I'm standing where the waterline has historically been. You can see that it is now hundreds of meters out due to 7 years of drought.
I stayed on the Sea of Galilee which is really more of a lake. It is a primary source of water for Israel. Though Israel is in the midst of a 7 year drought so the shores are vastly receded. Boats in Tiberias' harbor, which sits on the Sea of Galilee, sat on rock because the water level was so low.
However, this general area is in the more green part of the country compared to large desert expanses in the south. This means that there is abundant wildlife and plant life. Staying here for a few days I was able to take in the sounds at a few different times of day. It is amazing how different a place sounds throughout the course of the day.
Standing on shore, looking away from Sea of Galilee toward the sunset:
Sunrise, looking through tree grove toward nearby Sea of Galilee:
My first full day in Israel was spent touring the northern region between the Sea of Galilee and the Lebanese border. One of the first stops was in Tsfat (spelling is open for interpretation). Tsfat, which translates to "lookout", is a prominent place for Kabballah study. "Kabballah" literally means "receiving" in Hebrew and it represents the school of thought that deals with the mystical aspects of Judaism. This is the thing that Madonna is fascinated with. Rumor has it that Madonna wanted to buy a place in Tsfat, so as to get her Kabballah study on, but was denied due to fear of excessive commotion due to her prescience there.
At anyrate, Tsfat is a pretty small town (~32,000 people) built on steep terrain and inhabited by many religious people.
Track 1: Walking up stairs past school yard
I made the first recording while walking up very steep stairs and through a largish landing that doubles as a school yard and there were many little kids out running around on recess.
From whence the Hoopdie cometh Na Na Na:
Track 2: Hoopdie blasting Akon's "Right Now (Na Na Na)"
At the top of the stairs there is a narrow road and a beautiful view down over the town and across the valley. Of course, this picturesque moment was quickly shattered as Akon's "Right Now (Na Na Na)" enters the picture bumping from some dude's hoopdie. I guess it's impossible to escape Top 40 hit's...
Track 3: Chatter around tourist stalls + Hava Nagila in background
From the top of the city we walked down through the narrow and windy streets of the old city until we were squarely caught in the maw of a tourist trap. Though, it was actually a pretty cool little tourist stop--not too garish or over the top. You can hear the din of Hava Nagila in the background and so on.
One of the many narrow alleys of the Old City:
Track 4: The sound of fresh orange juice
Then the answer to the parched tourist appeared: free squeezed orange juice. You can hear the oranges being squeezed in a hand press.
Track 5: Street musician playing the Panton (steel-drum-like instrument)
The musical highlight of Tsfat was this street musician playing this cool circular metallic instrument that is very similar to a steel drum in many ways except played with the bare hands instead of mallets and convex instead of concave on top. If anyone has pictures of this or a reference to the type of instrument online, I'd be most appreciative if you would send it. The guy said it is called the "Panton" or "Pantong" or something like that. Wish I could have stuck around a bit longer...
I just returned from 10 days in Israel where I made ~14 hours of binaural audio recordings. My recordings span the gamut of everything from morning birds, religious towns, street musicians, bus rides, camels, sandstorms, flash floods in the Negev Desert, the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem, open air markets, and many more. I'm currently going through this huge amount of audio and pulling out the most interesting sounds and will be posting these in chunks in the coming days.
