2.2 Epistemological Approach of the Three Models

As we have seen, the World Soundscape Project deals with the sound environment in terms of its ecological value, and offers a framework that is interdisciplinary, subjective, and education-based. For Schafer (1977c), the new discipline of soundscape studies should be understood as the sonic equivalent of the Bauhaus revolution: it combines arts and design, music and sound design, composition and engineering.

The guiding principle of the Bauhaus, according to its founder Walter Gropius, was “the idea of creating a new unity through the welding together of many ‘arts’ and movements: a unity having its basis in Man himself” (quoted in Forgács, 1995, p. 115). For Schafer, the same unity must be achieved between all disciplines related to sound. And again, the human component is at the centre of the model; the basic “modules” that must be used in acoustic design are, according to Schafer, “the human ear and the human voice” (1977c, p. 206-7). In this way, the advent of the Industrial and Electric Revolution, with their ‘larger-than-life’ noises, drones and the introduction of electroacoustic technologies, can be understood as major causes of imbalance in the contemporary soundscape, notably through their de-stabilisation of the fragile relation between listening and soundmaking (Westerkamp, 1988).

By defining the soundscape as a composition, the WSP also emphasises the key role of musicians and composers in the assessment and the proper design of the acoustic environment (Zapf, 1981 and Westerkamp, 1991). Westerkamp, discussing her experience as a researcher for the WSP, adds: “The composer was perceived not only as the acoustic designer of musical sound in a composition, but also and most importantly as an acoustic designer of daily life” (2002, ¶3). Furthermore, when Schafer looks for causes of contemporary noise problems, one of the facts he points out is the failure of music educators “to give the public a total schooling in soundscape awareness” (1977c, p. 111). Hence the need advocated by the WSP to educate the population, in a way to re-connect with the music of the soundscape.

The acoustic communication model, according to Truax, can be understood “as a twofold critique, firstly, of traditional disciplines that study some aspect of sound, and secondly, of the social science inter-discipline of communication studies itself” (1993, p. 4). In other words, while the interdisciplinary approach of communication studies allows the integration of various specialised acoustic disciplines, it is itself reinforced in its analysis of perceptual phenomena, which, according to Truax, remains a “blind spot” (ibid.) in the social sciences.

First of all, a communicational approach deals with information exchange, rather than with energy transfer (Truax, 1998; 2001). No process can be studied in isolation, since its particular meaning arises from the context in which it takes place and the way it is being understood by listeners. Instead of being placed across a linear process, as a ‘carrier’ or a ‘signal’ in Shannon’s original model, sound is described as “mediating or creating relationships between listener and environment” (Truax, 2001, p. 12). It becomes an identifiable component of the soundscape, which in turn is analysed in terms of multiple feedback relationships between its three main elements. Also, while the WSP had already emphasised the central role of listening, Truax refines the approach by introducing different ‘levels’ of listening attention (2001), which will then be linked to particular contexts and sounds.

One particular advantage of this framework is that it allows one to trace back effects or consequences of any change over the whole system (Truax, 1998), a process that would require, with a traditional specialised approach, a continual crossing of disciplinary boundaries. Acoustic communication may be understood in this way as a provider of “boundary-concepts” (Klein, 1996) necessary to deal with these various disciplines. Since the model emphasises feedback relations and the necessity to study sounds contextually, rather than as a set of separate, linear phenomena or events, it allows researchers to handle issues in their inherent complexity, and to connect components as diverse as psychoacoustics, social theories, practical fieldwork and even the arts.

Truax’s model also allows a more elaborate analysis of the impact of technology and its potential in acoustic design. For the WSP, technology is one of the main causes of noise pollution and the disconnection of inhabitants from their soundscape. For Truax, on the other hand, the discussion of technological changes can be reduced neither to a simple condemnation, nor to a blind acceptance; in fact, his goal is to “understand the changes that technology brings about from the perspective [of] traditional acoustic patterns of communication” (2001, p. 122-3). Therefore, the Industrial and Electric Revolutions do not simply result in a noisier world, but one which offers new mediating devices, be they “extensions” or “transformations” (p. 123) of previous acoustic systems. These technologies can be used for political or economic purposes, but also as alternative tools for the re-appropriation of one’s sound environment.

The sound effect came out of research by CRESSON at the end of the 1970s, in the field of human science. Research on daily practices showed “the existence of four important psycho-sociological procedures” (Augoyard, 1999, p. 121), which oriented the attention of researchers towards general descriptors that could connect similar structures found in contextual phenomena. The first effects observed slowly found their equivalencies in other perceptual domains, and therefore became used as paradigms to link these various fields.

The sound effect is not exclusively objective, nor can it be reduced to subjective impressions (Augoyard & Torgue, 1995). It rather provides clues about the organisation and perception of an event, based on general consistencies that can be observed across domains, disciplines, or actual events. The sound effect is inscribed in a “logic of the sense” (p. 10; my translation), an in-between which connects and combines sound emission, a space and a listener. Rather than analysing the multi-directional impacts of the change of any element in a system (as with acoustic communication), it groups together particular combinations as being observable effects. The city thus becomes an “instrumentarium” (p. 9) of effects, all contextual but also partly quantifiable. Consequently, the concept of sound effect is not only “descriptive in that it aims at describing the acoustic space, but it is also operative since it supports the intervention of the effect directly in situ” [emphasis his] (Hellström, 2003, p. 99-100).

The analytical process sustained by the notion of sound effect is therefore based on two assumptions, clearly identified by Augoyard (Augoyard & Torgue, 1995). First, it implies that “the perceptive organisation is essentially the same in an everyday listening situation and in a more specialised one” (p. 13; my translation). The use of general, multidisciplinary concepts therefore allows a free analytical progression from a daily experience, subjective and contextual, to a more in-depth description, analysis or comparison of the perceptual experience. The second assumption is a claim for the necessity to re-discover the “pre-categorical use of listening” (ibid.), that is, its basic functioning principles. The sound effect is in this sense a phenomenological tool of analysis, one which allows the establishment of basic paradigms to deal with complex perceptual situations.

Pascal Amphoux’s proposed methodology may be described as an attempt to objectify the subjective through recurrence and the application of observable social and perceptual criteria of analysis and comparison. The notion of sonic identity is used to emphasise the ongoing process of assessment and identification of various sound environments by their inhabitants and users. Sonic identity can be defined as “the ensemble of sonic characteristics common to a location, a district or a city” (Amphoux, 1993a, p. 7; my translation). These sounds confer to an environment a specific identity that is consistent and is recognised (consciously or not) by a community. This approach positions itself as a “third voice” (p. 6) that complements the traditional noise-study as well as musicological and ethnomusicological approaches (ibid.). This third model, a “sound anthropology” (ibid.), focuses on the identification and analysis of particular, representative locations that give a city its sonic identity. While the WSP had already introduced the notion of acoustic community and the basic parameters that can be identified as creating “acoustic definition” (Schafer, 1977b), Amphoux aims at describing specifically how this relation is established and experienced by inhabitants in their daily lives (for a more extensive discussion of Amphoux’s model, see Hellström, 2003).

The methodology is divided into three main steps, which provide three fundamental aspects of the sonic environment of a city (Amphoux, 1991, 1993a, 1993b). First, memory is used to select representative locations. Then, perception is addressed, through the realisation of recordings and the reactivated listening technique, a practice in which the listener is presented with audio sequences that may trigger various reactions and comments. Finally, an interpretation of the data gathered (based primarily on recurrence of opinions or perceptions) is conducted, supported by the use of sound effects and an extensive set of qualitative criteria (see section 3.1).

The use of a tripartite methodology can be understood as a “reflective conversation with the situation” (Schön, 1983, p.103), in the sense that it constantly evolves and reinforces itself through the incorporation of a variety of data and their evolving interactive analysis. There is an extensive use of interviewee’s information, which orients the whole process and provides the core of the analytical framework, from the first to the last step. This however requires researchers to be constantly alert, in search for links between various listeners’ comments. They must also know and understand an extensive list of qualitative criteria, as well as the repertoire of sound effects used in Amphoux’s approach. The more ethnographic perspective proposed by the WSP (in which a large part of the analysis is actually conducted by expert listeners) appears as a strong complement to this socially and culturally oriented methodology.

2.2.1 Acoustic Ecology and Acoustic Design

The WSP has described its particular, interdisciplinary approach as acoustic ecology, “the study of sounds in relationship to life and society” (Schafer, 1977c, p. 205). More specifically, the group seeks at first to establish clear connections between a particular sonic environment and the behaviour of its community (1977b). Then, changes in the soundscape and their implications are discussed, in relation to the role of humans on one hand and the symbolic and regulating role of the soundscape on the other.

The ecological implications of this particular model and its relation to other ecological approaches are nevertheless unclear, and too briefly stated by the WSP. Its interdisciplinary character and its emphasis on the role of new technologies in the unbalancing of ‘natural’ systems can indeed be considered as ecological values. However, the lack of a clear theoretical framework defining acoustic ecology, and the quasi-aesthetic judgments made possible by a musical appreciation of the environment (as proposed by Schafer and the WSP) result in a rather vague correspondence with actual ecological theories and concepts. The same ambiguous relation can be found in Truax’s approach to the acoustic community, in which he briefly refers to acoustic ecology without providing a satisfying description of the implications of such a model (McCartney, 2001). Johan Redström notes that the necessity for ecology to consider all species in its epistemological process “makes it impossible for ecology to be based on a first-person perspective” (¶ 4). Therefore, a human-centered approach (or listener-centered in the case of the WSP), according to Redström, needs to be at least complemented by “something that acknowledges the many different forms of interaction between agents and their environment” (ibid.).

Acoustic design, on the other hand, is described by the WSP as the practical, applied component of soundscape studies. It is considered as necessary in order to deal with the growing complexity and the unbalancing of the modern soundscape, which cannot be solved ‘naturally’. In the conclusion of the Five Village Soundscapes (1977b), Schafer presents acoustic design as a discipline “which will concern itself with techniques for the analysis and improvement of existing soundscapes and the creation of new ones” (p. 80).

From the theoretical understanding of the relation between the soundscape and its inhabitants, a set of principles are elaborated to guide the acoustic designer in the modification, enhancement or creation of particular soundscapes (1977c). This approach is indeed summarised in the hi-fi vs. lo-fi principle, the former referring to an environment in which sounds, both close and farther away, can be clearly heard and distinguished, and the latter, to a ‘polluted’ soundscape in which “acoustic signals are obscured in an overdense population of sounds” (p. 43). In this context, subjective listeners who become aware of such overpopulation can act by removing unwanted sounds. However, from The Vancouver Soundscape to the Five Village Soundscapes, there is little said about practical design issues and possible changes to be brought to the studied environments; Torigoe, in her study of the WSP stated that “the Project’s effort in the practice of acoustic design remain at the theoretical level” (1982, p. 216). Therefore the whole concept of acoustic design as described by the WSP has yet to be experienced, except for isolated cases of collaboration and interdisciplinary works (Westerkamp, 2002).

In Acoustic Communication (2001), Truax carries on the discussion of design by providing more specific guiding principles based on listening patterns and information theory rather than aesthetics. In an attempt to establish a more formal structure of dealing with acoustic and electroacoustic design, Truax redefines “functionalism as the behavior of a system that is adapted to its environment, and understands beauty as a value expressed through people’s attitude” (2001, p. 110). The Bauhaus-type of functionalism found in the WSP is therefore complemented with a process-oriented approach, which establishes clear links between the environment and its listeners based on information exchange (in this case, through sound). The fundamental changes brought by electroacoustic technologies also necessitate a re-thinking of the nature of acoustic communication and its design, resulting in the need for two distinct design structures. Truax offers principles that deal separately with these two environments (acoustic and electroacoustic), in a way to acknowledge the profound impacts of electronic technologies on communication patterns, communities and new design possibilities (see section 2.3.7).