Hearing the Soundscape
Soundscapes
The soundscape embraces the sonic culture of space, of landscape and its entanglements with place.
What do places you know, places where you feel a sense of belonging, sound like? You work, your street, your local bar?
Can you recall the sounds of a new place, a soundscape that is new, or mostly new, for the first time? What was it like?
What places can you think of with subtle soundscapes; that might appear silent?
What sounds dominate the soundscape? Which ones are marginal? Which has disappeared?
What do our readings say?
Schafer
Eisenberg
Feld
What are these authors trying to say?
How do they say or show it?
How does it help you with your understandings of landscape and power?
- What is the soundscape?
- Do we have a visual bias when it comes to landscape, space and place?
- "In short, in social science generally, the ' ideology of the visual ' has afforded an epistemological privilege to sight over hearing, even though sound (precisely because it lacks the concreteness that so appeals to empiricism) is more allied than vision to those emotional or intuitive qualities on which the interpretative project rests ... the persistence of an ideology of the visual in cultural geography is problematic for at least three reasons. First, [...] it encourages us to neglect the role of all the senses in structuring and experiencing space and place. Secondly, it creates a body of scholarship that excludes, or is irrelevant for, people who are blind or experience severe visual impairment. Finally, it excludes a major art form-the production of sound generally, and of music in particular-from the ' cultural turn ' which now pervades, or is sought after in, much of human geography" and anthropology, sociology, cultural studies--anything concerned with place.
- Smith, S. J. (1994). Soundscape. Area, 232-240.
The soundscape embraces the sonic culture of space, of landscape and its entanglements with place.
What do places you know, places where you feel a sense of belonging, sound like? You work, your street, your local bar?
Can you recall the sounds of a new place, a soundscape that is new, or mostly new, for the first time? What was it like?
What places can you think of with subtle soundscapes; that might appear silent?
What sounds dominate the soundscape? Which ones are marginal? Which has disappeared?
What do our readings say?
Schafer
Eisenberg
Feld
What are these authors trying to say?
How do they say or show it?
How does it help you with your understandings of landscape and power?
TASK 1:
In your groups go to the Cities and Memory Website https://citiesandmemory.com
Cities and Memory archives over 3000 sounds contributed by people from around the world recording different soundscapes.
There are various ways to search the site (they even have a podcast).
We would like you to go to the Sound Map.
The Sound Map
https://citiesandmemory.com/sound-map/
The Sound Map allows you to pin sounds to space, and start to think about the ways sound shapes place.
Your task in your group is:
-Choose 3 pins on the soundscape map
-Listen to the sounds
- Use these sounds to write between 3 and 5 bullet points on the relationships between sound and space and/or place.
-Think about the question: what does sound give us in understanding landscape/space and power that visual or other senses do not?
Please choose sounds from a mix of locations that are familiar and locations that are unfamiliar.
You have 30 minutes for this task and we will spend at least 15 minutes hearing back from each group.
In your groups go to the Cities and Memory Website https://citiesandmemory.com
Cities and Memory archives over 3000 sounds contributed by people from around the world recording different soundscapes.
There are various ways to search the site (they even have a podcast).
We would like you to go to the Sound Map.
The Sound Map
https://citiesandmemory.com/sound-map/
The Sound Map allows you to pin sounds to space, and start to think about the ways sound shapes place.
Your task in your group is:
-Choose 3 pins on the soundscape map
-Listen to the sounds
- Use these sounds to write between 3 and 5 bullet points on the relationships between sound and space and/or place.
-Think about the question: what does sound give us in understanding landscape/space and power that visual or other senses do not?
Please choose sounds from a mix of locations that are familiar and locations that are unfamiliar.
You have 30 minutes for this task and we will spend at least 15 minutes hearing back from each group.
TASK 2:
In your groups share the soundscapes that you explored in your writing this past week.
Identify a series of 'common sounds' [or close enough] that each group member identified.
Identify at list (3-5) of unique sounds that were not shared across the examples, but only came up once or twice.
Also address these questions:
What does the contrast between the common and unique tell us about space/place and landscape?
How does sound give you a different perspective on landscape? Does it change the places you seek out?
Write your answer in 2-3 sentences and send them to us when you have completed them at the end of class.
For NEXT WEEK
Explore the landscape and space of the pandemic.
Find a place where you can put together the three main techniques we have explored so far:
Consider how the pandemic has reshaped the landscape around you.
And consider the ways some things are unchanged, or at least feel unchanged by the pandemic.
Write 300 words, take photos, record sounds, record video,--whatever combinations you like and come next week with them ready to go.
We will all be on ZOOM next week!
Explore the landscape and space of the pandemic.
Find a place where you can put together the three main techniques we have explored so far:
- observation
- motion
- sounds
Consider how the pandemic has reshaped the landscape around you.
And consider the ways some things are unchanged, or at least feel unchanged by the pandemic.
Write 300 words, take photos, record sounds, record video,--whatever combinations you like and come next week with them ready to go.
We will all be on ZOOM next week!
