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Questions and answers about Acoustic Ecology with Dr John Levack Drever, Unit for Sound Practice Research, Goldsmiths, University of London

What is acoustic ecology?

The unifying concept that the discipline of acoustic ecology is centred around is the notion of soundscape. Like its sister term landscape, soundscape is concerned with the relationship that we have to the environment with a partiality to the dimension of the environment that is sounding and audible. In fact acoustic ecology is often referred to as soundscape studies.

The potential scope of an acoustic ecology study of any given environment may encompass its total ecology, the inter-relationship between all sound emitting and sound receiving entities, which are not necessarily human or organic. Acoustic ecology can have as much to do with the consequences of sound as it can have with a sound鈥檚 origins, or the actual acoustic phenomenon itself, and the media that it passes through.

Acoustic ecology was decisively founded in the late 1960s early 70s by R. Murray Schafer and his research group the World Soundscape Project, based in Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. In the opening to his landmark text, The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World (1977) Schafer announces:

鈥淭he soundscape of the world is changing. Modern man is beginning to inhabit a world with an acoustic environment radically different from any he has hitherto known. These new sounds, which differ in quality and intensity from those of the past, have alerted many researchers to the dangers of an indiscriminate and imperialistic spread of more and larger sounds into every corner of man鈥檚 life.鈥�

Critically, rather than getting fixated on the noise abatement agenda, acoustic ecology has always approached the soundscape as a positive resource, something to be interpreted, studied and creatively designed. Something that is both culturally determined and in return helps determine culture. As well as the physiological and psychological impact that the soundscape has on us, which we are seldom conscious of, acoustic ecology cares very much for our everyday practice of the soundscape, the values, associations, memories and projections that we imbue the sounds around us with.

In a sense the soundscape is a work-in-progress, as the physical environment is always in flux, and our perception of that physical environment is constantly being informed. Importantly, Schafer reminds us that as we are all sound makers, and our day-to-day behaviour unavoidably contributes to the prevailing make-up of the soundscape that we share with our fellow inhabitants.

When we talk of acoustic ecology as a discipline, this is slightly an oversimplification, for as you can imagine with potentially such a large scope, many other disciplines can come in to play: architecture, sociology, acoustics, education, ethnography, music, geography, cultural studies, to name a few. There is still much that these disciplines can bring to the debate.

Why is it important that we preserve sounds?

It was Murray Schafer who first called for the preservation of pristine soundscapes, those natural soundscapes relatively untouched by technological development. It goes without question that today such an aim is both laudable and desirable.

Beyond such remote locations, it is worth reflecting on the rapid change in our own prevailing culture and environment that we inhabit not only in cities, but also just as dramatically in the countryside. Anecdotally, there is a feeling that change in the soundscape is speeding up, yet no one is systematically keeping tabs on this change.

This is not a prompt for some kind of museum-like preservationist stance, but it begs the questions, shouldn鈥檛 we be considering the soundscape as part of our heritage in the same light as historic building fa莽ades? Typically, it is not until a sound has gone, that we notice its absence, and lament its passing. Max Dixon of the Greater London Authority (GLA) writes:

Many sounds of ordinary, everyday life in a city acquire rich personal and community associations. Often these will not be recognised until a sound has largely disappeared from everyday experience. Then, on a chance hearing of a surviving example or something related, memories may come flooding back with surprising power. Sounds which in their first incarnation may have been of little apparent note, or even regarded negatively, may be recalled with fond memories of a lost past. (Earshot 5)

A strong auditory memory I carry from my own childhood is, being struck by the bang (or was it more of a thud) of Edinburgh Castle鈥檚 One O鈥檆lock Gun. The castle towered down on the playground of George Heriot鈥檚 School, which I attended for 13 years, and yet the canon shot of the One O鈥檆lock Gun never failed to get the adrenaline going.

Returning a couple of months ago to make a sound recording, and on a clear day, as my watch passed the hour I was again shocked, but this time by the lack of thud. I began to question my own memory, but from conversations I had with former pupils whose recollections of the school spanned as far as the 1940s, they all had similarly redolent thoughts of the One O鈥機lock Gun.

It transpires that in 2001 the calibre of the gun was updated from a 25 pounder to a 105mm Light Gun. This change was due to a diminishing store of ammunition for the older model, a change brought on by practical necessity, and yet as far as I can judge the gun does not penetrate the south of the city any more. Now for current and future school kids this doesn鈥檛 really matter whilst we are facing a prolonged global recession et al., however I certainly feel an intimate connection with those who share this auditory memory. I am sure we have all got similar stories.

Which sounds would you describe as being 鈥渆ndangered鈥�?

On a CD I edited for Earshot (the journal of the UK and Ireland Soundscape Community) on the theme of disappearing sounds, the following sound recordings were submitted: typewriter, slam door trains, newsvendors鈥� cries, a London routemaster bus, traditional woodcutting, scrap metal merchant鈥檚 trumpet, etc.

It is interesting to note that some sounds that we thought we had lost have come around, such as the electric milk float with glass bottles.

How did you become an acoustic ecologist?

I have always been fascinated in sound. As a child I was drawn, not only to the One O鈥檆lock Gun, but also to classical music, and experimental music in particular. As a music student in North Wales I started to record everyday sound for use within electronic music composition, and this has lead to spending more and more time out there listening to and recording the sounds around us. I spent a couple of years (2000-2) coordinating a public art/ soundscape project, Sounding Dartmoor, with the University of Plymouth and Aune Head Arts.

This project certainly helped galvanize the thoughts I had as to the value of soundscape studies. Some of my work is directed towards natural history having done projects with the RSPB and WWF, which as very much an amateur naturalist I love, however most of my work is about everyday life.

Is acoustic ecology art or science or both?

Acoustic ecology highlights the qualitative aspects of the soundscape, which are by their very nature subjective. This is the very stuff that arts practice is primed at exploring, exposing, interpreting, discussing and communicating. It is not by accident that many of the central figures in the field have also been composers and sound artists.

Science certainly has its role to play, for in order to take the discipline forward, to actually make an impact on urban policy and design, there is a necessity to have quantifiable and measurable scales. This is beginning to happen, albeit belatedly, check out the Positive Soundscapes project:

I for one value a sonically and culturally diverse, heterogeneous, vibrant even surprising soundscape, rather than a regimented, predictable one, which inevitably ensues regimented public behaviour. Perhaps the best role for acoustic ecology is to propose models of good practice, which are based on localised solutions rather than universally applicable ones. Natural acoustic ecologies (if there are any left) offer us sustainable models of good practice to learn from and emulate.

Of course we mustn鈥檛 forget that the blind and partially sighted rely on predictable and reliable sound signals. I would certainly be interested to hear opinions on this matter?

Why don鈥檛 people take more notice of sound?

I think people care very much for their sounds, and habitually use sound in a highly nuanced and sophisticated manner, however in our busy lives we are selective in what we to listen to. Many of us have given up listening to the physical environment we are in at all, opting for our own choice of soundtrack via noise cancellation headphones.

This is not surprising as in a city like London we are overwhelmed by noise, which carries negligible useful information. Where I work in South East London the sirens of the emergency services are continuous and overlap. For a visitor this is distressing, whilst for a resident it is simply part of the backdrop.

Do you need qualifications to be acoustic ecologist? Can anyone join in?

We are all soundscape experts and essentially acoustic ecology is an attitude to listening that anyone with open ears can partake. For more information on the field and the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology see:

What鈥檚 the favourite sound you鈥檝e recorded?

During the Sounding Dartmoor project, a Dartmoor resident nominated a cattle grid to be included in the study. Cattle girds became for me a bit of a pet project, and I ended up spending some time and effort making recordings by the side of many of Dartmoor鈥檚 cattle grids. They are beautiful musical instruments.

I also began to tune into what I could hear between the sounds of the cars passing the grids. I never get bored of it. You can hear an excerpt from Cattle Grids of Dartmoor here: