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A Mother's Symphony

From: Muriel Murch
Length: 00:04:46

Could this be how we first become aware of otherness? Read the full description.
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Piece Description

For the unborn babe the sense of hearing developes at four months, before touch, smell and sight. Coule this be how we first percive a universe bejond ourselves. First aired at KPFA PAcifica Summer 2004.

3 Comments Atom Feed

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Tracy Wahl

Posted on October 15, 2006 at 08:45 AM | Permalink

Review of A Mother's Symphony

This is a beautiful sound portrait of live in the womb..
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Anne Dhu McLucas

Posted on December 19, 2004 at 05:49 AM | Permalink

Review of A Mother's Symphony

This recording of the interior sounds of a mother while carrying her child in utero is amazing and intriguing (how did the do it?). Besides the predictable stomach gurgles and breathing, the sounds of the outside world are heard from as if from a distance--voices, music. What is strangely missing, though, is the hearbeeat of the mother, and the mkother's own own voice as experienced from inside, which, as I understand it, are two of the strongest steady impressions of a fetus. I have done some reading in this area, and it would have helped the untutored listener to have some introduction or postlude to the piece, but in a way it's wonderful having it just stand on its own as well.
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Mary McGrath

Posted on November 22, 2004 at 07:00 AM | Permalink

Review of A Mother's Symphony

Weird and wonderful. A prenatal soundscape from the sonic genius Walter Murch who trains us to see through sound. Murch has written about the aural experience of babies in utero:
" Four and a half months after we are conceived, we are already beginning to hear. It is the first of our senses to be switched on, and for the next four and a half months sound reigns as a solitary Queen of the Senses. The close and liquid world of the womb makes sight and smell impossible, taste and touch a dim and generalized hint of what is to come. Instead, we luxuriate in a continuous bath of sounds: the song of our mother's voice, the swash of her breathing, the piping of her intestines, the timpani of her heart."
There is a story we can begin to see through these sounds but a two way with the Murchs would perhaps bring it to life even more.

Broadcast History

KPFA pacifica

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