Musician and naturalist Bernie Krause is one of the world's leading experts in natural sound, and he's spent his life discovering and recording nature's rich chorus. Searching far beyond our modern world's honking horns and buzzing machinery, he has sought out the truly wild places that remain, where natural soundscapes exist virtually unchanged from when the earliest humans first inhabited the earth.
Krause shares fascinating insight into how deeply animals rely on their aural habitat to survive and the damaging effects of extraneous noise on the delicate balance between predator and prey. But natural soundscapes aren't vital only to the animal kingdom; Krause explores how the myriad voices and rhythms of the natural world formed a basis from which our own musical expression emerged.
From snapping shrimp, popping viruses, and the songs of humpback whales-whose voices, if unimpeded, could circle the earth in hours-to cracking glaciers, bubbling streams, and the roar of intense storms; from melody-singing birds to the organlike drone of wind blowing over reeds, the sounds Krause has experienced and describes are like no others. And from recording jaguars at night in the Amazon rain forest to encountering mountain gorillas in Africa's Virunga Mountains, Krause offers an intense and intensely personal narrative of the planet's deep and connected natural sounds and rhythm.
"The Great Animal Orchestra" is the story of one man's pursuit of natural music in its purest form, and an impassioned case for the conservation of one of our most overlooked natural resources-the music of the wild.

Bernie Krause is the world's leading expert in natural sound. Beginning by recording the sound of wheat growing in a Kansas field, he has spent the last 40 years recording ecological soundscapes and the sounds of over 15,000 species. Due to human actions, half of the wild soundscapes he has on tape no longer exist. Krause divides natural sound into three categories. Biophony is the sound made by animals and plants, like the shrimp whose underwater clicks are equivalent to a Boeing 727 taking off. Geophony is natural sound - made by wind, water and rain - which led different tribes to have different musical scales. And anthrophony is human-generated sound, which as it has rapidly increased has affected animals - for instance, causing disoriented whales to become beached. In The Great Animal Orchestra Krause invites us to listen through his ears to all three as he showcases singing trees, contrasting coasts, and the roar of the modern world. Just as streetlights engulf the stars, human noise is drowning out the sounds of nature, and our focus on the visual today blinds us to this. The Great Animal Orchestra shows why it is vital we preserve our remaining natural soundscapes - and will make you hear the world entirely differently. Loved by experts from E. O. Wilson to Norman Lebrecht, this unique book - now out in paperback, combines music and cultural history with science to appeal to everyone from David Attenborough fans to music lovers.

The artificial noise in our lives is a debris field of arbitrary and often harmful signals. Our lives are riddled with sound: heavy-footed neighbours, an ambulance screeching nearby, white noise from the television. Unsurprisingly, the noisy environment in which we live has an immense impact on our concentration, alertness, and feelings of anxiety. To help us manage the rubble that hinders our mind and well-being, Bernie Krause whisks us through the practical steps that each one of us can take to reduce the unhealthy noise in your life and realize the healing powers of certain acoustic encounters. Along the way, we explore the difference between harmful noise and the signals that make us feel good, between noise as a stressor and soundscapes that serve to boost our emotional and physiological health and stimulate our productivity. By following his suggestions you'll discover what a wide variety of sound signatures represent; which ones you like, which ones you don't, and why. Thoroughly researched and accessibly crafted, THE POWER OF TRANQUILITY IN A VERY NOISY WORLD will show you how to gain control over your sonic experiences and live a more tranquil and enduring life.

A founder of soundscape ecology offers a pioneering field guide for listening to and recording the sounds of the wild Through his organization Wild Sanctuary, Bernie Krause has traveled the globe to hear and record the sounds of diverse natural habitats. Wild Soundscapes, first published in 2002, inspires readers to follow in Krause's footsteps. The book enchantingly shows how to find creature symphonies (or, as Krause calls them, "biophonies"); use simple microphones to hear more; and record, mix, and create new expressions with the gathered sounds. After reading this book, readers will feel compelled to investigate a wide range of habitats and animal sounds, from the conversations of birds and howling sand dunes to singing anthills. This rewritten and updated edition explains the newest technological advances and research, encouraging readers to understand the earth's soundscapes in ways previously unimaginable. With links to the sounds that are discussed in the text, this accessible and engaging guide to natural soundscapes will captivate amateur naturalists, field recordists, musicians, and anyone else who wants to fully appreciate the sounds of our natural world.