Try some of the stuff Paul suggested on this page.
Hello there!
I hope you enjoyed the soundwalk we made for you and your neighborhood! Haven't tried it out yet? I think the soundwalk is more interesting than anything you'll find on this page, so check it out, then come back!
...unless you're here because you tried to get the soundwalk to work, but there were technical difficulties. Maybe I can help.
Try some of the stuff Paul suggested on this page.
Email thingNY@gmail.com and we'll send you a link instead. Note, you must be able to click the emailed link on your phone. There's no way to type the link directly into Echoes, so you'll have to click it in your email, then when prompted, choose to open it in Echoes and NOT in your browser. Unfortunately, there's no browser-based version of Echoes.
Make sure you have location services enabled. Echoes needs access to your GPS location in order to track your location - and having audio play based on your location is the whole point of Echoes. It might also help to download the soundwalk rather than streaming it. Sometimes it helps to turn off WiFi and only use data, or to keep your phone's screen on during the whole walk. When all else fails, try restarting your phone...or emailing us at thingNY@gmail.com to see if we can help.
If you've given up on Echoes entirely, or just want to see what my neighborhood is like, here's a video version of the walk starting at my own house in West Philadelphia:
Alternatively, if you walk to a place ten minutes away and back while listening to this mp3, you'll get a decent approximation of what the Echoes soundwalk sounds like. The main things you lose by skipping the Echoes version are the treasure hunt aspect and the ability to change your audio experience by altering your pace or departing from the route.
This soundwalk is all about adaptive reuse! The instrumental track under my voiceover at the beginning of the walk is a track I originally wrote for Sharon Mashihi's podcast Appearances, but which ultimately wasn't used on the podcast. If you haven't listened to Appearances, check it out here, it's great.
The next section of the walk features material thingNY created for Gelsey's Losing a Sense of the Map sub-project, which you hopefully listened to here upon receiving our second mailing. Gelsey had us go through a really cool process that I'd describe as "exquisite corpse meets theme and variations." She created a short track that featured several audio layers, then sent it to Dave, who edited or deleted layers and added his own layers, who sent it to Isabel (who only had access to Dave's version, not Gelsey's original), and so on, until all eight of us got a crack at it. You can hear Gelsey's original, Isabel's edit, my edit, and alejandro's edit in the soundwalk.
After you walk past a couple short solo samples Gelsey and Isabel recorded while we were all jamming together over Zoom, the soundwalk moves on to material recorded for Andrew's Dominance sub-project, which you hopefully listened to some of here upon receiving our sixth mailing. Here's how Dominance worked: Andrew recorded a rather dominant track and sent it around to all of us. Each of us recorded audio along with the dominant track, then sent our new tracks back to Andrew. Andrew took these tracks and layered them on top of each other in different configurations, but always with the original dominant track removed. On the walk, you'll hear a track by Erin, followed by a track combining contributions from Dave, Gelsey, and Paul, a track with all eight of us, and finally a track with contributions from Dave, Isabel, alejandro, and Andrew. (But you'll never hear the original dominant track.)
Finally, upon reaching the star, you'll hear material written explicitly for the soundwalk. First, you'll hear a chorale featuring musical material written by Paul, edited and performed by the rest of the band. Some of this material is also interwoven throughout earlier parts of the walk. The chorale is followed by a 15-minute-long drone track also created by Paul, which is intended to play as you're walking back home. The drone will keep playing even as you walk through locations where you triggered audio earlier in the walk - it will simply layer on top of that audio!
By the way, if you feel like doing this walk a second time, you might try walking at a different pace or even departing from the indicated path for a fairly different experience.
Isabel, Dave, Paul, our Look+Listen intern Ariana, and I made individual soundwalks for each audience member of Dear Nancine. The soundwalks all feature the same audio, but in each case we had to figure out anew how to lay out the GPS triggers given the different streetscapes. It was a lot of work, but it was fun to get at least some small insight into where you all live.
I did the art on the postcard too.
Look out for one more mailing, oh dear Nancine!
-Jeff