Soundscape composition Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

ΠΕΡΙΛΗΨΗ Το άρθρο αυτό αφορά την καταγραφή και µελέτη Ελληνικών ηχοτοπίων ως κοινό σηµείο αναφοράς κατά την υλοποίηση διαφορετικών µαθηµάτων ανώτατης εκπαίδευσης. Στα πλαίσια µιας συνολικής, διεπιστηµονικής προσέγγισης, οι καταγραφές ηχοτοπίων της Κεφαλονιάς περιγράφονται ως προς το περιεχόµενο και τις µεθοδολογίες εφαρµογών και σκιαγραφούνται συµπεράσµατα και προοπτικές αξιοποίησης του περιεχοµένου από διαφορετικές επιστηµονικές οπτικές. ABSTRACT This paper refers to the recording and studying of Greek soundscapes as a common ground for different academic modules in higher education. Through a interdisciplinary approach, the recording of Cephalonia soundscapes are described in terms of context and recording methodology, and a number of conclusions and possible applications are highlighted through different scientific perspectives.

- by and +1
- •
- Soundscape Studies, Electroacoustic Music, Acoustic Ecology, Soundscape (Music)

Does a city project a certain inner character within the subjective auditory perception of the listener’s experience of its complex sound environment? This paper examines the artistic processes involved in the author’s recent composition elegy for Bangalore, which sheds light on the methodologies of listening to and field recording in an emerging and transfiguring Indian city toward composing its urban character.

- by Budhaditya Chattopadhyay
- •
- Soundscape Studies, Sound studies, Urban Studies, Sound

Taking the term soundscape as a starting point, this essay by José Manuel Berenguer addresses a number of concerns relevant to understanding the listening experience within art and everyday life. Tackling questions such as phenomenology, cognition, new media, aesthetics and the overlap between art and science, Berenguer engages in a critical analysis of recent sound art practices, using both significant historical examples and his own experience.

- by José Manuel Berenguer
- •
- Soundscape Studies, Sound studies, Sound, Soundscape Design

Soundscape recordings of nature may often provide us with a valuable sound-basis as a primary compositional material, offering a rich sound-world to transform and develop certain compositional strategies. Soundscapes can also be an inspirational source, offering a number of sound-images and sound-behaviours to be approached mimetically, and thus to develop a certain ‘nature-oriented’ type of musical language.
The soundscapes recorded in Corfu between 2006-2007 during the study of the area of lake Antinioti constitute an entity of different sound-environments often demonstrating antithetic relationships regarding the existence of sound-sources and sound-behaviours within their boundaries, as these recordings were captured in different times of day/night and in different seasons throughout the year. To define these relationships through listening, one needs to consider a number of characteristics regarding sources and sound-behaviours and the manner in which these co-exist within the recorded soundscape.
Through the application of certain processing techniques, soundscapes may be transformed into different soundscapes or they may be decomposed to their constituents. In the current research the aim was to create a rich variety of original ‘sound vocabulary’ overcoming basic problems existing in the recorded sound material (noise elimination, presence enhancement, event isolations, enhancement of tonality/sustainment) and further explore the transformational potential of the recorded and created sounds.
From a macro-perspective, and as can be concluded through the research, different ‘models’ of sound environments can be found within an acousmatic musical context. Such environments can be described as ‘real-like’ (or ‘verisimilar’) , ‘abstract’, or ‘hybrid’, depending on the level to which they suggest the real world, and to which their constituent sources can be recognized, and also depending on the relationship between sounds and spaces with regard to recognition.

- by Apostolos Loufopoulos and +1
- •
- Musical Composition, Music Technology, Music Psychology, Soundscape Studies

This PhD focusses on the body of work that has emerged from the author’s compositional practice between 2008 and 2015. It tackles a range of issues including (dark) tourism, identity and remembrance, and the tensions between history, narrative and myth; from folklore practices to postwar Eastern Europe and the Holocaust.
Three extended projects using field recordings and interviews as their primary source material are examined: a soundscape study of Padstow, a composition dealing with the soundscapes of historically-charged places, and an ongoing project that further explores issues of memory, narrative, and myth-making. Through a detailed contextual investigation of these sound-works, the text endeavours to provide a dialogue between the phonographies of the sites and voices featured in the compositions and the social, historical, political and economic forces that have contributed to the making (and metamorphosis) of these places and communities.
The author develops a number of notions including the construction of schizo-narratives: an editing technique where fragments of interviews are reorganised to create unexpected and non-linear narratives, and sonic chorographies: the use of field recordings to represent not only the fragmentary delineations of a soundscape but also to operate a re-scaling of the elements depicted to highlight crucial aspects of the socio-political fabric of a specific place. These elements lead to an investigation of the territory of disembodied voices – the phenomenological mechanisms of interaction between disembodied voices and the sonic environment – as well as a reflection on the perception of acousmatic identities.
From the multitude of conflicting histories that underpin the origins and beliefs associated with the Mayday festival to the problematic site transformations that have occurred in Krakow and Auschwitz as a result of the Holocaust tourist trade; from the dislocated narratives of ‘twin language’ to the imagined myths of the lost Jewish community of thirteenth century Hereford, this PhD endeavours to show how disembodied voices and soundscapes might be creatively and conceptually explored through plurality and contradiction, as a territory where no element is fixed, where no narrative is crystallised, where identities are in constant motion, where meaning is always transient.

- by Emmanuel Spinelli
- •
- History and Memory, Dark Tourism, Politics, Soundscape Studies

Recent years have seen an exponential increase in the number of composers and sound artists directly responding to global environmental issues, such as biodiversity loss, pollution and climate change, through their creative practice. The... more

- by Jono Gilmurray
- •
- Music, Music Technology, Bioacoustics, Narrative

A purely aesthetic approach may be problematic when artists wish to deal with the external world as part of their work. The work of R. Murray Schafer in formulating soundscape studies is described, as well as the author’s extension of that work within a communicational framework. Soundscape composition is situated within a continuum of possibilities, each with its own practice of mapping or representing the world. Current technological possibilities as well as ethical issues involved in the production process are discussed, along with the author’s work in creating a multi-channel imaginary soundscape. The evolving nature of the listener’s relationship to acoustic space over the last century is discussed in comparison to developments in soundscape composition.

- by Barry Truax
- •
- Soundscape Studies, Soundscape composition

The focus of the compositional approach presented in this folio is the sounding environment. The term sounding environment is used in this context to refer to the whole of our living experience in the world which we might register as relating to sound. It might include everything that is sounding, seemingly sounding, imagined sounding, remembered sounding, sensed as sounding, composed to sound. It includes thus the actual sound environment, all that is sensed or interpreted as sound and imaginary sounds. This dissertation accompanies the seven acousmatic and the two sound installation works included in the folio. It is divided into two parts. In the first part relevant ideas and theories both from the literature of electroacoustic music composition and soundscape composition are discussed while in the second the compositional approach to the sounding environment is presented as applied to the works.

Speech is arguably the most basic form of human communication, but since the 20 th century it has become an increasingly disembodied element within the soundscape through amplification, recording and broadcasting. However the same technology that eliminates the face-to-face role of speech within the acoustic community, making it part of the soundscape, has also provided the means for a creative use of vocal material in electroacoustic composition. Just as the concept of "soundscape" embraces all forms of sound and emphasizes how sound is understood by listeners, so too soundscape composition creates simulated environments of sound within which the distinctions between voice, music and environmental sound are blurred. Examples are drawn from the work of the World Soundscape Project at Simon Fraser University and the author's electro-vocal soundscape compositions.

- by Barry Truax
- •
- Digital Media, Acoustic Ecology, Soundscape composition, Voice

This article discusses a range of self-reflexive tendencies in field recording, soundscape composition and studio production, and explores examples of sonic practices and works in which the personal listening experiences of the composer are a key contextual and compositional element. As broad areas for discussion, particular attention is given to soundscape composition as self-narrative (exploring the representation of the recordist in soundscape works) and to producing the hyperreal and the liminal (considering spatial characteristics of contemporary auditory experience and their consequences for sonic practice). The discussion then focuses on the specific application of autoethnographic research methods to the practice and the understanding of soundscape composition. Compositional strategies employed in two recent pieces by the author are considered in detail. The aim of this discussion is to link autoethnography to specific ideas about sound and listening, and to some tendencies in field recording, soundscape composition and studio production, while also providing context for the discussion of the author's own practice and works. In drawing together this range of ideas, methods and work, sonic autoethnography is aligned with an emerging discourse around reflexive, embodied sound work.

- by Iain Findlay-Walsh
- •
- Autoethnography, Soundscape composition, Sound Art, Field Recording

The aim of this paper is to present the research activities I have participated in and organised at the University of Edinburgh during the second semester of the academic year 2015/2016. The following examples can be understood and... more

- by Katerina Taliani
- •
- Soundscape Studies, Listening (Music), Soundscape composition, Sound Art
- by John L Drever
- •
- Sonic Art, Soundscape composition, Alice Oswald, Alaric Sumner
- by Barry Truax
- •
- Acoustics, Psychoacoustics, Soundscape Studies, Acoustic Ecology

This thesis explores ways in which the process of listening, recording, and editing everyday soundscapes can be incorporated in the art classroom. For this study, I designed and carried out two series of educational workshops; firstly, with a group of students at an all-girls high school in Montreal; and secondly, with a group of art and music teachers from QAIS (Quebec Association of Independent Schools). The data generated from these workshops has been used to develop adaptable educational interventions for teaching this process for Art Education. The data also indicates that this creative practice has a number of salient features for learning and art education. For one, listening deeply to familiar spaces such as a school or classroom can shift and expand our conscious awareness of these surroundings. Furthermore, using technological devices to listen, record, and edit sound can allow students to experience quotidian environments in a different way. This can deepen students’ engagement with common environments by asking them to notice and creatively explore the sounds that define their daily experiences.

- by Ehsan Akbari
- •
- Arts Education, Soundscape Studies, Soundscape composition, Soundscape

Over the past half century, there has been much research into the acoustic qualities of soundscapes from a variety of perspectives: the humanities and social sciences as per the ‘acoustic ecology’ movement (established by Schafer, Truax, and Westerkamp et al.), and more recently the environmental science and ecology as per ‘soundscape ecology’ (established by Farina, Pijanowski, and Krause, et al.). Collectively, these disciplines provide diverse methods for engagement with analysis of acoustic environments. Simultaneous to the rise of the acoustic ecology movement in the 1970s (marked by the publication of Schafer’s ‘The Tuning of the World (1974)), the composition of numerous seminal ‘minimalist’ musical works occurred, notable amongst them Steve Reich’s ‘Music For 18 Musicians’ (1974-6). Whilst there has been signiﬁcant analysis of this work from a traditional musicological standpoint, the environmental implications of its process-driven nature have gone largely ignored, particularly in relation to ecological processes and behaviours. This paper provides an ecomusicological analysis of ‘Music for 18 Musicians’, investigating the numerous afﬁnities that the piece has with acoustic ecology and soundscape ecology concepts alike. This will be explored at both a macromorphological level (considering large-scale temporal cycles and processes), and micromorphological level (as related to orchestration, textural organisation, instrumental content in the context of bioacoustics, community sound cues and ensemble agency). A concluding discussion of Reich’s compositional inﬂuences (themselves inﬂuenced by natural soundscapes) and process follows, with questions raised around the possibility of ecomusicological analysis of other ‘abstract’ musical works to encourage further research in compositional approaches and music therapy.

- by Jesse Budel
- •
- Acoustic Ecology, Soundscape composition, Soundscape, Ecoacoustics
- by Holly Rogers
- •
- Creative Nonfiction, Music, New Media, Digital Humanities

In recent years, a number of sound artists have begun engaging with ecological issues through their work, forming a growing movement of ˝ecological sound art˝. This paper traces its development, examines its influences, and provides... more

- by Jono Gilmurray
- •
- Soundscape Studies, Acoustic Ecology, Ecological Art, Art And Ecology
- by John L Drever
- •
- Ethnography, Auditory Culture, Phonography, Anthropology of the Senses

Investigating the power of soundscape, how it influences our musical work and how to listen to it.

- by Alberto Sueri
- •
- Musical Composition, Soundscape Studies, Sound, Soundscape Design

For most people, listening is a lifelong activity. Sound flows within and around us as a mutable stream. From this stream, we create signs that allow us to interact with our environment in a meaningful way. This creative act of making discrete signs from complex sensations is a dynamic process of composition, and is carried out constantly by the individual in a cultural context. This compositional process is explored in various ways throughout this dissertation, and a framework is created to trace the dynamic process whereby meaning emerges in the soundscape (the complex domain of shared acoustic activity and sensation)

- by Adam Hulbert
- •
- Semiotics, Media Studies, Social Sciences, Film Music And Sound
- by Natasha Merkouri
- •
- Homer, Soundscape composition, Odyssey, Audacity

This chapter focuses on two of the most disruptive forms of soundscape composition and theorizes two related modes of audiovisual rupture. The first, sonic elongation, arises when source sounds from within the film’s world are broadened until they become unfamiliar. The process, which often draws these liberated sounds in musical textures, is fluid and can augment and intensify familiar modes of audiovisual engagement without breaking them. The second, sonic aporia, arises when real-world sounds (or sound effects) from beyond the film’s world are used to form a poetic or allegorical soundscape that does not assimilate with the images but sits alongside them. These often recognizable sounds undergo compositional transformation and yet their lack of a visual anchor, or, in some cases, their active opposition to what we see, leads our attention beyond the screen. Here, the different forms of audiovisual attention engendered by these contrasting compositional strategies is investigated in terms of attentive listening and multimodal rupture.

- by Holly Rogers
- •
- Media Studies, Film Music And Sound, Soundscape Studies, Cognitive Dissonance

The dramatic anthropological shifts in music production practices in the post-analogue world have been primarily driven by the ever-increasing functionality of digital audio technologies. Technologies are pertinent actors in the music production process, more than ever before. A
new trend in music production is a move towards the mobile tablet computer as a production tool. This article emerged from my own practice-led research into music production on a tablet computer whilst travelling, and at international destinations. Using evocative utoethnography, I diarised my mobile music production, concluding that mobility positively impacted creativity. Reflection led me to ask: What factors are at play and could a theorisation of mobile production practice be articulated? Mobility is more than transplanting music production to
another place. Rather, mobility asks us to reconsider fundamental notions central to musical practice. Space and environment become cognitive stimuli, echoing the seminal work by Mel Rhodes on creativity. Rhodes popularised the term ‘press’ to describe the multi-factorial
impact of experience on human creativity. This study theorises a multi-sensorial approach where human mobility and connection with place enhance musical creativity. Second, music data mobility amplifies production options. The connected mobile musician can absorb the
perceptual richness of physical travel and also the stimuli of the electronic ether. Where is creativity? This article proposes that creativity for the mobile musician is experienced in a liminal space between the geographical and the virtual.

- by Simon Order
- •
- Music Technology, Creativity, Synaesthesia, Mobile Technology

Artist statement discussing the process and philosophy behind an hour-long soundscape composition created using field recordings made at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo during April and May 2010. The piece has since been released on compact disc and presented as a sound installation at the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology's 2011 conference in Corfu, Greece.

- by John Kannenberg
- •
- Egyptology, Museum, Soundscape Studies, Sound
- by Louise Rossiter
- •
- Music, Musical Composition, Music Education, Music Technology

Soundscape is a term that has been defined in different ways by communication researchers, sound artists and composers. It has become part of the musical materials that have been used in the electroacoustic realm for more than a half century. Aesthetics and theory about the musical structural aspects of electroacoustic soundscape have not yet been much developed. This author has realized various sound works using soundscape textures as their main structures, making a catalog of different types of psychoacoustic constructions that involve aspects like foreground, background, figures in relation to the two precedent spaces, etc. Starting from precedent ideas, it is the aim of this author to set some bases on the soundscape concept, and through musical analysis, to find a set of main and essential structures. The result of this investigation could help others to discover different types of listening experiences of daily sounds both in towns, cities and nature.

- by José Manuel Berenguer
- •
- Soundscape Studies, Sound studies, Soundscape Design, Soundscape (Music)
- by Barry Truax
- •
- Soundscape composition
- by Lewis Gilbert
- •
- Soundscape Studies, Soundscape composition
- by Candida Felici
- •
- Music, Musicology, Music Aesthetics, Acoustic Ecology
- by John L Drever
- •
- Phonography, Soundscape composition, Sound Recording, History of Sound Recording
- by Cesar Damaceno
- •
- Soundscape composition, Análise Musical, Processos De Criação
- by Paolo Zavagna
- •
- Soundscape Studies, Soundscape Design, Soundscape (Music), Soundscape composition

" Mobile architectures " is an experimental project that uses as main resource the dialectic relationship between 3d animation that depicts rotating views of presumed celestial spheres, and sound. Using as starting points two " instructional drawings " created by the architect Yona Friedman and taking its name from the his Manifesto " Mobile Architectures " , published in 1958, we combine 3d animation and soundscapes to suggest alternative spaces far away from current economy based on immovable properties, based also on the ownership of the land, land and property speculation. Our animations are, thus a metaphor of self-carried roofs: structures modified by situations and circumstances instead by the constructions of settlements.

- by Concha García González
- •
- Architecture, Animation, Installation Art, Soundscape composition

Throughout the history of 20th century music, several expressions challenging the status of what is music can be found, both within the avant-garde traditions and through the additional discovery and study of worldwide traditional musical undertaken during that period. Most of these expressions have been assimilated into the main body of what today we call music; among those, two recently flourished extreme genres present a stronger, more complex and more interesting case towards a definition of music. The present article will start with a foray into the recent tradition of the soundscape musical form, and conclude with a brief exploration of the concept and practice of music without sound, intending mostly to affirm some general affinities between these extreme genres and their insertion within the continuity of musical traditions as we know them.

- by João N S Almeida
- •
- Music, Music Education, Music Theory, Musicology

The author reports on the development of an original piece, Boott Mill (Lowell), which takes field recordings of loom machines from the Lowell Historical Museum in Massachusetts, and ends up with a fully realized composition featuring... more

- by Daniel Walzer
- •
- Musical Composition, Music Technology, Audio Engineering, Soundscape Studies
- by Matthew Yanko
- •
- Music Education, Self and Identity, Early Childhood Education, Autoethnography