Winner of ‘Most Beautiful Sound in the World’ contest can’t resist Kubah National Park

KUCHING: Marc Anderson, winner of the "Most Beautiful Sound in the World" competition, has returned to Kubah National Park for two more recording sessions.

The Australian nature lover spent two evenings last week at the park's frog pond, which he made famous in an audio clip that won the international competition last January.

Anderson told The Star that he was here to deliver a talk for the Sarawak Biodiversity Centre (SBC) last weekend, but could not bare "spending my nights in a room when the park is only an hour away".

"Kubah at dusk, between 5pm and 7pm, is one of the most magical places on the planet. It is one of the most beautiful places I've been to," Anderson said in a phone interview on Monday en route to Thailand.

The nature lover, who is also a professional photographer, has recorded about 10 new hours of material, taken from the pond and further up the mountain that anchors the national park, Mount Serapi.

Although Anderson had not yet reviewed the recordings in full, he has already heard differences.

"It sounds different because of different weather, different time of the year. Listen closely at Kubah and you'll notice every two hours the place sounds different," he said.

For those who have not heard Anderson's original clip - made two years ago and since purchased more than 100,000 times from his website - it is a recording of life: Cicadas, frogs, birds and insects coming together to create a "bioacoustics" orchestra.

In his talk at SBC's "Island Biodiversity" Open Day over the weekend, Anderson spoke on patterns and structures in natural sounds.

The Australian used high tech sound analysis instruments to demonstrate this. A spectrogram has the ability to isolate sounds from a recording, allowing Anderson to isolate voices of individual species from recordings.

"The spectrogram gives you a picture of every frequency so you can see each sound, not just hear it. What's interesting is when you compare music and sounds of nature, you can actually see both have structures. There is a harmony to it, it isn't just randomness."

In his talk, he also showed graphs of differences between recordings made in the wild and recordings made in areas that have been disturbed by human activities.

"Visually you can see there are less frogs, less inspects. It shows how via sound and technology you can learn a lot about ecosystems."

Aside from collaborating with SBC, Anderson has made known his intensions to work with the Sarawak Forestry Corporation, which manages national parks in the state.

Although Anderson said both parties had not come to an agreement, he was "happy to work along" authorities in the state.

"I have plans to go to the highlands to record high altitude wildlife," he said.

But Kubah National Park will always have a special place in Anderson's memories. "It is just one of the most beautiful places I've been to. You don't have to trek for days to get into the wilderness to experience pristine rainforest." - the Star