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Crosscurrents

Audiograph's Sound of the Week: Sonoma County Pruning Competition

All week long we've been playing you this sound, and asking you to guess what exactly it is and where exactly in the Bay Area we recorded it.

This auditory guessing game is part of our new project, Audiograph, a crowd-sourced collaborative radio project mapping the sonic signature of each of the Bay Area’s nine counties. By using the sounds of voices, nature, industry, and music, Audiograph tells the story of where you live, and the people who live there with you. Every Thursday, we reveal the origins of that week's sound on Crosscurrents, and here in weekly blog posts. We went to a grapevine pruning contest in Sonoma County's Alexander Valley to bring us the answer. 

ROSIE CHAVEZ: They're competing whose the fastest one, best pruner, who does a good job, the cuts on the vine. And of course, they complete for prizes. So it's pretty neat. 

MARK HOUSER: This is a skill, this is an art. Not a lot of people can do it this fast and well. This makes or breaks a season right here, the pruning. Because if you didn't prune it, you'd have way too much fruit that would never get ripe. If you underprune it, then they're going to ripen too early and then the wine's not going to be good. So, pruning really sets the tone for what's going to happen the rest of the year. 

This week, for the first time, we stumped you! Nobody got it right. But don’t feel bad. We want to introduce you to places and sounds in the Bay Area you might never have heard before. And we want you to tell us where to go next. We’ve been getting some great suggestions, and we'll have a new sound for you to guess and another chance to win next week. 

In the meantime, is there a sound from your life that should be featured on Audiograph? Call at 415-264-7106 and tell us about the sound of where you live.

Check out our FacebookTwitter and Soundcloud pages to hear more from Audiograph.

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Crosscurrents Audiograph