Week1.1

We have also sound-houses, where we practise and demonstrate all sounds and their generation. We have harmony which you have not, of quarter-sounds and lesser slides of sounds. Divers instruments of music likewise to you unknown, some sweeter than any you have; with bells and rings that are dainty and sweet. We represent small sounds as great and deep, likewise great sounds extenuate and sharp; we make divers tremblings and warblings of sounds, which in their original are entire. We represent and imitate all articulate sounds and letters, and the voices and notes of beasts and birds. We have certain helps which, set to the ear, do further the hearing greatly; we have also divers strange and artificial echoes, reflecting the voice many times, and, as it were, tossing it; and some that give back the voice louder than it came, some shriller and some deeper; yea, some rendering the voice, differing in the letters or articulate sound from that they receive. We have all means to convey sounds in trunks and pipes, in strange lines and distances.

Francis Bacon - The New Atlantis (1614)

We will be developing along three strands in this module

(1) Listening - different types of listening, expanding our capacity to listen - will be an important aspect of this module.

(2) Discover methods and tools for analysis of sound and develop our ability to articulate our listening experience.

(from Train in the Night by Nick Coleman)

(3) Creating and manipulating sounds. Developing better understanding of sound synthesis methods and exert more control in shaping sounds creatively.

The idea of the Soundwalk came out of the World Soundscape Project.

"Go out and listen. Choose an acoustic environment which in your opinion sets a good base for your environmental compositions ... What kinds of rhythms does it contain, what kinds of pitches, how many continuous sounds, how many and what kinds of discrete sounds, etc. Which sounds can you produce that add to the quality of the environmental music? Create a dialogue and thereby lift the environmental sounds out of their context into the context of your composition, and in turn make your sounds a natural part of the music around you. Is it possible?"

Hildegard Westerkamp, in "Soundwalking", Sound Heritage 3(4), 1974

Read her example of soundwalk instructions, and/or a related view from Andra McCartney.

For next week:

  1. Read Hugill, chapter 1

  2. Read R. Murray Schaffer's "The Music of the Environment" (from Audio Culture book)

  3. Read through the module guide

  4. Prepare a ~15 minute soundwalk starting and ending at the music department. Look again over the example linked above. You should be able to hand your soundwalk instructions to a fellow student (write/print or use mobile format). Remember that the focus is on listening.