5. Coach Sounds
6. Street Cars. Etc.
F. INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINES
1. Automobiles
2. Trucks
3. Motorcycles. Etc.
G. AIRCRAFT
1. Propeller Aircraft
2. Helicopters
3. Jets
4. Rockets. Etc.
H. CONSTRUCTION AND DEMOLITION EQUIPMENT
1. Compressors
2. Jackhammers
3. Drills
4. Bulldozers
5. Pile Drivers. Etc.
I. MECHANICAL TOOLS
1. Saws
2. Planes
3. Sanders. Etc.
J. VENTILATORS AND AIR-CONDITIONERS
K. INSTRUMENTS OF WAR AND DESTRUCTION
L. FARM MACHINERY
1. Threshing Machines
2. Binders
3. Tractors
4. Combines. Etc.
V. QUIET AND SILENCE
VI. SOUNDS AS INDICATORS
A. BELLS AND GONGS
1. Church
2. Clock
3. Animal. Etc.
B. HORNS AND WHISTLES
1. Traffic
2. Boats
3. Trains
4. Factory. Etc.
C. SOUNDS OF TIME
1. Clocks
2. Watches
3. Curfew
4. Watchmen. Etc.
D. TELEPHONES
E. (OTHER) WARNING SYSTEMS
F. (OTHER) SIGNALS OF PLEASURE
G. INDICATORS OF FUTURE OCCURRENCES
Other categories in this system include Mythological Sounds, the Sounds of Utopias and the Psychogenic Sounds of Dreams and Hallucinations. We also have categories for the last sounds heard before sleep, the first sounds heard on waking and acoustic experiences that connect with the other senses (synaesthesia). The final section of the catalogue indicates whether the reporter showed a particular attitude to the sound(s) described. Was it considered as a signal, as noise, as painful, pleasurable, etc.?
As sounds may function in a variety of contexts, all descriptive cards, indexed in this system, are cross-referenced generously. Thus any given sound may appear in several places, allowing us the opportunity to regard it from several angles or to compare it with others of a similar set.
Playing with this index is a splendid listening exercise. Let me pull out a few cards dealing with the sounds of footsteps and you will hear what I mean. I have already mentioned how the felt boots of Doctor Zhivago’s Russian winter seemed to “screech angrily” in the snow. Compare this with
"the slap, slap of Gran’s carpet slippers” (Emily Carr)
"the clattering of the clogs” in Coketown (Dickens)
"the loose tripping” feet of the Moroccans (Hans Ganz)
"the violent clatter of … hobnailed wooden-soled shoes on the school flagstones” of a French provincial town (Alain-Fournier)
"the flat, soft steps of the barefooted” (W. O. Mitchell)
"the impish echoes of … footsteps” in the cloisters and quadrangles of Oxford (Thomas Hardy)
or the way “the floor timbers boomed” under the strong rough feet of Beowulf.
By noting the date and place heard for every sound in the index, it is possible to measure historical changes in the world soundscape as well as social reactions to them. Then we can learn, for instance, that Virgil, Cicero and Lucretius did not like the sound of the saw, which was relatively new in their time (c. 70 B.C.), but that no one complained of factory noise until a hundred years after the outbreak of the Industrial Revolution (Dickens, Zola).
We can also note interesting proportional changes, for instance, between the number of descriptions of natural as against technological sounds. I am limiting the following observations to a period for which we have several hundred card samples. (It will be a long time before the index can be built up to a point where it may serve as a reliable indicator for all times and places.) Let us compare the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in Europe and America. We note that of all sound quotes from nineteeth-century Britain, 48 percent referred to natural sounds, while during the twentieth century, mentions of natural sounds had dropped to 28 percent. Among European authors the same decline is observed over the two centuries: 43 percent has dropped to 20 percent. Interestingly enough, this decline is not observed in North America (and our sample is very large here so that there can be little doubt about it); just over 50 percent of all quotes for both centuries refer to natural sounds. One might assume that North Americans are still closer to the natural environment, or at least have easier access to it than Europeans, for whom it definitely appears to be disappearing.
But the matter is not so simple. Our index does not show any corresponding increase in the perception of technological sounds throughout the same two centuries except for the period of the First World War, where the number increases sharply and then falls again. (The Second World War did not have a similar effect.) In fact, while the number of perceptions of technological sounds remains at the same level in Europe and Britain (about 35 percent of all observations), in America it actually declines!
But we also notice a decline in the number of times quiet and silence are evoked in literary descriptions. Of all descriptions in our file for the decades 1810–30, 19 percent mention quiet or silence; by 1870–90 mentions had dropped to 14 percent, and by 1940–60 to 9 percent. Thus it would appear that while writers are not consciously perceptive of the accumulation of technological sounds, at an unconscious level they are noticing the disappearance of quiet and silence. All this is perfectly consis- ent with the keynote character of technological noise as I have been describing it.
In going through the cards, I am struck by the negative way in which silence is described by modern writers. There are few felicitous descriptions. Here are some of the modifiers employed by the most recent generation of writers: solemn, oppressive, deathlike, numb, weird, awful, gloomy, brooding, eternal, painful, lonely, heavy, despairing, stark, sus-penseful, aching, alarming. The silence evoked by these words is rarely positive. It is not the silence of contentment or fulfillment. It is not the silence toward which this book is modulating.
Classification According to Aesthetic Qualities Sorting ounds according to their aesthetic qualities is probably the hardest of all types of classification. Sounds affect individuals differently and a single sound will often stimulate such a wide assortment of reactions that the researcher can easily become confused or dispirited. As a result, study of this problem has been thought too subjective to yield meaningful results. Out in the real world, however, aesthetic decisions of great importance for the changing soundscape are constantly being made, often arbitrarily. The Moozak industry does not hesitate to make decisions about what kinds of music the public is most likely to tolerate, nor did the aviation industry consult the public before it entered on the development of the supersonic-boom-producing aircraft. Acoustic engineers have also succeeded in introducing increasing amounts of white noise into modern buildings and have invoked aesthetics in the process, by referring to the results as “acoustic perfume."n
When such stupid decisions are being made almost daily, can the systematic study of soundscape aesthetics continue to be ignored? If the soundscape researcher is to assist in developing improved acoustic environments for the future, some kinds of tests will have to be developed for the measurement of aesthetic reactions to sounds. At first they should be kept as simple as possible.
Reduced to its simplest form, aesthetics is concerned with the contrast between the beautiful and the ugly, so a good place to begin might be by simply asking people to list their most favorite and least favorite sounds. It would be good to know which sounds were especially pleasing or displeasing to people of different cultures; for such catalogues, which might be called sound romances and sound phobias, would not only be of inestimable value in a consideration of sound symbolism, but could obviously give valuable directives for future sound
scape design. Read in conjunction with noise abatement legislation, sound phobias would also give a good impression of whether a given by-law fairly reflected contemporary public opinion concerning undesirable sounds.
One of the sub-projects of the World SoundScape Project has been to offer such a test in as many different countries as possible. We have tried to run the test in two parts. First, the subjects, who were mostly high school or university students, were simply asked to list the five sounds they liked best and the five they disliked most. Next we had them take a short soundwalk around their environment, and when they returned they were asked to repeat the assignment with specific reference to the sounds they had heard during the walk. I wish we had space to print the complete results to some of the tests, for they make a fascinating exercise in imagination and perception. Reducing them to the extent necessary for inclusion here can only be excused on the grounds that the general patterns produced support the hypothesis that different cultural groups have varying attitudes to environmental sounds.o
A few general observations are in order. First, climate and geography obviously influence likes and dislikes to some considerable extent. We note, for instance, that while in countries which touch the sea, ocean waves are well liked, in an inland country like Switzerland, the sounds of brooks and waterfalls are a much greater favorite. Where tropical storms may blow in suddenly from the sea, strong winds are disliked (New Zealand, Jamaica). It is also clear that reactions to nature are affected by the degree of proximity to the elements. As people move away from open-air living into city environments, their attitudes toward natural sounds become benign. Compare Canada, New Zealand and Jamaica. In the two former countries, the sounds of animals were scarcely ever found to be displeasing. But every one of the Jamaicans interviewed disliked one or more animals or birds—particularly at night. Hooting owls, croaking frogs, toads and lizards were mentioned frequently. Barking dogs and grunting pigs were also strong dislikes. The animal sound most universally liked was the purring of a cat.
While the Jamaicans had no attitude concerning machine sounds, these were strongly disliked in Canada, Switzerland and New Zealand. Jamaicans also approved of aircraft while the other nationalities did not. For all nations except Jamaica traffic noise was especially objectionable. There can be little doubt about this. From the present as well as similar tests we have run with smaller groups of other nationalities, it appears clear that technological sounds are strongly disliked in technologically advanced countries, while they may indeed be liked in parts of the world where they are more novel. I stress this finding because in attempts to confront the contemporary noise pollution problem I have frequently heard politicians and other opponents argue that we represent a minority, citing the case of the mechanic who enjoys a good motor or the pilot who enjoys listening to aircraft. But there can be no doubt that such attitudes form a small minority, at least among young people.
Among other striking cultural differences is the intense fondness of the Swiss for bells, while in other countries they are scarcely mentioned. On the phobia side, the dentist’s drill elicits some mention in all countries except Jamaica (where it is less familar?). But the sound of fingernails or chalk on slate is mentioned as a sound phobia in all countries, a matter to which we will return presently.
This test needs to be followed by others, more detailed. We need to find out with greater precision how and why different groups of people react differently to sounds. To what extent are the differences cultural? To what extent individual? To what extent are sounds perceived at all? The field is open for some intelligent testing on an international scale.
Sound Contexts Throughout this chapter sound has been considered in separate compartments. Acoustics and psychoacoustics have been dissociated from semantics and aesthetics. It is traditional to divide the study of sound in this way. The physicist and engineer study acoustics; the psychologist and physiologist study psychoacoustics; the linguist and communications specialist study semantics, while to the poet and composer is left the domain of aesthetics.
But this will not do. Too many misunderstandings and distortions lie along the edges separating these compartments. Interfaces are missing. Let us follow through a few specimen sounds to understand the nature of the problem. Consider first the sample pair of sounds in the following table.
There are apparently no problems here. The two sounds are physically quite different and they accordingly have different meanings and draw forth different aesthetic responses. But even here the context can produce divergent effects. Thus, without altering the physical parameters of the sound, the meaning of the alarm bell could change if, for instance, it was only being tested. Knowing this, the listener would not be impelled to drop everything and run. Or, without changing the physical character of Bach’s flute sonata, the aesthetic effect could be quite different if the listener did not like the flute or did not care for the music of J.S. Bach.
When we get discrepancies such as these, our reliance on automatic across-the-board equations falters, and we become aware of the fallacy that a given sound will invariably produce a given effect. Let us consider some more discrepancies. Two sounds may be identical but have different meanings and aesthetic effects:
Or two sounds with quite different physical characteristics may have the same meaning and aesthetic effect:
But supposing we are ringing up the Prime Minister of Canada, whose name is also Pierre. Margaret is his wife. I am not. Everything else remains the same, but the aesthetic effect is different:
Now consider the following pair of sounds
Here two sounds with similar, but not identical, physical characteristics appear to be identical in perception, but nevertheless cause no confusion in meaning and accordingly have different aesthetic effects. Their contexts keep them clear. But when they are removed from their contexts in tape recordings, they may quickly lose their identities. Nor is the ear acute enough to be able to distinguish whatever differences may exist in their physical structure. Then the kettle may become the snake or either may become a green log on a fire.
It has always surprised me how even quite a common sound can be completely mistaken by listeners, dramatically affecting their attitudes toward it. For instance an electric coffee grinder was described as “hideous,” “frightening,” “menacing” by a group after listening to it on tape, though as soon as it was identified their attitudes immediately mollified.
There is one celebrated sound which seems to epitomize the interface dilemma which I have been describing: the sound of chalk or fingernails on slate. We have shown that it is an international sound phobia. Yet physical analysis fails to reveal why it should send cold shivers up the spine. It is not extraordinarily high or loud. It is not accompanied by any hurtful action. It does not even designate anything in particular. No single discipline then is capable of accounting for its remarkable effect. When sound enigmas like this are explained—and not until then—we will know that the missing interfaces are at last falling into place.
TEN
Perception
It is not surprising, noting the visual bias of modern Western culture, that the psychology of aural perception has been comparatively neglected. Much of the work done has been concerned with binaural hearing and sound localization—which also has largely to do with space. Quite a lot of work has been done on masking (covering one sound by another) and some has been done on auditory fatigue (the effect of prolonged exposure to the same sound); but taken as a whole such researches leave us a long way from our goal, which would be to determine in what significant ways individuals and societies of various historical eras listen differently.
Thus it is inconceivable that a music or soundscape historian should get quite the same thrill out of the preparatory work the laboratories have provided as that which has stimulated art historians such as Rudolph Arnheim and E. H. Gombrich, whose work owes such a heavy debt to research in the psychology of visual perception. In the work of men like these it has be
gun to be possible to comprehend the history of vision, at least in the Western world. The soundscape historian can only speculate tentatively on the nature and causes of perceptual changes in listening habits and hope that psychologist friends may respond to the need for more experimental study.
Figure and Ground is indeed possible that some terms employed in visual perception may have equivalents in aural perception. At least they are probably worth careful examination. For instance, a phenomenon like irradiation—by which a brightly illuminated area seems to spread—does seem to have an analogy in that a loud sound will appear to be longer than a quiet one of equal duration. It is still not clear whether a term like closure—which refers to the perceptual tendency to complete an incomplete pattern by filling in gaps—can be applied to sound with anything like the confidence it has stimulated in visual pattern perception, though experiments in phonology show that for language at least there are striking parallels.
Throughout this book I have been using another notion borrowed from visual perception: figure versus ground. According to the gestalt psychologists, who introduced the distinction, figure is the focus of interest and ground is the setting or context. To this was later added a third term, field, meaning the place where the observation takes place. It was the phenomenological psychologists who pointed out that what is perceived as figure or ground is mostly determined by the field and the subject’s relationship to the field.
The general relationship between these three terms and a set I have been employing in this book is now obvious: the figure corresponds to the signal or the soundmark, the ground to the ambient sounds around it—which may often be keynote sounds—and the field to the place where all the sounds occur, the soundscape.
The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment And The Tuning Of The World Page 18