Bernie Krause Quotes

United States, Musician
December 8, 1938

Bernard L. "Bernie" Krause (born December 8, 1938) is an American musician and soundscape ecologist. In 1968, he founded Wild Sanctuary, an organization dedicated to the recording and archiving of natural soundscapes. Krause is an author, a bio-acoustician, a speaker, and natural sound artist who coined the terms geophony, biophony, and anthropophony and, as a founder of the field, was germane to the definition and structure of soundscape ecology. Krause holds a Ph.D. in Creative (Sound) Arts with an internship in bioacoustics from Union Institute & University in Cincinnati.

Also known as Ecologist

It was in that semifloating state--that transition between the blissful suspension of awareness and the depths of total unconsciousness--that I first encountered the transparent weave of creature voices not only as a choir but as a cohesive sonic event. No longer a cacophony, it became a partitioned collection of vocal organisms--a highly orchestrated acoustic arrangement of insects, spotted hyenas, eagle-owls, African wood-owls, elephants, tree hyrax, distant lions, and several knots of tree frogs and toads. Every distinct voice seemed to fit within its own acoustic bandwidth.

Bernie Krause
Pitch is closely related to frequency, but the two are not the same thing. Pitch is mostly used in the comparative framework of sounds or tones that make up a musical scale. So while frequency is a physical property of sound—it’s a measurement of the number of cycles.

Bernie Krause
- Pitch
- Related
- Framework

The fragile weave of natural sound is being torn apart by our seemingly boundless need to conquer the environment rather than to find a way to abide in consonance with it.

Bernie Krause
With my portable recording system, I didn't feel like I was listening as a distant observer; rather, I had been sucked into a new space - becoming an integral part of the experience itself.

Bernie Krause
A great silence is spreading over the natural world even as the sound of man is becoming deafening.

Bernie Krause
Well, it's a lot less dangerous - working with snakes and mountaibn lions and dangerous animals - than working in Hollywood laughs. Hollwood will kill you.

Bernie Krause
Many of us don’t distinguish between the acts of listening and hearing.

Bernie Krause
- Listening
- Hearing
Our problem is that sound is not important in our culture. We know the world from the visual, not from the other senses. I had to be taught other ways of understanding.

Bernie Krause
- Culture
- Problem
- Senses