Fields of Silence

2005

fixed medium - stereo

8’55”

Commissioned by:

Gordon Forum for the Arts (funded by Aberdeenshire Council/Scottish Arts Council)

Fields of Silence is part of a larger project called Gordon Soundscape, which is an attempt to map the sonic diversity of the former Gordon District in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. The project also comprises the acousmatic/soundscape concert piece Still Voices, the Gordon Soundscape Sound Map and the sound documentary/installation Resound.

I’ve always thought that fields fall silent once they’ve been harvested. They’re not making a great deal of sound when they’re full of crops, admittedly, but, as a child, seeing fields ready to be harvested always produced a particular sound in my mind, even though I couldn’t hear it.

In this piece I use sounds recorded in fields before harvesting and also sounds made from what is left afterwards, particularly plucking the short lengths of stubble, some of which produce pitched sounds. As well as this, there is a second concept of a field, that of a previously empty space which is defined by the sounds that are put in it. There are many such fields in this piece and the opening is a good example – a recording of the ambience prior to an auction gradually fills the performance space – particularly effective during the first performance when the piece was performed in the space where this recording was made.