1 | Thoreau.
Put Walden down, now. You haven’t ‘just discovered’ how Thoreau was, like, totally ahead of R. Murray Schafer.  That pond is teeming with hydrophones at this stage.

Unimpressed: Thoreau

2 | Contact microphones and melting ice, or the go-to first timer experiment the moment the kit is unboxed.

3 | The pensive, looking-in-the-distance-while-monitoring biog shot. This one’s fairly unavoidable. We’ve all been there.

4 | Soundmaps. As apps and GPS make the collection of a ginormous amount of mediocre-to-atrocious quality sounds possible from all conceivable sources including your granny’s Nokia, this really isn’t worth pursuing any further. Moving on.

5 | Tweeting exclusively about your ‘Upcoming Releases’ on that label (what was it again…oh, right. The one set up by you.)  Zero likes.

6 | Bells. In the wise words of professional recording Gandalf Mikael Fernstrom: ‘Every sound student has his Quasimodo moment’. Let it…