10 Aug Desert Soundscapes

As “Sound Technician”, my primary directive for my summer project is to document, analyze, and edit the sounds of the Sonoran summer. My supervisors have provided to me a few ideas, in addition to plenty of other resources to contact, as they themselves have no background in wildlife recordings. Despite this loose framework, the content and direction I wish to take my project is almost entirely at my own discretion. Each week I have a short talk/assessment with my supervisors Megan and Jade, during which I discuss how my recording and editing has been going, and I tell them what I have in mind moving forward. At this time, they often provide me with resources, ideas, and contacts based on any struggles or questions I have. This project structure has been excellent, because I feel I have the creative liberty to make the project my own, yet I also have a small amount of supervision to help keep me motivated even when I hit a wall with some aspect of the project.

One aspect of the project that I have developed along with the help of park staff is the creation of comprehensive guides that detail every aspect of the recording and editing process. These skills took me a great deal of time and effort to develop, and it seemed that documenting the entire process from beginning to end with helpful tips interspersed would be extremely helpful for any individuals hoping to record sounds in the future. The analysis and editing of audio has a particularly steep learning curve if you do not have any previous background because a lot of the common verbiage is confusing techno-jargon that I attempted to explain in layman’s terms. I believe that this small project will be easily worth my time if the monument ever has another sound technician.