Background Noise Turns Musical

Sound Recording with the Bayawata Stringband of Balimo

This is not a sound recording lesson. It is just the story of a particular recording session that we did on analogue tape some years back.

I was in Balimo, with a 4 man band called "Bayawata Stringband" in the Western Province of Papua New Guinea. One of the band members had been with my group doing some community organising work along the Aramia River.

When that work was done, we sailed by motorised long canoes back to Balimo Station where I was waiting for my flight back to Daru and Port Moresby. During that last night in Balimo, the boys were playing guitars and I was just listening. I had brought along a cassette tape recorder for the community organising workshop that we had been running the weeks before and it was somewhere in my luggage.

At midnight in Balimo, when the station generator was switched off, the boys went on playing and I thought maybe I would record some of the band's music. I only had one microphone, a Sony Walkman, and a couple of C60 audio cassettes.

Accepting and Using Background Noise Creatively

A "hausboi" in Papua New Guinea is a house used as sleeping quarters for single boys. The hausboi where we were recording is raised on stilts, had thatched walls and roof and at the time had many holes in the floor. So not sound proof but had no echoes either. From within you could hear all the river and lagoon wildlife. Balimo is situated near the Aramia River and there are lots of lagoons around.

Insects can be good when recording a village band at night because, they can provide a particular atmosphere - an outdoor atmosphere. As long as one mikes the main subject properly, the insect noise can remain at a not too distracting level in the recording. My main source of sound was a band of four who all do vocals and they had two acoustic guitars.

Unfortunately, for us there was also a howling dog nearby and a couple of recordings later, that dog decided to howl more and more. My first thought was that maybe I should ask someone to quieten the dog down but listening through the headphones, I felt that the dog was not a great problem at all. So we started to record the next song and much to my delightful surprise, the dog became an integral part of the song as you can listen below.

Sorry I have broken the song down into four parts to protect the Bayawata Band's song from copyright infringement so you have to listen to the development of the musical dog's involvement in four stages.

The Song: "Taim mi liklik mangi"

This is a homage, a song of gratitude and thanks to parents. It talks about growing up with caring parents, and praises their help and care wondering how we as children can ever repay our parents for their great kindness. It is sung in Tok Pisin, one of two creole languages of Papua New Guinea. 

I hope you enjoy this Balimo, "After midnight recording".

Part one, Opening.

Notice the dog's opening howl in the background as the recording starts.

Part two, The Chorus.
Here again the dog adds a few howling touches.

Part three, Lead Break.

The dog's response to the lead break was impeccable. I had to believe that dogs are quite musical at that point in the recording.

Part four, Finale.

By the end of the song, the New Guinea Singing Dog was just about ready to let loose, putting some real soul into his performance.

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Equipment Used:

Click the links below to check out these vintage recording instruments.

Sony Professional Walkman - WM-D6C

Sennheiser MD 421 N 

Recorded on TDK C60 Audio Cassette Tape. 


The sound is as it is from the original analogue tapes - No added effects, filtering or cutting of unwanted frequencies.