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I didn't find the audio on that page, but a link to it here: https://codatocoda.bandcamp.com/album/iwm-ww1-armistice-interpretation-sound-installation https://

I didn't find the audio on that page, but a link to it here: https://codatocoda.bandcamp.com/album/iwm-ww1-armistice-interpretation-sound-installation https://codatocoda.bandcamp.com/album/iwm-ww1-armistice-inte... I want to know if the birds were actually recorded at the end, or if it was added for dramatic presentation.

Invictus0 7y ago
The birds were added at the end; the article specifies that there was no actual audio recorded and this is a reconstruction based on a series of proto-seismograph records.
- jtbayly 7y ago
  Thanks. I skipped the article, because I was looking for the audio. The birds are dumb.
  - ornornor 7y ago
    It’s for a museum, for an interactive exhibition. It’s a nice touch.
    - jtbayly 7y ago
      Well, I understand why they were added. But they ruin the sombre silence.
      - capableweb 7y ago
        I don't understand why. No birds would still be present in an environment where you have so many bombs and guns going off, they would be far away by then and take long time before they are brave enough to come back.
        jfk13 7y ago
        Maybe you should read _Where Poppies Blow_ by John Lewis-Stempel. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29905681-where-poppies-blow https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29905681-where-poppies-b... Or even just skim the reviews on Amazon: > ...no man’s land was, effectively, a bird reserve with a barbed wire perimeter: ‘If it weren’t for the birds, what a hell it would be’ says one soldier. Experiences with birds, especially when they were singing in the lulls, lifted their spirits: “They offered a touch of Heaven in Hell.”
        capableweb 7y ago
        Haven't heard about that book before, thanks for the recommendation. I'm a bit hesitant to read a book to confirm if birds are scared off bombs and how long time it'll take for them to come back after setting off artillery and other explosions, could you share the section from the book where it's confirmed that birds didn't care about this and stayed where they were? The description of the book says "At the most basic level, animals and birds provided interest to fill the blank hours in the trenches and billets" which makes sense. When nothing is happening, the birds will come back after a while. But seconds after fighting? Not so sure about that. My experience with birds are that if you make the slightest movement and they see you, they will be gone for a while.
        cs02rm0 7y ago
        I'd imagine that'll happen the first time. When there's as much going on as in WW1 though with them having no idea where to go to avoid artillery, with potentially less competition for food, established nests and fewer people around in no man's land than elsewhere, I can well imagine over time they'd get relatively used to it.
        jfk13 7y ago
        I don't have the Lewis-Stempel book at hand to go digging for quotes, but this is from an eyewitness account of the Somme: > "It was the birdsong," he said, "the birdsong in that short gap when the artillery barrage stopped and before the whistles blew for us to get out of the trench and start running - it was beautiful." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-36689445 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-36689445
deleted 7y ago
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AndrewOMartin 7y ago
For a seasoned gamer that reconstruction just sounds like a collection of stock EXPLOD01.WAV files.
- Sylamore 7y ago
  It basically is: https://codatocoda.com/blog/making-a-new-world-armistice-soundwave/ https://codatocoda.com/blog/making-a-new-world-armistice-sou...
m-i-l 7y ago
My first thought was that perhaps some of these last minute explosions were like celebratory gunfire[0]. But no, it seems that people were still desperately trying to kill each other knowing full well they only had hours, minutes or even seconds left to do so: "the cease-fire would not come into effect for a further six hours - at 11am ... the final day of WWI would produce nearly 11,000 casualties, more than those killed, wounded or missing on D-Day ... Just minutes before 11am, to the north around Mons, the 25-year-old Canadian Private George Lawrence Price was on the trail of retreating German soldiers ... But Pte Price's death at 10.58 was not the last. Further south in the Argonne region of France, US soldier Henry Gunther was involved in a final charge against astonished German troops who knew the Armistice was about to occur. What could they do? He too was shot ... It was 10.59."[0] Madness. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebratory_gunfire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebratory_gunfire [1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7696021.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7696021.stm
- DubiousPusher 7y ago
  I will post this at the risk of being downvoted because I am all but a pacifist and it is not a popular position. This is not surprising at all for two reasons. Despite what films will depict, people fighting on the front lines in a war do not generally begrudgingly respect each other. They hate eachother in a way most people probably cannot understand. Many would not pass up the opportunity to rid the world of what they see as the most evil upon its face unto the very last minute. The grudging respect you see discussed in documentaries comes decades later. After the continual trauma and memories of dead friends have time to fade. War beaurocracies transform people into rational psychopaths. They create an order in which a letter of the law is utmost and that letter is laid by your betters. If your betters find some purpose in ordering you to kill pointlessly, you will. We all like to think we could find the courage or clarity to disobey an unethical order. But history is much more full of compliant atrocities than righteous mutinies. Soldiers kept firing because that is the perogative that came out of the leadership black box.
  - admax88q 7y ago
    Imagine being brainwashed to the point that you purposefully get yourself killed because you only have a minute left to kill the others.
cryptonector 7y ago
The sounds of guns were recreated. The sounds of birds chirping were clearly added for dramatic effect, and was completely unnecessary -- just silence would have sufficed.
BurningFrog 7y ago
It's hard to imagine any birds were hanging around such a noisy and dangerous area.

Invictus0 7y ago

The birds were added at the end; the article specifies that there was no actual audio recorded and this is a reconstruction based on a series of proto-seismograph records.

jtbayly 7y ago
Thanks. I skipped the article, because I was looking for the audio. The birds are dumb.
- ornornor 7y ago
  It’s for a museum, for an interactive exhibition. It’s a nice touch.
  - jtbayly 7y ago
    Well, I understand why they were added. But they ruin the sombre silence.
    - capableweb 7y ago
      I don't understand why. No birds would still be present in an environment where you have so many bombs and guns going off, they would be far away by then and take long time before they are brave enough to come back.
      - jfk13 7y ago
        Maybe you should read _Where Poppies Blow_ by John Lewis-Stempel. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29905681-where-poppies-blow https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29905681-where-poppies-b... Or even just skim the reviews on Amazon: > ...no man’s land was, effectively, a bird reserve with a barbed wire perimeter: ‘If it weren’t for the birds, what a hell it would be’ says one soldier. Experiences with birds, especially when they were singing in the lulls, lifted their spirits: “They offered a touch of Heaven in Hell.”
        capableweb 7y ago
        Haven't heard about that book before, thanks for the recommendation. I'm a bit hesitant to read a book to confirm if birds are scared off bombs and how long time it'll take for them to come back after setting off artillery and other explosions, could you share the section from the book where it's confirmed that birds didn't care about this and stayed where they were? The description of the book says "At the most basic level, animals and birds provided interest to fill the blank hours in the trenches and billets" which makes sense. When nothing is happening, the birds will come back after a while. But seconds after fighting? Not so sure about that. My experience with birds are that if you make the slightest movement and they see you, they will be gone for a while.
        cs02rm0 7y ago
        I'd imagine that'll happen the first time. When there's as much going on as in WW1 though with them having no idea where to go to avoid artillery, with potentially less competition for food, established nests and fewer people around in no man's land than elsewhere, I can well imagine over time they'd get relatively used to it.
        jfk13 7y ago
        I don't have the Lewis-Stempel book at hand to go digging for quotes, but this is from an eyewitness account of the Somme: > "It was the birdsong," he said, "the birdsong in that short gap when the artillery barrage stopped and before the whistles blew for us to get out of the trench and start running - it was beautiful." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-36689445 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-36689445

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

AndrewOMartin 7y ago

For a seasoned gamer that reconstruction just sounds like a collection of stock EXPLOD01.WAV files.

Sylamore 7y ago
It basically is: https://codatocoda.com/blog/making-a-new-world-armistice-soundwave/ https://codatocoda.com/blog/making-a-new-world-armistice-sou...

m-i-l 7y ago

My first thought was that perhaps some of these last minute explosions were like celebratory gunfire[0]. But no, it seems that people were still desperately trying to kill each other knowing full well they only had hours, minutes or even seconds left to do so: "the cease-fire would not come into effect for a further six hours - at 11am ... the final day of WWI would produce nearly 11,000 casualties, more than those killed, wounded or missing on D-Day ... Just minutes before 11am, to the north around Mons, the 25-year-old Canadian Private George Lawrence Price was on the trail of retreating German soldiers ... But Pte Price's death at 10.58 was not the last. Further south in the Argonne region of France, US soldier Henry Gunther was involved in a final charge against astonished German troops who knew the Armistice was about to occur. What could they do? He too was shot ... It was 10.59."[0] Madness. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebratory_gunfire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebratory_gunfire [1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7696021.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7696021.stm

DubiousPusher 7y ago
I will post this at the risk of being downvoted because I am all but a pacifist and it is not a popular position. This is not surprising at all for two reasons. Despite what films will depict, people fighting on the front lines in a war do not generally begrudgingly respect each other. They hate eachother in a way most people probably cannot understand. Many would not pass up the opportunity to rid the world of what they see as the most evil upon its face unto the very last minute. The grudging respect you see discussed in documentaries comes decades later. After the continual trauma and memories of dead friends have time to fade. War beaurocracies transform people into rational psychopaths. They create an order in which a letter of the law is utmost and that letter is laid by your betters. If your betters find some purpose in ordering you to kill pointlessly, you will. We all like to think we could find the courage or clarity to disobey an unethical order. But history is much more full of compliant atrocities than righteous mutinies. Soldiers kept firing because that is the perogative that came out of the leadership black box.
- admax88q 7y ago
  Imagine being brainwashed to the point that you purposefully get yourself killed because you only have a minute left to kill the others.

cryptonector 7y ago

The sounds of guns were recreated. The sounds of birds chirping were clearly added for dramatic effect, and was completely unnecessary -- just silence would have sufficed.

BurningFrog 7y ago

It's hard to imagine any birds were hanging around such a noisy and dangerous area.