Sound Walks
Sound walks are opportunities to be quiet and receptive to the sound around you. Time that you set aside to take note of what sounds are in your environment and what effect they are having on you. They do not need to be in the woods, although that is a particularly healthy soundscape. Sound walks are valuable because they connect us to the world outside of us, they help us be focused on the present moment, and they help us develop an understanding of how sound impacts our health and imagination.
When listening there are a number of ways to think about the soundscape that can help us distinguish features more readily and listen deeper into what surrounds us:
What are the Keynotes?
These are the sounds that you here and think immediately of this location. Think of them as iconic sounds: Church Bell, Espresso Machine, Bird Song.
Is this a low-fi or hi-fi location?
A low-fi location has a general noise level that makes it difficult to distinguish individual elements. At the side of a busy freeway, in a factory where there are many continuously running machines, in an aspen forest with a strong and continuous wind. We can think of the general noise as masking or hiding many individual sounds.
A hi-fi location has a low noise floor that allows for significant dynamic contrast. There are a variety of loud and soft sounds that you can hear from many different directions.
What is the Mix Like?
A mix is the combination of individual elements that a sound engineer combines to create a song or the soundtrack for a film or video game. As you listen to the soundscape can you identify the parts in the “mix” of the sound.
What elements make up the soundscape?
Where are elements placed in the soundscape? Which are close and which are far away? Which are low the ground and which are over your head? Which are to your left and which are to your right?
What sounds stand out the most and which are almost hidden?
How are the sounds distributed in the frequency spectrum? What are high frequency sounds? What are the bass sounds? What have fairly narrow frequency content and what have wide frequency content?
How is the mix? Do sounds have their own space (location and frequency) or are their competing sounds?
What do you like or dislike about the soundscape?
Are their specific sounds that give you that feeling or does the soundscape as a whole make you feel that way?
Does the sound make you think of a story or a magical location?
What sorts of things do you imagine might happen in around those sounds?
As you sit and listen what effect is the space having on your body and what effect is the process of listening having on your body?
Is this a tense or relaxing soundscape?
Is it easy or hard to stay focused in this space?
Is this a space you would like to read in or yell and run in?
As you listen does your heart rate change? Does your body relax or tense up?
Is the soundscape musical?
Is there an interesting rhythm to the soundscape that would make a cool beat for a song?
Does the soundscape have a melody that stands out?
What sort of genre of music would this space be? Rap? Ambient? Classical? Rock?
What parts of the natural world are represented in the soundscape?
Anthrophony, sounds of people?
Geophony, sounds of the earth?
Biophony, sounds of non-human plants and animals?