The Soundscapes Around Us
Last Saturday, I had to get up earlyish to move my car and avoid getting a parking ticket. As usual when I'm nervous, I awoke earlier than I needed to. So it was that I happened to hear a repeat of a programme that I'd heard on BBC Radio 4 sometime last year, "The Soundhunter". After listening to it in bed, I looked it up on DigiGuide [or myTVinfo in the United States], which describes the programme as
ENTERTAINMENT: The Soundhunter
Channel: BBC Radio Four 904
Date: Saturday 18th February 2006
Time: 05·45 to 06·00 (Already shown)
Duration: 15 minutes.
Isobel Clouter scours the planet in search of disappearing sounds. 2: 'The Nightingale Floor'. In Japan, some temple floors make birdlike tweeting noises at even the lightest of footsteps. (Repeat)
External Soundscapes
Isobel Clouter is Assistant Curator of The British Library Sound Archive. Here are some partial transcriptions of the second programme that I made from the Radio 4 website. [Although I've done my best to assure its accuracy, I make no guarantees.]
Collecting & Classifying Sounds
"I'm in the company of Dr. Teruyo Oba of the Natural History Museum in Chiba and several members of the Soundscape Association of Japan who are to guide me on my journey. In the early 1990s, they carried out a remarkable three-year conservation project, in which they, together with the Japanese Environment Agency, ensured the protection of one hundred sound environments. They asked citizens and local councils to suggest a hundred soundscapes which they considered to be meaningful. This, then, formed their strategy for understanding natural sound as cultural sound. They divided sounds into three groups, firstly, living things: birds, insects, and frogs, voices of creatures in their habitats, and noises of plants, like the sound of wind in the trees. In the second group, they collected other natural phenomenon, such as rivers, waterfalls, and seas. And the third category contained the sounds of daily lives and culture, such as festivals like the one I was enjoying. They recorded the noises of industry, transportation, and other elements of historic sound culture like the wind bells that fill the air with their chimes all over Japan. Each sound was considered on its cultural merits. [Shinto festival sounds in background] Celebrations and festivals seem to happen every week in Japan. ... and so the sounds of these phonomena play an important part in Japanese tradition. ..."
Kinds of Singing Sands
" ... But among the sounds of the one hundred soundscapes of Japan are those of the "singing beaches", which are forever under threat as they are subject to pollution and environmental change. It was to the beach that I went next, in search of the disappearing sounds of the musical sands. [Sounds of waves washing on beach in background] For anyone not sure of what I mean by musical sands, let me explain. There are two distinct types of musical sand: singing sand, which is usually found on beaches, and booming sand, which are found on deserts around the world. There are several beaches around Japan which have this singing sand, which actually sounds more like a squeaking or barking. And the booming sands, which can be as quiet as a drum roll or as loud as thunder. Professor Shigeo Miwa, who has documented the singing and booming sands and founded the Sand Museum in Nima. Built in 1991, it's a beautiful structure of three glass pyramids, which extend below ground level, to house the world's largest collection of singing sands. Professor Miwa first heard the sound thirty years ago and during his research discovered many legends about this mysterious phenomena. The sound of the beaches has been compared to that of the Japanese harp, the koto, which begins the name of the two beaches that I was to visit: Kotohiki Hama and Kotoko Hama. As I walked up and down the beach, I listened for the sound of the koto, keen to hear if the legend was true. ..."
Sound Maps
"My search for the disappearing sounds of Japan was nearly over. The Soundscape Association here continue to break new ground. Dr. Teruyo Oba's new project, which is gaining strength, is the development of sound maps in education. Teruyo developed the sound map as a result of frequent attempts to encourage people to listen to nature sounds and then to remember and describe them. In the same way that you might send a group of children and ask them to come back with a drawing of what they have seen, Teruyo would send them out and ask them to bring back what they hear. The initial results are startling. A whole new dimension is added. Suddenly the environment around the area begins to have an effect on the sound map: the sound of the traffic at the far end of the field; or the route of an aeroplane overhead at regular intervals; the sound of the stream that you can see; and the insects and the birds that you can't. Why don't you make a sound map to test what your ears can see? You can draw the map in any way that you like. But the longer you stay in one place, the more you will hear. Try listening for ten minutes and see how many different sounds you can hear, and how many new sounds appear the longer you listen. Just close your eyes and listen, and then after ten minutes, make a map of what you've heard. Don't draw while you're listening as this will make you miss some of the sounds while you're thinking. And just listen."
For some examples of a sound maps, have a look at Sound Seeker or Sonic World. Also, you may wish to listen to A Small Slice of Tranquility.
Internal Sounds
My niece, Kimara March, studied medicine at Georgetown University. With an eye to specialise in cardiology, one of Kimara's mentors was W. Proctor Harvey, who stressed the importance of listening to heart sounds. Kimara said that she would listen to recordings of heart sounds like others listen to pop music on their iPods to 'wire in' the subtle differences amongst various "lub-dubs". Heart murmurs, for instance, may be classified by four facets:
- their shape (crescendo, decrescendo, crescendo-decrescendo),
- loudness and frequency range (high-pitched, low-pitched),
- point of maximum volume on the chest wall,
- and spreading in different directions (how does the murmur loudness change in different directions).
If you're interested in hearing some heart sounds, I can highly recommend Michael A. Chizner's Clinical Cardiology Made Ridiculously Simple. It contains a CD of heart sounds.
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