User:Kimadactyl/Soundscape

Soundscape rewrite

Soundscapes. ISO/WG 54 definition. Schafer description.

Disambiguation: Soundscape composition

Images: Tuning of the World cover.

Nomenclature

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:

• Keynote sounds

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.

• 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 1977 book, 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”.

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".

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

• Geophony

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.

• Biophony

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.

• Anthrophony

Consisting of the prefix, anthro (gr. human), this term refers to all of the sound signatures generated by humans.

Diciplines

Anthropology

Insights into ways of listening (Jarviluoma, 1994). Explanations (both literal, pedagogical and epistemological) of localised phenomena [cheung.k:99, columbijn:07].

Human Geography

Models of human behaviour. How listeners are affected by and adapt to the built environment (Bull and Back, 2003; Bull, 2001).

Sociology

Socialisation of listening (Jarviluoma et al., 2003). Qualitative theory building (Bull, 2001).

History

Soundscape through history [bijsterveld:01, corbin:98]. Changing perspectives over time (Schafer, 1977; McLuhan and Fiore, 1967). How class and wealth affects music creation (Attali, 1985).

Acoustics

Planning [DeCoensel2009]. Community response to noise (Schulte-Fortkamp and Nitsch, 1999; Schulte-Fortkamp and Fiebig, 2006; Adams et al., 2006; Woodcock et al., 2012). Quiet Space measurement (Irvine et al., 2009). Overall characterisation and classification (Berglund, 2006).

Psychoacoustics/Psychology

Sound perception in the ear and brain (Moore, 2003). Auditory scene analysis [bregman:04].

See Also

• Ambient music
• Biomusic
• Biophony
• Environments (series)
• Field recording
• Musique concrète
• Noise map
• Program music
• Sound art
• Sound installation
• Sound sculpture
• Soundmap
• Space music

External links

• example.com