Sounds Fascinating


Book Description

How do you pronounce biopic, synod, and Breughel? - and why? Do our cake and archaic sound the same? Where does the stress go in stalagmite? What's odd about the word epergne? Pontcysyllte is obviously Welsh, but Penge is Welsh too! How cool is Caol in the Highlands of Scotland? What can Wesley's hymns tell us about sound change in English? How do people pronounce Wrocław in Poland? How can anyone manage to say Gdynia as just two syllables? Why is the village of Frith in the island of Montserrat usually pronounced as if spelt Frits? What embarrassing faux pas in English did a Russian conglomerate make? Should I bild a cubbard instead of building a cupboard? How should we capitalize an exclamation mark, and why might we need to? What's a depressor consonant? As a finale, the author writes a letter to his 16-year-old self.




Sounds Interesting


Book Description

Sounds Interesting explores a range of current and widely researched topics such as pronunciation, teaching, intonation, spelling, and accents.




The Sound Book: The Science of the Sonic Wonders of the World


Book Description

"A lucid and passionate case for a more mindful way of listening to and engaging with musical, natural, and manmade sounds." —New York Times In this tour of the world’s most unexpected sounds, Trevor Cox—the “David Attenborough of the acoustic realm” (Observer)—discovers the world’s longest echo in a hidden oil cavern in Scotland, unlocks the secret of singing sand dunes in California, and alerts us to the aural gems that exist everywhere in between. Using the world’s most amazing acoustic phenomena to reveal how sound works in everyday life, The Sound Book inspires us to become better listeners in a world dominated by the visual and to open our ears to the glorious cacophony all around us.




Sounds From Another Room


Book Description

The distinguished RAF commander recounts his life of service and adventure from WWII to the Royal Household and encounters with unexplained phenomena. A decorated war hero and longtime associate of the Royal Family, Sir Peter Horsley led a uniquely fascinating life. In Sounds from Another Room, he chronicles the many formative—and transformative—experiences that shaped it. Horsley joined the Royal Air Force shortly after the outbreak of World War II. Shot down over the English Channel during the Normandy invasion, he not only survived but continued to serve in the RAF throughout the war and for decades afterward. Horsley also spent seven years as equerry to His Royal Highness Prince Philip. It was at Philip’s request that Horsley investigated numerous UFO sightings. He offers a candid account of that work, including a mysterious encounter with a Mr. Janus, who exhibited telepathic abilities and an intimate knowledge of extraterrestrial life.




That Sounds Fun


Book Description

A New York Times Bestseller! We know there are certain things we must have to survive--food, shelter, and safety to name a few. But there are also aspects of life that truly allow us to be joyful and fulfilled. For popular podcaster and bestselling author Annie F. Downs, fun is close to the top of that list. Few would argue that having fun doesn't enrich our lives, but so much gets in the way of prioritizing it. Tough days, busyness, and feelings that are hard to talk about keep us from the fun that's out there waiting to be found. With That Sounds Fun, Annie offers an irresistible invitation to understand the meaning of fun, to embrace it and chase it, and to figure out what, exactly, sounds fun to you--then do it! Exploring some research and sharing some thoughts behind why fun matters, she shows you how to find, experience, and multiply your fun. With her signature storytelling style and whimsical vulnerability, Annie is the friend we all need to guide us back to staying true to ourselves and finding the fun we need.




Designing Sound


Book Description

A practitioner's guide to the basic principles of creating sound effects using easily accessed free software. Designing Sound teaches students and professional sound designers to understand and create sound effects starting from nothing. Its thesis is that any sound can be generated from first principles, guided by analysis and synthesis. The text takes a practitioner's perspective, exploring the basic principles of making ordinary, everyday sounds using an easily accessed free software. Readers use the Pure Data (Pd) language to construct sound objects, which are more flexible and useful than recordings. Sound is considered as a process, rather than as data—an approach sometimes known as “procedural audio.” Procedural sound is a living sound effect that can run as computer code and be changed in real time according to unpredictable events. Applications include video games, film, animation, and media in which sound is part of an interactive process. The book takes a practical, systematic approach to the subject, teaching by example and providing background information that offers a firm theoretical context for its pragmatic stance. [Many of the examples follow a pattern, beginning with a discussion of the nature and physics of a sound, proceeding through the development of models and the implementation of examples, to the final step of producing a Pure Data program for the desired sound. Different synthesis methods are discussed, analyzed, and refined throughout.] After mastering the techniques presented in Designing Sound, students will be able to build their own sound objects for use in interactive applications and other projects




Sounds of Nature: World of Forests


Book Description

Travel the world with the Sounds of Nature series – press the note in each of the 10 forest habitats to hear vivid recordings of over 60 different animal sounds. The Sounds of Nature series brings the natural world to life with the sounds of real animals recorded in the wild. Captivating edge-to-edge illustrations show animals in action in their habitats around the globe. The animals are numbered in the order they can be heard, with fascinating facts and descriptions of the sounds they make, so you can listen out for each one. A speaker set into the back cover plays a sound clip when you press firmly on the note in each illustration. The battery is already installed, so simply open and explore. In World of Forests, discover these amazing habitats: evergreen forest of Germany; redwood forest of California, USA; deciduous forest of England, UK; Amazon rainforest of South America; cloud forest of the Virunga mountains, Africa; desert forest of Socotra Island, Yemen; beech forest in Brussels, Belgium; mangrove forest in the Sundarbans, India; and boreal forest of Alaska, USA. Listen to these wooded places come to life as you hear the: Low-pitched growls of the Eurasian lynx (evergreen forest) Flute-like sound of the varied thrush (redwood forest) Neighing and snorting of a wild pony (deciduous forest) Raucous howls and grunts of the red howler monkey (rainforest) Scratchy sound of a blue-baboon spider moving to find an insect meal (desert forest) Chewing and snapping sounds of a giant panda having a meal (bamboo forest) Step under the trees, where 80 percent of the world's land species make their home, to take in the glorious sights and sounds!




Sound


Book Description

An award-winning visual tour of the world of sound. Intriguing, informative, and endlessly fascinating, a book that makes visible that which we otherwise only hear and feel as vibrations: SOUND. Award-winning authors and artists Romana Romanyshyn and Andriy Lesiv achieve a remarkable fusion of the scientific exploration of the phenomenon of sound with a philosophic reflection on its nature that will appeal to inquisitive children looking to learn more about science and nature. A stunning sequence of rich infographics provoke the reader to listen . . . learn . . . and think. Whether it's hearing noise, music, speech . . . or silence, no one will come away from these pages without experiencing sound with new ears and a fresh understanding. • Stunning visual sophistication and compelling infographics will appeal to adults as well as children. • A perfect book for educators to share with children interested in STEM topics • A fascinating overlooked topic that will help children explore complex ideas about science and the natural world Translated into over 20 languages! Winner of the Bologna Ragazzi Award for best nonfiction book of the year. The award-winning, visually stunning Sound will appeal to young readers who enjoyed Animalium, Botanicum, Eye to Eye: How Animals See the World, and Human Body: A Visual Encyclopedia. • Science books for kids ages 8–12 • Biology books for kids • Human physiology books for kids The accessible, kid-friendly visuals throughout Sound help children to connect with STEM topics and learn surprising and interesting facts about one of our most important senses. The husband and wife team Romana Romanyshyn and Andriy Lesiv, share an art studio, AGRAFKA, in Lviv, Ukraine. Sound, together with its companion Sight (coming Fall 2020) were the co-winners of the Bologna Ragazzi Award in 2018. Visit them at agrafkastudio.myportfolio.com.




Sounds of Nature: World of Oceans


Book Description

Travel the world with the Sounds of Nature series – press the note in each of the 10 ocean habitats to hear vivid recordings of over 60 different marine animal sounds. The Sounds of Nature series brings the natural world to life with the sounds of real animals recorded in the wild. Captivating edge-to-edge illustrations show animals in action in their habitats around the globe. The animals are numbered in the order they can be heard, with fascinating facts and descriptions of the sounds they make, so you can listen out for each one. A speaker set into the back cover plays a sound clip when you press firmly on the note in each illustration. The battery is already installed, so simply open and explore. In World of Oceans, discover these amazing habitats: open ocean of the Pacific; frozen water of the Arctic; coral waters of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef; swamp waters of Florida, USA; a rockpool in Cornwall, UK; bay waters of San Francisco, USA; island waters of Indonesia, Asia; the deep sea of the Mariana Trench; coastal waters of Brazil, South America; and sandy coastline of Cape Town, Africa. Listen to these and more watery places come to life as you hear the: Booming snorts, roars and growls of the northern elephant seal (Pacific Ocean) Happy squeaks, chirps, whistles and clucks of the ghostly white beluga whales (Arctic Ocean) Angry hissing noise of a common snapping turtle warning off intruders (Florida swamp) Scuttling noise of a giant spider crab (Mariana Trench) High-pitched clicking sounds of poison dart frogs (Brazil) Loud splash of a great white shark as it falls back into the water (South Africa) Dip your toe in, hold your breath and get ready to plunge into the deep blue oceans that cover our planet!




The Order of Sounds


Book Description

This study of the subtlety, complexity, and variety of modes of hearing maps out a “sonorous archipelago”—a heterogeneous set of shifting sonic territories shaped by the vicissitudes of desire and discourse. Profoundly intimate yet immediately giving onto distant spaces, both an “organ of fear” and an echo chamber of anticipated pleasures, an uncontrollable flow subject to unconscious selection and augmentation, the subtlety, complexity, and variety of modes of hearing has meant that sound has rarely received the same philosophical attention as the visual. In The Order of Sounds, François J. Bonnet makes a compelling case for the irreducible heterogeneity of “sound,” navigating between the physical models constructed by psychophysics and refined through recording technologies, and the synthetic production of what is heard. From primitive vigilance and sonic mythologies to digital sampling and sound installations, he examines the ways in which we make sound speak to us, in an analysis of listening as a plurivocal phenomenon drawing on Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari, Barthes, Nancy, Adorno, and de Certeau, and experimental pioneers such as Tesla, Bell, and Raudive. Stringent critiques of the “soundscape” and “reduced listening” demonstrate that univocal ontologies of sound are always partial and politicized; for listening is always a selective fetishism, a hallucination of sound filtered by desire and convention, territorialized by discourse and its authorities. Bonnet proposes neither a disciplined listening that targets sound “itself,” nor an “ocean of sound” in which we might lose ourselves, but instead maps out a sonorous archipelago—a heterogeneous set of shifting sonic territories shaped and aggregated by the vicissitudes of desire and discourse.