The Book of Music and Nature: An Anthology of Sounds, Words, Thoughts

Speaking from Inside the Soundscape

Speaking from Inside the Soundscape I am speaking to you primarily as a composer who chooses to compose with the sounds of the environment. But I am also speaking as someone who once emigrated from one culture to another, someone who is concerned about the health of the soundscape, someone who is still learning to listen and remains astonished and fascinated by the complexities of listening. Astonished, because the process of listening is always full of new experiences and surprises. Fascinated , because sound and listening are intimately connected with the passing of time and therefore with how time is spent, how life is lived. The soundscape voices the passing of time and reaches into every moment of our personal and professional lives. It reaches right into this place and this moment of time, becoming a lived soundscape for all of us in this room. tape:1 listen lislisten listen lislisten listen listen listen listen listen listen listen listen listen lislisten listen lislisten We are inside the act of listening. We are here to listen to the listening. tape:2 Sound of footsteps. Then they stop. Then voice: “Today is the 6th of December. I’m on Hollyburn Mountain. It’s a very sparkling, cold, sunny day. It’s very still up here. I hardly dare to talk for fear of covering all the little sounds that are happening around me here. I am standing on a trail that goes through the forest. . . . Tape fades Together we are creating a quality of listening and soundmaking in this sonic space, the quality of time passing. [ 143 ] hildegard westerkamp ⢇ tape:3 City ambience. Then voice over ambience: “The city is roaring tonight— — — — — — —It’s quite a clear evening— — — — — — — — —I hear a muddle of sound— — — — — — — —That’s the city— — — — — — — — —A large undefined sound— — — — —anonymous sound of the city— —from anonymous sources.” Train horn sounds in mid-distance (— — — — — — – — — —long long short long: signal for train crossings). Children’s voices screeching a block away. “Thank God for the kids and for those signals, train horns— —” Trainhorn sound. “— —that give a definition to this place, that give it a name.” Ambience fades. I have been asked to speak about the musical, artistic aspects of the soundscape. The more I thought about this, the more I realized that I cannot speak about anything involving the soundscape if I want to stay true to an ecological consciousness that positions itself inside the soundscape, as part of and participant in the soundscape, not as outsider, observer, or commentator. tape:4 Footsteps on snow fade in under live talk So, my speaking today will be an attempt to speak from inside the soundscape, more specifically from inside this soundscape, from inside remembered soundscapes , from inside my experience and knowledge of soundscape, from inside the musical, artistic aspects of the soundscape. tape continues: Footsteps continue. Stop. Then voice: “Nobody has been here— —since the last snowfall— — — — — — —Listen to the icicles.” Icicle sounds, then tape fades. As infants, we truly did exist inside the soundscape. We listened and we made sounds from inside that place. We were, in fact, incapable of stepping outside of it. tape:5 Waves crashing. Then voice: “A sound, to me, is very much about time. Time passing. The quality of time passing. How it passes. And if we listen to that, we are very much inside the sound, very much inside the soundscape.” Wave ambience fades. By listening we got an impression of the world into which we were born, 144 ] hildegard westerkamp and with soundmaking we expressed our needs, desires, and emotions. As babies , listening was for us an active process of learning, one way of receiving vital information about our surroundings and about the people who were closest to us. And whatever we heard and listened to became material for vocal imitation , for first attempts to articulate, express, and make sounds. Listening and soundmaking (input and output, impression and expression) were ongoing activities, like breathing, happening simultaneously, always in relation to each other, in a feedback process. The relationship between the acoustic information we received as babies and what we expressed vocally was balanced. And in this balance between listening and soundmaking, we never questioned how our time passed. It simply passed by virtue of our being active inside each moment. tape:6 Rain/wave ambience. Then a mix of voice speaking words and phrases: “Delicate balance— — — — —carved— —carved out of...