The sound of waves breaking onto a shingle shore has to be a favourite with many of us. The ebb and flow of the tide creates a mixture of sounds, from the initial crash of the breakers to the shimmering hiss of the backwash. On a calm day this continual movement can be incredibly relaxing, while on a rough day the sheer power of the sea fills the air with noise. Go beneath the waves however and a completely different atmosphere is uncovered. See what you think by listening to this example of seawash recorded underwater on a beach in Suffolk, England.

http://sounds.bl.uk/View.aspx?item=022M-W1CDR0000636-0200V0.xml

'Recording of the Week' highlights gems from the Archival Sound Recordings website, chosen by British Library experts or recommended by listeners. This week's item was selected from the Soundscapes collection by Cheryl Tipp, curator of wildlife sounds at the British Library Sound Archive. The recording was made with a hydrophone on a calm evening in April 1992 at Shingle Street, Suffolk, by Richard Ranft.

The Bakunta mother in this recording has her baby in her arms as she sings the lullaby. Judging from the baby's silence throughout the singing, the song clearly is doing the trick.

http://sounds.bl.uk/View.aspx?item=025M-C0004X4958XX-0200V0.xml
 
'Recording of the Week' highlights gems from the Archival Sound Recordings website, chosen by British Library experts or recommended by listeners. This week's item was recorded exactly 60 years ago in Kichwamba, Uganda. It is selected from the Klaus Wachsmann Uganda Collection by Dr Janet Topp Fargion, curator of World & Traditional Music at the British Library Sound Archive.

The "foremost pioneering scholar in African music", Klaus Wachsmann (1907-1984) made roughly 1,500 unique recordings of indigenous music in Uganda, most of which have never been published before.  Further information on the Wachsmann collection.

Listen to the way this speaker in this recording pronounces the words area (at 02:13) and piano (09:38) with an additional <l> sound . See also the link on the same web page to information on the lexis, phonology and grammar for this recording.

http://sounds.bl.uk/View.aspx?item=021M-C0900X00509X-0200V0.xml

'Recording of the Week' highlights gems from the Archival Sound Recordings website, chosen by British Library experts or recommended by listeners.

This week's item, selected by Jonnie Robinson, a specialist in sociolinguistics & education at the British Library, is a recording of Pat Dallimore (d.o.b. 1937). It was made by Andrew Vincent for the BBC in 1998 in Knowle, Bristol.  The recording forms part of the British Library’s Millennium Memory Bank, one of the largest single oral history collections in Europe.