World Ear Project:
Transmission Nine, May 1971

The ninth transmission of KPFA’s groundbreaking series the World Ear Project, featuring unedited ambient recordings of unique or unusual environments. The World Ear Project was an attempt to bring everybody’s ears a little closer. KPFA asked their listeners and friends from around the world to send in recordings made in common places, of the sounds that surround our daily existence. The environments in which these recording were made were the sole subject of the project. It was the philosophy of those that began this endeavor, that one key step in trying to understand our neighbors is getting to know the setting in which they carry out their daily lives. In this particular program Richard Friedman plays field recordings of a helicopter landing, a recycling center, and a rodeo parade. Also included as a sort of program within the program are two recordings originally broadcast by Mike Sahl on his show “Sounds” broadcast by WBAI. “Sounds” was in many ways a precursor of the World Ear Project and here Sahl introduces two ambient recordings, one of the Illinois Central Railroad and the other an excerpt from a 1968 London concert by the radical, avant-garde band Musica Elettronica Viva. Transmission Nine concludes with a recording of the set up for and rehearsal of a piece by San Francisco Bay Area based composer John Dinwiddie. As someone plays the piano one can hear a number of other people work on getting the electronic components to work. Abrupt explosions of sound occur as what might be radios and oscillators are plugged in, turned on, or suddenly disconnected. Joining the piano are chimes, whistles, and various forms of percussion in what seems to be a rather freewheeling rehearsal.