A Daughter’s Love & A Father’s Legacy
I have always been fascinated and amazed by my father’s accomplishments. I remember seeing his portfolio of press clippings, and being blown away by the reach of his company and his work. Rolling Stone, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Village Voice—these are big names in national media. Many considered him to be the father of popularized recorded environmental sounds.
The 70s were a fascinating time in the history of audio. Sound recording therapy and white noise manipulation were new ideas. Recorded nature sounds had rarely been used as a therapeutic tool before environments. I believe my father’s work helped spawn an entire movement. When you go to the spa and hear that meditation music with ocean sounds in the background, or when you use that sound machine toy with a series of environmental sounds to help your newborn baby go to sleep, you are hearing a technology that my father helped popularize.
I believe the environments series is as relevant today as when it was first introduced. I hear about people listening to nature sounds to relax, concentrate, and sleep almost everywhere I go. What originated in my father’s labor of love is now part of the background and fabric of our lives. The more industrial our world becomes, the more we need the soothing effects of nature to restore and center us.
We still listen to soothing nature sounds, but how we listen to them has changed. Instead of spinning a vinyl record, we now download an app on an electronic device. But hopefully environments can provide a better listening experience because so much craftsmanship and research has gone into each recording. I think you will be able to hear the difference, which I hope will enrich your experience.
Those of you who are familiar with the environments series and Syntonic Research should be pleased with what we are providing on this website. Our goal is to present you with interesting information about the man behind the recordings—to show you material that was never released to the general public—and to make his work available once again, in new formats.
For those of you who are new to my father’s work, may you enjoy this site and find something interesting and even healing for you to use in your own life. Try listening to a recording and see if it helps you relax and concentrate as it has assisted many people over the last 45 years.
Thank you for visiting and please stay in touch.
Jennifer
I would like to acknowledge the following people for their steadfast efforts in the vision and production of this website. Their dedication to this project has certainly made its reality possible. Thank you.
Jonathan Een Newton (Jonathan – your name should probably be listed twice)
Darren Richard
Ben Steckbeck
Wendy Mitchell
Charlie Brown
Mack Hagood
Mark Levbarg
Rosanne Levbarg
Miriam Berman
Ely Rosenblum
Dara Chaffin
Nick Landis and everyone at Terra Nova
Sam Hodde