Soundscape

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See also: Soundscape ecology

The soundscape is the component of the acoustic environment that can be perceived by humans. There is a varied history of the use of soundscape depending on discipline - ranging from urban design to wildlife ecology. An important distinction is to separate soundscape from the broader term acoustic environment. The acoustic environment is the combination of all the acoustic resources within a given area - natural sounds and human-caused sounds – as modified by the environment. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standardized these definitions in 2014.(ISO 12913-1:2014)


Historical Context

The term soundscape was coined by Canadian composer and environmentalist, R. Murray Schafer. According to this author there are three main elements of the soundscape:

A soundscape is a sound or combination of sounds that forms or arises from an immersive environment. The study of soundscape is the subject of acoustic ecology. The idea of soundscape refers to both the natural acoustic environment, consisting of natural sounds, including animal vocalizations and, for instance, the sounds of weather and other natural elements; and environmental sounds created by humans, through musical composition, sound design, and other ordinary human activities including conversation, work, and sounds of mechanical origin resulting from use of industrial technology. Crucially, the term soundscape also includes the listener's perception of sounds heard as an environment: “how that environment is understood by those living within it” [1] and therefore mediates their relations. The disruption of these acoustic environments results in noise pollution.

The term "soundscape" can also refer to an audio recording or performance of sounds that create the sensation of experiencing a particular acoustic environment, or compositions created using the found sounds of an acoustic environment, either exclusively or in conjunction with musical performances.[2][3]

This is a musical term that identifies the key of a piece, not always audible ... the key might stray from the original, but it will return. The keynote sounds may not always be heard consciously, but they "outline the character of the people living there" (Schafer). They are created by nature (geography and climate): wind, water, forests, plains, birds, insects, animals. In many urban areas, traffic has become the keynote sound.

Pauline Oliveros, composer of post-World War II electronic art music, defined the term "soundscape" as "All of the waveforms faithfully transmitted to our audio cortex by the ear and its mechanisms".[4]

  • Sound signals
These are foreground sounds, which are listened to consciously; examples would be warning devices, bells, whistles, horns, sirens, etc.
  • Soundmark
This is derived from the term landmark. A soundmark is a sound which is unique to an area. In his 1993 book, The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World, Schafer wrote, "Once a Soundmark has been identified, it deserves to be protected, for soundmarks make the acoustic life of a community unique."[5]

 ... and the elements have been further defined as to essential sources:

Bernie Krause, musician and bioacoustician, redefined the soundscape elements in terms of their three main sources, geophony, biophony, and anthrophony.[6]

Consisting of the prefix, geo (gr. earth), and phon (gr. sound), this refers to the soundscape sources that are generated by non-biological natural sources such as wind in the trees, water in a stream or waves at the ocean, and earth movement, the first sounds heard on earth by any sound-sentient organism.
Consisting of the prefix, bio (gr. life) and the suffix for sound, this term refers to all of the non-human, non-domestic biological soundscape sources of sound.
Consisting of the prefix, anthro (gr. human), this term refers to all of the sound signatures generated by humans.


Soundscapes in music

In music, soundscape compositions are often a form of electronic music, or electroacoustic music. Composers who use soundscapes include real-time granular synthesis pioneer Barry Truax, Hildegard Westerkamp, and Luc Ferrari, whose Presque rien, numéro 1 (1970) is an early soundscape composition.[3][7] Soundscape composer Petri Kuljuntausta has created soundscape compositions from the sounds of sky dome and Aurora Borealis and deep sea underwater recordings, and a work entitled Charm of Sound to be performed at the extreme environment of Saturn's Titan (moon). The work landed on the ground of Titan in 2005 after traveling inside the Huygens (spacecraft) over seven years and four billion kilometres through Space.

Irv Teibel's Environments series (1969-79) consisted of 30-minute, uninterrupted environmental soundscapes and synthesized or processed versions of natural sound.[8]

Music soundscapes can also be generated by automated software methods, such as the experimental TAPESTREA application, a framework for sound design and soundscape composition, and others.[9][10]

The soundscape is often the subject of mimicry in Timbre-centered music such as Tuvan throat singing. The process of Timbral Listening is used to interpret the timbre of the soundscape. This timbre is mimicked and reproduced using the voice or rich harmonic producing instruments.[11]

The soundscape consists of three major sources or components. They are the biophony (the non-human, non-domestic animal sound signatures that occur in any given biome), the geophony (non-biological natural sounds that occur in any given biome and that include the effects of wind, water, earth movement, etc.), and anthrophony (human-generated sounds that include entropic electro-mechanical noise, and structured sound such as music and theatre).[12][13][14]

Soundscapes in U.S. National Parks

The National Park Service Natural Sounds and Night Skies Division actively protects the soundscapes and acoustic environments in national parks across the country. It is important to distinguish and define certain key terms as used by the National Park Service. Acoustic resources are physical sound sources, including both natural sounds (wind, water, wildlife, vegetation) and cultural and historic sounds (battle reenactments, tribal ceremonies, quiet reverence). The acoustic environment is the combination of all the acoustic resources within a given area - natural sounds and human-caused sounds – as modified by the environment. The acoustic environment includes sound vibrations made by geological processes, biological activity, and even sounds that are inaudible to most humans, such as bat echolocation calls. Soundscape is the component of the acoustic environment that can be perceived and comprehended by the humans. The character and quality of the soundscape influence human perceptions of an area, providing a sense of place that differentiates it from other regions. Noise refers to sound which is unwanted, either because of its effects on humans and wildlife, or its interference with the perception or detection of other sounds. Cultural soundscapes include opportunities for appropriate transmission of cultural and historic sounds that are fundamental components of the purposes and values for which the parks were established.

Sounds recorded in national parks

Yellowstone National Park Sound Library

Soundscapes and the Environment

There are two distinct soundscapes, either hi-fi or lo-fi, created by the environment. A hi-fi system possesses a positive signal-to-noise ratio.[15] These settings make it possible for discrete sounds to be heard clearly since there is no background noise to obstruct even the smallest disturbance. A rural landscape offers more hi-fi frequencies than a city because the natural landscape creates an opportunity to hear incidences from nearby and afar. In a lo-fi soundscape, signals are obscured by too many sounds, and perspective is lost within the broad- band of noises.[15] In lo-fi soundscapes everything is very close and compact. A person can only listen to immediate encounters; in most cases even ordinary sounds have to be exuberantly amplified in order to be heard.

All sounds are unique in nature. They occur at one time in one place and can't be replicated. In fact, it is physically impossible for nature to reproduce any phoneme twice in exactly the same manner.[15]

Soundscapes in health care

Soundscapes from a computerized acoustic device with a camera may also offer synthetic vision to the blind, utilizing human echolocation, as is the goal of the seeing with sound project.[16]

Soundscapes and noise pollution

Papers on noise pollution are increasingly taking a holistic, soundscape approach to noise control. Whereas acoustics tends to rely on lab measurements and individual acoustic characteristics of cars and so on, soundscape takes a top-down approach. Drawing on John Cage's ideas of the whole world as composition,[17] soundscape researchers investigate people's attitudes to soundscapes as a whole rather than individual aspects - and look at how the entire environment can be changed to be more pleasing to the ear.

It has been suggested that people's opportunity to access quiet, natural places in urban areas can be enhanced by improving the ecological quality of urban green spaces through targeted planning and design and that in turn has psychological benefits.[18]

See also

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References

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  9. ↑ Boodler ambient soundscape generator written in Python
  10. ↑ fLOW ambient soundscape generator (Apple Macintosh)
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ Seeing with Sound
  17. ↑ needs citation
  18. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

Further reading

External links

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