Wednesday 11th saw me lead a small group of folks on a rather unconventional sound walk. The term has come to mean certain things to certain folks & most people who attend seem to expect a finished 'piece' or process - a map to follow & a set of sounds already discovered for people to listen to. However for this walk (& indeed for most of the walks I have been doing in recent times) I prefer to just meet up n& head off, so that we all share in the discovery.
The group was made up mostly of other recordists who live in Prague & in situations like that it is often the case that those involved have already spent some time locating interesting sounds anyway.
Some bright spark had the idea to go up to a roof top cafe that overlooked one of the main squares & they claimed it was that they thought there might be some nice sounds there. However I suspect the ice-cream & beers might have been the real motivation. So after an hour or so on the streets exploring various passages & alleys we ended up at the cafe talking about what interests us all in terms of field recording.
To my mind, being able to involve a more social, less dictated element in sound walks often allows for as much of a creative outcome as a more set experience.
Sounds that fellow walkers focused on included bins, a playground, lifts and general street chatter. For me, it was the various passages, many with elaborate ceilings or tiled walls, that offered the most. I suspect I will return to some of these in the coming days to attempt to capture the sound of them in as quiet a time as possible.
I've also discovered a book 'industrial Prague' which lists key functional buildings and structures and am setting to work recording as many of these as possible - with the intention of making this an extended project.
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