My aim for this work was to convey a sense of place through the medium of a sound study.  

I feel that I was able to create a sound study that conveys a sense of place, this place specifically being a local nature reserve. I made a base using recordings of wind, water and the general atmosphere of the reserve. This I feel initially created a sense of place as it was effectively a recreation of the reserve sounds, as opposed to simply recording the sound of the reserve and calling it a day. This base was needed as recorded text speaking about birds and recorded bird song on their own would not convey a sense of place, it would be more like a nature documentary. I am using this piece to convey a sense of place of a specific site.  

A sound study is a way of presenting information through sound. This is why I chose to use text from a bird watching guide, the four species of birds in particular are found within the nature reserve. At first when asked to convey a sense of place using sound I would’ve thought to create a soundscape or maybe some ambient music, so creating a sound study was something new to me. I had to set myself some gudelines to ensure that what I made was in fact a sound study, and not just a soundscape or some ambient music. For example, I chose not to use and digital sounds and only work with pre-existing recordings and to constantly keep the piece moving. The use of text helped massively to solidify this work as a sound study. 

In conclusion I feel that I have been able to create a sound study that conveys a sense of place. The use of the base layer creating an atmosphere captures how the reserve sounds. And the use of text both presents information and also reenforces the setting of a nature reserve. If I were to do one thing differently it would be to use a wider verity of microphones when making my recordings so that I could have made more detailed ones, so that I would not have had to find recordings elsewhere.