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 1 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 By Nolan Miller April 2019 2 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. 4 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.