Yellowknife Soundscape
For more information, and for scores and parts, please visit the Canadian Music Centre.
Title: Yellowknife Soundscape
Year Completed: 2012
Duration: 5 mins
Instrumentation: electroacoustic track
Premiere: Yellowknife, 2013
Program Notes:
What is your ‘hometown’? Is it the town you grew up in? The town you live in now? The town you would call home for whatever reason? My hometown is Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, and it is the answer to all three of those questions.
Thanks to the Northwest Territories Arts Council, I was able to produce this soundscape of Yellowknife. It is an audio portrait that reaches through the seasons and finds common sounds (soundmarks) like ravens or crunching snow, as well as more unusual sonic moments like goat or buffalo grunts, or ants chewing wood. Photo credits go to three amazing local photographers: Bill Braden, Dave Brosha and Rae Braden. Sounds I love from the town I love – enjoy!
Sounds in the soundscape (in order of audition/appearance):
Bushplane
Squirrel
Flags near the museum
Crosswalk signal on Franklin Avenue
Ravens
Giant Mine warning sound – to ward off ravens
Buffalo grunting on the highway near Behchokǫ̀
Mosquitos
Songbirds
Fishing
Lake waves
Loons
Ants chewing wood
Splitting wood with an axe
Bonfire
Cracking ice – deep winter
Snow crunching underfoot
Skating
Snowmobiles
Ptarmigan
Snow removal trucks at midnight
A truck unable to start because of the cold
Dogsled race start
Goats
Candle ice – spring