While on the topic of locating yourself using sound, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point to Freesound, the fantastic community sound library (currently pushing some 17,000+ Creative Commons-licensed samples). If you’re not yet familar with Freesound, you can broadcast your recordings to the planet, free for use in music worldwide, and pull recordings without attracting the attention of intellectual property lawyers.

Rather than dig through samples by abstract categories, you can use Freesound’s geotags to pull the exact ambience of certain parts of the world. It gives you the power to soak up the vibe of the beach at Playa del Medio without having to actually suffer through . . . erm . . . being at the beach. Okay, bad example. But while there’s the expected bias toward the U.S. and Europe, field recordings are slowly finding their way from other corners of the globe, too.

Aside from samples, it’s not hard to imagine geotags being used to help find musical collaborators near you . . . especially as latency increases over longer distances.

Follow your ears! Yes, there was a time when aural senses were vital to location and geography. In the spirit of resurrecting that spirit, Spencer Kiser’s projects look at new ways of mapping using sound. Full details on his thesis page, but in brief:

Sound maps: Field recordings in Forest Hills, Queens (outside Manhattan) are overlaid with an interactive map of the area. Upshot: drag with your mouse, and you can hear how the sound changes from one intersection to another, rather than just look at the usual visual representation.

Geo-tagging with a phone: This “participatory sound map” (shown below) lets you dial in the soundscape of different locations (here, again, NYC). Vocal representations get the emphasis here; I can see non-abstract applications, like different pizzerias explaining their handicraft, or finally a detailed map of how accents change in the five boroughs of New York. (And yes, locals can tell the difference between someone from downtown Brooklyn and Flatbush, let alone the Bronx and Queens. Now us outsiders can practice.)

Guided by Voices: Wireless headphones lead you through an installation . . . hmm, too bad this isn’t Halloween season, or this could’ve gotten a bit more macabre.

This should give some ammunition to those of you who like using field recordings in your music. Now remix your geo-tagged sound recordings, and you’ve got a musical application for GPS devices, Yahoo Maps, and cell phones . . . why not? And it’s a good reason to listen to where you are; that iPod battery was probably going to run out anyway.