Soundscape

For the study of the acoustic relationships, see Soundscape ecology. For the PC sound card brand, see Ensoniq § Soundscape. For the Cedar Walton album, see Soundscapes (album).

A soundscape is the acoustic environment as perceived by humans, in context. The term was originally coined by Michael Southworth[1] was popularized by R. Murray Schafer.[2] There is a varied history of the use of soundscape depending on discipline, ranging from urban design to wildlife ecology to computer science.[3] An important distinction is to separate soundscape from the broader acoustic environment. The acoustic environment is the combination of all the acoustic resources, natural and artificial, within a given area as modified by the environment. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standardized these definitions in 2014. (ISO 12913-1:2014)

A soundscape is a sound or combination of sounds that forms or arises from an immersive environment. The study of soundscape is the subject of acoustic ecology or soundscape ecology. The idea of soundscape refers to both the natural acoustic environment, consisting of natural sounds, including animal vocalizations, the collective habitat expression of which is now referred to as the biophony, and, for instance, the sounds of weather and other natural elements, now referred to as the geophony; and environmental sounds created by humans, the anthropophony. The anthropophony comprises a sub-set called controlled sound, such as musical composition, sound design, and language, work, and sounds of mechanical origin resulting from use of industrial technology. Crucially, the term soundscape also includes the listener's perception of sounds heard as an environment, which Truax describes as "how that environment is understood by those living within it"[4] and therefore mediates their relations. The disruption of these acoustic environments results in noise pollution.[5]

The term "soundscape" can also refer to an audio recording or performance of sounds that create the sensation of experiencing a particular acoustic environment, or compositions created using the found sounds (sounds derived from objects not standardly used for music) of an acoustic environment, either exclusively or in conjunction with musical performances.[6][7]

Pauline Oliveros, composer of post-World War II electronic art music, defined the term "soundscape" as "All of the waveforms faithfully transmitted to our audio cortex by the ear and its mechanisms".[8]

"Soundscape from Puerto Rico"
Shared by El Cloquido
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  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference :3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Schafer, R. Murray (1977). The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World. Alfred Knopf.
  3. ^ Aiello, Luca Maria; Schifanella, Rossano; Quercia, Daniele; Aletta, Francesco (2016). "Chatty maps: constructing sound maps of urban areas from social media data". Royal Society Open Science. 3 (3): 150690. Bibcode:2016RSOS....350690A. doi:10.1098/rsos.150690. PMC 4821272. PMID 27069661.
  4. ^ Truax, Barry (2001). Acoustic Communication. Ablex Publishing Corporation. pp. 11. ISBN 9781567505375.
  5. ^ Krause, Bernie (2016). Voices of the Wild: Human Din, and the Call to Save Natural Soundscapes. Yale University Press. pp. all. ISBN 978-0-30020631-9.
  6. ^ LaBelle, Brandon (2006). Background Noise: Perspectives on Sound Art. Continuum International Publishing Group. pp. 198, 214. ISBN 978-0-8264-1845-6.
  7. ^ Truax, Barry (1992). "Electroacoustic Music and the Soundscape: The inner and the Outer World". In Paynter, John (ed.). Companion to Contemporary Musical Thought. Routledge. pp. 374–398. ISBN 978-0-415-07225-0.
  8. ^ Oliveros, Pauline (2005). Deep Listening: A Composer's Sound Practice. iUniverse. p. 18. ISBN 978-0-595-34365-2.