Athenian Acoustics by Nolan Miller

Athenian Acoustics By Nolan Miller

This thesis has been approved by

The Honors Tutorial College and the College of Fine Arts

______

Dr. Robert McClure Assistant Professor, Composition Thesis Advisor

______

Dr. Christopher Fisher Director of Studies, Music

______

Cary Roberts Frith Interim Dean, Honors Tutorial College

ATHENIAN ACOUSTICS: A SONIC EXPLORATION

A Thesis Presented to:

Honors Tutorial College

Ohio University

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Graduation

from the Honors Tutorial College

with the degree of

Bachelor of Arts in Music

Nolan Miller

April 2019

Introduction

As technology advances, vast sound palettes are being discovered. Cultural noise has “progressively transformed the soundscape of everyday life in all but the most remote locations” argues sound artist and researcher, Toby Butler.1 Just as we live in neighborhood communities, defined by interactions with others, we also live within acoustic communities. Acoustic researcher Barry Truax, who coined the term “acoustic communities”, describes them as communities in which soundscape “plays a pervasive role in the lives of the inhabitants.2 This means that people who live in the same spaces and experience the same sounds are members of the same communities. These communities can be affected by myriad sounds or none at all. Compare the calm, serene atmosphere of the countryside to the noises of a bustling city. In the countryside, the small sounds of an insect flying near one’s ear would be unobstructed, whereas in urban areas, there are too many competing sounds for a complete acoustic profile to be discerned.

Soundscape Studies

The pioneer of research in this field, R. Murray Schafer, composer and researcher at Simon Frasier University in Vancouver,3 set forth many standards for how we analyze soundscapes today. He laid out the basic language for how soundscapes are

1 Butler, Toby. “A Walk of Art: The Potential of the Sound Walk as Practice in Cultural Geography.” Social & Cultural Geography 7, no. 6 (December 2006): 890. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649360601055821.

2 Uimonen, Heikki. 2011. “Everyday Sounds Revealed: Acoustic Communication and Environmental Recordings.” Collected Work: Organised Sound: An International Journal of Music Technology. XVI/3 (December 2011): Sound, Listening and Place. I. Published by: Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2011. (AN: 2011-08150). 16 (3): 256–63.

3 Uimonen, 258.

3 discussed. He even coined the term soundscape itself.4 Schafer says that the significant features of any soundscape should be identified first. He defines sounds as important or significant if they are unique, numerous, or dominating. To further categorize these significant sounds, Schafer splits them into what are called keynote sounds, signals, and soundmarks.

Keynote sounds are sounds that form the basis and character of the soundscape.

These sounds don’t overpower the soundscape. However, listeners cannot entirely tune them out either. Water, wind, animals, and other sounds that are made by the geography of the area are some of Schafer’s examples.5 Keynote sounds are what make a soundscape recognizable upon a second listen. They are the sounds that are constantly heard but, often go unnoticed.

Signals are defined by Schafer as foreground sounds. These sounds require conscious attention and often have the ability to communicate simple and complex messages. His examples include horns and sirens, which communicate vital and urgent messages in their acoustic communities. He qualifies this definition to say that any sound can be brought to the foreground through attention.

Soundmark is a broader term than keynote or signal because it can refer to almost any sound or type of sound. Schafer’s term, soundmark, like the term landmark, refers to a sound that is given particular attention by others in the acoustic community.6

4 Groth, Sanne Krogh, and Kristine Samson. “Urban Sound Ecologies.” SoundEffects - An Interdisciplinary Journal of Sound and Sound Experience 3, no. 3 (December 1, 2013): 97.

5 Schafer, R. Murray. The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World. Rochester, Vermont: Destiny Books, 1994. 9.

6 Schafer, 10.

These sounds are unique to the area and are part of what gives each soundscape its own character.7

As Schafer has shown through his adaptable classifications of sound, there are myriad sounds occurring in a soundscape at any given time that can be given attention.

One can choose to focus hearing either locally or globally at any given time.8 And while these definitions categorize local sounds well, they do little to discuss the global qualities of the soundscape. To solve this problem, Schafer also created a spectrum on which entire soundscapes can be evaluated.

Schafer organizes this spectrum based on the soundscape’s signal-to-noise ratio, or the ability to distinguish individual sounds over ambient noise. He calls systems in which there are low ambient noise levels, a high signal-to-noise ratio, high fidelity (hi- fi). If the ratio is flipped and noise levels overtake the signals of an environment, the soundscape is considered to be low fidelity (lo-fi).9 In the words of Montreal-based composer and sound artist, James O’Callaghan:

“Lo-Fi or ‘unbalanced’, soundscapes feature dense populations of sounds and

noisy spectra, whereas hi-fi (balanced) soundscapes are able to maintain the

information content of all discrete sounds because of low ambient noise levels.”10

This means that in a hi-fi system it would be easier to distinguish more nuanced sounds like conversation than in a lo-fi system. It is for this reason that Schafer, myself, and

7 Schafer, 26.

8 Oliveros, xxiii.

9 Schafer, 43.

10 O’Callaghan, James. “Soundscape Elements in the Music of Denis Smalley: Negotiating the Abstract and the Mimetic.” Organised Sound, vol. 16, no. 01, Apr. 2011, pp. 57. Crossref, doi:10.1017/S1355771810000439.

5 many others favor hi-fi systems to lo-fi. A hi-fi system will provide depth to a soundscape. When ambient noise is added (making the system lo-fi), amplification must be used for sounds to be heard because of the overcrowded sonic landscape.11

R. Murray Schafer is also a pioneer in the related field of soundscape ecology: the study of the interaction between acoustic communities. Working with Professor of

Acoustic Communication, Barry Truax, Shaffer also studied the narrower field of acoustic ecology, which Schafer defines as “the study of sounds in relationship to life and society”.12 As an extension of their research into acoustic ecology, Schafer and Truax developed the World Soundscape Project (WSP) whose origin was a small group of researchers and artists in Canada. The organization has since expanded. Their work is responsible for bringing attention to natural soundscapes by forming multidisciplinary projects to research the effects of sound.13 This has led to the recent recognition of soundscape preservation as a global conservation goal by the National Park Service.14

There have been two primary reactions to the work of Schafer, Traux, and other contributors to the WSP. The first is a continuation of work concerning environmental issues through analyzing an environment’s soundscape. The second is soundscape composition.15 My project will focus its efforts on contributing to the latter. Soundscape

11 Schafer, 43.

12 Groth, 97

13 Uimonen, 258.

14 Peel, Kendra A. 2000. “DIRECTOR’S ORDER #47: Soundscape Preservation and Noise Management.” May 23, 2000. https://www.nps.gov/policy/dorders/dorder47.html.

15 Groth, 98.

6 composition is quite varied and can appear in many forms. Examples can include artistic representations of certain places, the literal re-creation of specific soundscapes in a digital medium, and many other forms.

Deep Listening

My goal in this project is to instill in its participants a heightened appreciation for the unnoticed sounds that represent Athens, Ohio. Appreciation refers here to social sciences and humanities researcher Heikki Uimonen’s definition; “a heightened attention to the importance of sounds as a source for wellbeing for individuals and the community”.16 It is my belief that encouraging this kind of appreciation will foster a greater attachment to the soundscape and a respect for the acoustic community of which the participant is a member. The promotion of interactive acoustic communities rather than those full of non-communicative noise is a goal shared by soundscape ecologists and sound artists alike.

Pauline Oliveros, the late Distinguished Research Professor of Music at

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, was the founder of a practice called Deep Listening.

The central idea of Deep Listening is the dedication of attention to one’s sound environment.17 The practice formed the basis for material collection in this thesis project which will be detailed in the ‘Project Overview’ section.

Deep Listening’s first implication is that hearing is not the same as listening. As

Oliveros explains in her book Deep Listening: A Composer’s Sound Practice, hearing is the means by which one perceives sound. Listening is the act of engaging with and giving

16 Uimonen, 256.

17 Oliveros, Pauline. Deep Listening: A Composer’s Sound Practice. Deep Listening Publications, 2005. xxi.

7 attention to both one’s perception of sound and one’s reaction to it.18 Because we cannot close our ears like we can our eyes, humans are always hearing. It takes the voluntary act of dedicating attention to the stimulus to engage in listening. Deep Listening occurs when one dedicates time to listening as a practice. Oliveros believed that one could always grow in the practice of listening and aimed to expand her own consciousness of sound as far as possible.19 In this way, listening is very similar to meditation in that both require concentration and relaxation with an intent to expand one’s consciousness.20 This meditative practice of Deep Listening enhances one’s ability to explore their environment. Concentration on the act of listening inherently makes one more receptive to the stimuli around them.21 It follows then, that Deep Listening inspired practices, if carried out, would make participants more attentive to the sounds around them than if they had done nothing at all.

For this project, listeners are thrust into the lo-fi atmosphere of Athens. The low information exchange of sounds in the area make Deep Listening practices even more valuable to this project. A heightened focus is required to distinguish local sounds in the many lo-fi systems that make up the city.

It’s important to delineate these soundscapes to the audience of this soundwalk because lo-fi systems are not just unfavorable, they may also pose a health threat. The noise levels in some cities are enough to cause harm to the people living there. The

18 Oliveros, xxii.

19 ibid., xxiii.

20 ibid., xxiv.

21 ibid., xxv.

World Health Organization, in the “Health topics” section of its website, comments on the effects of noise levels on humans:

Excessive noise seriously harms human health and interferes with

people’s daily activities at school, at work, at home and during leisure

time. It can disturb sleep, cause cardiovascular and psychophysiological

effects, reduce performance and provoke annoyance responses and

changes in social behaviour.22

Excessive noise is not only an annoyance, but also a serious health concern for those living in affected acoustic communities. In a podcast about preventing musical injuries, cellist and well-recognized advocate for injury prevention Janet Horvath, details hearing loss injuries sustained by musicians. She first mentions tinnitus, which is commonly experienced as a ringing in the ears. However, at high severity it can escalate to be perceived as a constant roar that drowns out physical sounds. Severe tinnitus drastically changes one’s quality of life and a correlation has been observed between it and the likelihood of suicidal thoughts and tendencies. Another injury she describes is called hyperacusis, a cruel foil of tinnitus, described by the afflicted as hearing everything as if it were amplified leading to a “total breakdown of the tolerance of all sound.” As hyperacusis is incurable, many with the condition abandon city life. Though

Horvath’s work is aimed specifically at protecting musicians, she points out a rise in the number of people reporting these conditions and cites a rise in cultural noise as a possible cause.23 These conditions will continue to affect people who are often exposed

22 “Noise.” 2018. World Health Organization. April 30, 2018. http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/environment-and-health/noise/noise.

23 Kageyama, Noa. Janet Horvath: On Preventing Overuse Injuries and Playing Pain-Free. The Bulletproof Musician, n.d. Accessed April 13, 2019. 9 to loud sounds. If cultural noise continues to rise, more people will be exposed to louder and denser soundscapes.

The rise in cultural noise is a problem that has very serious implications if left unsolved. The trend must be reversed for the preservation of our soundscapes and the health of those who live in them. My project will bring attention to the soundmarks of

Athens and use them to show the imbalance between signals and ambiance in.

Experiencing this imbalance will foster a greater appreciation for the signals and soundmarks of the Athenian acoustic community among its inhabitants. If listeners are pushed to view sound as a “source for wellbeing for individuals and the community”24, then they will be more cognizant of their contribution to cultural noise levels.

Soundwalks in Practice

As mentioned above, one branch of soundscape ecology embraces artistic creation of soundscapes. The soundwalking medium is heavily influenced by this branch.25 Hildegard Westerkamp defines a soundwalk as “any excursion whose purpose is listening to the environment”.26 Toby Butler, sound artist and researcher at the

University of London, uses a narrower definition; “…walks in the outside world guided by recorded sound and voice.” Clearly, this activity can be expressed in different ways making the genre of ‘soundwalking’ difficult to generalize. To best delineate this field, I will review seven soundwalks.

24 Uimonen, 256.

25 Butler, 889.

26 Uimonen, 258.

Listen by Max Neuhaus

Neuhaus’ work takes the form of a series of walks that Neuhaus led through existing spaces with interesting sound profiles in Manhattan.27 Toby Butler, a soundwalk composer, summarized the participants’ experience, saying that

…the audience would meet outside the concert hall where they would

have their hands stamped with the word ‘LISTEN’ and they would then

follow Neuhaus (who said nothing) around the nearby streets where they

would be led to sonically interesting areas, like under [overpasses]

(Foundation 2005).28

Neuhaus’ work is a simple example of a soundwalk. With no augmentation, Neuhaus attempts to raise awareness of sound in his participants by exposing them directly to areas that he personally finds interesting. This, in turn, also created space for participants to interact with the area around them as they are not cut off from their environment in any way.

These walks were composed between 1966 and 1976. Unfortunately, Neuhaus does not perform the walks any more. However, any person trying to recreate the essence of this experience could explore the surrounding acoustic community and curate a personal route.

Kits Beach Soundwalk by Hildegard Westerkamp29

27 Butler, 892.

28 Butler, 892.

29 This work was released in 1996 on Westerkamp’s album Transformations. It can also be accessed on YouTube at this URL: www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg96nU6ltLk.

Unlike the previous soundwalk, Westerkamp’s soundwalk doesn’t require that the listener physically walk a route. Rather, it is a recorded, literal and metaphorical representation of Kits Beach, Vancouver. The listener can experience the work regardless of physical location or time.30 Westerkamp narrates her processes, putting her recordings of the soundscape through equalizers and filters to introduce the listener to traditionally inaudible sounds. She eventually allows the noise of the city to overpower the breathtaking sounds that she has parsed, instilling a sense of loss in the listener. The work is representative of Westerkamp’s desire to preserve natural sounds of a landscape, exemplified by her work often featuring sounds with naturally low volume and their battle against noise. In a Cambridge-published review, David Kobler praised the work for “provid[ing] an opportunity to give recognition and support – space – to voices that have been silenced”.31 Westerkamp’s soundwalk encourages its listeners to be more cognizant of their own noise by exposing the beauty of natural sound.

Linked by Graeme Miller 32

Linked is an example of the most common form of soundwalk that, unlike the previous walks, incorporates both a route and augmentation; this is the form I will be using in my soundwalk. Miller’s soundwalk requires participants to walk alongside the six-lane M11 roadway in London. The walk’s augmentation is broadcast through transmitters installed on telephone poles and sent to the listener’s receiver connected to

30 Kolber, David. 2002. “Hildegard Westerkamp’s Kits Beach Soundwalk: Shifting Perspectives in Real World Music.” Organised Sound; Cambridge 7 (1): 41.

31 Kobler, 42.

32 Linked was installed in London in 2003 and can still be walked today. Receiver packs can be borrowed for free from Toynbee Studios in London.

12 their headphones. Miller’s walk uses snippets recorded from interviews of some of the more than one thousand families who had been displaced by the construction of the highway.33Miller is attempting to paint the picture of the life that existed in the space occupied by M11 before it’s construction. Butler’s goal was to tell the story of a place through oral history and sound art. I found the use of recorded interviews for source material to be a notable method of connecting the listener to places due to the voice’s capacity for direct communication using spoken language.

The missing voice (case study b) by Janet Cardiff 34

This soundwalk uses narrative as its primary formal device. The listener follows characters through the streets as Cardiff narrates. The tour starts in the Whitechapel

Library and makes its way to crowded parts of London. The walk is guided entirely by a Walkman obtained at Whitechapel Library.35 The walk ends at a street station and asks the listener to return to the library. The participant must walk back the way they came without Janet Cardiff’s narration.36 This allows the listener time to experience the environment unguided, just as Cardiff did on her scouting walks to create the work.

33 Butler, Toby, and Graeme Miller. 2005. “Cultural Geographies in Practice: Linked: A Landmark in Sound, a Public Walk of Art.” Cultural Geographies 12 (1): 79. https://doi.org/10.1191/1474474005eu317xx.

34 Cardiff’s soundwalk was released in 1999 but can still be checked-out today from the Whitechapel Gallery in London.

35 Lingwood, James. 1999. “The Missing Voice: Case Study B.” Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller. 1999. http://www.cardiffmiller.com/artworks/walks/missing_voice.html.

36 Lingwood.

The walk follows a detective, voiced by Cardiff, who is trying to use recorded audio snippets to find a “missing person”. The snippets are taken from Cardiff’s scouting walks in the city, developing another personality within her: the “missing person”.37 This walk is an introspective look at the personalities that can be hidden within a person. James Lingwood, an editor for the project, called it “a work for a city where everyone is a stranger – a city where people come to lose themselves, or find themselves; a place where people go missing every day”.38 Cardiff had hoped to get closer to the city through the process of creating this walk and produced a work that draws the listener closer as well.

Alter Bahnhof Video Walk by Janet Cardiff and George Burges Miller39

Another walk by Cardiff in collaboration with George Burges Miller takes the form of a video on a “portable media player”. This is a slightly different medium than the previous examples, but important to include because, similarly to audio soundwalks, this project brings the participant closer to his or her environment.

In this walk, the listener is guided through the train station in Kassel, Germany, which has been converted into a social and cultural hub. The video depicts the artists’ experiences in the same space and guides listeners to interact with the people around them. One way they accomplish this is by asking participants to cross a crowded open

37 Lingwood.

38 Lingwood.

39 Cardiff and Miller’s walk was released in 2012 and can still be accessed in the train station in Germany called Hauptbahnhof. Cardiff and Miller have posted a six-minute clip following part of the soundwalk on YouTube. It can be accessed at this URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOkQE7m31Pw.

14 space diagonally, forcing them to cross paths with many others. The video combined with the act of walking through the space creates a blur between Cardiff and Miller’s reality and the reality of the participant.40 The walk explores the culture by examining the people around the route as well as the history of the train station. The walk “ends” by the media player’s battery appearing to die, quickly making participants aware of their location and giving them the opportunity of unguided exploration.

Soundwalk: audio guides for insiders by Stephan Crasneanscki

Soundwalks have been historically unpopular, likely due to their lack of a concrete discipline as shown above.41 Crasneanscki established this series of soundwalks in collaboration with Oversampling Inc. They are facilitated by a CD guide and the first few “soundtracks” were created for different neighborhoods in New York. The walks follow a member from the community for which the walk is composed as the person guides a scripted tour of the place. Oversampling Inc. commercialized the series, allowing companies to sponsor the creation of soundwalks that focus on specific topics in specific locations. For example, Adidas sponsored a walk in New York with the subject of baseball. The series was a success and has spawned walks in Paris and India as well. These soundwalks are primarily geared toward tourists rather than sound art connoisseurs and generally take place in urban areas.42 The goal of these walks was to create a commercially-viable attraction for tourists taking advantage of the cinematic

40 Groth, 107.

41 Butler, “A Walk of Art”, 889.

42 Butler, “A Walk of Art”, 869.

15 quality of soundwalking. However, these soundwalks still give listeners an opportunity to experience specific places through an artist’s interpretation.

Presque Rien No. 1 by Luc Ferarri43

Though not traditionally referred to as a soundwalk, Luc Ferarri’s sonic recreation of a small fishing village as it wakes up in the morning is another form of soundscape exploration. Ferarri says that this sound piece like a sonic photograph. His goal in the creation of this work was to accurately recreate the soundscape.44 I found that in listening to his works, his use of primarily unaltered sounds gives a very realistic essence. It seems that a listener could close their eyes and be transported to whatever sonic landscape Ferarri has created.

Even though it is not a soundwalk, this piece and others in the same style will serve as inspiration for the audio content of my soundwalk.

Summary

The medium of soundwalking is incredibly diverse because of its ability to address a wide range topics and disciplines.45 Nevertheless, the soundwalks presented above demonstrate a few underlying similarities. All of these soundwalks rely on the

43 Ferrari’s Presque Rien No. 1 was released as part of a four-piece set of pieces between 1967 and 1970. It can be accessed at this URL: http://lucferrari.com/en/analyses- reflexion/presque-rien-ou-le-lever-du-jour-au-bord-de-la-mer/

44 Ferrari, Luc. “Presque Rien Ou Le Lever Du Jour Au Bord de La Mer.” Luc Ferrari (blog). Accessed April 14, 2019. http://lucferrari.com/en/analyses-reflexion/presque- rien-ou-le-lever-du-jour-au-bord-de-la-mer/.

45 Butler, “A Walk of Art”, 889.

16 features of the soundscape in which they are set. This pattern was also found in a review of soundwalks and sound art by Sanne Groth, assistant professor of

Performance Design, at Roskilde University.46 It is also important to note that the majority of these walks required the participants to engage directly with their environments. It is my hypothesis that allowing a participant unguided time will help them begin to experience sound in a similar way as the composers did during their scouting trips and deepen an appreciation for the selected acoustic community. The essence of soundwalking, as parsed from these examples, is an exploration of the sounds that make up specific locations and their relationships with other sounds and the culture that is surrounded by them.

46 Groth, 110. 17

Project Overview

R. Murray Schafer defines a soundwalk as “an exploration of the soundscape of a given area using a score as a guide.”47 This soundwalk was designed to heighten listener’s awareness of their soundscape and acts as an introduction to the concept of listening as a practice. The heightened awareness will foster an appreciation for the sounds that make up the listener’s daily life, bringing the problem of noise pollution to the forefront of the listener’s attention.

Recording Phase

The recording of material for this project took place between August and October of 2018 through participant-based recorded listening walks. I took five volunteers from

Ohio University on the route for the soundwalk with a Zoom H4n field recorder and asked them to record sounds they found interesting. In an effort to ensure that participants would be drawn to different aspects of the soundscape, I tried to gather volunteers from several colleges at the University. However, there was a limited amount of interested volunteers, likely due, in part, to the two-hour time commitment to participate. Two of the volunteers were double majoring in Music Education and

Performance, one was majoring in Communications, and one in Political Science. Even though the participants were not academically diverse, the combination of an infinitely shifting soundscape and individual preferences yielded unique recordings from each participant.

47 Schafer, 213.

Before embarking, the participants received an instruction sheet for the walk48 and were put through a brief preparation exercise. The goals of this preparation were to ensure a focused mindset in the participants and foster a sensitivity to the sounds around them. In her book Deep Listening: A Composer’s Sound Practice, Pauline Oliveros writes a section containing instructions for several bodywork preparations for the practice of listening. I took the most practical exercises from this to create my own preparation meditation.

The meditation starts with the participant seated or standing in a comfortable posture and eyes closed. The first Oliveros method is then introduced: breath regulation. This is a pattern of slowly breathing in for a count of six, holding for a count of four, exhaling for a count of four, and holding for another count of four.49 This is an important addition to the exercise because focusing attention on the breath stimulates deep breathing. Deep breathing encourages circulation and oxygenation in the brain, which can be calming. Oliveros even says, “Returning attention to breathing at stressful moments can be empowering .50 Next, each of the participants were provided with a mantra that was slightly adapted from Pauline Oliveros51: “With each inhale I return my attention to the spectrum of sound around me. With each exhale I listen another layer deeper.” These mantras are designed to focus the participants attention on the sounds around them in an active way, giving the participant a tangible method to practice listening. The participant is given a few minutes to meditate on the mantras, and then

48 See Appendix A.

49 Oliveros, 10.

50 Oliveros, 11.

51 “With each breath I return to the whole of the space/time continuum.” Oliveros, 12.

19 the last mantra is given: “Listen with your whole body. Listening is a way to touch faraway things.” Because sound can be felt through the whole body while talking or listening, this mantra is designed to change the listener’s perspective on sound; to further bring their attention to the soundscape.52 The relationship of the senses of hearing and touch was discussed by R. Murray Schafer in his book The Soundscape: Our

Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World, stating that the act of a shared-experience public listening is intimate and personal.53 This section of the mantra is designed to frame the walk as an intimate experience. A focus on the physicality of sound should give the listener another tangible method of listening. At this point, it should be noted that listening is a practice and this five-minute preparation exercise alone likely does not greatly alter a person’s ability to listen. However, the participants unanimously reported that the preparation exercise was calming and they believed that it was easier to focus on the sounds and carry out the walk than if they had done nothing at all.

After the preparation, the walk was conducted in a meditative spirit. Participants were informed to limit talking and I guided the pacing of each walk without conversation. Each participant monitored their recordings with headphones to reveal sounds that the participants may not have heard or paid attention to before. This was done because Pauline Oliveros claims “Headphones tend to focus attention on sounds that ordinarily are not in your awareness.”54 Each of the participants was given a Zoom

H4n, a Sennheiser MKH 60 P48 shotgun microphone (which has a narrow polar pattern resulting in a focused field of recording), and a pair or Sony MDR-7506 studio

52 Oliveros, 15.

53 Schafer, 11.

54 Oliveros, 28. 20 monitoring headphones for the walk. The participants then started to record and note times at which they recorded something they found interesting.

The recorded listening walks followed the same route as the final soundwalk. As such, the final product is composed of sounds that were captured around the listener, no matter where the listener is along the walk. The walk begins by the Athens’ bike path entrance next to the River Gate student apartment complex. After walking to the northwest corner of the intramural fields, the walk proceeds west to east green through the Read-Johnson Scholars Complex. It continues up the stairs behind Bryan Hall and crosses College Green. At this point, the walk loops around the library and the listener is exposed to raw street noise as they walk around the corner of Park Place and Court

Street. The walk ends in a secluded wildflower garden behind Bentley Hall. (see

Appendix C)

After each walk, the participants were subjected to a recorded interview about their perceptions of sound and their experience relating the walk. These recordings also serve as sound material in the final product. The interview questions asked of each participant are listed in Appendix B.

After the listening/recording walks had been completed, I used Logic Pro X to analyze the recordings taken by the participants. Because the participants had restarted the Zoom recording after every interesting sound, it was easy to find what sounds grabbed the participant’s attention. But, this process yielded another interesting result.

After careful analysis of these walks, I also uncovered sounds that either weren’t perceived on the walk or were not deemed interesting by the participants. Each isolated sound that I thought would be useful for the project was then exported from Logic Pro

X and cataloged by participant name and location along the walk.

Composition Phase

The composition of the audio material for this soundwalk took place between

October 2018, and April of 2019. The walk was composed using several different pieces of computer software: Logic Pro X, Max MSP, Audacity, and the GRM Evolution plugin. A brief description of the primary function of each program follows.

Logic Pro X

Logic Pro X is a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), designed by Apple. The program can be used for recording, arranging, composing, sketching ideas, and editing as well as many other activities related to digital audio.55 The software most notably provides a graphic audio track window allowing for the arrangement of audio files and

MIDI recordings, a mixer allowing for panning, volume adjustment, and the addition of plug-ins.56 The program’s most useful aspect in the construction of this project were its automation features. Changes to the mix and temporally changing plug-in settings can be recorded into the track display and edited later, allowing for flexibility in manipulation of audio files.57 For this project, the software was used for the analysis of the recorded listening-walks, as well as the assembly of all of the audio accompaniment.

The plug-ins available in Logic Pro X are comprehensive.58 However, a third- party plug-in by Ina-GRM – Groups de Reserches Musicales contained within their

55 “Logic Pro X User Guide”, 15.

56 “Logic…”, 23.

57 “Logic…”, 122.

58 “Logic…”, 124.

GRM Tools set of plug-ins called Evolution was used heavily in the fifth track, “Across

College Green”.

Max MSP

Max MSP is an object-oriented programing language that creates a digital audio processing environment functions with an internal logic based on analog processing practices. The program offers a seemingly-bare interface, but allows for flexible musical creativity and connectivity between other programs. This connectivity allows Max to control parameters or be controlled by parameters of myriad software and hardware.

The program has become a staple of electroacoustic music composition since the 1990s, when Cycling ’74 took over the development of Max and helped add a feature called

“MSP” which allowed for real-time audio synthesis, infinitely expanding the possibilities of the program.59

The quality of the built-in objects and prebuilt patches led me to use the program in my project. The soundwalk didn’t require heavy audio processing and manipulations. But Max’s granulation, delay, and speed functions were used in conjunction with, and sometimes instead of, Logic Pro X’s built-in options.

Audio Spray Gun

Audio Spray Gun is an experimental program that was used for material generation for the accompaniment of the soundwalk. The program was coded by

Richard Garrett in SuperCollider,60 a platform designed for synthesizing audio and

59 Sheffield.

60 Garrett, Richard. “Audio Spray Gun.” Sunday Dance Music (blog), September 4, 2015. http://www.sundaydance.co.uk/audio-spray-gun/. 23 creating algorithmic music.61 Audio Spray Gun plays back random overlapping samples of selected audio file and automatically spatializes a gesture within several different pluriphonic speaker arrays. The program gives the composer total control of the density, position, volume, and pitch of samples over the duration of the gesture.62 The program is most powerful in an 8-channel surround set-up to emphasize the spatialization. However, it still performs the same functions in the stereo field required for this walk.

In this project, the program was used to temporally develop the recorded material primarily for active sections of the piece. It is most prominently used in the sixth track, “ParkxCourtxPresident”.

Audacity

This open-source program is another DAW developed by many volunteers. It’s distributed under a General Public License so it is free to use and free for any developer to study and improve. The software performs the basic functions of a DAW well: arranging audio files, recording live audio, basic file conversion. The main selling points are the lack of cost and relative ease of use compared to fully-featured software like Logic Pro X, which was built with music industry professionals in mind.63

In this project, Audacity was used for its pitch, speed, and noise reduction functions. Pitch and speed functions yielded a less distorted sound than Logic and a

61 “SuperCollider.” Accessed April 18, 2019. https://supercollider.github.io/.

62 Garrett.

63 Kozikowski. 24 simpler workflow than Max making it valuable. The noise reduction capabilities were used to eliminate unwanted sound from the participant recordings.

Overview of Athenian Acoustics

A performance of this piece will require a mobile device that connects to the internet and is capable of audio playback through headphones. It is recommended to use open-ear headphones or earbuds subject to noise-bleeding. The sounds occurring in the environment interact with the accompaniment in intentionally constructive and destructive ways. The audio accompaniment tracks can be accessed on Soundcloud at this URL: https://soundcloud.com/nolan-miller-320155412/sets/athenian-acoustics-1.

This walk also incorporates brief free interaction periods. These will be signaled by a twenty second silence at the end of the preceding track. This silence prompts the listener to remove their headphones and pause the track on their mobile device. At this point, the participants of the walk are free observe, contribute to, and/or interact with their sonic environment. It is suggested that these interactions last at least three minutes but no longer than five minutes.

Track 01 – Athenian Acoustics

The Athenian Acoustics soundwalk opens on the Athens bike path alongside the

Hocking River. Across from the starting position is an active highway. The listener is situated between this and an apartment complex. Tall grass runs along the side of the

Hocking River. The sounds of people passing on the trail, bugs, birds, the wind blowing through the grass, and the cars on the freeway all served as material for the accompaniment for this part of the walk. 25

This movement is written in two large sections. The first is comprised of mostly natural-sounding material. This is due to the lack of manipulation on many of the audio samples used. While most the first section was composed through layering of unaltered files, some sounds were altered or manipulated to simulate natural sounds. The sound of geese flying overhead was created with an EXS24 sample instrument. The EXS24 plug-in allows a user to program sounds onto a MIDI Controller. With this tool, I was able to turn a few short recordings of geese into a full flock without manually entering and repeating audio files in the project.

The second part of the movement begins to feature fewer natural sounds. The active material for the section is the sound of a plastic bottle that a participant found on a recorded listening walk. With the help of Max MSP’s granulator and Audio Spray

Gun, the bottle was turned into short ripping gestures. A brief interaction between the natural and unnatural sounds occurs before the ending fades off into an synthesized cricket-like sound.

The movement sets the stage for the types of sounds that will be heard and presents a theme of the walk, the struggle between natural and unnatural (or manmade) sound. The duration of the movement is 7’24”.

Track 02 – Sounds of the Rock Pile

Immediately preceding this movement, the soundwalkers will engage in a free interaction period with a small pile of rocks next to an underground ditch. The material for the movement comes from the sounds of different rocks hitting different surfaces in the area. The underground ditch also provided material. Because it is essentially a long concrete tube, it provided very interesting reverberations that were captured with the

Zoom at several different distances from the rocks point of impact in the tunnel. This 26 movement is used to transition the walker from the rock pile to a halfway point en route to the Read-Johnson Scholars’ Complex.

The movement’s opening section was created in the same way as the geese flock from the first track. All of the short rock collision sounds were sampled and put into an

EXS24 instrument and I created gestures using a midi controller. The section evolves into rock scraping sounds. The scraping sounds were incorporated using the binaural panning features in Logic. Binaural panning allows the composer to place a sound on a circular grid, the center of which represents the lister. The composer is free to place the sound anywhere in space around the listener and Logic will balance and filter the sound automatically to make it sound like it occupies that space. Binaural audio is an audio illusion that is only effective in headphones. But, since the walk will be experienced through headphones, most of the panning for this movement was done binaurally. The scraping sounds build into an explosion that leaves the listener in a totally new and synthesized soundscape that was created using reverb mixed without the original sounds that activated the digital space. Left is an airy, hissing sound that is developed utilizing the binaural panning features.

This movement occurs over the longest and least acoustically interesting section of the walk so it was used as an opportunity to exercise more active compositional methods. It also continues to juxtapose the natural and unnatural. The duration of this movement is 4’00”.

Track 03 – Transit, RJSC

This movement shares a function with the second in that it serves to move the walker the rest of the way to the Read-Johnson Scholars’ Complex. The listener walks through a parking lot and crosses a street along the route. The primary material for this 27 section of the soundwalk were bird chirping samples, the crack of a stick breaking underfoot, and the buzz of an insect that flew close to the microphone.

This movement opens with a brief introduction of various sounds gathered in the area. The sounds of granulated birds chirping and different alterations of a granulated stick breaking texture were combined to create a water-droplet type of sound. This resembles natural sound in the area. However, it gives the listener a feeling of artificiality further contributing to the natural versus unnatural theme. As the listener nears campus, a granular texture of birds battles with the roar of passing car engines, campus bell chimes, and an electrical buzz that was recorded from a flood light along the route and put through a granulator.

All of the granulation done in this and other movements was performed with

Max MSP’s prebuilt patch ‘granularized’. Though it is a transition movement like the

“Sounds of the Rock Pile”, this movement functions as an introduction to the primary sounds for the next two slow movements: birds and bells. The duration of this movement is 4’12”.

Track 04 – Birds Under Bryan

The fourth track starts at the bottom of the three-section staircase that leads to a small patio behind Bryan Hall. The movement follows a free interaction period through the Scholars’ Complex and a portion of East Green. During this movement, the soundwalkers will climb the stairs and are granted a rest period in the patio at the top for the remainder of the movement. The primary material for this movement, if it was not already delineated by the title, are the birds that reside in the trees behind Bryan

Hall. 28

This movement opens with a five-note chirping motive before a low drone enters. Both of which are altered recordings of birds. The primary technique used to develop the material was time stretching and pitch shifting. Using a mix of audio file arrangement and EXS24 MIDI input, I created “clouds” of these birds using various pitch levels and panning. Aside from one interjection in the first movement, this is the first time the audience hears from the participants that recorded the material for the walk. Thought-provoking clips about sound and listening interject over a long continuous bass drone that was created by extreme time stretching and pitch shifting on the five-chirps motivic material . This movement, if played out of the context of the walk, would likely feel lacking to the listener. Due to the use of pitch shifting, none of the birds in the audio accompaniment actually sound at the recorded frequencies of real birds. This allows the sound of the birds in the space around the listener to bleed through the headphones and become part of the piece. To bolster the piece’s sense of motion, an artificial flapping noise acts as a transition between different material and often frames the use of speech.

The juxtaposition of the sounds of the birds in the space around the walker and the distorted and stretched sounds of birds in the accompaniment offer a dissonance that contributes to the heightened tension between natural and unnatural. The duration of the movement is 5’56”.

Track 05 – Across College Green

This section of the walk twists through College Green, loops around Cutler Hall and ends in a garden behind the building. Cutler Hall is home to one of Athens’ bell towers that chimes every half hour. The chime is the primary source material for this movement. The development of the material was done primarily through the third- 29 party Logic Pro X plug-in, Evolution, designed by Groupe de Recherches Musicales

(GRM). This powerful plug-in samples an input signal intermittently and generates a continuous timbre change from one sample to the next.64 This allows a composer to create long pads out of any sound fed through the plug-in.

The track opens with an introductory scene on college green with light bird chatter, the hum of car engines, and the sounds of students out and about that will blend with the physical sounds around the listener. The first section of material is driven by a repeated chime strike, the sounds of footsteps, and a granulated texture of a flag waving. This section, through its use of dissonance and sheer volume, drowns out the physical sound around the listener and aggressively pulls the walk into a sound world completely created with the sound of chimes. This active phrase evaporates into the next section which uses a relatively static texture that eventually clears for two statements of the ubiquitous Westminster chime that slowly fades into a dream-like cloud. The cloud builds into an abrupt awakening of the physical world by the final and fullest statement of the chime that the listener experiences in the garden between Alden library and Cutler Hall.

This movement is a compositional exploration of one of the soundmarks of

Athens, Ohio. It masks much more outside noise than the previous movements contributing to the listener’s sense of transporting to a different sound world. This creates a dissonance between the senses giving College Green a surreal affect. This movement is the first that is dominated by unnatural sound. The piece is only framed in brief scenes on College Green. The duration of the movement is 6’35”.

64 Favreau, Emmanuel. “GRM Tools Evolution - User’s Guide.” Ina GRM, 2011. 16.

Track 06 – ParkxCourtxPresident

After the fifth track, soundwalkers are given a free interaction period that brings them around Park Place up to the fountain, where the sixth track starts.

“ParkxCourtxPresident” serves as a provocative transition into the final movement of the soundwalk. The route follows the streets listed in the title which brings the listener past a bustling Baker Center, the traffic light at the intersection of Court Street, and

President Street. Through this movement, Audio Spray Gun was heavily used to give motion to the sounds of passing cars.

The form of this movement follows the acoustic profile of the pedestrian areas. In two overlapping sections, the piece begins slow and spacious featuring the sound of a chain that was recorded from a porch swing on Park Place. Buzzing gestures begin to make the piece feel a bit denser before it crescendos into a more invasive soundscape. A metallic humming sound that was recorded from a post office drop box was altered using the same techniques that were applied to the birds in the fourth movement creating an unsettling foreground melody. This eerie drone serves as the catalyst for the push into the end of the piece. The final and fullest section’s material is the sound of a line of cars’ engines starting. As the listener passes the traffic light at the intersection of

President and Court street, the accompaniment is taken over by layered sounds of passing cars as well as distorted sounds that contribute to a feeling that the soundscape is being “torn” at times.

This movement is the most unnatural out of the seven. Every sound used in this movement was manufactured by man. This contributes to the lo-fi atmosphere of the piece. The metallic humming melody also contributes to placing this movement on the unnatural side of the spectrum. This track is meant to make the listener a bit 31 uncomfortable and perhaps even annoyed with the manmade sounds that make up

Athens. The duration of this movement is 4’58”.

Track 07 – Wildflower Garden, Finale

This last track of this soundwalk serves as the conclusion to the hour-long soundwalk. Segments from the recorded listening-walk interviews are the primary material of this track. They are accompanied by mostly natural sounds in an attempt to create the feeling of a hi-fi environment. In the interest of coherence, techniques from throughout the walk were used to continue to develop material. This section of the accompaniment brings the listener into the wildflower garden behind Bentley Hall, where the walk ends.

The sixth movement continues attacca into the last. The introduction to the final track features short, cricket chirp motives that are accompanied by an atmospheric hum parsed from the sounds of Bentley Hall’s air conditioners. Three interview statements elide to form the first phrase over the continued hum. Mention of the grass by the

Hocking River prompts the return of track one’s opening material. A brief section of grass and crickets is quickly interrupted by several anecdotes about sound in daily life.

A story about a broken blender rips the listener into a much more aggressive environment that re-introduces the lo-fi sounds of Athens. This lo-fi section is torn away as quickly as it appeared and the listener is left in a hi-fi and spacious environment. The last statement that we hear is “That’s really what this was all about was enjoying the moment”. The gradual decrescendo in the last two minutes of this piece continues until only one cricket is left. 32

This movement returns the listener to the natural sounds on which the walk began. After the discomfort experienced in the sixth track, this track offers a resolution to the calamity that preceded it. The duration of this track is 5’45”.

Conclusion

The Athenian Acoustics soundwalk will remain available on Soundcloud along with all of the documentation required to perform the walk (see Appendix C & D).

Though the documentation is helpful, I believe the walk is more enjoyably experienced with a guide. I will be presenting four performances of the walk before I move away from Athens.

This walk challenges the listener and offers a different perspective on the sounds that make up daily life. The soundscapes that we live in are a part of our environment.

They deserve the same effort that we give to natural preservation. However, this is a problem that doesn’t make itself clear as readily as the extinction of species delineates the destruction of nature. This issue must be brought to the attention of local governments in order to find solutions to manage our ever-growing acoustic world. The first step to this is listening and championing the idea of listening in daily life. The constant drone of humanity has conditioned us to tune out the sounds around us.

Listening is a practice. If we spend less time listening, we will (arguably, many already have) become incapable of detecting nuances in our soundscapes. As we let our focus drift from our acoustic communities, cultural noise levels will continue to rise gradually which could lead to serious mental and physical health concerns. It is vital that projects like this continue to be created to bring public attention to the excessive noise of our society and to foster a desire to preserve our high fidelity soundscapes.

Bibliography

Appleton, Jon. 1969. “Reevaluating the Principle of Expectation in Electronic Music.” Perspectives of New Music 8 (1): 106–11.

Battier, Marc. 2003. “A Constructivist Approach to the Analysis of Electronic Music and Audio Art: Between Instruments and Faktura.” Organised Sound: An International Journal of Music Technology 8 (3): 249–55.

Behrendt, Frauke. n.d. “Creative Sonification of Mobility and Sonic Interaction with Urban Space: An Ethnographic Case Study of a GPS Sound Walk.” In Collected Work: The Oxford Handbook of Mobile Music Studies, Vol. 2. Series: Oxford Handbooks, (Number of Volumes: 2) Published by: Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 2014. Pages: 189-211. (AN: 2014-02542). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Biggs, Elizabeth W. 2009. “Everyone Play: Sound, Public Space, and the (Re)Making of Place.” Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International (UMI).

Burtner, Matthew. 2011. “EcoSono: Adventures in Interactive Ecoacoustics in the World.” Organised Sound 16 (03): 234–44. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1355771811000240.

Butler, Toby. 2006. “A Walk of Art: The Potential of the Sound Walk as Practice in Cultural Geography.” Social & Cultural Geography 7 (6): 889–908. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649360601055821.

Butler, Toby, and Graeme Miller. 2005. “Cultural Geographies in Practice: Linked: A Landmark in Sound, a Public Walk of Art.” Cultural Geographies 12 (1): 77–88. https://doi.org/10.1191/1474474005eu317xx.

Çamcı, Anil. 2016. “Imagining through Sound: An Experimental Analysis of Narrativity in Electronic Music.” Collected Work: Organised Sound: An International Journal of Music Technology. XXI/3 (December 2016): Sound and Narrative. Published by: Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2016. (AN: 2016-19520). 21 (3): 179–91.

Curry, Michael R. 2005. “Toward a Geography of a World without Maps: Lessons from Ptolemy and Postal Codes.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 95 (3): 680– 691.

Favreau, Emmanuel. “GRM Tools Evolution - User’s Guide.” Ina GRM, 2011.

Ferrari, Luc. “Presque Rien Ou Le Lever Du Jour Au Bord de La Mer.” Luc Ferrari (blog). Accessed April 14, 2019. http://lucferrari.com/en/analyses-reflexion/presque- rien-ou-le-lever-du-jour-au-bord-de-la-mer/.

Garrett, Richard. “Audio Spray Gun.” Sunday Dance Music (blog), September 4, 2015. http://www.sundaydance.co.uk/audio-spray-gun/.

Gopinath, Sumanth S., and Jason Stanyek. 2014. The Oxford Handbook of Mobile Music Studies. Oxford Handbooks 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 35

Groth, Sanne Krogh, and Kristine Samson. 2013. “Urban Sound Ecologies.” SoundEffects - An Interdisciplinary Journal of Sound and Sound Experience 3 (3): 94–112.

Groth, Sanne Krogh, and Kristine Samson. “Urban Sound Ecologies.” SoundEffects - An Interdisciplinary Journal of Sound and Sound Experience 3, no. 3 (December 1, 2013): 94–112.

Harrison, Jonty. n.d. “CEC — EContact! 14.4 — The Final Frontier?: Spatial Strategies in Acousmatic Composition and Performance by Jonty Harrison.” CEC | Canadian Electroacoustic Community. Accessed September 17, 2018. https://econtact.ca/14_4/harrison_spatialstrategies.html.

Kageyama, Noa. Janet Horvath: On Preventing Overuse Injuries and Playing Pain-Free. The Bulletproof Musician, n.d. Accessed April 13, 2019.

Kolber, David. 2002. “Hildegard Westerkamp’s Kits Beach Soundwalk: Shifting Perspectives in Real World Music.” Organised Sound; Cambridge 7 (1): 41–43.

Kozikowski, Greg. “About | Audacity ®.” Accessed April 13, 2019. https://www.audacityteam.org/about/.

Kyle, Gerard, and Garry Chick. 2007. “The Social Construction of a Sense of Place.” Leisure Sciences 29 (3): 209–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/01490400701257922.

Le Prado, Cécile, and Stéphane Natkin. n.d. “Design Process for Interactive Sound Installations: The Designer, the Interactor and the System.” Collected Work: Music Technology Meets Philosophy: From Digital Echos to Virtual Ethos, Vol. 1. Series: Proceedings of the International Computer Music Association, (Number of Volumes: 2) Published by: San Francisco, USA: International Computer Music Association, 2014. ISSN: 1026-1087. Pages: 499-505. (AN: 2014-15774).

Lee, Alexander. 2017. “THE MUSIC OF TIME NO 6: THE ART OF NOISES: As the Sounds of the World Rattled into the Future, so, Too, Did Art and Music.” History Today 67 (12): 84–86.

Lingwood, James. 1999. “The Missing Voice: Case Study B.” Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller. 1999. http://www.cardiffmiller.com/artworks/walks/missing_voice.html.

“Logic Pro X User Guide.” Apple, December 6, 2018.

McCartney, Andra. 1998. “Soundwalk in the Park with Hildegard Westerkamp.” Musicworks: Explorations in Sound, no. 72: 6–15.

Neuhaus, Max. n.d. “Listen.” Max Neuhaus. Accessed April 30, 2018. http://www.max-neuhaus.info/soundworks/vectors/walks/LISTEN/.

“Noise.” 2018. World Health Organization. April 30, 2018. http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/environment-and-health/noise/noise. 36

“Noise and Its Effects on Children.” 2009. United States Environmental Protection Agency. https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015- 07/documents/ochp_noise_fs_rev1.pdf.

O’Callaghan, James. 2011. “Soundscape Elements in the Music of Denis Smalley: Negotiating the Abstract and the Mimetic.” Organised Sound 16 (01): 54–62. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1355771810000439. Pecino, Ignacio, and Ricardo Climent. n.d. “SonicMaps: Connecting the Ritual of the Concert Hall with a Locative Audio Urban Experience.” Collected Work: International Developments in Electroacoustics. Series: Proceedings of the International Computer Music Association, Published by: San Francisco, USA: International Computer Music Association, 2013. ISSN: 1026-1087. Pages: 315-320. (AN: 2013-21570).

Peel, Kendra A. 2000. “DIRECTOR’S ORDER #47: Soundscape Preservation and Noise Management.” May 23, 2000. https://www.nps.gov/policy/dorders/dorder47.html.

Pinder, David. 2001. “Ghostly Footsteps: Voices, Memories and Walks in the City.” Ecumene 8 (1): 1–19.

Reid, Sarah Belle. 2017. “Notation Strategies for Sound-Based Electronic/Acoustic Music.” IAWM Journal 23 (2): 10–16.

“Results and Discussion - Effects - Noise Effect On Wildlife - Noise - Environment - FHWA.” n.d. Accessed April 30, 2018. https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/noise/noise_effect_on_wildlife/effects/wil d04.cfm.

Salimpoor, Valorie N., Mitchel Benovoy, Kevin Larcher, Alain Dagher, and Robert J. Zatorre. 2011. “Anatomically Distinct Dopamine Release during Anticipation and Experience of Peak Emotion to Music.” Nature Neuroscience 14 (2): 257. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.2726.

Schafer, R. Murray. The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World. Rochester, Vermont: Destiny Books, 1994.

Seay, Jesse. 2014. “Engaging the Audience: A Primer for Sound Art in Public Spaces.” Collected Work: Leonardo Music Journal. XXIV (2014): 40: Emerging Voices. Published by: Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2014. (AN: 2014-14805). 24 (January): 77–78.

Sheffield, Mike. “Max/MSP for Average Music Junkies—Hopes&Fears.” Accessed April 13, 2019. http://www.hopesandfears.com/hopes/culture/music/168579-max- msp-primer.

Stroppa, Marco, and Nigel Osborne. 1984. “The Analysis of Electronic Music.” Collected Work: Contemporary Music Review. I/1 (1984): Musical Thought at IRCAM. Published by: London: Harwood Academic, 1984. (AN: 1997-13339). 1 (1): 175–80.

“SuperCollider.” Accessed April 18, 2019. https://supercollider.github.io/. 37

Uimonen, Heikki. 2011. “Everyday Sounds Revealed: Acoustic Communication and Environmental Recordings.” Collected Work: Organised Sound: An International Journal of Music Technology. XVI/3 (December 2011): Sound, Listening and Place. I. Published by: Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2011. (AN: 2011-08150). 16 (3): 256–63.

Weinel, Jonathan, Stuart Cunningham, Darryl Griffiths, Shaun Roberts, and Richard Picking. 2014. “Affective Audio.” Collected Work: Leonardo Music Journal. XXIV (2014): 40: Emerging Voices. Published by: Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2014. (AN: 2014-14805). 24 (January): 17–20.

Westerkamp, Hildegard. 1985. “Acoustic Ecology and the Zone of Silence.” Collected Work: Musicworks: The Journal of Sound Exploration. 31 (Spring 1985): Women Voicing. Published by: Toronto, ON, Canada: Music Gallery, 1985. (AN: 1985-08584)., no. 31: 8–9.

Young, Gayle. 1984. “Composing with Environmental Sound: An Interview with Hildegard Westerkamp.” Musicworks: The Journal of Sound Exploration, no. 26: 4–8.

Appendix A

All volunteers who participated in the recorded listening-walks received this handout.

Athenian Acoustics Nolan Miller

Letter to Participant Thank you so much for your willingness to participate in this Recorded- Listening walk and interview! Your involvement will be instrumental in the successful completion of my Senior Thesis! Before we conduct the walk, I wanted to reach out and provide a bit of information about this project. The final product of my project will be a Soundwalk of Athens, OH. My soundwalk will be accompanied by electronic music created solely from sounds gathered from Athens and the interviews I will be conducting. Electronic music is a quite abstract genre and is so widely varied that to even call it a “genre” at all is misleading. This is due to the fact that composers can step into the world with microphones and record any sound to use as the material for their pieces. This gathering of a material requires composers to enter a different mindset. They must approach all sound as though it has the potential to be musical. I will ask you to do the same as you conduct your listening walk. You will be asked to follow the path that I provide for you and record sounds that you personally find interesting. For the entirety of the walk, you will be monitoring your recording through a pair of headphones. You will be given two microphones to switch freely between: the stereo mics on the field recorder and a shotgun mic that will pick up a very narrow radius of sound. However, you must use both of these microphones at least once on your walk. Following the walk we will conduct an interview that should last from thirty minutes to an hour. We will conduct these interviews in the isolation booth at Schoonover Center. All of your answers will be recorded in their entirety. Your answers may be used in the final project. (So feel free to say a lot in your answers, more material!!) Again, I want to thank you for reaching out to volunteer your time to help with my project! I hope that your walk is fun and ear-opening! ~ Nolan Miller

Zoom H4n and Microphone Tips - All microphone and setting changes will be performed by me - To record, tap the button labeled “Rec” twice. The first click will arm the microphone. The second will begin recording. - If you hear something interesting, position your microphone in different ways to capture it clearly. - While recording, be conscious of the sounds you make, particularly breathing and footsteps. Do you want these sounds to be part of your recordings? - Your body is excellent at absorbing sounds. If you want to block out a particular sound, putting your back to the source and recording with the mic close to your body may focus your target sound. - When you feel you have adequately captured your sound, hit the “Stop” button, then “Rec” twice, to begin recording a new sound - Exercise caution when recording sounds and be sure not to damage the microphones (especially when recording near water). If you’re not sure whether or not something may damage the equipment please ask me!

Request of Consent

By signing below, I, ______, give my consent to Nolan Miller to use any and all of the recorded material from my interview and/or listening walk.

Signature ______Date ______39

Appendix B

All volunteers who participated in the walk were subject to a a recorded interview. The questions used in these interviews are listed below:

1. What is sound? 2. What is hearing? 3. What is listening? 4. Is there a difference? 5. Are sound and listening important in your daily life? 6. Did anything about the recording process surprise you? 7. What differences did you notice between listening through the microphone and listening naturally? 8. What kinds of sounds interested you? What was interesting about them? 9. What sounds did you notice, generally, in the different locations along the route? 10. Can you make any generalizations about the different locations we visited? 11. Has your attitude toward sound changed over the course of this walk? 12. What feelings or sensations did you experience during your listening? 13. What sorts of sounds do you hear daily? 14. Did you feel connected to your environment? In what ways? 15. What are the most defining sounds of Athens? 16. Do you have any stories related to sound and/or Athens?

Appendix C

Companion documents for the soundwalk. Letter to soundwalk participants and map of the route.