The World Listening Project invites you to participate in a special project with radio aporee for the first World Listening Day, on Sunday, July 18, 2010.

Radio aporee is an open project about the creation and exploration of public space. Its creator, Udo Noll asks you for help in creating an “audio snapshot of the world” as heard and recorded on World Listening Day. Aporee maps uses the Google maps interface to allow anyone to easily find their location on the map, then upload their audio via the web or mobile phone.

We’re inviting you to send an audio recording from your actual location, or other places of your interest on this day to the maps: http://aporee.org/maps/.

With your contributions collected on World Listening Day, Udo will then create a dedicated project page on the aporee map. As Udo says, “…besides having a nice documentation, I’m really intrigued by the idea of listening to the sounds of a particular day, around the world…” I’m very curious about what will happen, too.

Specifications for uploading

WEBSITE: http://aporee.org/maps/

FORMAT: mp3, 128-320 kbit, 44.1 or 48 kHz (for best audio quality, we recommend bitrates of 224, 256 or 320 kbps)

FILE SIZE: max. 25 MB

PLEASE NOTE: Contributors should type a tag “WLD” or “world listening day” in the keywords field, so that it can be found by searches.

Please be patient while uploading, depending on your connection this may take a while.

Below are basic instructions on how to send sounds (upload) to the radio aporee soundmap at http://aporee.org/maps/

1. You don’t need a login in order to participate, just a valid email address.
2. Find the location of your audio on the map and click on it
3. A small pops open that says “new place, add recording” with three choices: upload sound, fetch sound from URL, and phone call.
4. Select whichever method you’re using to upload, navigate to the file if it’s on your computer, fill in the form fields for info and email address, then click “ok”
5. Once your audio file has uploaded to the aporee server, check your email for a message from radio aporee
6. In the message you are provided with a link to confirm and edit the info about your audio submission, please remember to TAG YOUR SUBMISSION: “world listening day” and/or “WLD”
7. Once that’s done your sound will appear on http://aporee.org/maps/.

More details on using aporee maps are available on the Help & How-to page.

The purposes of World Listening Day are:

• To celebrate the practice of listening as it relates to the world around environmental awareness, acoustic ecology, and us
• To raise awareness about issues related to the World Soundscape Project, World Listening Project, World Forum for Acoustic Ecology, and individual and group efforts to creatively explore phonography
• To design and implement educational initiatives which explore these concepts and practices

World Listening Day was organized by Dan Godston—President of the World Listening Project (WLP)—in partnership with members of the Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology (MSAE). The date of July 18 was chosen to honor the birthday of R. Murray Schafer, Canadian composer, author, and founder of the World Soundscape Project in Vancouver. Among his many books, The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World (published in 1977) inspired a global, inter-disciplinary field of research and action known as acoustic ecology. The World Forum for Acoustic Ecology (WFAE), founded in 1993, is an international association of affiliated organizations and individuals, who share a common concern with the state of the world’s soundscapes.