Sound Research WIKINDX
Sound Research WIKINDX |
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| Schafer, R. M. (1994). The soundscape: Our sonic environment and the tuning of the world. Rochester Vt: Destiny Books. |
  
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| Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 14/02/2014, 15:44 | |
| The definition of space by acoustic means is much more ancient than the establishment of property lines and fences" | |
| "...the ultimate silence is death..." | |
| "If we must be distracted ten or twenty times each day, why not by pleasant sounds? Why could not everyone choose his or her own telephone signal?" | |
| "The acoustic space of a sounding object is that volume of space in which the sound can be heard. ... Modern technology has given each individual the tools to activate more acoustic space." | |
| "When one travels, new sounds snap at the consciousness and are thereby lifted to the status of figures." | |
| In the context of machinery: "[N]oise represents escaped energy." | |
| "Noises possess a great deal of symbolic character as sound phobias" | |
| "Sirens and church bells belong to the same class of sounds: they are community signals. As such they must be loud enough to emerge clearly out of the ambient noise of the community. But while the church bell sets a protective spell on the community, the siren speaks of disharmony from within." | |
| "A sound event is symbolic when it stirs in us emotions or thoughts beyond its mechanical sensations or singaling function, when it has a numinosity or reverberation that rings through the deeper recesses of the psyche." | |
| "A [acoustic] sign is any representation of a physical reality. ... A sign does not sound but merely indicates. A signal is a sound with a specific meaning, and it often stimulates a direct response (telephone bell, siren etc.). A symbol, however, has richer connotations." | |
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Discusses Innes' (1972/1950) proposition that solid durable [written] media emphasizes time while those that are light and less durable emphasize space and suggests that sound falls into the latter category. "...the true character of sound in shaping societies is in its spatial spread ... the real paradox is that although sounds are pronounced in time, they are also erased by time." (p.162). |
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| "Sounds may be classified in several ways: according to their physical characteristics (acoustics) or the way in which they are perceived (psychoacoustics); according to their function and meaning (semiotics and semantics); or according to their emotional or affective qualities (aesthetics). While it has been customary to treat these classifications seperately, there are obvious limitations to isolated studies." | |
| Describes Pierre Schaeffer's term sound object as "the smallest self-contained particle of a soundscape." | |
| Defines noises as "sounds we have learned to ignore" | |
| "In onomatopoeic vocabulary, man unites himself with the soundscape about him, echoing back its elements. The impression is taken in; the expression is thrown back in return." | |
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Defines the terms hi-fi and lo-fi in terms of signal-to-noise ratio with the former having a higher ratio than the latter. "The hi-fi soundscape is one in which discrete sounds can be heard clearly because of the low ambient noise level. ...sounds overlap less frequently; there is perspective--foreground and background." "In a lo-fi soundscape individual acoustic signals are obscured in an overdense population of sounds. ... Perspective is lost." |
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| "In the quiet ambience of the hi-fi soundscape the slightest disturbance can communicate vital or interesting information" | |
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Schafer quotes from Virgil's Georgics: "Such was the life that golden Saturn lived upon earth: Mankind had not yet heard the bugle bellow for war, Nor yet heard the clank of the sword on the hard anvil." (Book II, line 501.) and claims that this aural image (from metallic sounds) of war remains although now enhanced by the sounds of explosions. |
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"...the parish is an acoustic space, circumscribed by the range of the church bell. The church bell is a centripetal sound; it attracts and unifies the community in a social sense just as it draws man and God together." He further defines centripetal sounds on p.56 as unifying and regulating communities. He explictly refers to sirens as centrifugal sounds on p.178. |
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| "The flat continuous line in sound is an artificial construction. Like the flat line in space, it is rarely found in nature." | |
| Quotes Stockhausen as stating that "the time of memory [is] the crucial time between eight- and sixteen-second-long events." (Cott, Jonathan. Stockhausen: Conversations with the Composer. LONDON 1974. pp30--31) | |
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Reminds us that low-frequency sounds, with longer wavelengths, are subject to less diffraction, better filling space due to their greater ability to proceed around obstacles. "Localization of the sound source is more difficult with low-frequency sounds, and music stressing such sound is both darker in quality and more directionless in space. Instead of facing the sound source the listener seems immersed in it." |
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| Describing the headphone listener: "[h]e is no longer regarding events on the acoustic horizon; no longer is he surrounded by a sphere of moving elements. He is the sphere. He is the universe." | |
| Is critical of Pierre Schaeffer's definition and usage of sound object because if is purely clinical and physical--he makes no reference to semantics or other associations. "it is a phenomenological sound formation only" and takes no account of the physical object that produced the sound or any meaning associated with it. Schafer prefers the term sound event as more encompassing of meaning, context and sound source. | |
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Defines some features of the soundscape (his term): Keynote sounds: Ubiquitous, fundamental and pervasive background sounds (Gestalt ground) that are not always consciously heard. Signals: Foreground sounds (Gestalt figure) that are consciously listened to. Soundmark: A sound that is unique to the soundscape or that particularly aids in the identification of place. archetypal sounds: sounds possessed of a symbolism, inherited from ancient times that have a mystery about them. His use of the Gestalt terms is a little different to its use in the psychology of visual perception where a figure is perceived only because it is given mass and outline by the ground. For Schafer, any outlining is performed by the keynote sounds not on the signal sounds but on the characters of those who live among them--humans are defined in part by their acoustic environment. |
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| Points out that the church bell became a marker of time. | |
| Noise is proportional to power, or at least the dispensation to make loud noise reflects the power of the noise-maker. | |
| Schafer claims that early societies had fewer flat line sounds. Any increase in these sounds came with the Industrial Revolution. For Schafer, discrete sounds have a biological life (they're born, they live, they die) and provide a sense of duration to the listener marking the passage of time. Flat line sounds are 'suprabiological' with no sense of time implied. | |
| The ability to remove sounds from their original context (via telephony or recording) is called schizophonia by Schafer. | |
| Describing the harmonics of the hum of street electrical equipment (lighting, electrical signs etc.) in 1975 in the village of Skruv in Sweden, the harmonics were found to form a G# major triad. The addition of F# from the whistles of passing trains created V7 chord. | |
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Describes three methods of graphically notating sound: 1. Acoustics--waveforms, frequency domain etc. 2. Phonetics--for speech and the human voice. 3. Musical notation--representation of 'musical' sound. Points out that the first two are descriptive while the third is prescriptive. |
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| A sound is perceived as figure (signal or soundmark) or ground (keynote ambient sound) on the basis of acculturation, training, mood, social relation to the soundscape. | |
| Notes that the bell and the siren (invented by Seebeck in the early C19th.) both radiate sound uniformly in all directions. | |
| Discusses the various meanings of 'noise' both historically and culturally. The variety of meanings include unwanted sound, unmusical sound, loud sound, signal disturbance (disturbance in a signalling system). |