1. INTRODUCTION
There is common narrative within soundscape composition that starts with the World Soundscape Project (WSP). With its origins in the WSP, soundscape composition has constantly evolved and progressed over almost five decades. The writings and compositional output of R. Murray Schafer, Barry Truax and Hildegard Westerkamp have provided the foundations for this genre, which has continued to be a popular compositional trajectory for composers within the electroacoustic community.
The importance of the WSP and the research and writings of these composers have been fundamental in establishing a relationship and dialogue between soundscape studies and electroacoustic composition. Truax’s Handbook for Acoustic Ecology has provided soundscape composers with the terminology necessary to describe and analyse a soundscape, informing some of the compositional approaches and techniques used in soundscape composition. Examples include the sonic exploration of keynotes, sound signals and soundmarks creating works that focus and draw the listener’s attention to the sonic layers within a particular soundscape. This language has been a useful tool for composers who are creating context-based works that serve to highlight the various components of a soundscape. Truax’s Acoustic Communication (2001) also provides a framework for composers to understand the role of sound in an environmental context and ‘extends the theoretical and applied basis of soundscape studies within acoustic and electroacoustic context’ (Truax Reference Truax1996: 53).
The importance of soundscape composition has been discussed in the writings of Westerkamp:
Rather than disorienting us, such work potentially creates a clearer sense of place and belonging for both composer and listener, since the essence of soundscape composition is the artistic, sonic transmission of meanings about place, time, environments and listening perception. (Westerkamp Reference Westerkamp1999)
Soundscape composition has evolved over the decades as electroacoustic composers working with environmental sound have moved away from ‘the documentation or “found” soundscapes of the WSP’ (Truax Reference Truax2008 105). Outside of electroacoustic music, soundscape composition approaches have been embraced by many disciplines that share an interest in the soundscape such as urban studies, anthropology and social, political and cultural science.
Soundscape composition, with a background in acoustic communication and soundscape studies, affords cross-disciplinary opportunities and relationships where composers and sound artists are not only focusing on natural and urban soundscapes but also exploring other cultural and social aspects of the soundscape such as community soundscapes and changing soundscapes due to economic and industrial developments. The approaches and techniques used in soundscape composition are often used within a broader context to document cultural and political change.
An interdisciplinary approach to context-based composition has successfully highlighted current political and social issues using soundscape composition methodologies as a medium for documenting and presenting changes within society, which in turn affect the local sound environment. Sound artists and composers have become increasingly engaged in community projects, which explore the idea of a ‘community soundscape’. Often these community-centric projects are answering questions such as:
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∙ What is the relationship between the community and their local soundscape?
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∙ How do changes within community soundscapes affect daily listening experiences?
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∙ How can we document these changes?
Soundscape composers often create works that explore the sounds of an existing soundscape but what about the sounds that are missing as a result of urban regeneration and renewal projects? How do these changes affect those living within the area? Why do we miss certain sounds and how does it make us feel?
Soundscape studies methodologies are increasingly being shared within community engagement projects with the aim of not only raising listening awareness but also developing a localised perspective of what a community soundscape means to those that live within it. Truax has termed this the acoustic community, ‘a soundscape in which acoustic information plays a pervasive role in the lives of the inhabitants’ (Truax Reference Truax2001: 66). The following examples present some of the ways in which researchers are exploring this relationship through community engagement projects with a particular focus on how government regeneration schemes affect the acoustic community. The projects discussed are concerned not only about capturing the sounds of a specific place but also about capturing the meaning of sounds within a community, the relationship that people have with these sounds and the role of people as soundmakers within their own environment.
2. SOUNDSCAPE STUDIES: DOCUMENTING COMMUNITY EXPERIENCE
Comparisons between the disciplines of ethnography and soundscape composition have been discussed in the writings of Drever (Reference Drever2002), Feld and Brenneis (Reference Feld and Brenneis2004) and Rennie (Reference Rennie2014):
The discipline of ethnography is the principal source of data for cultural anthropology. Ethnography is a qualitative research method based on direct observation of and reporting on a community or social group’s way of life: their values, beliefs and social rules. Unlike many other fields of social research, ethnographic research examines entire environments, looking at their subjects of study in context, on location. (Drever Reference Drever2002: 23)
A relationship between ethnography and soundscape composition has been established in recent years, with both sides influencing the other. Steven Feld has always practised ethnography through sound and has been instrumental in establishing this connection. Tullis Rennie also discusses his role as a composer and ethnographer:
Whilst soundscape composition may be considered an artistic endeavour and ethnography perhaps a more rigorous scientific undertaking, both involve a highly sensual and subjective form of data-gathering based around observation, listening and engaging. (Rennie Reference Rennie2014: 119)
Common themes within soundscape composition focus on listening awareness and the soundscapes of both urban and natural environments that are often shared by the public or a community. However, soundscape studies research is not just about representing, analysing and creating environmental soundscapes. An ethnographic approach combined with soundscape methodologies is resulting in community engagement projects where the particular focus is on the community experience of sound. Within soundscape composition there are certain methodologies that are common among soundscape composers in order for them to gain a greater understanding of the soundscape they are studying. One of these methodologies is the soundwalk, which has been used as a way of developing an understanding of our soundscape through attentive listening. A soundwalk also provides an opportunity for community engagement and from an ethnographic perspective, facilitates an understanding of the relationship that people have with their local area and home environment. This affords a more localised and private perspective of the personal connections that people have with sound. This, in turn, enables us to understand and document the effects of economic, industrial and social change on communities. It also provides those affected with a platform from which to share their thoughts and raise their concerns about their changing environment while developing an understanding of how these changes will affect their environment sonically.
So how do we document and report these changes in soundscape studies? Is soundscape studies research becoming more and more detailed and localised due to the increase in community engagement projects?
2.1. Soundwalking: engaging the community
A soundwalk enables us to engage with familiar and new soundscapes and is often used as a starting point and an introduction to soundscape studies. For example, in my own research into the soundscape of my hometown, Banagher, Co. Offaly, Ireland, I organised a soundwalk for two reasons. One was to engage members of the community with the soundscape of their local environment. The second was to gain an understanding of their relationship to their community soundscape. In relation to the second reason, the soundwalk leader or guide can often be an observer, ‘listening and engaging’ with participants, documenting the event through recording and writing:
Usually on a soundwalk there is complete silence for the duration of the walk. However as I was talking to people who had never experienced a soundwalk before, I felt it was necessary to ease them into the walk and explain the reasons for the stops e.g. birds tweeting in the tree above us, changes in the sounds of our footsteps as we move from concrete to gravel. This was also a great way to engage with the younger members of the group and listen to what they had to say about their surroundings. (Martin Reference Martin2014: 1)
During these discussions I asked participants to think of ways in which the soundscape has changed due to the economic crisis of 2008 and also how it has changed during the lifetime of some of the older participants. After a soundwalk, a discussion encourages participants to discuss their experience, which can result in an exchange of sonic descriptions of the environment. It is these descriptions that highlight the cultural associations that people have with their soundscape along with the memories that specific sounds evoke. If there are locals present, researchers may also gain an insight into how the soundscape has changed over time and what sounds are now missing from the environment because of these changes. As researchers we can gain a wealth of knowledge regarding the relationship between a community and their local soundscape, which offers a variety of perspectives of the soundscape in question. The soundwalk serves as the starting point from which a community can begin to understand these perspectives and their relationship with their local soundscape and how it has changed over time. It is these conversations that resulted in the creation of two soundscape works, The Thing about Listening is… (2013) and A Bit Closer to Home (2014), which rather than reflecting a generalised interpretation of a soundscape, sought to capture and respond to the stories and conversations that reflected the relationship that local residents have with their community soundscape.
Hildegard Westerkamp has been responsible for promoting soundwalking activities through her writings and soundwalking practice, and soundwalking has been embraced by soundscape composers in order to develop their understanding of a soundscape. Soundwalking is now being embraced by interdisciplinary groups of artists and researchers in order to understand the cultural, social and economic change affect of the soundscape.
2.2. Soundscape composition and earwitness accounts
Soundscape composition is defined by its relationship with the source material and its context, creating a relationship between place, composer and the listener. Within context-based composition the source of the sound and the environment from which it comes from is reflected within the work exploring the inner and outer complexity of the sounds used. There is a balance between what is real and what is virtual and imagined. To the listener this new virtual soundscape could be anywhere in the world. However, a spoken word narrative underlines the exact location of a specific soundscape, revealing more about the original context of the soundscape to the listener. Spoken words such as excerpts from interviews and conversations reinforce a sense of place and identity.
Soundscape composition research often incorporates an aspect of community engagement. Composers such as Pete Stollery, John Young and Cathy Lane have incorporated a spoken word element within their work. Sound romances are a theme explored by composer Pete Stollery. Truax describes a sound romance as: ‘The romance associated with a past sound arises from a nostalgia for a time and circumstance that no longer exists. The sound seems romantic because it has the power both to evoke the past context and to idealize it’ (Truax Reference Truax2001: 29).
In his work Resound (2005), Stollery uses field recordings and interviews as his source material. He describes this work as a:
Sound Documentary; five interviews with people remembering and talking about sounds that no longer exist, interwoven with present days sounds which have replaced them. (Stollery Reference Stollery2013: 290)
Cathy Lane’s work On The Machair (2008) from The Hebrides Suite is ‘a mixture of field recordings, audio diaries, conversations, interviews and oral histories drawn from archives across Scotland’ (Tipp Reference Tipp2014).
These earwitness accounts reinforce the overall context of the soundscape in question while the accents, idioms and emotions embedded within the recordings result in a more localised perspective of the soundscape, where the connection between place and identity is strengthened by the use of narrative elements. These sounds can trigger memories and emotions establishing a connection between the soundscape of the past and the present. This connection between people and place is important in developing our understanding of the soundscape and how certain sounds can affect the emotional well-being of the community.
2.3. Earwitness accounts: A Bit Closer to Home (2014)
The author’s own work, A Bit Closer to Home (2014), explores the sounds from the past, some of which have disappeared. The spoken word used in A Bit Closer to Home is taken from an interview that I had with my uncle, Tiernan Martin. The interview is an earwitness account that recalls and discusses sounds from the past. The recording can be classified as a piece of aural history as the interview is recorded rather than transcribed (oral history). This piece of aural history can be defined as ‘a voice or voices reminiscing about the events of the past (recall)’ (Truax Reference Truax1999). Martin, who grew up in Banagher, agreed to an interview and I enquired ‘What are the sounds that you remember from growing up in Banagher in the 70s?’ The resulting interview discusses and reflects his personal connection with his hometown, focusing on sound romances. The structure of this piece is based on the descriptions of sound romances where each section focuses on a sound romance from the narrator’s childhood in the early 1970s.
Sound romances included the sound of a car going over a wooden bridge, of the local mill and of the church bell in the distance. The descriptions of these sounds reveal some of the changes that have occurred within the town due to industrial and economical developments. The detailed descriptions of sound romances in the interview prompted me to recreate the sounds using electroacoustic techniques and field recordings from the area. The sections are as follows:
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1. The Bridge of Banagher (0′00″–5′02″)
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2. Waller’s Mill (4′53″–8′48″)
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3. The Church Bell (8′28″–14′40″)
The first section explores the sound romance of ‘The Bridge of Banagher’ where the narrator discusses the sounds of the cars as they passed over the wooden planks of the bridge. This soundmarkFootnote 1 is described as a roll of thunder:
At that time it had planks on it. It was a bridge that used to be able to move to let tall boats through. It’s a solid structure now. But at that time it had planks on it and when a car would go over you just hear the roll of the planks like, it was like actually, like a roll of thunder.
In the second section the keynote soundFootnote 2 of Waller’s Mill is discussed. The aim of this section is not only to represent the keynote sound of the mill but also to reflect the descriptions of the mill sound as described by the narrator:
And then I think of course it brought to mind other sounds as well, which was that there was a constant sound, which particularly during the harvest time, there was Waller’s down in the Crank Road and Waller’s used to have a milling machine and the milling machine would mill right through the night and you’d actually hear that. And you know what it always reminded me of was when I had an earache as a kid, and I would hear maybe this sound, it was like the sound of machinery in your head, and actually it was the exact same sound as that Waller’s mill goin’ all night.
Section three of the piece, ‘The Church Bell’, represents the importance of the church bell as a soundmark:
Another great sound actually, as kids growing up and we used to spend a lot of time on the River Shannon, and we had a boat, a good few people would have had little rowing boats on the Shannon, so as kids particularly as teenagers we’d spend a lot of time on the river up or down, and another great sound that we would have had was the bells ringing in the church.
And ok, I know you, you can probably hear those bells ringing even when you’re in the town but when you’re off out on the river, that has a completely different affect. Because it’s like as if the bells are hop … the sound of the bells are hopping along the water towards you if you know what I mean, and it really, it vibrates differently. And you know so, you might even be a mile up the river, out of sight of Banagher, but then yet you hear that bell and you’re in touch.
Especially maybe if you were tired and we didn’t have a lot of out board engines back then so a lot of that would be hard work rowing.
So it, it could be often be quite a good sound to hear, the bell, when you were trying to row, row hard and at least you’d know you were a bit closer to home, you know.
The connection of people with place within a localised social context is reflected through the addition of spoken word. In soundscape composition this serves to emphasise the overall context of the piece while local dialects reveal a little more about the exact location of the recordings. Emotions, feelings and personal experience can be incorporated into a soundscape work, which provides a community perspective of what the soundscapes means to them, their well-being and how they experience their local environment through sound.
3. THE SOUNDS OF REGENERATION AND RENEWAL
The following section offers an insight into how researchers are using soundscape methodologies such as listening, soundwalking and recording in order to capture and document the effects of regeneration and renewal projects on community soundscapes. Linda O’Keeffe researches an urban regeneration project in inner-city Dublin that has spanned over 60 years. O’Keeffe’s research provides an insight into how these urban developments affect those that lived through the changes who were forced to move and also what young people today think of the newly created space. Jacqueline Waldock’s community engagement project with residents in Liverpool offers an insight into what it is like being in the middle of these changes as they happen.
3.1. The sound of regeneration and renewal: Smithfield, Dublin
Researcher, Linda O’Keefe has organised soundwalks as part of her research as a way of understanding specific soundscapes such as Smithfield in Dublin city, an area that has gone under extensive regeneration with the aim of attracting new businesses and tourists.
These walks were designed to encourage participating walkers to listen intently to this space and to compare it to other spaces on the north side of Dublin city. The walks were also designed to examine the changing use and design of the Smithfield space over the past four years. (O’Keeffe Reference O’Keeffe2014)
This regeneration project changed the soundscape of Smithfield quite drastically and O’Keeffe organised soundwalks as a way of understanding these changes sonically. It is through these soundwalks that O’Keeffe develops an understanding of what these changes mean to city dwellers, especially to a group of young teenagers. The teenagers that participated in her soundwalks around Smithfield shared their opinion about the square, which was often influenced by the sound of the space. Smithfield had previously been a space of production, filled with the cries of people selling produce at fish and vegetable markets.
O’Keeffe’s research provides an in-depth study of how the soundscape has changed over time, from a working-class market area to an open ‘silent’ space. Sounds are now missing from this soundscape due to the changes to the overall purpose and function of this space, ‘an absence of activities, life, general sounds of the community, consumption and production’ (O’Keeffe Reference O’Keeffe2014).
This type of ethnographic methodology, that of engaging and documenting the opinion of a group of teenagers, reveals the relationship that this group have with the Smithfield soundscape and how it compares to their own community soundscape. This type of interactive soundwalking proves to be an essential part of soundscape documentation and understanding in terms of the relationship between an individual and their environment. Soundwalking initiates a dialogue between researchers and the community, providing a variety of localised perspectives which can help researchers understand how sound influences our perception of place. The teenagers that participated in the soundwalk felt that Smithfield was quiet compared to their home environments. The regeneration of the space left it open and empty, no longer a hub of activity. The openness and quietness of Smithfield also had an effect on the behaviour of the teenagers: ‘The teenagers felt they could not group together to chat. For them it would be like situating themselves in the middle of a stage. Their sounds were amplified or reverberated, ironically creating a feeling of being surveilled’ (O’Keeffe Reference O’Keeffe2014).
In order to understand the changes to the Smithfield soundscape fully, O’Keeffe has recorded ‘earwitness’ accounts from those that grew up in the area from the 1950s to the 1970s. This type of community engagement project establishes a thorough understanding of the effects of changes to cultural and community soundscapes as a result of government regeneration projects. As a market area, Smithfield was a busy, productive hive of activity where many members of the community worked selling produce such as fruit, vegetables and fish. This is in complete contrast to how the group of teenagers experienced Smithfield in 2010.
Sound played an important role in the daily lives of those growing up in Smithfield in the 1950s and 1960s. In the interviews conducted by O’Keeffe, participants reveal their memories of Smithfield, which include sonic associations due to their homes being close to the market area. The local soundscape associated with the markets and activity in Smithfield is discussed by participants, such as the coming and going of delivery trucks and the banging of boxes, as produce was unloaded. O’Keeffe also unveils another layer of the community soundscape, a far more private soundscape due to the ‘physical design of the homes, which contained poor insulation’ (O’Keeffe Reference O’Keeffe2016: 221).
O’Keeffe’s research explores the various layers of the soundscape offering a more private and personalised perspective, from the point of view of the inhabitants. This type of community engagement reveals the various layers that attribute to the overall community soundscape that does not begin and end with the sounds of the market but also includes the sounds experienced within the homes of the residents. Their descriptions of sounds are also influenced by the type of houses they lived in, which reveals the effect that social and class structures have on the community soundscape.
O’Keeffe’s interviews also reveal how the soundscape of Smithfield changed over time by interviewing residents who still lived in the area. As a result of the regeneration project, they described the area as ‘much quieter today where you don’t hear anything aside from the odd bird’ (O’Keeffe Reference O’Keeffe2016: 225). This description is similar to the experience of the teenagers who also described Smithfield as being quiet. What is interesting to note is that the descriptions are a result of separate generational social and cultural experiences of what defines a positive community soundscape. For the older generation who experienced the regeneration first hand, the sounds of the community were embedded in the market activities and the daily hustle and bustle of people coming and going. Now there is a big open space designed to facilitate a more modern way of urban living, an all-inclusive space complete with new businesses spaces, restaurants and apartments. For the working classes who were forced out of this area, there was nothing inclusive about this ‘exciting’ regeneration and renewal project. The group of teenagers defined a positive soundscape as ‘places with numerous loud sounds, the voices of hundreds within busy shopping streets, music coming from stores and traffic in the distance. These sounds defined a city and made the teenagers feel safe and enclosed. Smithfield contained none of these sounds’ (O’Keeffe Reference O’Keeffe2014).
This in-depth study outlines the impact of regeneration and socioeconomic changes on the soundscape of Smithfield. This ethnographic approach provides a variety of perspectives, which are significant in developing our understanding of how these developments affect local residents who experienced these changes but also how this newly created space is experienced by a younger generation. It also highlights the importance of sound in establishing cultural and social relationships with space. This in-depth research project is an example of how soundscape studies is becoming increasingly inter-disciplinary and localised, offering an insight into the non-visual impacts and experiences of regeneration and renewal projects.
3.2. The sound of regeneration and renewal: Liverpool
Economic and industrial developments can often bring changes to a community’s way of life. The words ‘regeneration’ and ‘renewal’ instil a positive, progressive, fresh and modern image in relation to community developments. So how could this affect the community in a negative way? Jacqueline Waldock’s research reveals the effect of urban development on a community of residents in the city of Liverpool as a result of it receiving the title of European Capital of Culture, 2008:
The landscape of the city was transformed, and large areas were selected for regeneration and renewal. Alongside this physical change came set-piece cultural events; royal visits, street shows, theatre and musical extravaganzas. Sonically my instinct was to capture and understand these changes, but what came from this were recordings of buildings sites and crowds that were interesting aesthetically but lacked something of the shifting spaces. They were a symbol of my presence in the crowd and of large-scale sound marks that dominate areas of the city. But the regeneration process was much larger than building sites and parades; it affected the lives of those living in the city and in some areas had displaced people from their homes. How then could I begin to understand the impact of such changes upon those living in the areas of redevelopment? (Waldock Reference Waldock2016: 151)
Waldock’s main goal was to understand these changes sonically. This project facilitated community reflection in relation to the changes to their environment through sonic engagement. This also affords an opportunity for outsiders of soundscape studies to gain an insight into the cultural relationships embedded within a community through sound.
Waldock’s describes her methodology as Trinitarian, as she sees the participants and herself as ‘artist, activist and academic’ (Waldock Reference Waldock2016: 152). This methodology combines the roles of composer and ethnographer, utilising ‘soundscape composition as a tool to encapsulate, analyse and represent change’ (ibid.). Participants of Waldock’s project created sound pieces and sound diaries. It is the process of creating these pieces that is of interest to Waldock:
The practice of producing a piece involves several decisions by the participants: what to record or not to record, what to keep and what to delete, what to share or not to share and what is then missing. (Ibid.: 158)
These compositional decisions contribute to our overall understanding of people’s connection to place through sound. These negotiations are also experienced by soundscape composers making decisions of what sounds to record in order to reflect and present the context of a specific place. The recordings document the relationship between the participants and their homes, which was something that the council were not concerned with. The homes were objects that needed to be removed, and the inhabitants could simply be moved to alternative residences to make way for new developments.
Recordings made in their own homes enabled participants to document their relationship with their home though the creation of sonic diaries:
Rather the concern that has become clear through this methodology was that of relationship. Relationship with the space, through memory and experience, and the relationship with others in the community through shared sonic experience. (Ibid.: 160)
Similarly to the residents in Smithfield, Dublin the residents in Waldock’s project had no control over these changes. Waldock’s project gave a voice to the participants, providing them with a platform from which they could express these changes through the creation of soundscape works. The creation of soundscape works gave residents control over their artistic output and an opportunity to respond, understand and document the changes to their community environment. It facilitated an understanding of the sonic emotional attachments that participants had with their home, providing them with sonic souvenirs that encapsulated their private, familiar soundscapes.
This type of community engagement project not only brings soundscape studies to a wider audience, but also provides them with the skills necessary to understand the relationship between listener and place such as listening, recording and sound editing. What is explored in this community-led project is the domestic, private soundscape of the residents, a localised perspective within the broader context of the urban soundscape. Waldock’s project also enabled the participants to share and discuss their overall experience of the regeneration project.
Similar to the Smithfield project, researchers can begin to understand what sounds are missing as a result of change. In both projects places become quieter as there are less people, which creates a sense of loneliness. One of the Liverpool residents explains:
We haven’t got any neighbours anymore and I miss it really. I miss people calling their cats in, or shouting at each other or just talking to each other. Other things sound louder because there are so few people. For example bird song, someone kicking a football or someone laughing. (Ibid.: 160)
Waldock’s project with the residents of Liverpool’s Welsh Streets provides another example of how the combination of soundscape and ethnographic methodologies can be used to document not only the changes of an urban soundscape but also the effects of these changes on local residents. Visually is it easy to see the effects of this redevelopment evident by boarded up houses, empty homes and unfinished properties. What is particularly important is the reflection on what is missing from or what has been silenced within the soundscape as a result of this redevelopment. As soundscape composers we create works that explore sounds that are present within a given context. But what is missing and how has the soundscape changed are important questions we need to ask ourselves in order to explore the changes within specific soundscapes and the effects of these changes on its inhabitants.
4. THE SOUND OF POLITICAL PROTEST
Our role as noisemakers is often used to great effect during protests against political and economic changes. We can use our voice and instruments to dominate a soundscape and make people stop and listen. Tullis Rennie’s soundscape work Manifest (2013) explores the soundscape of two protests in Barcelona. Rennie has written testimonials that document his experience of two separate contrasting protests. Testimonial 1 uses words such as:
The mood is calm and peaceful, but the air is buzzing with a sense of anticipation, mixed with some real fear. The public wave their hands in the air silently to demonstrate agreement and cross their arms to signify disagreement. This keeps the noise levels to a minimum. (Rennie Reference Rennie2014: 118)
Testimonial 2 reflects a somewhat different experience:
The mood is edgy, tense in comparison. People don’t sit and listen, they stand or pace. People don’t sit and listen, they want to shout. (Ibid.)
Rennie’s testimonials of both events provide a framework and structure for the soundscape work. His compositional technique creates a balance between the inner complexity of sound materials with the outer, global experience of these events in order to retain the original context of the sounds. The electroacoustic techniques employed not only reveal the intrinsic qualities of the sounds but also dramatise the events while reflecting on the overall atmosphere of the protest:
The resulting composition is at once an abstracted acousmatic treatment of the sound, whilst at the same time a real-life soundscape with edited field recordings. It contains the voices of people telling their own stories, supported and presented with my own compositional language or voice. I would say it is an acousmatic documentary or a composed (musical) anthropological aid. The difference between this piece and other potentially similar-sounding aural-mimetic acousmatic works is the applied and reflexive ethnographer’s approach, the socio-sonic methodology from fieldwork to final composition. (Ibid.: 123)
Within this work, Rennie explores the overall political context of this event, capturing the atmosphere of tension and excitement, within an urban environment. The behaviour of this group of people and their role as soundmakers is successfully reflected within the work, including their attitude towards one another and the emotions and feelings of the participants.
The second part of the piece investigates the musical instruments and objects used during the protest where instruments are removed from the original context of the protests. Some of these sounds are processed, enhancing the natural gestures within the sounds. Rennie successfully embellishes the musicality embedded within these field recordings using electroacoustic techniques, which are used to dramatise events within the narrative.
The atmosphere of the protests is conveyed clearly, reflecting how musical instruments and sounding objects can be used successfully to create tension and excitement, conveyed through the cacophony of car horns, whistles, shouts, singing, drums, ambulance sirens, bicycle bells and chanting. The layers within this political soundscape are taken apart and brought back together again to reveal the original context of the work, which for the composer is of utmost importance. This socio-sonic methodology combines ‘an acousmatic approach with an ethnographic sensibility’ (ibid.: 123).
4.1. Soundscape composition: evoking memory
Soundscape composition methodologies such as listening, recording and editing enable researchers to create a representation of soundscapes establishing a strong relationship between the composer and a specific soundscape. This relationship is established through the cycle of listening, recording, listening, editing, listening, creating and listening. However another relationship is established during the performance of a composition, between the newly created soundscape and the audience. Soundscape composition evokes memories and feelings as the audience establish their own relationship with the sonic material.
As a listener and audience member who experienced Rennie’s Manifest during the Sonorities Festival in 2015 at the Sonic Arts Research Centre, Queen’s University, Belfast, the memory of my own experience of a protest in Madrid in 2012 was recalled. Manifest sent me straight back to Madrid where I myself was trying to record and document the experience. It was my first time in the middle of a protest and Manifest recalled the tension and excitement of that environment. Rennie’s testimonials could easily have been written about my experience in Madrid. During the protest I tried to capture all the different sonic elements that contributed to the soundscape of a political protest such as people giving speeches and bands marching. Listening to Manifest re-established my connection with Madrid on that day. The vibrant, rhythmic, commanding and threatening soundscape of the protest evoked feelings of anxious excitement. I have no photographs of the event, only field recordings. When I listen to these recordings again I remember exactly where I was and how I felt.
It is often underestimated how many different relationships are established between people and place within soundscape studies projects. For example, the performance of soundscape works and playback of soundscape recordings will continue to evoke and establish connections and strengthen the relationships between people and place even when projects or compositions have finished.
5. CONCLUSION
The application of soundscape concepts and approaches has raised awareness of the importance of sound within a variety of disciplines outside of soundscape studies. The documentation of political, social and cultural change through sound has been successful in highlighting the community experience of sound.
The concept and approaches of soundscape composition are being embraced as an inter-disciplinary methodology. Recent projects have sought to enhance our understanding of the relationship of people with place, and the cultural and political issues that are often experienced. Within a broader context, soundscape approaches have been used to not only enable communities to engage with their local soundscape but also provide a platform from which they can document and protest against change that has been inflicted upon them.
It is not just about the soundscape on a global scale in terms of environmental issues. Within a broader context, the awareness of local issues enables us to understand the function of sound within a local cultural context. Soundscape methodology allows a person to retain a sonic memory of a place that they may want to save, such as the sound of their home, which can be more powerful than a photograph. Sound has the power to evoke memories and past experiences, which are part of our connection to place, culture and our community.
These projects are giving a voice to those affected by social and cultural change offering an insight into how community soundscapes are being destroyed. The combination of soundscape and ethnographic methodologies such as listening, documenting, recording and interviewing provides researchers, locals and government authorities with an insight into the range of implications that these developments have on local residents that lie outside the needs and necessities of regeneration projects.
Soundscape composition approaches when combined with ethnographic methodologies enable researchers to build relationships with communities, which can be seen in the above examples of my own work and the work of O’Keeffe, Waldock and Rennie. It is this communication that advances our understanding of the relationship between people, place and sound and the affordances of community engagement projects.
