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I have really been enjoying all of the summer workshops, and at Kelly Ann Buckley's 'Deep Listening: Oral & Aural Landscapes – Letters to Constable' we were asked to write a letter to John Constable, about the landscape now and how it may have been in his time 200 years ago. Below is my letter. It is unfinished, but is as far as I got in the time. I'll be expanding on these ideas soon as it has piqued and interest in how we may present, or describe, the current world we live in. But writing about it to Constable made me realise that we must also take responsibility for that, and take measures ourselves to improve the currently rather grim outlook.  Dear John
It is hard to imagine what the word would have sounded like in your time but I am trying. The obvious additions are the combustion and jet engines that operate every moment of our lives. We hope that this era will end soon and the same aspects of our lives will have more space for natural and other man made sounds. Travel to another place seems more important than place itself. To get away from rather than be at. Ourselves, we cannot leave behind. A change of scenery negatively changes the scenery. Your scenery is afforded a lot of protection, even this far in the future, but Flatford is a few hundred meters from tidal waters so is precariously positioned to be affected early in any dramatic sea rise event. Maybe its time is also nearly at an end. If humanity ends the song of birds will continue. They will not regale each other with tales of humankind. Our appreciation of a place seems to be mostly measure by how it looks rather than how it sounds. Perhaps there should be a volume limit on roads, towns, places, as well s speed limits. What other limits must be applied to afford us a place to live.
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 I wasn’t early enough, by 10 minutes, as the bellringers started about 9:40, the intel from Dennis was slightly wrong. A lady walking through the graveyard shouted ‘Happy Recording!’ before I was actually recording, the headphones disconnected (wireless) after 5 minutes so I was unable to monitor the sound, the bells clipped a bit at the beginning of the recording as they were so loud even at about 30 feet away (they are usually way up in a tower projecting across town rather than at ground level), a good chat to the East Bergholt Ringers that were In favour of the recording and passed details of local people to speak to, sounds from the town masked out the sounds of the aircraft which makes a pleasant change from the aircraft masking out the sounds of nature, organ and singing of hymns coming from inside the Church, they tyres of SUVs roaring past, a white unidentified flying feather hovering in the graveyard for 20 seconds before floating to the ground, a young man wearing a wind cheater in the rain.
The Pied Wagtail of Bergholt the Pied Piper made me realise as I watched it twitching its tail from on top of a gravestone that nature is a huge improvised ensemble that could at any moment produce a flourish a drone a rhythm a fill a chorus a crescendo a pause and that beauty that exists in a moment that only you witness and then is gone unseen by anyone else go to it and sit quietly until it comes to you meet it half way go to a concert of improvised music to hear, see a recreation an imitation of the same process in the best way that we know how. all music is historical unless it is being created right in the moment be in the space where it is being made to get an unfiltered experience natural sound is the same listen to it without inhibition raw, real and undiluted the predetermined controlled mapped out plan of conformity to life is as far away from this as being locked in prison.
As part of the Constable Ambisonic project I want to understand how we perceive the landscape, and what did Constable and his contemporaries bring to our understanding of the natural world, and who else has contributed to the language used and ideals we hold in regard to perception of landscape. Here I talk to my mum, Terri Bowditch to try to understand how we came to live in the semi-rural town Essex market town, and how that affected my life growing up in the 1970's and 80's, in comparison to North West London where they had moved from.
 ‘I do not study much abroad these very hot bright days, last year I almost put my eyes out by that past time.’
Sheep, there were no cars when setting up but now there are cars close on the lane, cars further on the A12, aircraft, woodpecker, this is a great vantage point and suddenly I can get a sense of what Constable would have seen, fell, connected with, these are the same fields (need to get a map of the field names), ancient boundaries, and I hide behind one out of sight but not out of my mind, but this high up on a gentle hill the sound from the vale drifts up and there are sirens, and boy racers, I thin that they should put a volume limit of roads as well as a speed limit. But then I remind myself that this is probably the last hurrah of the combustion engine era, pheasant, jackdaws roosting, skylarks, storm flies, a donkey, thrush, rustling grass in the hedgerow. Old stump Hidden in the grass, hiding Trying to be invisible but failing Tinder dry from the long hot spell Magic Old hits A three minute wonder Verse chorus verse chorus A chorus of the Song Thrush Singing along lines in the sky Trails of tales That for hundreds of years This field fares well It’s still here Providing sustenance For sheep A forever search For the tender Moist and nutritious Nibbled out And then moved on Finding ones own path Amongst the herd Free within the field But don’t go too near the edges As you’ll see the way out Is blocked And that there is another side People peering in Across, over Under the grass hiding.
After a full on week and a hectic week end it was good to finally sit by the Stour under a huge Oak tree and relax for a while. I was also looking forward to testing out the new Reynolds A-Type 4 ambisonic microphone that I had received. Jack hand builds his microphones and they are thoroughly tested in the field by Axel Drioli as he chases migratory birds across Europe and Africa. Jack had sent me one to test earlier in the year and after getting used to its unique character (I’ve been using DPA 4060’s since for nearly ten years) I realised it was going to be just what I needed for this project. I’m a keen supporter of small and independent businesses too so it was a good match all round. Jack kindly housed it in a Rycote Windjammer for me as I like to go out in all weathers, and indeed might have to for the Constable Ambisonic project. I’ll have a listen beck to the recording and hopefully share one with you this week. YouTube Short below X
I have a new Short up on YouTube. In it I ask: How is the landscape beautiful? How does it have such a positive impact on us? Why do we revere it so much? And how much did Constable, and his contemporaries, have an influence how we see it now? As I discussed with David Stone in our conversation (see previous post) it wasn't always this way. Can you join in the conversation?
I also have shared Cloud Study #03 which you can stream below. X
I'm pleased to announce that my interview with David Stone on the Perception of Landscape is now available to listen to on my Podcast channel, and via Soundcloud using the link below. We cover a variety of topics including the Romanticism, Capability Brown, Helen Allingham, Turner, JS Lowry and of course, Constable. A transcription of the conversation is available as a pdf below.
Back in 2018 I was lucky enough to be asked to record a fascinating and insightful talk by John E Thornes at The Boat House Gallery at Flatford.
Professor John Thornes is a professional academic meteorologist, that has written extensively on John Constable's skies and in this talk discusses ways of reading the paintings based upon Constable's depiction of clouds and other weather phenomenon. To Constable the sky was "the keynote", the "standard of scale" and the "chief organ of sentiment" in landscape painting but how much meteorology did Constable understand? John discusses why the sky plays such an important part in Constable's most famous representation of British landscape, The Hay Wain. Tune in below. As part of my interest in how we perceive the landscape I have started to have conversations with people that work in or make work about the landscape.
The first of such was with artist David Stone, a painter and PhD student from Colchester. We discussed the role of artists in depicting the landscape, the role of the Romantic Movement, Capability Brown and his blurring of the lines between garden and landscape, Luke Turner’s ‘Out of the Woods’ and much more. For the second conversation I revisited my childhood landscape, and although I didn’t call it that when I was younger, I spent a lot of time outside playing with my friends, building dens and setting fire to stuff. I also spoke to my mum for an hour about how our family members have always moved to new places in search of work and a better life, my parents decision to move from inner city London to a semi-rural dead end road to bring up their family and a variety of lifestyle choices that shaped how I could navigate my local environment. These interviews will be released soon so please keep an ear to the ground for announcements.  A still from Cloud Study #01 After what seems like an age, the project has an online presence. We've set up on Instagram, Blue Sky and Facebook. This website and blog is also now live! Please feel free to join in the discussions. I know a lot of people have a vast amount of knowledge and information about Constable, his paintings and the locations he frequented, and this project is my way of learning about it all, so I'm all ears.
I'm so pleased to be working with a great groups of talented people on the project, and you can find out more about them on the Partners page. New ideas are springing up all the time so to explore some of these, and to generate some content, I've started a YouTube channel. The first thread I will be investigating is 'Cloud Studies', which is a response to the fact that Constable spent several summers just painting clouds in order to perfect his techniques. So in the coming months I'll be making some audio/visual versions of my own in the Dedham Vale so please keep an eye out for them. The first one is up now featuring the tower of St.Mary The Virgin, Dedham, which featured in many of Constable's paintings. |
AuthorField notes from Stuart Bowditch, an independent field recordist working on Constable Ambisonic. Archives
November 2025
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