Soundwalkers. WORLD SOUNDSCAPE PROJECT. The World Soundscape Project (WSP) was established as an educational and research group by R. Murray Schafer at Simon Fraser University during the late 1960s and early 1970s. It grew out of Schafer's initial attempt to draw attention to the sonic environment through a course in noise pollution, as well as from his personal distaste for the more raucous aspects of Vancouver's rapidly changing soundscape. This work resulted in two small educational booklets, The New Soundscape and The Book of Noise, plus a compendium of Canadian noise bylaws.
However, the negative approach that noise pollution inevitably fosters suggested that a more positive approach had to be found, the first attempt being an extended essay by Schafer (in 1973) called 'The Music of the Environment,' in which he describes examples of acoustic design, good and bad, drawing largely on examples from literature. The WSP group at SFU, 1973; left to right: R. M. The WSP group in the churchyard, Dollar (Scotland), 1975. Her Noise Archive. Soundwalking: creating moving environmental sound narratives | Soundwalking Interactions. ** Draft.
Forthcoming in “The Oxford Handbook of Mobile Music Studies,” edited by Sumanth Gopinath and Jason Stanyek. Expected publication 2013. ** Dr. Soundwalking is a creative and research practice that involves listening and sometimes recording while moving through a place at a walking pace. Decisions about the location, style, content, and montage of sound in a soundwalk have political, social and ecological consequences. In this article, soundwalking is distinguished from other kinds of mobile listening and field recording practices that are not so closely linked to the act of walking, which is a particular kind of movement through a place.
Since the term soundwalking focuses on the act of walking, it could be understood to exclude those who are not able to walk and require wheelchairs or strollers. Soundwalks take the everyday action of walking, and everyday sounds, and bring the attention of the audience to these often ignored events, practices and processes. SOUNDSCAPE EXPLORATIONS. SOUNDSCAPE EXPLORATIONS. ACOUSTIC ECOLOGY | Writings - Essays. Personal Reflections on Sound A Voice for Silence - Poetic, reflective essay about spending time listening with Gordon Hempton in the Hoh rainforest on the Olympic Peninsula. [GO THERE] No Silence, Please - Chris Watson reflects on time in an anechoic chamber and the human need for sounds around us. This essay is on the BBC website: [GO THERE] On a Clear Day I Can Hear Forever - Gary Ferrington. On the soundings of a medium sized city.
[GO THERE] The Last Laugh - Wendy Liles. Take a Listening Walk and Learn to Listen - Gary Ferrington. Melting Ice and Stranded Penguins: A Story of Global Warming - Listen to an 8 minute radio journalism piece by Kathy Turco, reporting from Antarctica. Society and Sound Speaking with Animal Toungues - David Abram. The Eternal Story, in its Original Language - Jim Cummings. From Ethnomusicology to Echo-Muse-Ecology - Steven Feld. Acoustic Responsibility - A Concept Whose Time Has Come - Peter Donnelly. History and Philosophy of Soundscape Art. Écologie Sonore. Odyssée sonore par Louis Ricard.