Showing papers on "Soundscape published in 2008"

The acoustic and visual factors influencing the construction of tranquil space in urban and rural environments tranquil spaces-quiet places?

Abstract: Prior to this work no structured mechanism existed in the UK to evaluate the tranquillity of open spaces with respect to the characteristics of both acoustic and visual stimuli. This is largely due to the fact that within the context of “tranquil” environments, little is known about the interaction of the audio-visual modalities and how they combine to lead to the perception of tranquillity. This paper presents the findings of a study in which visual and acoustic data, captured from 11 English rural and urban landscapes, were used by 44 volunteers to make subjective assessments of both their perceived tranquillity of a location, and the loudness of five generic soundscape components. The results were then analyzed alongside objective measurements taken in the laboratory. It was found that the maximum sound pressure level (LAmax) and the percentage of natural features present at a location were the key factors influencing tranquillity. Engineering formulas for the tranquillity as a function of the noise le...

Sound and immersion in the first-person shooter

Abstract: One of the aims of modern First-Person Shooter (FPS) design is to provide an immersive experience to the player. This paper examines the role of sound in enabling such immersion and argues that, even in 'realism' FPS games, it may be achieved sonically through a focus on caricature rather than realism. The paper utilizes and develops previous work in which both a conceptual framework for the design and analysis of run and gun FPS sound is developed and the notion of the relationship between player and FPS soundscape as an acoustic ecology is put forward (Grimshaw and Schott 2007a; Grimshaw and Schott 2007b). Some problems of sound practice and sound reproduction in the game are highlighted and a conceptual solution is proposed.

The SoundScape Renderer: A Unified Spatial Audio Reproduction Framework for Arbitrary Rendering Methods

Abstract: The SoundScape Renderer is a versatile software framework for real-time spatial audio rendering. The modular system architecture allows the use of arbitrary rendering methods. Three rendering modules are currently implemented: Wave Field Synthesis, Vector Base Amplitude Panning and Binaural Rendering. After a description of the software architecture, the implementation of the available rendering methods is explained and the graphical user interface is shown as well as the network interface for the remote control of the virtual audio scene. Finally, the Audio Scene Description Format, a system-independent storage file format, is briefly presented.

Soundwalking as a methodology for understanding soundscapes

Abstract: Soundwalking is a practice that was devised by R. Murray Schafer, when he established the World Soundscape Project at Simon Fraser University during the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is an empirical method for identifying a soundscape and components of a soundscape in various locations. In the EPSRC-funded Positive Soundscapes Project (Davies et al, 2007) we have utilized and adapted this concept of soundwalking into a sociological methodology for identifying and understanding people’s experiences and perceptions of the acoustic urban environment. Our soundwalk is a walk around an urban area where the senses are directed towards the sounds that are heard rather than the more commonplace sights that are viewed. We focus on everyday practices, as people move around and within the city environment with a view to understanding their professional and/or personal impressions of the relationships between the soundscape and the built infrastructure. This paper describes the development of the soundwalking methodology and its use as a tool to engage professionals who work in the area of urban design and urban development (including city planners, developers, and architects). The paper does not report on the findings of this project as data collection is currently ongoing but rather reflects on the utility of soundwalking as a methodological practice.

Soundscape composition as global music: Electroacoustic music as soundscape*

Abstract: The author covers the background of soundscape composition, as initiated by the World Soundscape Project at Simon Fraser University, and soundscape documentation as an activity that is being increasingly practised worldwide. Today there are two striking manifestations of this work: the increasing globalisation of the electroacoustic community, and the increasing sophistication of digital techniques applied to soundscape composition. In addition, the tradition of listening to environmental soundscapes as if they were music is inverted to suggest listening to electroacoustic music as if it were soundscape. What analytical tools and insights would result? The theoretical concepts introduced in soundscape studies and acoustic communication are summarised and applied first to media and digital gaming environments, noting the extensions of both their sound worlds and the related listening attitudes they provoke in terms of analytical and distracted listening. Traditional approaches to acousmatic and soundscape analysis are compared for their commonalities and differences, the latter being mainly their relative balance of attention towards inner and outer complexity. The types of electroacoustic music most amenable to a soundscape based analysis are suggested, along with brief examples of pieces to which such analysis might be directed.

Spatio-temporal variability in human and natural sounds in a rural landscape

Abstract: The study of landscape structure and functions, including the underlying ecological and anthropogenic processes has traditionally relied on visual aspects without considering information of non-visionary cues, e.g. auditory. In this work we applied a complementary approach for the study of landscapes using qualitative information for the sonic environment. In particular we studied the qualitative linkages between landscape structure and functions and daily sound patterns. The main objectives were the investigation of the spatial and temporal variability in sound perception, and the identification of the dominant sound categories (anthropogenic, biological, geophysical originated sounds) in relation to landscape characteristics. Our results showed significant spatio-temporal variability in the intensity of different sound categories, which reflects distinct soundscape patterns. Temporal sound variability reflected the daily cycle of anthropogenic activities and biological processes, whereas the spatial sound viability was mainly shaped by landscape attributes. The combination of the visual landscape information and its emergent acoustic profile enhances our perception and understanding of nature and this integrated approach may have many practical applications in landscape management, monitoring and planning.

Are perceived soundscapes within urban parks restorative

Abstract: The perceived quality of urban park soundscapes is starting to be explored, and attention restoration research has shown which environments are generally restorative. Yet the effect of perceived soundscapes on individuals' restorative experiences is hardly known. Natural environments, in general, provide restoration for people, including recovery from attentional fatigue and enabling reflection. Therefore the visually “natural” environment of urban parks provides a useful setting to explore the role of varying soundscapes in restoration. Four hundred park users within Sheffield, UK, were surveyed as they left two urban parks. Data were collected on aspects of their park visit, along with measures of their current perceived restoration. Participants' perceived soundscapes were described by the amount of time they heard certain sound types in the park, and the volume at which they heard them. Sound levels [LAeq, dB(A)] within the parks were also monitored on a number of days to provide contextual information. Results of the study will be discussed along with the importance of soundscape quality and individuals' restorative experiences in helping to provide a productive and positive quality of urban life.

Accra's Sounds and Sacred Spaces

Abstract: This article explores the sonic sacralization of urban space in the multicultural city of Accra. In Ghanaian cities today religious groups increasingly vie for public presence. It is especially the religious manifestation in the urban soundscape, most forcefully by charismatic-Pentecostal churches and preachers, that has of late generated controversy. While charismatic-Pentecostal ‘noisemaking’ leads to conflicts all year round, it is especially during the annual traditional ‘ban on drumming and noisemaking’ that the religious confrontation over sound and silence in the city comes to full and violent expression. Approaching the articulation between religiosity and urban space through the aural, this article examines how religious sound practices create, occupy and compete for urban space. Comparing the nexus of religion, urban space and aurality in charismatic Pentecostalism and Ga traditional religion, it seeks to establish two points. First, that behind the apparent opposition between Pentecostalism and traditional religion is a difference in religious spatiality, but a remarkable similarity in the place of sound in relation to the spiritual. Second, it argues that the religious clash over sonic sacralization of urban space should not only be understood as a competition for symbolic control of spaces, but also as a spiritual struggle over the invisible, but all the more affective powers felt to be present in the city.

Sonic interventions: understanding and extending the domestic soundscape

Abstract: This paper presents a new study of the role, importance and meaning of sound in the home. Drawing on interview data and sound recordings gathered from seven households, this study offers fresh insight into the ways in which the domestic soundscape is managed and understood. The data revealed that household members engaged in a wide variety of sound management practices to monitor and control the real-time flow of sonic information throughout the home. They also showed that families were sometimes surprised and delighted by the ability to record fragments of the soundscape for later use. These findings suggest a number of roles for technology in enhancing the domestic soundscape and its associated behaviors, which we present here in the form of example sonic interventions created in a design workshop at the end of the project.

Home Musical Environment of Children in Singapore: On Globalization, Technology, and Media.

Abstract: The home musical environments of a class of 28 first-grade children in Singapore were examined in this ethnographic study. Technology was an integral part of the soundscape in the home. The musical...

The Soundscape of Sixteenth-Century Istanbul Mosques: Architecture and Qur'an Recital

Abstract: Magnificent (r. 1520–66) had an imperial scribe draft an endowment deed that specified the duties and tasks of the employees of his newly erected mosque complex in Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire.1 Among these employees were more than a hundred reciters who were to fill his mosque with the chanted words of the Muslims’ most holy text, the Qur’an. In 1583, Nurbanu Sultan, mother to the incumbent Sultan Mehmet III (r. 1574–95), stipulated in another preserved endowment deed to her mosque complex, also in Istanbul, that 113 Qur’an reciters each “with a soul-caressing and beautiful voice that will awake pleasure in the listener” were to be appointed.2 These two endowment deeds are not exceptional: many comparable documents related to other Ottoman mosque complexes are preserved in different archives in Turkey; these documents describe similar stipulations concerning the appointment of reciters who effectively turned mosques into stages for the melodic rendition of the Qur’an, or, one might say, sound boxes resonating the holy text. In spite of the significance of sound in Islamic cultures—whether in the form of Qur’an recital, the call to prayer, or poetry recital—historians of Islamic architecture generally have neglected acoustic qualities of the built environment, probably because even in the visual realm so much basic historical research remains to be done.3 The few research projects and publications concerning mosque acoustics have focused on foundational quantitative measurements; they do not addess religious or ideological meanings or suggest how a focus on sound might open new avenues for the study of architectural history.4 I intend here to concentrate on the two above-mentioned sixteenth-century texts. Several passages in Nurbanu Sultan’s endowment deed drew my attention to auditory aspects of Muslim worship in general and the sonic dimension of Ottoman mosque architecture in particular. In order to examine the soundscape of the Süleymaniye Mosque of Sultan Süleyman the Magnficent and the Atik Valide Mosque of Nurbanu Sultan in terms of Qur’an recital, I begin by mining the documents for greater detail, then elucidate the significance of the Qur’an as spoken and chanted word of God, and conclude by describing the acoustic properties of Ottoman mosque architecture.

Acoustic design artifacts and methods for urban soundscapes

Abstract: The research question is: “How to develop and apply acoustic artifacts and design methodologies for improving soundscapes in urban outdoor spaces?” In the project, this research question is limited to two specific types of urban outdoor spaces – city-park and city-square – and to two types of acoustic design artifacts. These are: I. Dynamic promotion of qualitative site specific sounds (e.g., the overall site specific sonic atmosphere, sounds from human activities, birds and fountains), which creates an improved soundscape. II. Sound-art installations, that creates delimited auditory sub-spaces within the park/square. The purpose and method is: 1. To provide two case-studies of artistic soundscape improvement, one in a noise polluted city-park and one in a city-square. The case-studies will serve as models for future applications of the new acoustic design artifacts. 2. To create and validate an innovative acoustic design methodology based on state-of-the-art real-time acoustic simulation tools integrated into the design process. The methodology will be validated in psychoacoustic listening experiments and field studies. 3. To determine the potential of the two acoustic design artifacts (I Dynamic promotion of qualitative site specific sounds, and II Sound-art installations) for providing pleasant and restorative soundscapes, in order to strengthening the social interaction as well as the spatial and aesthetical qualities in noise polluted city parks/squares. The present project beats a new track by combining acoustic design with sound art research, integrating methodologies based on real-time acoustic simulation and application of psychoacoustic methodology for validating simulations and for evaluating perceptual, emotional and behavioural effects on visitors to public open spaces. The ongoing research project, financed by the Swedish Research Council, is executed by the University College of Arts, Crafts and Design (Konstfack), Gosta Ekman Laboratory – Stockholm University and Karolinska Institutet and the Interactive Institute, all in Stockholm, Sweden.

Beyond the Roof of the World: Music, Prayer, and Healing in the Pamir Mountains

Abstract: Language Pronunciation and Transliteration 1 Medical Ethnomusicology and the Ontology of Oneness 2 The Five Factors of Music, Prayer, Health, and Healing 3 Music-Prayer Dynamics and Cognitive Flexibility 4 Soundscape and Musical-Spiritual Entrainment 5 Healthscape, Mystical Poetry, and Multimodal Healing 6 Transformative Meaning In Sound, Empowered Sound In Culture 7 Human Certainty Principle, of Science, Spirituality, and Experience Notes References Index

SOUND‐SCAPE: A framework for characterising positive urban soundscapes

Abstract: People's assessments of urban soundscapes are dependent upon many factors. For example, perceptions of a soundscape may depend on the activity that the listener is doing and their associated listening state at the time. Temporal variations (daily, weekly, seasonal) can also affect perceptions of the soundscape, as can the type and usage of urban space, architectural characteristics and the cultural and historical setting. The context of listening is also a factor in terms of the cognitions that people bring to the listening situation by way of memories, preferences, attitudes, values and meaning. In order to inform the planning process with regard to assessing and creating positive urban soundscapes, a framework is under development. The framework attempts to bring together all the influencing factors in urban soundscape assessment in a new and novel way, and considers how the identification of sources and the variety and mix of sources interact to produce a soundscape. The framework presented in this paper forms the basis of multi‐disciplinary soundscape research in the EPSRC funded "Positive Soundscapes Project", which seeks to develop a rounded view of human perception of soundscapes by combining methods from several disciplines.

Designing sound in cybercartography: from structured cinematic narratives to unpredictable sound/image interactions

Abstract: In this paper we draw on the analysis of sound in film theory in order to explore the potential that sound offers cybercartography. We first argue that the theoretical body developed in film studies is highly relevant to the study of sound/image relationships in mapmaking. We then build on this argument to develop experimental animated and interactive sound maps for the Cybercartographic Atlas of Antarctica that further explore the potential of sound for integrating emotional, cultural and political dimensions in cartography. These maps have been designed to recreate cinematic soundscapes, to provide contrapuntal perspectives on the cartographic image and to generate an aural identity of the atlas. As part of this experimental mapping, an innovative sound infrastructure is being developed to allow complex sound designs to be transmitted over the Internet as part of atlas content. Through this infrastructure the user can select as well as contribute his own sounds. The overall cartographic message is becoming less predictable, thus opening new perspectives on the way we design, interact with, and modify sounded maps over the Internet.

Sound Media: From Live Journalism to Music Recording

Abstract: Sound Media considers how music recording, radio broadcasting and muzak influence people's daily lives and introduces the many and varied creative techniques that have developed in music and journalism throughout the twentieth century. Lars Nyre starts with the contemporary cultures of sound media, and works back to the archaic soundscapes of the 1870s.The first part of the book devotes five chapters to contemporary digital media, and presents the internet, the personal computer, digital radio (news and talk) and various types of loudspeaker media (muzak, DJ-ing, clubbing and PA systems). The second part examines the historical accumulation of techniques and sounds in sound media, and presents multitrack music in the 1960s, the golden age of radio in the 1950s and back to the 1930s, microphone recording of music in the 1930s, the experimental phase of wireless radio in the 1910s and 1900s, and the invention of the gramophone and phonograph in the late nineteenth century.Sound Media includes a soundtrack on downloadable resources with thirty-six examples from broadcasting and music recording in Europe and the USA, from Edith Piaf to Sarah Cox, and is richly illustrated with figures, timelines and technical drawings.

The Sound of Silence: Valuing Acoustics in Heritage Conservation

Abstract: This paper explores the reasons behind the omission of historic acoustic values from heritage assessments in Australia. Best practice dictates that all cultural heritage values associated with significant places should be assessed in order to make informed conservation and management decisions. However, the multi-sensory nature of aesthetics has been reframed in guidance documentation in ways that run counter to the primary frame. Conventions that have developed around the way places are assessed also work against comprehensive identification of values. As a result, the consideration of aesthetics in cultural heritage is limited to contemporary visual qualities. Furthermore, because the assessment of historic value takes a diachronic rather than synchronic approach, we have little knowledge of the places past communities valued for the sounds they experienced there. Research into landscape preference and acoustic ecology highlights the importance of identifying the inherent acoustic dimension of places and the role sound plays in developing a sense of place. Two landscape areas in Western Australia's south-west with historic acoustic values, the Boranup Sand Patch and the Lower Reaches of the Blackwood River, illustrate how historic soundscapes can provide insightful contrasts and resonances with contemporary values, and how vulnerable such places are when the sound of place is overlooked in land management policies.

Sound Design is the New Score

Abstract: When composer Carter Burwell, most famous for his collaboration with the Coen Brothers, said: 'I like to try to put as little music as I can in the films that I work on, and convince directors of that' (2003: 196), he possibly didn't imagine being credited in a film as musically bare as No Country for Old Men (2007), but he certainly expressed the attitude of many other composers who constantly find themselves under pressure to underscore and interpret aspects of film content that need neither emphasis nor explanation.Music in film is trying too hard these days, and even those who are not film music specialists are starting to notice it. This can be felt not only in the inevitability of scoring every action/transition/emotional/suspense scene, but also in the stubborn determination to fire all of the musical weapons all the time. So no wonder that an increasing number of composers are trying to resist this trend and convince directors to use less music in their films, knowing instinctively that this will not only benefit the film itself but also their own efforts to create effective scores.At the same time, not having music in a film does not necessarily mean condemning it to islands of dialogue surrounded by silence (not that there is anything wrong with this either, as Ingmar Bergman, Andrei Tarkovsky, Michael Haneke and many others have proved); it can also mean further expanding the approach initiated by Walter Murch, Alan Splet, David Lynch and other sound mavericks who have created imaginative, suggestive and evocative soundscapes by subverting Hollywood rules of postproduction, availing themselves of the plethora of expressive possibilities provided by an elaborate sound design. It is telling, though, that in most cases this practice has been inspired by music itself and is related to an approach to film which recognises the musical potential in the rhythmic, kinetic and affective features of a number of film's constituent elements - structuring, editing, camera movement, movement in the diegesis, speech, etc. - and which deploys them with the intention of utilising their 'musical' properties. In the context of this approach, sound has a special place not only because it carries the strongest musical potential but is also most capable of bringing out and realising this potential from film's visual components. I will illustrate this point with examples from films by Gus Van Sant and Darren Aronofsky, representative of both sides of the aesthetic divide between the shot and the cut.1Terminating his flirtation with the mainstream, Gus Van Sant's last four films were inspired by the work of European 'transcendentalist' Bela Tarr, and are driven by aesthetic adventurousness as much as by existential angst. Gerry (2002), Elephant (2003), Last Days (2004) and Paranoid Park (2007) address problems of cinematic space, time and movement in different ways, but they all have one thing in common: a contentment with cinematic 'nowness' (as opposed to a build-up to 'what comes next'). This quality inevitably reveals another dimension of the cinematic presence embodied in the 'music of here' - the sound of a place and moment which envelops and opens itself to the characters in their stillness or continuous movement.Generally more kinetic than the transcendental style usually displays,2 and thus more attentive to the array of sounds produced by or discovered through movement, Van Sant's approach often results in a particular type of audio-visual musique concrete. The most striking example of an audio-visual musical effect achieved without using any actual music happens in Gerry, in a four-minute-long scene in which Matt Damon's and Casey Affleck's characters (both called Gerry) walk beside each other through the desert, their heads bouncing in the frame, in phase, out of phase, in phase again, while the visual rhythm of their movement is accentuated by the crackling sound their boots make on the ground. It is clearly a homage to two similar scenes in Tarr's Werckmeister Harmonies (2000), but condenses their respective visual and sonic emphases into audio-visual music of continuous, rhythmic and deeply mesmerising movement. …

Evaluating the Hospital Soundscape

Abstract: cular arousal, extended hospital stay, and increased dosages of pain medication due to excessive noise levels have also been documented in patient studies. Decreased healing is another potential concern as a few studies on animals have revealed that noise exposure may slow wound healing. Furthermore, increased sound absorption that tends to make speech more intelligible and lower background noise levels has been linked to improved sleep in an experimental study, a reduction in cardiovascular arousals, and decreased incidence of re-hospitalization. Speech interference and increased medical errors are two additional potentially hazardous effects of hospital noise that could have obvious negative implications for patient safety. Indeed, there is a growing body of research on pharmaceutical name recognition in noise similar to that found in hospitals. The impact of the hospital soundscape on staff members is also a concern. Statistics indicate that 14 million people are employed in the U.S. healthcare industry, with 4.9 million of them working specifically in hospitals. Therefore, the quality of this occupational environment affects a large segment of the population. There is some evidence that overall levels of hospital noise may contribute to stress and burnout, a serious concern given the current nursing shortage throughout the U.S. Other studies suggest that the acoustical environment contributes to decreased short-term memory, decreased mental efficiency, and decreased ability to aurally distinguish critical physiological functions such as heart and lung sounds. Some studies indicate that orthopedic staff may be at risk for noise-induced hearing loss. Increased sound absorption has been shown to correlate with improvement in the staff psychosocial environment and improved perception of the soundscape (i.e., increased satisfaction with the overall noise level).

The application of the soundscape approach in the evaluation of the urban public spaces

Abstract: An important issues in the development of European cities is the design and renovation of the urban public areas. Typically, broad variety of approaches (sociological, ecological, environmental, physical, etc.) is needed. Earlier studies show the necessity of the transversal multidisciplinary approach in this issue. In order to study the acoustical dimension, the concept of soundscape needs to be proposed and elaborated. Soundscape approach differs from the classical statistical noise analysis in the evaluation of a context‐related noise and in the extrapolation of environmental sounds in its complexity. Nowadays, even by using recently developed sophisticated acoustical and psycho‐acoustical measurable and quantifiable parameters, it still remains difficult to grasp the complete meaning of a soundscape in words only or by numbers only. Our hypothesis is that the description of the city soundscape might be successfully done by combination of acoustical numbers and words. This article will propose a method for acoustical characterization of urban areas in the framework of the Belgian federal project: SD/TA/05A Design and renovation of urban public spaces towards sustainable cities (DRUPSSuC).

The Acoustic Ecology of the First-Person Shooter

Abstract: There has been little written on the player experience of computer game sound and so the research contained within this work is an important contribution to an area where the visual (the game as spectacle) is typically given primacy. It is an exploration of the relationship between the game player and the sounds of the First-Person Shooter computer game. Utilizing the run 'n' gun sub-genre as an example, the book suggests that this relationship may be analyzed as an autopoietic acoustic ecology and it emphasizes the role of sound in enabling player immersion in the game environment. Covering a wide range of ideas, from autopoiesis to acoustic ecologies and soundscapes, from film sound theory to sonification and auditory icon design, this lucid analysis will be especially useful to game sound designers and games scholars or indeed anyone interested in the fascination that digital media arts exert.

Thunderstorms in my Computer: The Effect of Visual Dynamics and Sound in a 3D Environment

Abstract: We assessed the effects of the addition of dynamic visual elements and sounds to a levee patroller training game on the appraisal of the environment and weather conditions, the engagement of the users and their performance. Results show that the combination of visual dynamics and sounds best conveys the impression of severe weather conditions and most strongly influences the appraisal of the environment. Moderate effects on the engagement of the participants were found

The urban soundscape: a different perspective

Abstract: Sound is an integrated part of the urban society. Overexposure to unwanted sound often from mechanical or electronic origin is often tackled after it occurs and in a remediating fashion. An integrated approach to land use planning, urban development, urban traffic management and quality of life at least the noise related part of it opens interesting new perspectives. This chapter discusses these opportunities and points at indicators and numerical simulation that can be advantageous when applying the ideas presented.