Kentuckiana Sounds

While walking down 6th St., Kentuckiana Sounds curator Aaron Rosenblum found himself enveloped in a droning, omnipresent hum reverberating among the buildings on the block. Was it coming from an HVAC system? Or from the service vehicles parked nearby with giant tubes protruding from their trailers? Or from somewhere else entirely? To hear the full recording, explore the sound map, or submit a sound visit www.wfpl.org/sounds or www.kentuckianasounds.org.

Musician and student Chris Leidner lives in a noisy neighborhood. His Old Louisville apartment is above a narrow street where the sounds of cars and motorcycles ricochet and rattle his windows. Airplanes fly low on their approach to Muhammad Ali International Airport. And yet he makes space for the small sounds of home, like this radiator that offers a surprising variety of sounds for those willing to listen. To hear the full recording, explore the sound map, or submit a sound visit www.wfpl.org/sounds or www.kentuckianasounds.org.

The ascending call of a Prairie Warbler rings out over the mixed terrain of Charlestown State Park in Southern Indiana. A chorus of other species chime in. To hear the full recording, explore the sound map, or submit a sound visit www.wfpl.org/sounds or www.kentuckianasounds.org.

Flash Dads is a JCPS program that brings men from the community into JCPS schools to serve as positive role models and welcome students. The volunteers come from throughout the community, and bring their own style to the early morning surprise greeting. On this morning, sanitation workers improvised a chorus of the air horns on their trucks to welcome students to Shelby Traditional Academy, and woke up the neighborhood in the process. To hear the full recording, explore the sound map, or submit a sound visit www.wfpl.org/sounds or www.kentuckianasounds.org.

Field recordist Luke Pearson wanted to hear what was happening in the Ohio River, so he dropped a hydrophone in at Portland Wharf Park. Instead of the marine life he expected he heard marine traffic. Find out what the fish might hear as a barge passes into the McAlpine Locks and Dam. To hear the full recording, explore the sound map, or submit a sound visit www.wfpl.org/sounds or www.kentuckianasounds.org.

To the average driver seeing it from their commute, The Kentucky Derby Festival Great Balloon Race might seems like a peaceful, placid affair. But as anyone who's ever been to the Balloon Glow or the liftoff of the Great Balloon Race knows, it takes a lot of generator-powered fans and roaring gas jets to get the colorful balloons off the ground. To hear the full recording, explore the sound map, or submit a sound visit www.wfpl.org/sounds or www.kentuckianasounds.org.

The commercial developments around Outer Loop may not seem much like nature sanctuaries, but Kentuckiana Sounds curator Aaron Rosenblum found one hidden water management feature full of busy nocturnal creatures. This recording was made in 2018 as part of the COLLIDER Artist in Residence program at the South Central Regional Library. To hear the full recording, explore the sound map, or submit a sound visit www.wfpl.org/sounds or www.kentuckianasounds.org.

The sounds of a college football game can travel pretty far. So can the sounds of a freight train. Drawn to the periphery of Cardinal Stadium by the Clemson at UofL game in 2015, Kentuckiana Sounds curator Aaron Rosenblum found that the adjacent railroad tracks were as noisy as the game itself. To hear the full recording, explore the sound map, or submit a sound visit www.wfpl.org/sounds or www.kentuckianasounds.org.

Recording studio co-owner Jeff Dickerhoof set out to record the wind chimes on his back deck only to have the wind turn to rain and thunder, and a chance to record the storm instead. To hear the full recording, explore the sound map, or submit a sound visit www.wfpl.org/sounds or www.kentuckianasounds.org.

New sounds arrive with the changing seasons — migrating birds in the spring, cicadas in the summer, and leaf blowers in the fall. Kentuckiana Sounds curator Aaron Rosenblum picked up the sound of two leaf blowers working simultaneously in Central Park and heard an unusual example of a common psychoacoustic phenomenon. To hear the full recording, explore the sound map, or submit a sound visit www.wfpl.org/sounds or www.kentuckianasounds.org.

Is it possible to hear the sound of Louisville’s historic and current housing policies? Why Beecher Terrace was built, who lives there, what is being lost with it, and what’s coming next are all hot button issues. While bringing human voices to the debate across the city, we pause to listen to the environment itself. To hear the full recording, explore the sound map, or submit a sound visit www.wfpl.org/sounds or www.kentuckianasounds.org.

Kentuckiana Sounds curator Aaron Rosenblum stops to listen to the chorus of insects by a grassy lot in Okolona. This sound was recorded while he was artist-in-residence as part of the South Central Regional Library’s COLLIDER arts program. To hear the full recording, explore the sound map, or submit a sound visit www.wfpl.org/sounds or www.kentuckianasounds.org.

When archivist and musician Heather Fox heard a new sound behind her house, she set out her iPhone to capture it. Somewhere out there in the drizzly darkness, as her cats and dog wandered and crickets called, frogs of a species new to her backyard were calling. To hear the full recording, explore the sound map, or submit a sound visit www.wfpl.org/sounds or www.kentuckianasounds.org.

Dan Bryan has always been interested in sound. When he walks down Bardstown Road, he hears a voice calling out as if from the ether, with a clear message: it’s safe to cross. Less clear is who’s doing the talking on Louisville’s Accessible Pedestrian Signals. To hear the full recording, explore the sound map, or submit a sound visit www.wfpl.org/sounds or www.kentuckianasounds.org.

Editor and musician Brian Manley used to sit out on his back porch on Preston St. to take in the sounds of the evening. Sometimes his block was alive with animals, insects, and humans. Other times it was mostly quiet. But either way, the regular passage of planes headed for a landing at Standiford Field provided a rhythmic soundtrack from above. To hear the full recording, explore the sound map, or submit a sound visit https://wfpl.org/sounds or www.kentuckianasounds.org.

They’re four-and-a-half feet tall, their wingspans can reach up to seven feet, and their raucous call can be heard from two-and-a-half miles away. Every year, thousands of sandhill cranes stop through Kentucky and Indiana on their way from Florida to the upper Midwest and Canada. To hear the full recording, explore the sound map, or submit a sound visit https://wfpl.org/sounds or www.kentuckianasounds.org.

Auctioneer-in-training, musician, and square dance caller Alex Udis recorded the 2018 World Championship Dainty Contest that takes place just down the street from his home. The contest is a meeting place for friends old and new, and a test of skills for competitors 45 and older. Just make sure you don’t miss your turn when the announcer calls your name! To hear the full recording, explore the sound map, or submit a sound visit https://wfpl.org/sounds or www.kentuckianasounds.org. +

Biking through downtown one night, Kentuckiana Sounds curator Aaron Rosenblum heard something odd while stopped at a red light. A chorus of katydids and crickets in the bushes and trees seemed to be engaged in a dialogue with the synthetic bird calls of the audible crosswalks signals that aid visually impaired pedestrians. Did the insects register the sound of the signals? Were they responding to it? To hear the full recording, explore the sound map, or submit a sound visit www.wfpl.org/sounds or www.kentuckianasounds.org.

Musician and former railroad engineer John Paul Wright lives where Bardstown Road and Baxter Avenue meet. That’s where he captured the eerie, once-a-month coincidence of the noon bells of St. Brigid’s Catholic Church tolling at the same time as the monthly test of the Jefferson County civil defense siren system. Both sounds are significant for Wright, and tied to meaningful memories. To hear the full recording, explore the sound map, or submit a sound visit www.wfpl.org/sounds or www.kentuckianasounds.org.

Kentuckiana Sounds curator Aaron Rosenblum shares a recording made on a country road outside of New Albany, Indiana on a late spring evening. The surroundings are a mix of forest, field, and meadow, and an evening chorus of birds, insects, and amphibians brings Aaron back to his childhood in upstate New York. To hear the full recording, explore the sound map, or submit a sound visit www.wfpl.org/sounds or www.kentuckianasounds.org.

Take an audio trip around our region. On each episode, we listen to a field recording from the Kentuckiana Sounds map, and hear from the contributor who made it. Produced by Louisville Public Media, and Kentuckiana Sounds. _