April 25, 2023 • 27 mins
Send us a Text Message with what batty adventures you’ve been up to this summer!
S4E45 - Bonus! This summer, in a major new exhibition, you can see how documenting the animal world has resulted in some of humankind’s most awe-inspiring art, science and sound recordings:
Animals: Art, Science and Sound is now open at the British Library
Part of the exhibition is dedicated to darkness and Steve got to have a preview of what's on show a couple of days before the exhibition opened. In this interview with Cheryl Tipp, curator of Wildlife and Environmental Sounds, Steve discovers what can be heard in the exhibit as well as what bat recordings lie in the archive. Hear the recordings of horseshoe bats made on one of the first commercially available bat detectors; the Holgate Mk VI and you can see this detector within the exhibition along with photographs of the waveforms it could make from recordings. It sits alongside other important works such as Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur (Artforms in nature) with the plate of bats on display. Cheryl also explains how you can submit your bat recordings to the library for adding to the archive.
The exhibition is open until Monday 28th Aug 2023. Tickets and all the information you need can be found on the Animals: Art, Science and Sound website.
- Follow Cheryl Tipp on twitter.
- Discover more about John Hooper on page 13 of this journal.
- Listen to the Holgate recordings of greater horseshoes again on the British Library archive page as well as Cheryl's recording of common pipistrelles.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Steve Roe (00:05):
Hello, welcome to BatChat! We're the Bat
Conservation Trust, the leadingcharity in the United Kingdom
solely devoted to theconservation of bats and the
landscapes on which they rely.
This podcast is for anyone wholoves bats. We're taking you on
location across the UK to bringyou the work being done in the
world of Bat Conservationstraight to your headphones. I'm
Steve Roe; professionally, I'man ecologist and in my spare
(00:27):
time, I'm a trustee of the BatConservation Trust. You can join
the conversation online usingthe hashtag #BatChat that's all
one word. We're currentlybetween series here on BatChat,
but I had to tell you about areally special exhibition taking
place over the next few months.
So we're bringing you thisspecial bonus episode. Last
week, I was invited to a placeI've never been before, the
(00:50):
British Library. Locatedopposite St Pancras
International train station incentral London, the British
Library is largely known forholding the world's most
important documents such as theMagna Carta, and Leonardo da
Vinci's notebook. But did youknow it also holds the wildlife
sound archives? Established in1969 as the British Library of
wildlife sounds, the collectionnow holds over a quarter of a
(01:12):
million scientifically organisedand documented field recordings
covering all classes of animal.
Now this summer in a major newexhibition, titled Animals; Art,
Science and Sound, you can seehow documenting the animal world
has resulted in some ofhumankind's most awe inspiring
art, science and soundrecordings. An entire section of
this collection is dedicated todarkness. And I got to have a
(01:33):
preview of what's on show acouple of days before the
exhibition opened. In thisinterview with Cheryl Tipp,
curator of wildlife andenvironmental sounds, I discover
what can be heard in theexhibit, as well as what bat
recordings lie in the archive,we get to hear horseshoe bats
made on one of the firstcommercially available bat
detectors, the Holgate Mk VI.
And you can see this detectorwithin the exhibition, along
(01:56):
with photographs of thewaveforms it could make from
recordings, it sits alongsideother important that works. And
in this episode, Cheryl alsoexplains how you can submit your
bat recordings to the BritishLibrary for adding to the
archives.
So I am, as you can hear in thebackground, in a new exhibition
(02:18):
at the British Library incentral London, just over the
road from St. Pancras station,and I'm here with Cheryl Tipp,
who's the curator of wildlifeand environmental sounds at the
British Library. So Cheryl, doyou want to say a bit about your
role here and how long you'vebeen here at the library.
Cheryl Tipp (02:34):
So I'm curator of wildlife and environmental
sounds working in the soundarchive, I've been here for 18
years now, my background is inzoology, but also in public
libraries. And so it's a perfectcombination when I was able to
come and work here at the BL.
Steve Roe (02:49):
Lovely. And I mean, I've always thought the British
Library just holds manuscriptsand documents and the important
books and things and hadn'trealised it's got a sound
library, how vast is thecollection? And what sort of
things does it hold?
Cheryl Tipp (03:01):
Well, the sound archive holds over 7 million
recordings. And it covers allgenres of recorded sound. So I
look after the wildlife andenvironmental but of course,
we've got pop music curators,drama, literature, world and
traditional accents and dialectsradio or history, we've got so
much material. And in mycollection, I've got about
300,000 recordings, cataloguedrecordings, many more to do in
(03:22):
my collection(!), covering allthe animal groups and from all
around the world. And that's oneof the points of the exhibition
was to try and promote the soundcollections here as much as the
other collections because manypeople don't know we have a
sound archive, and it's thismassive resource that's just
waiting to be explored and used.
And, yeah, it's a greatresource.
Steve Roe (03:41):
And why a career in sound, you know, what is it
about sound that's made you wantto do this?
Cheryl Tipp (03:45):
Well, my background is not in sound, I started with
just population biology. Andthen by chance, I managed to get
a job in the sound archive, andit completely changed. My kind
of interests, my focus, youknow, so I really kind of
relearn the natural worldthrough sound. And so when I
first started, it was greatlearning all these new sounds
and exploring them and hearingweird sounds and, you know,
(04:07):
really important recordings. Andso now I listen in a completely
different way as well when I'mout and about, you know, so it's
kind of going back to old placesthat I used to know visually,
but then now exploring themsonically. So it's complete,
it's actually completely changedmy life and how I engage with
the natural world.
Steve Roe (04:25):
So I mean, how does sound tell us more about the
natural world I'm thinking aboutthe larks ascending project. So
both Cheryl and I are members ofthe Wildlife Sound Recording
Society and their latestnewsletter's requesting that
people record the ... one of theweekends is just gone. There's
another two weekends ... thefirst time that people hear
skylarks, how does sound link uswith the natural world?
Cheryl Tipp (04:46):
Well, it's such a powerful thing sound you know,
we're so used to reading aboutanimals and looking at animals
but what you can learn from whatyou can get from sound you know,
from a kind of wellbeing pointof view, just enjoy and being
able to enjoy the sound of thenatural world but also from a
scientific point of view fromfrom sort of population studies
(05:06):
and surveys, using sound toidentify new species where
before they species were kind ofdefined just by looking, you
know, the morphology and andusing sound that kind of is
another way of looking atanimals. And it's identified new
species, it's found newpopulations, it's inspired
people. It creates this, itstirs a lot of emotion in people
(05:28):
as well, sometimes more. So Iwould say, than just looking at
a static object or reading adescription, because there's
another living living being youknow, that that is living at the
same time as you and it's, it'ssomething very special about
sound, I know, I'm biassed,it's, it's yeah, it's a very
special medium.
Steve Roe (05:44):
Well, and there's a reason that people listen to
this podcast, because you know,we take people out on location,
we get those sounds of peopledoing stuff.
Cheryl Tipp (05:49):
Exactly. This is what we found during lockdown as
well is that the the wildlifesounds section was hugely
popular because people couldn'ttravel anymore, you know, and
maybe they wanted to listen tothe sounds of rainforest and
South America. And you couldthrough our collections, you
know, so it really helpstransport you to someone
different, or someone new. Yes,wonderful.
Steve Roe (06:08):
So we can hear lots of sounds in the background. And
we've got you on BatChat to talkabout your exciting new
exhibition, which is calledAnimals; Art, Science and Sound.
So do you want to tell us whatit's all about?
Cheryl Tipp (06:18):
Yep, so our exhibition is looking at how
animals have been documentedover the past 2000 years in
terms of our collection items.
Anyway, that's our focus, andhow they've been documented
through texts through visualmaterial like paintings, and
through sound recordings aswell. And what we've done is
we've brought together a rangeof material from across the
library, it's very libraryfocused, you know, we wanted to
really showcase our recall ourmaterial that we have here, and
(06:41):
the material is divided intofour different zones, so
darkness, water, land and air.
By doing that, it's allowed usto bring together
chronologically andgeographically diverse material
to tell little stories that runthrough the exhibition. So we're
standing in our Batcave here.
And we have a section that looksat that we have a section that
(07:03):
looks at strange animals thatlive in darkness, we have a
section that looks at the deepsea, and that those kind of ways
of grouping material togetherruns through the exhibition. So
just hope people find a lot ofinspiration and enjoyment
through looking through thismaterial.
Steve Roe (07:18):
So Cheryl says we're still in the BatCave. So we're,
it's actually the first bit onthe exhibition, that people come
to, if you do come down and say,and we're stood in a darkened
area of the exhibition with lotsof glass cabinets, and there's
loads of different books anddocuments with illustrations of
bats through different times.
There's an old bat detectorhere, which we'll come on to in
a minute, and there'sillustrations and paintings of
(07:40):
bats on the wall. You've pickedthese particular ones for the
exhibition, what are the soundsfor that you have in the
library.
Cheryl Tipp (07:48):
So this section on bats is looking at how our
knowledge of bats has changedover time. So from classical
times, and early scholarsthinking that they were a weird
kind of bird moving through tobe able to identify them as a
distinct group of mammals in theroom, right. So the bat detector
we're looking at here is aHolgate Mk VI, and it belonged
to the amateur naturalist JohnHooper, who your listeners might
(08:08):
know, we have his collectionhere in the library. And this
bat detector was used by Hooperto record some of the earliest
recordings of British bats. Andnext to it, we have a photo
album of his which when I sawit, when it's closed, it just
says 'Photos' and I thought 'Ahthat'll be nice', you know, he's
got some of his family, maybehim and then flicking through
it. It's all of thesephotographs of waveforms that he
(08:31):
took by photographing hisoscilloscope. And he has all the
different species that he'srecorded so greater horseshoe
bats... [Audio of Hooper'srecording of a greater horseshoe
bat plays]We have another page for
(09:08):
pipistrelles. And it's just areally lovely thing to accompany
the sound recordings on theequipment that we have here in
the library. And it's it's sointeresting to see, you know, we
have this early bat detector.
And it's so it's supposed to beportable. It's so heavy and
quite cumbersome. And yet, youknow, he managed to sort of put
(09:29):
it on the back of his bicycleand travel around London and
around into Devon and also inplaces like that to make these
recordings. And it's in thatgreat tradition of the amateur
naturalist, you know, because itwasn't he wasn't a scientist as
his paid job. But just doingthis in his spare time and what
he was able to contribute interms of, you know, testing out
equipment, working withspecifications, building up a
(09:50):
collection is a great thing. Sothis is part of the sound
archive and sits alongside ourother recordings of bats that we
have and other animals as well.
All, but it's a very, it's avery special one for us, I think
because it's so multidimensional.
Steve Roe (10:05):
As Cheryl says he would take it on his bike, and
it would fill a basket on thefront of a bicycle. It's that
big. And these oscillograms arevery different to what we're
used to now that are verydifferent don't they?
Cheryl Tipp (10:16):
They do, yeah, so we used to sort of, you know,
spectrograms, and colouredspectrograms. And it's quite
easy to follow the shapes,whereas these are, these are
very different. And, to behonest, I still don't fully
understand them. I get thepoint. But um, yeah, they're
very different to what we wouldnormally normally do. And it's
quite nice to have it sittingnext to this, this pretty quite
familiar plate to people fromErnst Haeckel from the 1914,
(10:37):
this particular edition [ofKunstformen der Natur, (Art
Forms of Nature)], showingdifferent species of
echolocating bat. So you see thedifferent nose leaves, you know,
the facial structures. And so Ilove this one, because you've
got so many different species,and sometimes you have a side
view as well as a full on frontview. And then having it next to
a greater horseshoe bat paintingby Edward Lear. It's got a
cheekily putting his wing outsaying hello. So it's yeah, it's
(11:00):
really it's been really funputting this material together,
I could have done a wholesection on bats, you know, I had
to rein it in a little bit.
Steve Roe (11:08):
And how many recordings of bats do you think
you have in the collection? Doyou have any sort of idea?
Cheryl Tipp (11:11):
I do. We have about, Well, we have over 1000
recordings of bats that arecatalogued, we have many more
that are waiting to beprocessed. The earliest
recordings are from 1963 that wehave made in Trinidad by David
Pye. And then the earliestBritish ones we have from 1964
onwards made by John Hooper. Andthen we have recordings running
(11:34):
through until last year, andI'll be getting some this year
as well. So it's, you know, it'sconstantly growing, constantly
busy cataloging. And it's quitenice to see the different
recorders that are being used aswell, you know, from an early
heterodyne, through to the moremodern recorders that we have
been listening to a nocturnalsay, recorded on the heterodyne.
(11:54):
And then listen to it recordedon other machines on other
devices and seeing thedifference, you know, so how
it's all kind of just differentinterpretations of sounds that
we can hear it. It's veryinteresting to do the
comparison.
Steve Roe (12:04):
And in terms of the exhibition, I mean, we've talked
about bats here, but like Isaid, further round, there's,
there's water, land and air, andthere's stuff, the land section
is quite large. And as we weregoing around chair or just
casually dropping in thatthere's framed images of letters
from Darwin to Alfred RusselWallace, and there's a Leonardo
(12:24):
image on those and you justdropping those in? I mean, how
difficult has it been to pulltogether those sort of
manuscripts and link themtogether with the sound elements
of this exhibition, it's been
Cheryl Tipp (12:37):
know, the text and the visuals and the sounds. So
the hardest bit has been tryingto decide what ones to focus in
on you know, so we could have 10different exhibitions on this
subject, each one would beslightly different. But that's
what's been fun about it, aswell as the kind of mini curated
(12:59):
sections as we go through, youknow, putting them together so
that we can tell the story wewant to tell, like for bats, or
for strange animals that live indarkness, or for trying to save
humpback whales from extinction,you know, these different
stories we're trying to tell. Soit's been a lot of fun. For
sure.
Steve Roe (13:17):
One of my favourite parts was as we were going
around, there were large,dutiful colour photographs of of
beetles and then what hadn'tseen before was those are they
focused activities, those to getthe 3d depth, I
Cheryl Tipp (13:29):
guess, believe so.
Yeah, that's sort of likestitched all together.
Steve Roe (13:32):
And then underneath each of those was the actual
specimen that they'rephotographed. It was really
nice. We also linked those twobits together. What's your
favourite sound in the exhibit?
Cheryl Tipp (13:40):
It's so difficult because I like walking around
today. The first time I've heardthere's a red fox playing in the
space and I love the sound ofred foxes. So that's kind of a
favourite of mine. But whenthere's so there's so many it's
so hard to choose. We've gotgorilla chest beats you know,
we've got beautiful bird songs.
We've got our two what is myfavourite actually at the moment
is the section to do withunderwater sounds. Yeah, so
(14:00):
we've got bearded seals thosereally strange sounds that they
make as they descend, we've gota walrus in there. That's making
drum sounds we have an air sackin it's throat we've got the
mating calls of the haddock,bottlenose dolphins, and
humpback whale song as well asso you know, beautiful. So yeah,
I think my favourite changesevery day.
Steve Roe (14:25):
And where's the idea for this exhibition come from?
You know, like you said, it'staken ages to put it together.
You know, Where's where's theidea and the need for it, I
guess come from
Cheryl Tipp (14:33):
was the library's 50th anniversary this year. And
we were thinking about this fora few years, we wanted to
showcase our natural historymaterial. Also look at our
scientific material as well. Wethought one really nice way to
engage with the scientificmaterial is to use natural
history on animals, you know,because everyone loves one group
of animals or another. And wejust felt this was the right
time to try and do something alittle bit different. To bring
(14:54):
together such a wide variety ofmaterial, you know, so and this
would hopefully appeal toAnybody as well, any age, and so
it's not you don't have to havea particular background or you
don't have to have a particularknowledge, you can just come in
here, and and just you know,bask in wonderful things that
are on display.
Steve Roe (15:14):
Yeah, I mean, in terms of different ages, there's
a section around the cornerwhere you've got different the
first I guess, records on vinyl.
And one of those is a is a kid'sone that with vinyls made for
kids.
Cheryl Tipp (15:26):
Yeah, that's right.
This one dates from 1919. It wasproduced by the talking about
corporation in the US and theydid a series of educational
records for children, whichwould have a story on the back
about the animal, I'm sorry, itis I should explain. It's like
imagine a little tea plate. Andthen that tea plate, which is
the record, and that is fixed toa wider carbon picture of an
animal. And you've put the wholething on the turntable on the
one we have on displays thehippopotamus or the cardboard
(15:48):
goes on it. Yeah, everythinggoes on. So it all goes round,
which is really fun. And thenthe the hippopotamus when it's a
little rhyme talking about ahippopotamus, and in on that
recording, there's a sound of ofa hippo, supposedly, but it's
actually Foley. So it'sartificially created sounds
because 99 Team wildlife soundrecording was still very early,
(16:09):
medium. And they didn't haveloads of recordings that we do
today. And so they had torecreate artificially create the
sound of a hippo. And that'sthey use an instrument called a
lion's roar, which is like adrum with a piece of code, and
you pull that through to createa kind of roar. They also use it
on their other records. So for alion, an elephant, or something,
or tiger as well. But when Ifirst heard it, I thought it was
(16:31):
a completely new record. Andthat I'd never heard of it,
though. Who made this? Where isit? I need it. But it's not
actually everyone, I'm gonnawrite a paper on it. But I'm
glad I didn't embarrass myself.
Steve Roe (16:43):
So when this goes out the exhibition will have already
opened. When does it from fromand how do people book?
Cheryl Tipp (16:50):
So it runs from the 21st of April to the 28th of
August, you can book on ourwebsite, www.bl.uk Just go to
events and animals, we're goingto have a few days as well
throughout the run, where it'skind of a pay as you go. So just
to you know, encourage morepeople to come. There's a series
of events as well, that'srunning through the exhibition,
(17:11):
some of which are online. So youknow, anywhere in the world, you
can you can tune into that. Lotsof things, lots of things going
on. Hopefully most people comeand see it in real life. But if
not, there's a lot of thingsonline as well.
Steve Roe (17:24):
Now, I was really pleasantly pleasantly surprised,
you know, walking around, it's areal immersive experience. It's
not just the exhibits, there'sactually lights and sound and
moving elements to the exhibitas well. Yeah,
Cheryl Tipp (17:35):
that's what we've tried to do is trying to make it
as immersive as possible withoutbeing too overwhelming, you
know, so like the lighting inthe cave and the dripping water
and the animation on theceiling, just trying to just
trying to bring it all together.
Because of the quiet space forme is you know, I don't enjoy a
quiet space personally, which iswhy first fill it with some
sounds.
Steve Roe (17:57):
So you mentioned you've got 1000 Bat recordings
in the library? Are you lookingfor more recordings? And if so,
what's the best way for peopleto get stuff to you and what
song what sort of informationneeds to go with those.
Cheryl Tipp (18:06):
I'm always looking for new material, you can never
have too many recordings and anarchive such as mine, you know,
and I definitely have gaps, bothBritish species and other
species from all over the world.
So I'm more than happy. Ifanyone has recordings of bats,
please yes, please send themthrough to me, that'd be
amazing. Just contactwildlifesound@bl.uk That will
come straight through to me, oryou can find me on Twitter as
(18:30):
well through the usual usualways. And in terms of extra
information, it's always greatto have sort of the metadata for
the species name where yourecorded when you recorded what
equipment you used any sort ofprocessing behaviour, time of
day, you know, the moreinformation the better really,
because if you only have thesounds, it's kind of as nice as
it is it's, it has less value interms of how it can be reused,
(18:54):
and what it can contribute toscience or you know, for any
reason. So we definitely like tohave as much information as
possible. Yeah, to build ourcatalogue records, and to make
it more useful for futuregenerations.
Steve Roe (19:08):
When I'm very guilty of that I'm getting better. But
I've started now getting intothe habit of just saying where I
am and what it is at the startor the end of the recording.
You're sometimes gifted entirecollections of sound and you
have to make sense of it. Youknow, guess that meta data at
the start or end is the numberone thing to do really.
Cheryl Tipp (19:26):
It is so you know, we do get a lot of new or not
new, but we do get newcollections coming into the
library. And obviously theperson that made the collection,
you are the sort of understoodthe organisation but then we get
it cold. We're like, okay, soI'll sit on the floor in my
office and just try and like getout all the tapes and like try
and make sense of it in terms ofdate, or location. And then you
(19:48):
sort of have a look to see ifthere's any metadata whether
it's in a folder or whether it'swritten on the tape box.
Sometimes, sometimes there'snone, or like bare minimum. So
then that's when when youcatalogue it, you'd have to
listen to it too. To try andwork out what you're listening
to, you know, so that's why yousort of need that specialist
knowledge so that you can, ifit's birds, for example, you
know, if it's a song or a call,or sometimes birds can sound
(20:09):
like frogs or you know, so youdo need that background to be
able to do it. And that's partof the fun as well as taking
this collection, that might beabsolute chaos. And then making
sense of it, digitising it, andcataloguing it, and then you
know, that people can then comeand listen to it and reuse it.
So as you get a great sense ofachievement, you know, through
doing that,
Steve Roe (20:28):
you mentioned people reusing the sound. And that was
the next question. And apartfrom, you know, wonderful
exhibitions like this, what arethe sounds in the library
actually used for?
Cheryl Tipp (20:36):
In my section, the sounds are used for scientific
research. So it might betaxonomic studies, it might be
played back in the field tryingto, you know, do surveys or find
new populations. And that's kindof the start of the section
where it was very much ascientific collection back in
1969. But the use has broadenedout so much now. So you've got
artists use the sounds a lot,musicians use the sounds a lot.
(20:58):
Museum, museums and galleriesuse the sounds, either to tell a
story or just for ambience, youknow, teachers, video game
makers, radio, I mean, it'slike, endless who can use it,
and some people just use it justfor personal enjoyment and
relaxation, as well. So it hasso many avenues where the sounds
can go. And it's nice to seethat kind of evolution of a
(21:20):
sound recording. So maybe itcame in as a very high science
recording. And then maybe it'sbeen used by kids in the school
project, you know, or morecreatively. So it's nice to
think that when the recordingscome in, in one way, they can
then go out in another way andhave a new life later on down
the line.
Steve Roe (21:37):
And has anybody done any studies on how sounds we've
sort of evolved from the samespecies? Have people found that,
you know, from years and yearsago, the same animals now sound
different? Is that Is thatsomething that's been found?
Cheryl Tipp (21:49):
They do look at things like that, yes, they look
at what say, for example, once,so you might have had a species
40 years ago. And then bylooking at the sound by looking
at the morphology by looking atthe DNA, they realise that it's
completely new species. So thesounds have been used to split
species. But because I also haveenvironmental sounds, as well as
quite interesting to see how thesounds can change over time in a
(22:09):
particular space. So a placethat could be really, really
noisy, for example, you mightfind turtledoves, in a place on
nightingales in the place, andthen someone will go there and
record in 40 years time, youknow, and that's no longer the
case, you know? So it's a goodway of seeing how the
soundscapes change over time,mainly because of human
activity. Yeah, so so you cansee that in recordings as well
(22:33):
as changes over time and accentsas well on how voices change
over time. You see that a lot ofcetaceans, yeah, you know how it
changes every year. So that'svery interesting as well.
Steve Roe (22:42):
And real poignant moment for me was when Cheryl
pointed out, I can't rememberthe species. But there's a
description of a sound of acreature that's no longer here.
So we'll never know what thatsounds like.
Cheryl Tipp (22:52):
That's right. So that was a illustration of a
Carolina parakeet in a sectionwhere we're looking at voices
that we can no longer hear, someof which were recorded before
they became extinct. But thisparticular species, the Carolina
parakeet was painted in the 19thcentury, became extinct in the
19th century, early 19thcentury, and recorded sound and
become possible until 1877, orpre-recorded sound, being able
(23:16):
to record and then playback 1877field recording didn't really
kick off until the 20th century.
So by the time you know, peoplecould go into the field, you
couldn't find that speciesanymore. So there are some
species that will never knowwhat they sounded like, you
know, you might have a writtendescription, you might have a
musical translation maybe, butit's not the same as hearing,
you know, the actual livingspecies. So is it Yeah, it's a
(23:38):
great shame when you see thingslike that.
Steve Roe (23:42):
Yeah, I guess we sometimes forget how lucky we
are to be able to record thesesounds. And we think, Oh, we can
take all these bats now. Butthat might not be the case in
the future, I guess. Exactly.
Just wrapping up, then, whenpeople send your sound
recordings or the stuff you'vegot in the archives, you know,
how are they stored? How manydifferent mediums are they on
and how does that sort ofcataloguing work, you know, with
I'm thinking with the books, weknow that as materials degrade
(24:04):
the restoration techniques. Howdo you restore sound?
Cheryl Tipp (24:08):
Well, we have I think, over 40 carriers within
the sound archive, mindsnormally. Shellac, vinyl, open
reel tape, MiniDisc, DATcassette, born digital on we've
just wrapped up a five yearproject a digitization project.
So for my materials, so much ofmy open reel tape has been
(24:32):
digitised because that's now anobsolete format. And if we don't
digitise, we won't be able toget the sound off, and then we
lose that sound. So you know,we're the ones that are sort of
custodians of the sound, we needto make sure that we can
preserve it. So there's been alot of digitization work going
on. And that sort of continuesin our normal work anyway. So
we're just migrated from theobsolete format to digital and
(24:53):
then even a digital files willthen need to be migrated to a
higher better version down theline so it never it never ends
our work.
Steve Roe (25:00):
Do you try and restore the sound? Or do you
keep the recordings as is?
Cheryl Tipp (25:05):
When we do our first transfer it would be as
is. So warts and all, you know,bangs, hits, voices, all of
these things. So always have amaster. If it's going to be used
for an exhibition or radio orsomething else, we would do a
cleaned up version. But ourpractice is you just do your
straightforward no tighten up dokeep it as is no edits nothing.
(25:26):
So you preserve the authenticityof the recording. And then later
on down the line, you can makemore cleaned up versions. But
yeah, that's why when materialcomes into the archive, very
much prefer it just to be raw,you know, no sort of line taking
out chunks, just just keep itraw. And then later on, we can
restore it if necessary. We dorestore earlier recordings to
(25:46):
take up clicks and things likethat. But that's after we've
done our basic raw transfer
Steve Roe (25:51):
Cheryl Tipp thank you very much for coming on BatChat
Cheryl Tipp (25:53):
Thank you very much for coming. I hope everyone
comes to the exhibition and hasa great time!
Steve Roe (26:00):
Animals; Art, Science and Sound is open until Monday,
the 28th of August 2023. Ticketsand all the information you need
can be found on the exhibitionwebpages. And we've put a link
in the show notes, along with alink to that greater horseshoe
recording of John Hooper's madeon the Holgate Mk VI detector.
There's also a link to a journalarticle about John Hooper's bat
recording activities. Along witha link to Cheryl's Twitter
(26:23):
profile, we can see more photosfrom the exhibition. My thanks
to Cheryl and the team at theBritish Library for setting up
that interview. It really is aworthwhile exhibition to get
along to this summer. Recordingfor BatChat series five is
underway and will be cominglater in the year. So tap that
follow button in your podcastapp, and that way you'll get a
notification of when that'savailable. We're looking for
(26:43):
places and people to visit fromacross the UK. So if you're
working on a great bat project,or have a story about the bats
in your area to share, pleaseget in touch via the address in
the show notes. Have a fantasticsummer getting out there and
enjoy seeing and hearing bats inthe night sky. And on that note,
I'm going to leave you with oneof Cheryl's own recordings which
(27:03):
sits in the British Library. Therecord's metadata tells us it
was recorded on a coastal laneboarded by arable fields close
to Pagham harbour in West Sussexon the 16th of September 2000
names it's of commonpipistrelles leaving a nearby
roost believed to be in thenearby church heading towards
the harbour to hunt. It was madeon a Magenta 4 tuned to 45kHz
(27:25):
with a Marantz solid staterecorder on a call calm, dark
evening.
Hello, welcome to BatChat! We're the Bat
Conservation Trust, the leadingcharity in the United Kingdom
solely devoted to theconservation of bats and the
landscapes on which they rely.
This podcast is for anyone wholoves bats. We're taking you on
location across the UK to bringyou the work being done in the
world of Bat Conservationstraight to your headphones. I'm
Steve Roe; professionally, I'man ecologist and in my spare
(00:27):
time, I'm a trustee of the BatConservation Trust. You can join
the conversation online usingthe hashtag #BatChat that's all
one word. We're currentlybetween series here on BatChat,
but I had to tell you about areally special exhibition taking
place over the next few months.
So we're bringing you thisspecial bonus episode. Last
week, I was invited to a placeI've never been before, the
(00:50):
British Library. Locatedopposite St Pancras
International train station incentral London, the British
Library is largely known forholding the world's most
important documents such as theMagna Carta, and Leonardo da
Vinci's notebook. But did youknow it also holds the wildlife
sound archives? Established in1969 as the British Library of
wildlife sounds, the collectionnow holds over a quarter of a
(01:12):
million scientifically organisedand documented field recordings
covering all classes of animal.
Now this summer in a major newexhibition, titled Animals; Art,
Science and Sound, you can seehow documenting the animal world
has resulted in some ofhumankind's most awe inspiring
art, science and soundrecordings. An entire section of
this collection is dedicated todarkness. And I got to have a
(01:33):
preview of what's on show acouple of days before the
exhibition opened. In thisinterview with Cheryl Tipp,
curator of wildlife andenvironmental sounds, I discover
what can be heard in theexhibit, as well as what bat
recordings lie in the archive,we get to hear horseshoe bats
made on one of the firstcommercially available bat
detectors, the Holgate Mk VI.
And you can see this detectorwithin the exhibition, along
(01:56):
with photographs of thewaveforms it could make from
recordings, it sits alongsideother important that works. And
in this episode, Cheryl alsoexplains how you can submit your
bat recordings to the BritishLibrary for adding to the
archives.
So I am, as you can hear in thebackground, in a new exhibition
(02:18):
at the British Library incentral London, just over the
road from St. Pancras station,and I'm here with Cheryl Tipp,
who's the curator of wildlifeand environmental sounds at the
British Library. So Cheryl, doyou want to say a bit about your
role here and how long you'vebeen here at the library.
Cheryl Tipp (02:34):
So I'm curator of wildlife and environmental
sounds working in the soundarchive, I've been here for 18
years now, my background is inzoology, but also in public
libraries. And so it's a perfectcombination when I was able to
come and work here at the BL.
Steve Roe (02:49):
Lovely. And I mean, I've always thought the British
Library just holds manuscriptsand documents and the important
books and things and hadn'trealised it's got a sound
library, how vast is thecollection? And what sort of
things does it hold?
Cheryl Tipp (03:01):
Well, the sound archive holds over 7 million
recordings. And it covers allgenres of recorded sound. So I
look after the wildlife andenvironmental but of course,
we've got pop music curators,drama, literature, world and
traditional accents and dialectsradio or history, we've got so
much material. And in mycollection, I've got about
300,000 recordings, cataloguedrecordings, many more to do in
(03:22):
my collection(!), covering allthe animal groups and from all
around the world. And that's oneof the points of the exhibition
was to try and promote the soundcollections here as much as the
other collections because manypeople don't know we have a
sound archive, and it's thismassive resource that's just
waiting to be explored and used.
And, yeah, it's a greatresource.
Steve Roe (03:41):
And why a career in sound, you know, what is it
about sound that's made you wantto do this?
Cheryl Tipp (03:45):
Well, my background is not in sound, I started with
just population biology. Andthen by chance, I managed to get
a job in the sound archive, andit completely changed. My kind
of interests, my focus, youknow, so I really kind of
relearn the natural worldthrough sound. And so when I
first started, it was greatlearning all these new sounds
and exploring them and hearingweird sounds and, you know,
(04:07):
really important recordings. Andso now I listen in a completely
different way as well when I'mout and about, you know, so it's
kind of going back to old placesthat I used to know visually,
but then now exploring themsonically. So it's complete,
it's actually completely changedmy life and how I engage with
the natural world.
Steve Roe (04:25):
So I mean, how does sound tell us more about the
natural world I'm thinking aboutthe larks ascending project. So
both Cheryl and I are members ofthe Wildlife Sound Recording
Society and their latestnewsletter's requesting that
people record the ... one of theweekends is just gone. There's
another two weekends ... thefirst time that people hear
skylarks, how does sound link uswith the natural world?
Cheryl Tipp (04:46):
Well, it's such a powerful thing sound you know,
we're so used to reading aboutanimals and looking at animals
but what you can learn from whatyou can get from sound you know,
from a kind of wellbeing pointof view, just enjoy and being
able to enjoy the sound of thenatural world but also from a
scientific point of view fromfrom sort of population studies
(05:06):
and surveys, using sound toidentify new species where
before they species were kind ofdefined just by looking, you
know, the morphology and andusing sound that kind of is
another way of looking atanimals. And it's identified new
species, it's found newpopulations, it's inspired
people. It creates this, itstirs a lot of emotion in people
(05:28):
as well, sometimes more. So Iwould say, than just looking at
a static object or reading adescription, because there's
another living living being youknow, that that is living at the
same time as you and it's, it'ssomething very special about
sound, I know, I'm biassed,it's, it's yeah, it's a very
special medium.
Steve Roe (05:44):
Well, and there's a reason that people listen to
this podcast, because you know,we take people out on location,
we get those sounds of peopledoing stuff.
Cheryl Tipp (05:49):
Exactly. This is what we found during lockdown as
well is that the the wildlifesounds section was hugely
popular because people couldn'ttravel anymore, you know, and
maybe they wanted to listen tothe sounds of rainforest and
South America. And you couldthrough our collections, you
know, so it really helpstransport you to someone
different, or someone new. Yes,wonderful.
Steve Roe (06:08):
So we can hear lots of sounds in the background. And
we've got you on BatChat to talkabout your exciting new
exhibition, which is calledAnimals; Art, Science and Sound.
So do you want to tell us whatit's all about?
Cheryl Tipp (06:18):
Yep, so our exhibition is looking at how
animals have been documentedover the past 2000 years in
terms of our collection items.
Anyway, that's our focus, andhow they've been documented
through texts through visualmaterial like paintings, and
through sound recordings aswell. And what we've done is
we've brought together a rangeof material from across the
library, it's very libraryfocused, you know, we wanted to
really showcase our recall ourmaterial that we have here, and
(06:41):
the material is divided intofour different zones, so
darkness, water, land and air.
By doing that, it's allowed usto bring together
chronologically andgeographically diverse material
to tell little stories that runthrough the exhibition. So we're
standing in our Batcave here.
And we have a section that looksat that we have a section that
(07:03):
looks at strange animals thatlive in darkness, we have a
section that looks at the deepsea, and that those kind of ways
of grouping material togetherruns through the exhibition. So
just hope people find a lot ofinspiration and enjoyment
through looking through thismaterial.
Steve Roe (07:18):
So Cheryl says we're still in the BatCave. So we're,
it's actually the first bit onthe exhibition, that people come
to, if you do come down and say,and we're stood in a darkened
area of the exhibition with lotsof glass cabinets, and there's
loads of different books anddocuments with illustrations of
bats through different times.
There's an old bat detectorhere, which we'll come on to in
a minute, and there'sillustrations and paintings of
(07:40):
bats on the wall. You've pickedthese particular ones for the
exhibition, what are the soundsfor that you have in the
library.
Cheryl Tipp (07:48):
So this section on bats is looking at how our
knowledge of bats has changedover time. So from classical
times, and early scholarsthinking that they were a weird
kind of bird moving through tobe able to identify them as a
distinct group of mammals in theroom, right. So the bat detector
we're looking at here is aHolgate Mk VI, and it belonged
to the amateur naturalist JohnHooper, who your listeners might
(08:08):
know, we have his collectionhere in the library. And this
bat detector was used by Hooperto record some of the earliest
recordings of British bats. Andnext to it, we have a photo
album of his which when I sawit, when it's closed, it just
says 'Photos' and I thought 'Ahthat'll be nice', you know, he's
got some of his family, maybehim and then flicking through
it. It's all of thesephotographs of waveforms that he
(08:31):
took by photographing hisoscilloscope. And he has all the
different species that he'srecorded so greater horseshoe
bats... [Audio of Hooper'srecording of a greater horseshoe
bat plays]We have another page for
(09:08):
pipistrelles. And it's just areally lovely thing to accompany
the sound recordings on theequipment that we have here in
the library. And it's it's sointeresting to see, you know, we
have this early bat detector.
And it's so it's supposed to beportable. It's so heavy and
quite cumbersome. And yet, youknow, he managed to sort of put
(09:29):
it on the back of his bicycleand travel around London and
around into Devon and also inplaces like that to make these
recordings. And it's in thatgreat tradition of the amateur
naturalist, you know, because itwasn't he wasn't a scientist as
his paid job. But just doingthis in his spare time and what
he was able to contribute interms of, you know, testing out
equipment, working withspecifications, building up a
(09:50):
collection is a great thing. Sothis is part of the sound
archive and sits alongside ourother recordings of bats that we
have and other animals as well.
All, but it's a very, it's avery special one for us, I think
because it's so multidimensional.
Steve Roe (10:05):
As Cheryl says he would take it on his bike, and
it would fill a basket on thefront of a bicycle. It's that
big. And these oscillograms arevery different to what we're
used to now that are verydifferent don't they?
Cheryl Tipp (10:16):
They do, yeah, so we used to sort of, you know,
spectrograms, and colouredspectrograms. And it's quite
easy to follow the shapes,whereas these are, these are
very different. And, to behonest, I still don't fully
understand them. I get thepoint. But um, yeah, they're
very different to what we wouldnormally normally do. And it's
quite nice to have it sittingnext to this, this pretty quite
familiar plate to people fromErnst Haeckel from the 1914,
(10:37):
this particular edition [ofKunstformen der Natur, (Art
Forms of Nature)], showingdifferent species of
echolocating bat. So you see thedifferent nose leaves, you know,
the facial structures. And so Ilove this one, because you've
got so many different species,and sometimes you have a side
view as well as a full on frontview. And then having it next to
a greater horseshoe bat paintingby Edward Lear. It's got a
cheekily putting his wing outsaying hello. So it's yeah, it's
(11:00):
really it's been really funputting this material together,
I could have done a wholesection on bats, you know, I had
to rein it in a little bit.
Steve Roe (11:08):
And how many recordings of bats do you think
you have in the collection? Doyou have any sort of idea?
Cheryl Tipp (11:11):
I do. We have about, Well, we have over 1000
recordings of bats that arecatalogued, we have many more
that are waiting to beprocessed. The earliest
recordings are from 1963 that wehave made in Trinidad by David
Pye. And then the earliestBritish ones we have from 1964
onwards made by John Hooper. Andthen we have recordings running
(11:34):
through until last year, andI'll be getting some this year
as well. So it's, you know, it'sconstantly growing, constantly
busy cataloging. And it's quitenice to see the different
recorders that are being used aswell, you know, from an early
heterodyne, through to the moremodern recorders that we have
been listening to a nocturnalsay, recorded on the heterodyne.
(11:54):
And then listen to it recordedon other machines on other
devices and seeing thedifference, you know, so how
it's all kind of just differentinterpretations of sounds that
we can hear it. It's veryinteresting to do the
comparison.
Steve Roe (12:04):
And in terms of the exhibition, I mean, we've talked
about bats here, but like Isaid, further round, there's,
there's water, land and air, andthere's stuff, the land section
is quite large. And as we weregoing around chair or just
casually dropping in thatthere's framed images of letters
from Darwin to Alfred RusselWallace, and there's a Leonardo
(12:24):
image on those and you justdropping those in? I mean, how
difficult has it been to pulltogether those sort of
manuscripts and link themtogether with the sound elements
of this exhibition, it's been
Cheryl Tipp (12:37):
know, the text and the visuals and the sounds. So
the hardest bit has been tryingto decide what ones to focus in
on you know, so we could have 10different exhibitions on this
subject, each one would beslightly different. But that's
what's been fun about it, aswell as the kind of mini curated
(12:59):
sections as we go through, youknow, putting them together so
that we can tell the story wewant to tell, like for bats, or
for strange animals that live indarkness, or for trying to save
humpback whales from extinction,you know, these different
stories we're trying to tell. Soit's been a lot of fun. For
sure.
Steve Roe (13:17):
One of my favourite parts was as we were going
around, there were large,dutiful colour photographs of of
beetles and then what hadn'tseen before was those are they
focused activities, those to getthe 3d depth, I
Cheryl Tipp (13:29):
guess, believe so.
Yeah, that's sort of likestitched all together.
Steve Roe (13:32):
And then underneath each of those was the actual
specimen that they'rephotographed. It was really
nice. We also linked those twobits together. What's your
favourite sound in the exhibit?
Cheryl Tipp (13:40):
It's so difficult because I like walking around
today. The first time I've heardthere's a red fox playing in the
space and I love the sound ofred foxes. So that's kind of a
favourite of mine. But whenthere's so there's so many it's
so hard to choose. We've gotgorilla chest beats you know,
we've got beautiful bird songs.
We've got our two what is myfavourite actually at the moment
is the section to do withunderwater sounds. Yeah, so
(14:00):
we've got bearded seals thosereally strange sounds that they
make as they descend, we've gota walrus in there. That's making
drum sounds we have an air sackin it's throat we've got the
mating calls of the haddock,bottlenose dolphins, and
humpback whale song as well asso you know, beautiful. So yeah,
I think my favourite changesevery day.
Steve Roe (14:25):
And where's the idea for this exhibition come from?
You know, like you said, it'staken ages to put it together.
You know, Where's where's theidea and the need for it, I
guess come from
Cheryl Tipp (14:33):
was the library's 50th anniversary this year. And
we were thinking about this fora few years, we wanted to
showcase our natural historymaterial. Also look at our
scientific material as well. Wethought one really nice way to
engage with the scientificmaterial is to use natural
history on animals, you know,because everyone loves one group
of animals or another. And wejust felt this was the right
time to try and do something alittle bit different. To bring
(14:54):
together such a wide variety ofmaterial, you know, so and this
would hopefully appeal toAnybody as well, any age, and so
it's not you don't have to havea particular background or you
don't have to have a particularknowledge, you can just come in
here, and and just you know,bask in wonderful things that
are on display.
Steve Roe (15:14):
Yeah, I mean, in terms of different ages, there's
a section around the cornerwhere you've got different the
first I guess, records on vinyl.
And one of those is a is a kid'sone that with vinyls made for
kids.
Cheryl Tipp (15:26):
Yeah, that's right.
This one dates from 1919. It wasproduced by the talking about
corporation in the US and theydid a series of educational
records for children, whichwould have a story on the back
about the animal, I'm sorry, itis I should explain. It's like
imagine a little tea plate. Andthen that tea plate, which is
the record, and that is fixed toa wider carbon picture of an
animal. And you've put the wholething on the turntable on the
one we have on displays thehippopotamus or the cardboard
(15:48):
goes on it. Yeah, everythinggoes on. So it all goes round,
which is really fun. And thenthe the hippopotamus when it's a
little rhyme talking about ahippopotamus, and in on that
recording, there's a sound of ofa hippo, supposedly, but it's
actually Foley. So it'sartificially created sounds
because 99 Team wildlife soundrecording was still very early,
(16:09):
medium. And they didn't haveloads of recordings that we do
today. And so they had torecreate artificially create the
sound of a hippo. And that'sthey use an instrument called a
lion's roar, which is like adrum with a piece of code, and
you pull that through to createa kind of roar. They also use it
on their other records. So for alion, an elephant, or something,
or tiger as well. But when Ifirst heard it, I thought it was
(16:31):
a completely new record. Andthat I'd never heard of it,
though. Who made this? Where isit? I need it. But it's not
actually everyone, I'm gonnawrite a paper on it. But I'm
glad I didn't embarrass myself.
Steve Roe (16:43):
So when this goes out the exhibition will have already
opened. When does it from fromand how do people book?
Cheryl Tipp (16:50):
So it runs from the 21st of April to the 28th of
August, you can book on ourwebsite, www.bl.uk Just go to
events and animals, we're goingto have a few days as well
throughout the run, where it'skind of a pay as you go. So just
to you know, encourage morepeople to come. There's a series
of events as well, that'srunning through the exhibition,
(17:11):
some of which are online. So youknow, anywhere in the world, you
can you can tune into that. Lotsof things, lots of things going
on. Hopefully most people comeand see it in real life. But if
not, there's a lot of thingsonline as well.
Steve Roe (17:24):
Now, I was really pleasantly pleasantly surprised,
you know, walking around, it's areal immersive experience. It's
not just the exhibits, there'sactually lights and sound and
moving elements to the exhibitas well. Yeah,
Cheryl Tipp (17:35):
that's what we've tried to do is trying to make it
as immersive as possible withoutbeing too overwhelming, you
know, so like the lighting inthe cave and the dripping water
and the animation on theceiling, just trying to just
trying to bring it all together.
Because of the quiet space forme is you know, I don't enjoy a
quiet space personally, which iswhy first fill it with some
sounds.
Steve Roe (17:57):
So you mentioned you've got 1000 Bat recordings
in the library? Are you lookingfor more recordings? And if so,
what's the best way for peopleto get stuff to you and what
song what sort of informationneeds to go with those.
Cheryl Tipp (18:06):
I'm always looking for new material, you can never
have too many recordings and anarchive such as mine, you know,
and I definitely have gaps, bothBritish species and other
species from all over the world.
So I'm more than happy. Ifanyone has recordings of bats,
please yes, please send themthrough to me, that'd be
amazing. Just contactwildlifesound@bl.uk That will
come straight through to me, oryou can find me on Twitter as
(18:30):
well through the usual usualways. And in terms of extra
information, it's always greatto have sort of the metadata for
the species name where yourecorded when you recorded what
equipment you used any sort ofprocessing behaviour, time of
day, you know, the moreinformation the better really,
because if you only have thesounds, it's kind of as nice as
it is it's, it has less value interms of how it can be reused,
(18:54):
and what it can contribute toscience or you know, for any
reason. So we definitely like tohave as much information as
possible. Yeah, to build ourcatalogue records, and to make
it more useful for futuregenerations.
Steve Roe (19:08):
When I'm very guilty of that I'm getting better. But
I've started now getting intothe habit of just saying where I
am and what it is at the startor the end of the recording.
You're sometimes gifted entirecollections of sound and you
have to make sense of it. Youknow, guess that meta data at
the start or end is the numberone thing to do really.
Cheryl Tipp (19:26):
It is so you know, we do get a lot of new or not
new, but we do get newcollections coming into the
library. And obviously theperson that made the collection,
you are the sort of understoodthe organisation but then we get
it cold. We're like, okay, soI'll sit on the floor in my
office and just try and like getout all the tapes and like try
and make sense of it in terms ofdate, or location. And then you
(19:48):
sort of have a look to see ifthere's any metadata whether
it's in a folder or whether it'swritten on the tape box.
Sometimes, sometimes there'snone, or like bare minimum. So
then that's when when youcatalogue it, you'd have to
listen to it too. To try andwork out what you're listening
to, you know, so that's why yousort of need that specialist
knowledge so that you can, ifit's birds, for example, you
know, if it's a song or a call,or sometimes birds can sound
(20:09):
like frogs or you know, so youdo need that background to be
able to do it. And that's partof the fun as well as taking
this collection, that might beabsolute chaos. And then making
sense of it, digitising it, andcataloguing it, and then you
know, that people can then comeand listen to it and reuse it.
So as you get a great sense ofachievement, you know, through
doing that,
Steve Roe (20:28):
you mentioned people reusing the sound. And that was
the next question. And apartfrom, you know, wonderful
exhibitions like this, what arethe sounds in the library
actually used for?
Cheryl Tipp (20:36):
In my section, the sounds are used for scientific
research. So it might betaxonomic studies, it might be
played back in the field tryingto, you know, do surveys or find
new populations. And that's kindof the start of the section
where it was very much ascientific collection back in
1969. But the use has broadenedout so much now. So you've got
artists use the sounds a lot,musicians use the sounds a lot.
(20:58):
Museum, museums and galleriesuse the sounds, either to tell a
story or just for ambience, youknow, teachers, video game
makers, radio, I mean, it'slike, endless who can use it,
and some people just use it justfor personal enjoyment and
relaxation, as well. So it hasso many avenues where the sounds
can go. And it's nice to seethat kind of evolution of a
(21:20):
sound recording. So maybe itcame in as a very high science
recording. And then maybe it'sbeen used by kids in the school
project, you know, or morecreatively. So it's nice to
think that when the recordingscome in, in one way, they can
then go out in another way andhave a new life later on down
the line.
Steve Roe (21:37):
And has anybody done any studies on how sounds we've
sort of evolved from the samespecies? Have people found that,
you know, from years and yearsago, the same animals now sound
different? Is that Is thatsomething that's been found?
Cheryl Tipp (21:49):
They do look at things like that, yes, they look
at what say, for example, once,so you might have had a species
40 years ago. And then bylooking at the sound by looking
at the morphology by looking atthe DNA, they realise that it's
completely new species. So thesounds have been used to split
species. But because I also haveenvironmental sounds, as well as
quite interesting to see how thesounds can change over time in a
(22:09):
particular space. So a placethat could be really, really
noisy, for example, you mightfind turtledoves, in a place on
nightingales in the place, andthen someone will go there and
record in 40 years time, youknow, and that's no longer the
case, you know? So it's a goodway of seeing how the
soundscapes change over time,mainly because of human
activity. Yeah, so so you cansee that in recordings as well
(22:33):
as changes over time and accentsas well on how voices change
over time. You see that a lot ofcetaceans, yeah, you know how it
changes every year. So that'svery interesting as well.
Steve Roe (22:42):
And real poignant moment for me was when Cheryl
pointed out, I can't rememberthe species. But there's a
description of a sound of acreature that's no longer here.
So we'll never know what thatsounds like.
Cheryl Tipp (22:52):
That's right. So that was a illustration of a
Carolina parakeet in a sectionwhere we're looking at voices
that we can no longer hear, someof which were recorded before
they became extinct. But thisparticular species, the Carolina
parakeet was painted in the 19thcentury, became extinct in the
19th century, early 19thcentury, and recorded sound and
become possible until 1877, orpre-recorded sound, being able
(23:16):
to record and then playback 1877field recording didn't really
kick off until the 20th century.
So by the time you know, peoplecould go into the field, you
couldn't find that speciesanymore. So there are some
species that will never knowwhat they sounded like, you
know, you might have a writtendescription, you might have a
musical translation maybe, butit's not the same as hearing,
you know, the actual livingspecies. So is it Yeah, it's a
(23:38):
great shame when you see thingslike that.
Steve Roe (23:42):
Yeah, I guess we sometimes forget how lucky we
are to be able to record thesesounds. And we think, Oh, we can
take all these bats now. Butthat might not be the case in
the future, I guess. Exactly.
Just wrapping up, then, whenpeople send your sound
recordings or the stuff you'vegot in the archives, you know,
how are they stored? How manydifferent mediums are they on
and how does that sort ofcataloguing work, you know, with
I'm thinking with the books, weknow that as materials degrade
(24:04):
the restoration techniques. Howdo you restore sound?
Cheryl Tipp (24:08):
Well, we have I think, over 40 carriers within
the sound archive, mindsnormally. Shellac, vinyl, open
reel tape, MiniDisc, DATcassette, born digital on we've
just wrapped up a five yearproject a digitization project.
So for my materials, so much ofmy open reel tape has been
(24:32):
digitised because that's now anobsolete format. And if we don't
digitise, we won't be able toget the sound off, and then we
lose that sound. So you know,we're the ones that are sort of
custodians of the sound, we needto make sure that we can
preserve it. So there's been alot of digitization work going
on. And that sort of continuesin our normal work anyway. So
we're just migrated from theobsolete format to digital and
(24:53):
then even a digital files willthen need to be migrated to a
higher better version down theline so it never it never ends
our work.
Steve Roe (25:00):
Do you try and restore the sound? Or do you
keep the recordings as is?
Cheryl Tipp (25:05):
When we do our first transfer it would be as
is. So warts and all, you know,bangs, hits, voices, all of
these things. So always have amaster. If it's going to be used
for an exhibition or radio orsomething else, we would do a
cleaned up version. But ourpractice is you just do your
straightforward no tighten up dokeep it as is no edits nothing.
(25:26):
So you preserve the authenticityof the recording. And then later
on down the line, you can makemore cleaned up versions. But
yeah, that's why when materialcomes into the archive, very
much prefer it just to be raw,you know, no sort of line taking
out chunks, just just keep itraw. And then later on, we can
restore it if necessary. We dorestore earlier recordings to
(25:46):
take up clicks and things likethat. But that's after we've
done our basic raw transfer
Steve Roe (25:51):
Cheryl Tipp thank you very much for coming on BatChat
Cheryl Tipp (25:53):
Thank you very much for coming. I hope everyone
comes to the exhibition and hasa great time!
Steve Roe (26:00):
Animals; Art, Science and Sound is open until Monday,
the 28th of August 2023. Ticketsand all the information you need
can be found on the exhibitionwebpages. And we've put a link
in the show notes, along with alink to that greater horseshoe
recording of John Hooper's madeon the Holgate Mk VI detector.
There's also a link to a journalarticle about John Hooper's bat
recording activities. Along witha link to Cheryl's Twitter
(26:23):
profile, we can see more photosfrom the exhibition. My thanks
to Cheryl and the team at theBritish Library for setting up
that interview. It really is aworthwhile exhibition to get
along to this summer. Recordingfor BatChat series five is
underway and will be cominglater in the year. So tap that
follow button in your podcastapp, and that way you'll get a
notification of when that'savailable. We're looking for
(26:43):
places and people to visit fromacross the UK. So if you're
working on a great bat project,or have a story about the bats
in your area to share, pleaseget in touch via the address in
the show notes. Have a fantasticsummer getting out there and
enjoy seeing and hearing bats inthe night sky. And on that note,
I'm going to leave you with oneof Cheryl's own recordings which
(27:03):
sits in the British Library. Therecord's metadata tells us it
was recorded on a coastal laneboarded by arable fields close
to Pagham harbour in West Sussexon the 16th of September 2000
names it's of commonpipistrelles leaving a nearby
roost believed to be in thenearby church heading towards
the harbour to hunt. It was madeon a Magenta 4 tuned to 45kHz
(27:25):
with a Marantz solid staterecorder on a call calm, dark
evening.
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