Hello,

my name is Jaume Ferrete and I am a coordinator for the organization Sons de Barcelona. Our goal is contributing to awake general interest towards sound. To achieve this we conduct workshops at schools, universities, community centers, libraries, art institutions, etc. where we introduce participants to different ways of thinking and working with sound; and to the technological tools that allows us to do so; all this through creative strategies.

Workshop at Art Center La Panera, Lleida, Spain

Our project is closely related to Freesound, which is a huge collaborative database of sounds under a Creative Commons license. Both projects are initiatives by the Music Technology Group of the Pompeu Fabra University at Barcelona.

I will take care of the Sounds of Europe blog during the month of December in representation of the country of Spain. Needless to say it is for me difficult to adopt such role, both as a representative of the country I live in, and of this project which has a european centered narrative. Even more after the latest turns of EU leaderships towards neoliberal doctrines which will deeply affect culture, as it is affecting social services or migration policies. So I find necessary to adopt a critical stance on this, and I will try to do so through my selection of projects, artists and works for this blog.

During the month I will tell you about the variety of projects that are trying to sound-map our territory, like Escoitar, or whose goal is to conserve sounds that may be lost during urbanization processes like Sonoscop; I’ll tell you about websites and festivals with a focus on sound and sound art, like Mediateletipos and Zeppelin; field-recording artists like Mikel R. Nieto; educative projects like the Master’s Degree in Sound Art. Visual arts, architecture, music of the University of Barcelona; ethnological approximations to sound as that of Miguel Alonso, and more. Please stay tuned!

On the top-right corner of this page you will find the sound of this week, which is a field-recording by user Marcianita, on Freesound; I quote her description:

‘Fira de Bellcaire”, also known by barcelona citizens as ‘Encants’, i’ts an open-air market where you can find all type of things. The Best place for collectors. Recorded made 16th of febrary. After some naughty days, the sun was shining. Ten years ago it was plenty of Catalan sellers, nowadays most of those sellers come from Morocco and Argelia while Gipsies remain. You can hear their active voices singing the best prices, buyers dialogues, sounds of objects. Recording was done using a ZOOM H2 at 16bits , with OKM binaural-microphone. Sound has not been processed, just fade-in and fade-out. I was walking and looking for some stuff.

Thanks.