Soundscape Assignment

“Sometimes, on Sundays, I heard the bells, the Lincoln, Acton, Bedford, or Concord bell, when the wind was favorable, a faint, sweet, and, as it were, natural melody, worth importing into the wilderness. At a sufficient distance over the woods this sound acquires a certain vibratory hum, as if the pine needles in the horizon were the strings of a harp which it swept. All sound heard at the greatest possible distance produces one and the same effect, a vibration of the universal lyre, just as the intervening atmosphere makes a distant ridge of earth interesting to our eyes by the azure tint it imparts to it. There came to me in this case a melody which the air had strained, and which had conversed with every leaf and needle of the wood, that portion of the sound which the elements had taken up and modulated and echoed from vale to vale. The echo is, to some extent, an original sound, and therein is the magic and charm of it. It is not merely a repetition of what was worth repeating in the bell, but partly the voice of the wood; the same trivial words and notes sung by a wood-nymph” (Thoreau, Walden, 123)

The concept of “soundscape” refers to the constellation of sounds that emanate from landscapes and reach our ears in a given moment. It is credited to R. Murray Schafer who studied the sounds of various habitats and demonstrated that each soundscape uniquely represents a place and time through the combination of its special blend of voices, whether urban, rural, or natural. Most recently, the emerging field of soundscape ecology has challenged ideas that “seeing is believing” and has provided us with new ways to register the ecological health of habitats and to awaken us to the expressivity and creativity of nature.

The idea of this assignment is to encourage us to pay more attention to the sonic identity and makeup of our environments, to the unique gathering of sounds specific to wherever we happen to live. Pick a particular location in the High Country or near your home that includes both natural and man-made sounds. Go to the location, sit and take note of all the sounds that you hear for 20-30 minutes. Write a short (1 page) analysis of the location’s soundscape, why you chose it, how other people or beings might experience it, what happens there, what makes it unique ecologically. Try to be attentive to the extent to which the soundscape reflects the clash, connection, or overlap of natural and built environments. Consider making a 30 second video/audio recording and/or taking photographs to support the claims that you are making in your analysis.

In your analysis, make sure that you include:

• Location (for urban and rural areas as close as possible without identifying exact addresses and private residences; for outdoor locations, e.g a state park or a beach, consider mapping your location and providing the web link in your reflection)
• Specific references to the assigned readings by Thoreau
• The time of the day, season, and date.
• A list of the sounds you heard, e.g. mechanical sounds, biological sounds, geological sounds, unexpected sounds, quiet sounds, loud sounds, slow sounds, fast sounds, ambient sounds, etc. Aim to provide rich description of the sounds themselves, and not just an explanation of what makes the sounds. Before you are tempted to write “I heard cars, birds, or planes”, describe the sound that you heard, and not merely the source of it. Pay close attention to the frequency, pitch, volume, duration, tone, and timbre of the sounds. Reflect on the aural identity, mood, atmosphere or presence of the place. Think about how the layering and mixture of sounds can create a sonic identity as unique as a fingerprint, and how it might shape both the humans and nonhumans that find themselves in such a place.

As you are completing the assignment you might reflect on any of the following questions and themes:

• What kind of sounds are these? What do these sounds say about the place where you heard them?
• What sounds would you describe as the ‘keynote’ sounds? These would be the sounds that, in your experience, contribute most to the acoustic signature of the place. Do you think the acoustics of the location vary over the course of each day or season? How?
• In The Great Animal Orchestra: Finding the Origins of Music in the World’s Wild Places Bernie Krause introduces the term “biophony” to describe the composition of sounds created by living organisms, “geophony” to describe the ambient sounds of wind, rain, thunder, and so on, and “anthrophony” to describe human-generated sounds. Reflect on the distribution of biophony, geophony, and anthrophony in the acoustics of your location. Was any one dominant at the site? Would you describe any of the sounds that you heard as “noise,” “aural litter” or “audible trash?”
• Were you alerted to any sounds that we have usually learned to ignore in our everyday lives? In the context of the profound ecological changes that are taking place on this planet, which of these sounds do we want to encourage, multiply and preserve? Would you identify any of these sounds as harmful or beneficial for ecological well-being?
• Thoreau’s chapter “Sounds” in Walden suggests that music is already an aspect of the environment, which does not need to be translated or represented. He concurs with Krause who encourages us to approach the world as a macrocosmic musical composition. Based upon your listening experience, would you agree or disagree with Thoreau and Krause? Is nature capable of composing music? Is nature a composer? If yes, what difference does it make? Did you register any clearly discernible voices, signatures, or compositions produced by local ecosystems? Did your experience sensitize you to the acoustics of the location as a mode of awareness, as a means of receiving messages from the environment?

Your responses are due by midnight on Sunday, February 15th. In addition to your written reflection, you are encouraged to upload images or/and recordings of the site that you visited.