A new interdiscipline combining the talents of scientists, social scientists and artists (particularly musicians), the Soundscape Design attempts to discover principles and to develop techniques by which the social, psychological and aesthetic quality of the acoustic environment or SOUNDSCAPE may be improved. Soundscape is related to the processing of information from the sonic environment to extract usable information for the brain which can influence human behaviour, the process most commonly called "listening".
A new interdiscipline combining the talents of scientists, social scientists and artists (particularly musicians). Soundscape design attempts to discover principles and to develop techniques by which the social, psychological and aesthetic quality of the acoustic environment or SOUNDSCAPE may be improved.
The techniques of soundscape design are both educational and technical. The latter include the elimination or restriction of certain sounds (NOISE abatement), the evaluation of new sounds before they are introduced indiscriminately into the environment, as well as the preservation of certain sounds (SOUNDMARKs), and above all the imaginative combination and balancing of sounds to create attractive and stimulating acoustic environments. Soundscape design may also include the composition of actual environments, and in this respect it is contiguous with contemporary musical composition.
To the extent that it attempts to understand individual, community and cultural behaviour, soundscape design takes the broad perspective of a communicational discipline, and touches such other areas as sociology, anthropology, psychology and geography.
The basis of information transfer considered in soundscape studies is the process of listening. Listening is assumed here to include all aspects of how usable information is extracted from a complex array of environmental acoustic information, how it is classified, and how the information affects subsequent behaviour, including the listening process itself. Needless to say, not everything is known about this amazingly complex process. However, some useful terms and categories have been suggested by the research of the World Soundscape Project, many of which are related to, or at least are compatible with cognitive psychology. After some basic terms, we present those concerning:
a) categories of special sounds heard in the environment as reflected in listeners' use of the information contained in the sounds;
b) typical attitudes listeners have towards environmental sounds in recalling, accepting, rejecting, ignoring and adapting to sounds in the environment;
c) methods for documenting environmental sounds that reflect their functional importance and listeners' attitudes as mentioned.
SOUNDSCAPE
An environment of SOUND (or sonic environment) with emphasis on the way it is perceived and understood by the individual, or by a society. It thus depends on the relationship between the individual and any such environment. The term may refer to actual environments, or to abstract constructions such as musical compositions and tape montages, particularly when considered as an artificial environment.
The study of the systematic relationships between humans and sonic environments is called SOUNDSCAPE ECOLOGY, whereas the creation, improvement or modelling of any such environment is a matter of SOUNDSCAPE DESIGN. All aspects of soundscape studies have been the concern of the WORLD SOUNDSCAPE PROJECT.
Since a soundscape is shaped by both the conscious and subliminal perceptions of the listener, soundscape analysis is based on perceptual and cognitive attributes such as foreground, background, contour, rhythm, silence, density, space and volume, from which are derived such analytical concepts as KEYNOTE, SOUND EVENT, SOUNDMARK, SOUND OBJECT, SOUND SIGNAL.
See also: ACOUSTIC SPACE, CLAIRAUDIENCE, EAR CLEANING, EARWITNESS, MORPHOLOGY, RHYTHM, silence, SONOGRAPHY, SOUNDWALK, TAPE RECORDER, TEMPO, TUNING, TYPOLOGY.
Compare: DISAPPEARING SOUND, SACRED NOISE, SCHIZOPHONIA, SOUND EFFECT, SOUND INTRUSION, SOUND PHOBIA, SOUND POLLUTION, SOUND ROMANCE.
Ref.: R.M. Schafer, The New Soundscape, Toronto, 1969; B. Truax, "Soundscape Studies, An Introduction to the World Soundscape Project," Numus West, no. 5, Spring 1974; B. Truax, "Soundscape, Acoustic Communication & Environmental Sound Composition", Contemporary Music Review, 15(1), 49-65, 1996.