25Sep/05Off
Crickets
I made this cricket recording on August 8, 2005 at about 10pm in my backyard. It has some background traffic noise.
Download - (30 seconds, 590K)
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August 13th, 2007 - 22:59
The onset of my tinnitus condition was four years ago this summer. I live in one of Portland’s older neighborhoods, not far from Mount Tabor, so I was surprised one August night four years ago when a cricket appeared near my rear deck and began to sing. I’d lived in my house nearly twenty and never heard a single cricket in all that time. I had a hunch that the repetitive nature of the cricket sound might be a tool I could use for managing my tinnitus.
I turned on my digital recorder and left it a few feet away from the cricket. I let it run for almost an an hour before I turned it off and brought it inside. The cricket kept on singing, though, for another hour or so.
When I later listened to the recording, I realized I’d set the sensitivity control to high, which resulted in my recording not the the cricket’s song but the sounds of the whole neighborhood as well.
I have no regrets. It’s not just a recording of the cricket, it’s a recording of the night in all its fullness.
It did prove therapeutic, too. I still hear the same tinnitus wounds, but I meditate and pray with the sounds of the cricket and the night every day. Somehow it makes me more able to ignore the tinnitus sounds, and I have really come to cherish Mr. Cricket.
I wanted to hear your recording to see it if sounded anything like my cricket. They sound as though they’re from the same choir, although that’s probably not the best rreference, considering their aims.
Thanks for making your cricket available.
Howard Robinson