guidelines for recording your own framework introduction:

1) take yourself and an audio recorder to a location of your choice
2) record for AT LEAST 1 minute before you –
3) read the following text:

welcome to framework. framework is a show consecrated to field-recording, and its use in composition. field-recording, phonography, the art of sound-hunting; open your ears and listen!

[3b) please also feel free to translate this text into your native tongue!]

4) continue your recording for AT LEAST 2 minutes after you finish speaking
5) send us your recording

thanks!

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NB: over the years, many people have questioned our choice of the word ‘consecrated’ in the framework introduction text. we have always stood by that choice, although we have perhaps been less than articulate with our explanation why. recently chris whitehead, in a review of framework:seasonal, issue #4, spring 2013 published in the field reporter, gave such an articulate assessment that we feel compelled to share it with you here. thanks chris!

Words can be sound art too. The introduction to every one of Patrick McGinley’s framework programmes contains the promise that ‘framework is a show consecrated to field-recording’. The word ‘consecrated’ has two emphasised consonants that create beats like a car passing over a railway line or a heartbeat, particularly if you repeat the word over and over until it loses its meaning.

consecrated consecrated consecrated consecrated consecrated consecrated consecrated consecrated consecrated consecrated consecrated consecrated consecrated consectrated

Its use here, rather than the words ‘devoted’ or ‘dedicated’ for instance, suggests an important distinction. The show will not be a programme about field-recording, it will be a field-recording composition in itself. The hour will be consecrated, set apart for a purpose, the purpose of listening. Very few radio programmes value silence and quiescence as significantly as framework.

– chris whitehead, 2013.04.07, the field reporter 248