Nature Sounds.ca - Nature Music

Nature music – that is, music made entirely with nature sounds – can be extremely expressive, ranging from amusing and engaging to relaxing and beyond that to exciting. Nature sounds can express with a full spectrum of emotions in an intriguing variety of tempos. In the sounds of nature, there is pitch and tempo, melodies and choruses, which are all being created by a multitude of players. Here at Nature Sounds.ca, in a careful, respectful, and loving manner, the recorded nature sounds are arranged, edited, and mixed into finished soundscapes of music.

It has been said that music is a "universal language". This is true in that people who enjoy a particular genre of music may speak different languages, but one person's music is often another person's noise. In other words, any one musical genre will be selective in it's focus – communicating to some, and alienating to others. Many nature sounds have the same effect. One person's relaxing thunderstorm is another person's exciting or frightening sound. Our reactions to nature sounds depend on our past experiences and hence our learned associations of different sounds with either pleasure or pain. For most of us, we usually hear nature sounds only when on vacation, or when visiting. Nature sounds then have a pleasant and relaxationing connation.

Musical Tempos of Nature Sounds

In nature, different tempos are found in a myriad of natural sources – animal and environmental. Waves immediately come to mind – larger waves repeat in slower, rolling tempo with more bass frequencies. Smaller lake waves lap and lick sand and rocks in a much faster, playful manner. Recording thunder is what brought me into this field. Thunder tends to have a slow repeat time between strikes. Anticipation mounts as the strikes slowly get closer to the listener each time too!

Much has been written about the niche that each species fills or holds in the audio spectrum. The nature of the noises that each species makes is also determined by the function of the noise. For example, long medium pitched sounds will carry further than short, high sounds. This means that the long call of the loon will carry much further than the song of the robin. Species with larger territories (the loon) must be able to communicate over larger distances then those with smaller territories (the robin). If a species in an urban environment finds that its acoustical niche is flooded by human noise, it will often make (we assume permanent) changes to the pitch of its song.

It is my opinion that there is music in the sigh of the wind, the dancing of leaves, the chorusing of crickets, as well as the soliloquy of the songbird. The rhythm of the Dance of Life is created by the music of nature.

Enjoy!