Cincinnati-based wellness and arts organization, The Well (www.thewell.world) received an Ohio Arts Council ArtStart grant to commission the tracks on this EP, featuring a variety of field samples collected from the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden, as well as the zoo's 600+ acre farm in Mason, Ohio (Bowyer Farm).

These tracks are featured in The Well's 2022 "Mindful Music Moments" in-schools program. Music videos featuring the tracks and footage from the Cincinnati Zoo and Bowyer Farm will also be featured on the University of Cincinnati's Health’s Patient Wellness Channel.

++++++///////++++++

The inspiration for our tracks stemmed from a field sample recording walk Ben Sloan and I took in Cincinnati’s French park in December 2020. As we were leaving, Ben asked me what I was working on, and I mentioned I was thinking about creating something with field samples of animals from the Cincinnati Zoo.

A few days later, I was catching up with Stacy Sims, founder of Cincinnati's The Well and Mindful Music Moments, and I mentioned my field samples outing with Ben and my desire to create ambient music featuring animal samples from the zoo.

Stacy mentioned The Well’s recent partnership to create content for UC’s Medical Center patient portal and immediately suggested a possible musical collaboration between the Cincinnati Zoo and me and Ben that could also be distributed to The Well’s Mindful Music Moments in-schools program. Excited by the opportunity to combine my love for animals and nature with my passions for mindfulness and ambient music-making—and to collaborate with Ben - I was all-in. Thankfully, so was Ben.

++++++///////++++++

Our process began when we both visited Bowyer Farm and the Cincinnati Zoo together to get a sense of the ambience in both environments. Hearing the rich tapestry of sounds in both locations, we decided to create two tracks from each site.

For Bowyer Farm, we chose to create one track featuring the incredible array of native birds and insects, and one track that highlighted the birds and insects — as well as the amazing frog sounds in the marsh/pond area of the property (from what we can discern, the frogs we recorded are "Eastern Cricket Frogs,” which sound like marbles clicking together). At the zoo, we thought it'd be fun to make a track featuring both animal and zoo visitor sounds, as well as one featuring only animal sounds with the zoo's natural environmental ambience.

While visiting the zoo and Bowyer Farm together, we each recorded on our personal Zoom recorders. Ben worked with a shotgun mic, and I worked with the built-in mic on my H1 Zoom recorder. After organizing the files separately, we then sat down together and pulled select sounds we wanted to include and roughed together two soundscape base-layers using Ableton Live - one utilizing zoo sounds - and the other, sounds from the farm. We also agreed that we wanted to create a soothing and relaxing musical palette and discussed instrument possibilities that included strings, piano, woodwinds, and synth pads, etc.

At that point, we started working individually. I finished the remaining two soundscape base tracks, and then we chose which two tracks we each wanted to add music to. I chose to work with the Bowyer Farm track featuring the frogs, as well as the Zoo track featuring only the animals and zoo ambience, and Ben took on the challenge of the other two tracks.