Obedience I found this tantalising snippet of writing along […]
August Online…
July offline was very eventful and the experiment was wholly successful. I didn’t keep myself 100% Internet free, I must confess. Missing some blogs just too much to bear, plus some necessary work-related admin and a few important fact-finding missions lured me into cyberspace on several occasions but the hours of staring at a computer-screen […]
Woolfest
I spent the weekend here with Liz, Lara, Kate and Tom. Our temporary tent-village was frequented by the Herdwicks who also live in Sykes Farm and who produce the most amazing variety and quantity of baas around first light. The cows sometimes join in and I have attached a sound file here so that you […]
July Offline, Woolfest etc.
Thanks so much everyone for all the birthday wishes. It’s really been a magical few days and I am already feeling settled into my 30s. I’ve been busy enjoying my birthday gifts since yesterday and today I made a cyber-zombie from a book called Creepy Cute Crochet which I was given by the rest of […]
Cast On!
On Friday just as I was wrapping up the week’s work, I noticed that Episode 81 of Brenda Dayne’s fabulous podcast – Cast On – was up. I am more than a little bit thrilled to be included in this episode, as Brenda Dayne is a personal hero for me in terms of the craft […]
Post of today #1: FO
I present, first of all, one FO. It is knit from sounds and interviews and recordings and old tapes and meetings with artists and other such things of joy and you can hear it here, or here. I am very pleased with this, the first in a series of four podcasts, commissioned by Sound and […]
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