Fields of Sound

Soundwalking is the practice of focusing one’s ears on a chosen soundscape and then moving through that soundscape while listening closely to it. A soundscape can be thought of as any audible field of sound and all of the sounds it contains — perhaps best thought of like it’s analog the ‘landscape.’

Public soundwalks are generally led by one person, guiding a group through a chosen soundscape, helping the other ‘walkers’ to focus and re-focus their ears occasionally. The route taken through the soundscape is often pre-determined by the leader of the group.

The most well-known proponent of the practice of soundwalking is composer/acoustic ecologist R. Murray Schafer. In his book The Soundscape: Our Environment and the Tuning of the World, Schafer asserts that there are three basic layers to any soundscape: the keynote, the signal, and the soundmark. The keynote is likened to the ‘key’ or main pitch of a piece of music. It is the most commonly present sonic attribute of a soundscape — such as the sound of traffic next to a highway, or the general sounds of the waves near a shoreline. A signal is a sound that sticks out in a soundscape, one that is not constant and serves to punctuate or surprise by its sudden loudness. An urban example might be a car horn or a siren. A soundmark is a kind of sound that is unique to a soundscape, is not constant, but helps to sonically define a place. The most common example is the regularity of the ringing of a church bell. Naturally all soundscapes differ greatly from one another, yet many generalizations can be made about urban sound environments as well as rural ones. I will make no such generalizations here.

There is another practice somewhat similar to soundwalking that was conceived of by Guy Debord, the Situationist — that is the derive. A derive is essentially an unplanned walk where the walker follows instincts and observes all sensory and emotional information received while on the walk. It was most often practiced in an urban environment (like in Paris for example). While the aims of the two types of walks are critically different, both types require a willingness to stay in the moment for the duration of the walk and to attempt to connect with the environment in which one finds onesself.

DOCUMENTATION

This series of soundwalks was sponsored by The Canary Project as part of their 40/73 project and occurred on three consecutive weekends; September 20, 27 and October 5, 2008. In September two of my colleagues were leading walks at the same time as me, but in other parts of Brooklyn; Andrea Williams in Crown Heights and Edmund Mooney in Red Hook. We came together to lead two large groups on October 5 from the OA Can Factory over the Gowanus Canal and into the Gowanus neighborhood. Documentation from the walks I led is below.

JF

Jonny Farrow Fort Greene Soundwalk 1 — 9/20/08

Video slideshow — audio was time-compressed from 80+minutes down to 7 minutes, 45 seconds

((((( Headphones recommended!!! )))))

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Jonny Farrow Fort Greene Soundwalk 2 — 9/27/08

Video slideshow — audio was time-compressed from 50+minutes down to 8 minutes

((((( Headphones recommended!!! )))))

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Jonny Farrow Gowanus Soundwalk — 10/5/08

Click here to download a pdf of the map and

some handwritten responses of the participants.

Gowanus Soundwalk Sample (4:49)

Entry into OA Can Factory through large garage door/driveway

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

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More Documentation to Come on:

Greenwich Village — October 2007 — map — audio

Central Park (Southeast to Northwest)– May 2008

San Francisco (City Hall/Market Street) — August 2008