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EARTHTUNES

by Jonathon Storm

EARTHTUNES Series

EARTHTUNES are pure nature sound recordings: no narration, no music, no subliminal effects. You hear simply the wild, unchanged voices of the natural world.

EARTHTUNES are beautiful, relaxing recordings of creation’s voices—the sounds of a peaceful natural world unspoiled by mankind’s noise and destruction. Our tracks and albums are designed to accompany life in a busy and hectic human world. Many listeners have found that EARTHTUNES emotionally transport them to the wilderness world, where they relax from a busy day. Many have used them to fall asleep by or to study by— and some to pray by. EARTHTUNES can provide a few-minutes break in your busy life.

The EARTHTUNES series has been a leading series of natural sound recordings noted for being a good-listen, educational and entertaining. Its hallmark is beautiful and relaxing sounds coupled with interesting and educational accompanying notes—a simple but profound interactive learning experience.

EARTHTUNES are authentic wilderness soundscape recordings from pristine wilderness areas, National Parks, wildlife sanctuaries, National Forests and other natural areas. You hear what the microphones “heard.” EARTHTUNES productions do not use looping techniques (repeating the same recording), nor filtering, nor equalization, nor compression. We have selected recordings, often with dense and active sections; with superb stereo imaging; and often with a deep acoustic depth-of-field.

(Our YouTube videos will have looping.) We have sought to capture the feel and music of the place which produced the soundscapes; and we share the most musically-rich soundscapes we have found. We have sequenced the presentation of recordings on an album or in a sequence of tracks to tell a beautiful story of the place, a particular artistic or natural theme, or the experience.

EARTHTUNES tracks and albums come with a PDF document describing the sounds, the natural environments, the recordist’s experiences, and the science behind it all; indexed to the soundtrack. Ecological relationships, species, and other natural science notes are often provided. (We hope to eventually also provide a series of images, which can be used for computer wallpapers.)

EARTHTUNES Album Categories are our way of highlighting features of the soundscapes on an album; the theme of an album; a recommended personal use for the album or a topic or subject of the album. Every album has at least one or two categories; some have five or six!

Nature Sounds for Work & Study

If you desire to have some beautiful background sound or nature music— your own nature sound machine—while you work or study, these albums are great for that. Educators and child-care facilities have used nature sound recordings for calming their children and providing a boost to learning retention. In 1983, when Jonathon first thought of the concept of recording nature sounds, he wished to have some for the time he was studying at college. In the years since then, Jonathon has found that he thinks more clearly and works more efficiently when he has the natural micro-diversions of being outdoors: the breeze blowing on his face, the sounds of birds, insects, wind or rain; and the sight of trees and sky. Listening to natural sounds brings some of the outdoors inside.

  • Ancient Forest – Fall & Winter
  • Ancient Forest – Spring Chorus
  • Dawn Thunderstorm
  • Return of the Wolf
  • River of Ice
  • River of Life
  • Voice of the Sky – Thunder & Rain

Relaxing Surf

Jonathon loves spending time at the beach, listening to the ever-changing soundscape brought about by the interaction of the tides, winds, distant weather and the interplay of sand, rock and cobble. When he’s not recording on beaches, he keeps in shape by walking and running in the soft sand with his backpack. (He takes care to loosen the shoulder straps when running, to avoid compressing his spine. He plans to continue listening to surf and exercising this vigorously until his final year—hopefully 2084.) Relaxing surf albums are useful for relaxing to, based upon our own observations, and from customer feedback over numerous years.

  • Seastream

Sleep Surf

Sleep surf albums have been found by us and others to be quite effective to very effective in helping one sleep.

  • Quiet Surf

Thunder, Rain, Wind & Weather

Jonathon loves being in the middle of all types of weather. This passion for experiencing the raw power as well as the delicate music of wind, rain and thunder is captured in these albums that showcase weather music.

  • Ancient Forest – Fall & Winter
  • Dawn Thunderstorm
  • Voice of the Sky – Thunder & Rain

Dawn Choruses

Jonathon loves the sounds of songbirds: these ambient sound portraits capture the complete soundscape where the birds sung according to their daily patterns, affected by the weather and season. These ambient sound portraits capture the complete soundscape, unchanged from the way the songbirds “performed” each morning.

  • Ancient Forest – Spring Chorus
  • Dawn Thunderstorm.

Ancient Forests

Jonathon’s lifelong passion has been recording the seasons and unique sounds of old-growth forests. He has sought out some of the best examples of ancient forests in the Appalachian Mountains and the Pacific Northwest of America, and in these places, over every season in multiple years, obtained stunningly-beautiful, as well as accoustically accurate, sound portraits of these beautiful places. In his opinion, these albums represent his finest work. (If these sounds are your passion, email us to bug us to release all of our ancient forest recordings.)

  • Ancient Forest – Fall & Winter
  • Ancient Forest – Spring Chorus

Seasonal, Diurnal, Life Cycles

Since his childhood, our founder Jonathon has loved the varied cycles in the natural world—and he’s seen them as parables, teaching and training for mankind. Albums that feature seasonal sounds; night-and-day cycle sounds; life-cycle sounds; or other cyclical sounds receive this classification.

  • Ancient Forest – Fall & Winter (Autumn and winter seasonal sounds)
  • Ancient Forest – Spring Chorus (Spring seasonal sounds—with a hint at summer)
  • Dawn Thunderstorm (A single dusk-to-night-morning cycle, with the associated wildlife and birdlife sounds; parts of the life of a thunderstorm.)
  • Return of the Wolf (Wolf pack through a year’s seasons, with pups maturing through the year.)
  • River of Ice (The lifecycle of a glacier, as a parable for the life of each person.)
  • River of Life (The hydrological cycle, as a parable for the life of each person.)
  • Voice of the Sky – Thunder & Rain (Less-than-2-hours-long lifecycle of a thunderstorm.)

Other Sounds

Albums with unusual and unique sounds and soundscapes—that are in addition to the other categories—receive this category. For example: glacier sounds; cave sounds; geothermal sounds; wildlife sounds (without water sounds); insect, insect choruses; amphibian and amphibian choruses; other night choruses; tree falls, rock falls, ice falls; ambient forest or meadow sounds; and wind chimes.

  • Ancient Forest – Fall & Winter (Elk sounds; forest & meadow ambiences)
  • Ancient Forest – Spring Chorus (insect & amphibian choruses; and ruffed grouse drumming. And three frogs croaking in a syncopated rhythm!)
  • Dawn Thunderstorm (Jackal, owl & cattle sounds.)
  • Return of the Wolf (Wolf vocalizations; insect & amphibian choruses; beaver sounds.)
  • River of Ice (Ice falls and rock falls; moulin, cavern and glacier fountain sounds; calving sounds; calving surf; and iceberg, bergy bit sounds.)

Water & Wildlife

Flowing water was Jonathon’s first nature sound love: River of Ice, River of Life and Seastream were his first albums. You see, water, unlike wildlife, wouldn’t run from an enthusiastic recordist! In these early albums Jonathon has captured the breadth and depth of beautiful and fascinating water- and wildlife-created sounds. You’ll hear flowing and moving liquid water and ice in rivers, streams, rivulets, salt marshes, oceans, seas, bays, icebergs and in and on top of glaciers—with the wild sounds of the creatures that live in these habitats.

As Jonathon matured as a recordist, he learned to slow down and spend long quiet times in the wilderness, blending in until he vanished into the scenery. From this place of deep observation, he discovered that the wildlife became unconcerned about his presence—and they did what wildlife do. His later-career recordings (Ancient Forest – Fall & Winter, Return of the Wolf) showcase truly wild wildlife, unaware or unconcerned with his presence. These ambient recordings capture the subtle and sublime sounds of the wildlife in their own home.