Sounds of Southwark

Audioboo has been out and about talking to a lot of journalism students about increasing importance of multimedia journalism and storytelling and how Audioboo is a simple way for them to develop both of these skills. We were lucky enough to snag journalism student Thomas Lowe from City University and have him join us at Audioboo HQ for a week. We set him the challenge of using Audioboo to capture the spirit of the local area and now we’re giving him free reign on the Audioboo blog to tell all about his fabulous “Sounds of Southwark” project. Over to you Tom…

If there’s one thing I like more than great images, it’s great sound – which is why I wanted to spend some time with Audioboo at the cutting edge of sound publishing.

If you carry around a camera you notice how things look, and if you carry a recorder around interesting sounds start to catch your ear.

So this week I’ve had my ear to the ground for sounds and places that help give Southwark its character.  This ‘soundmap’ is a mix of reports on important places in Southwark, interviews and more spontaneous recordings that I just had to get off my bike and capture as I rode past.

Sounds of Southwark sound map:

View Larger Map

The sound of the Southwark Cathedral boo gives a feeling of the size of the building. This one I recorded on my mic then mixed and uploaded later.

I recorded ‘Tunnel skating’ with my phone under a bridge near Audioboo HQ and uploaded it straight away. I did the same with the sneaky ‘Audioboo HQ’ boo.

‘Tower bridge opening’ was a bit of a disappointment to be honest. I was looking for a great creak from the great bridge and got little more than a resonant squeak.  The sounds of the sailing boat going under the bridge were surprisingly good though.

Interviewing good people is good for the soul and as it turned out it was good for my stomach as well – Lee in the ‘Borough Market’ boo gave me a tasty mozzarella and ham sandwich to munch on my way.

I had a whole lot of fun putting this soundmap together – and there’s nothing to stop you from doing something similar.

If you’d like to find out how to put together a map like the one above you can check out this brief discussion on the Audioboo website.

Thanks to Kate, Mark and the team for having me this week – it’s been fun and a real learning experience!

Guest post, Ways We Boo