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Hamilton downtown and market soundwalks
The Hamilton market soundwalks explored the area surrounding the market in downtown Hamilton, through the city centre and Jackson square and finally through the market itself. We walked as a single group of 7 or 8 people through the streets and malls, and then stopped for a short discussion. We then split up into smaller groups to walk through the market, and then met at the other side for another discussion period. These walks took place on a Friday afternoon (3 pm) and Saturday morning (10:30 am). The Saturday walk was recorded by Barb Woolner. The people on the walk included some long-time residents who go to the market regularly (one woman said that she goes 4 or 5 times a week), as well as some people who were visitors or newcomers to Hamilton. Long-term residents were able to contribute a historical context on the area and how it has changed, as the market has been covered over and then renovated during more recent years. The texture of the recorded soundwalk from Saturday is suffused throughout with the quiet rolling of a shopping buggy pulled by one walker, which can be heard from time to time in the background. As it is a slushy winter day, water on the streets outlines the movements of cars with long sweeping strokes.
Two walkers noted that they habitually hum while walking, and became more aware of this in a group context. Asked about their listening experience in the larger and smaller groups, people noted that they listen more closely in the large group than in pairs but feel more awkward and self-conscious. There is less temptation to speak in that large group context but less immediate discussion and shared knowledge that enrich the walk in other ways.
Some comparisons were made with other cities. One walker noticed that cars are older in Hamilton, changing the traffic sound. People are very social in Hamilton, speaking with louder voices than in a place like Montreal, where people tend to stand closer together and speak in lower voices. One walker noticed that some parts of Jackson Square are more intimate because of lower ceilings, and seem made for conversation. On the Saturday walk, we noticed how squeaky people’s sneakers are on the floors of the mall, prompting us to call them squeakers rather than sneakers. One walker noticed that areas around vegetable stalls are louder and more lively, because more people seem to be attracted to those stalls. Walkers noticed the ubiquitous sound of refrigerators in the space, something that most had not paid attention to in the past. The Saturday walk was enriched by the mandolin player, whose music was heard now and then, mixed with the chiming of the Birks clock that hangs above the stalls, and the voices of customers and vendors.
Many people noticed how active their sense of smell is on such a walk, especially in a market. You may notice in the recording that the recordist sometimes makes hums of appreciation while walking through the space. There is something about asking oneself to pay attention to one sense that makes all of the senses more alert. People notice more visual aspects of the environment because of slowing down as well, and how they move through the space. Several people commented on how pleasurable it is to slow down and pay attention, to realize that they have no schedule during that time. The soundwalk becomes a liminal time and space, a time to appreciate and explore.
Environmental Listening and the Tulane Soundscape
10:00 a.m., Monday, October 29, 2012, Tulane University, New Orleans:
I arrive at Tulane’s Uptown Campus to plan my route for a soundwalk the same day at 5:00 p.m. The walk will be the initial activity of the Ecomusicologies 2012 Conference, a two-day gathering of music scholars exploring the intersections of music, nature, and culture. This is the first time I have organized a walk in a region affected by two major environmental disasters: Hurricane Katrina and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Will the soundscape in any way still reflect these events? I imagine construction, yet I find the campus and surrounding neighborhood strikingly quiet. Aside from occasional traffic and passing conversation there is a general lack of audible human activity. I cannot tell if this reflects the “stillness” of a place in recovery or the “enclosed quiet” common among college campuses. Perhaps it is my imagining of the recent disasters that informs my listening rather than the immediate acoustic environment. As I map the soundwalk route, I ask myself: Is one able to hear the stories of environmental disasters through active listening? What does it mean to be an environmental listener?
Our relationship to the planet is changing. There is a growing ecological consciousness, including an increased desire among humans to protect and conserve the natural world. At the same time, we must continue to accommodate as best we can for potential natural disasters (e.g., the levee and canal systems in New Orleans). Definitions of a healthy environment are complex. From R. Murray Schafer’s notion of “soundscape” to Bernie Krause’s “niche hypothesis,” there are different viewpoints regarding the distinction between a “pristine” sound environment and a “polluted” one. Yet, these approaches share emphasis on the audibility of sounds, both human and non-human. For Schafer, the preservation of quiet is fundamental, an argument which has been extended by Gordon Hempton. Whereas Schafer delimits the type and number of sounds in order to experience a desired hi-fi environment, Krause considers the diversity of sounds a characteristic central to a “healthy” soundscape; that is, a myriad of sounds are heard, each occupying its respective frequency range without overpowering other acoustic events. Considering Schafer and Krause’s soundscape theories, does this mean that the general quietude and limited number of sounds at Tulane are reflective of a disrupted place? Arguably, soundwalking plays a key role in perceiving balances and imbalances in the soundscape, and thus invites new interpretations and applications of the term. Scholars such as Timothy Ingold, Andra McCartney, Barry Truax, and Hildegard Westerkamp, among others, have made valuable contributions to soundscape studies, inviting us to move beyond prescriptive definitions associated with traditional approaches to the field. Soundwalking is playing an increasingly important part in this conversation. In this practice, the concept of “soundscape” is not only about listening but also about reflection and response: by taking time to listen actively, participants are invited to “speak back” to the acoustic environment by verbalizing their thoughts and/or making changes in their lifestyle.
Somewhere between New Orleans and Vancouver, reflecting, revisiting a recording of the walk:
The event consisted of a brief introduction followed by a one-hour walk and a post-walk discussion. In attendance were approximately twenty musicologists, ethnomusicologists, music theorists, and artists, ranging from students to senior faculty. The group met at Rogers Memorial Chapel on the north side of campus at 5:00 p.m. A map showing the route is available here. Accompanied by a calm breeze, we walked toward the University’s main power plant (see map: no. 86). After pausing briefly next to a fountain we proceeded down an alley, with the plant on our left and a series of artisan studios on our right (welding, glassblowing, etc.). Listen here. The combination of heavy machinery from the power facility and active ventilation from the studios proved to be the most pronounced, lo-fi setting of the walk. (Excluding this portion, our footsteps were audible for much of the walk.) Subsequently, we crossed two grass quads (see map: area between no. 55 and 56 and no. 38 and 39). Pausing at the second quad, which was surrounded by several high-rise dormitories, the call of a crow and a plane passing directly overhead echoed within the enclosed area. Listen here. Such unplanned moments are particularly striking to me. Had we continued walking, this particular interaction between crow, plane, and acoustic space would have gone unnoticed.
A particularly intense moment for participants was entering the Lavin-Bernick Student Center (see map: no. 29). For some, the smell of the food court was overpowering; for others, the water feature in the Center attracted their senses (the structure consisted of water running down large “sheets” of metal wire). Shortly after entering the building, my listening focused on a television featuring news coverage of Hurricane Sandy, which had just struck the Northeast. Listen here. I recalled my initial question about environmental listening. Up to this point, the delicate quietude of Tulane seemed to be the only possible sonic marker of a potentially altered ecosystem. Yet, at this moment the past informed the present: similar media coverage would have streamed from televisions across campus in 2005. To my ears, the television was informing viewers of present concerns while simultaneously resonating with the past. After leaving the Student Center we made our way back to the vicinity of the Chapel. We passed through the second floor of the music building (see map: no. 68), pausing briefly in a hallway lined with practice rooms before ending the walk in a rehearsal room. Listen here.
During the post-walk discussion, several recurring themes emerged, namely dialogue among the sounds heard and the dynamic between the individual/group and other humans. One participant appreciated the different types of wind, ranging from the rustle of wind in the trees to a breeze passing through an alleyway—the wind began as a gentle breeze and picked up as the walk progressed. Other observations included footsteps on different surfaces (grass, pebbles, concrete, mulch, fallen nuts), the interaction between the crow, airplane and the acoustics of the dormitory quad, and the contrast between the indoor water feature and the neighboring food court. One member of the group commented on the similarities between animal and human sounds: at one moment a woman laughed in a series of loud, rapid chuckles, immediately followed by a dog barking in a sharp, rhythmic fashion. Regarding the dynamics between the group and our surroundings, someone remarked that nonparticipants occasionally interpreted us as suspect due to our silence and slow walking pace; there were several verbalizations, including “Those are some very quiet people” and “What is that tour about?”
9:00 a.m., Monday, November 26, 2012, Vancouver:
Approximately one month has passed since the soundwalk at Tulane University. I recall the indoor and outdoor water features, the power plant and artisan studios, the piano in the practice room, and the voices of the participants. These are the sounds of human presence, not the sounds of desolation. Had the walk been organized in a part of New Orleans with physical remnants of the storm or facing the economic repercussions of the oil spill then notions of environmental listening would have likely been different. I am curious what others remember and whether or not their listening has changed since the walk, which was a first for many.
A walk involving music scholars is unique in terms of approaches to listening. In this context, participants naturally apply their training in music perception, observing the acoustic environment in terms of rhythm, timbre, harmony, contrasts in dynamics, etc. Several soundwalkers used music terminology to describe their experience. For example, one person observed a “counterpoint” between a crow and its echo against a nearby building; another commented on changing dynamic levels in terms of movement around the corners of buildings.
Following one’s ears alone, as I had done earlier in the day on October 29, is quite different from actively listening with a group. We each bring our individual sense making to a soundwalk (apparent in our gestures—what catches our attention, when we pause—and sharing our experiences during the post-walk discussion), which others can consider using in their own practice, response, etc. I would like to leave open the thought that collective listening shapes our relationships to locale in ways that are different from connections between an individual and place. By listening as a group, we not only take time to open our ears to our surroundings, but also to share our experiences. We bring our own questions, new questions arise, and through soundwalking we not only learn more about the acoustic environment, but also deepen our understanding about ourselves and each other as listeners.
- Tyler Kinnear
Bio: Tyler Kinnear is a Ph.D. student in Musicology at the University of British Columbia. His research focuses on conceptions of nature in music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Tyler is an active member of the Ecocriticism Study Group of the American Musicological Society and currently serves as co-coordinator of the Vancouver Soundwalk Collective.
Soundwalking Interactions at Dance Dramaturgy (York University 2011)
“Soundwalking Interactions.” Presentation, installation and dance performance with sound artist Andra McCartney, interactive artist Don Sinclair, choreographer Susan Lee, dancers Tracey Norman, Bee Pallomina, Shannon Roberts, and Jesse Dell. Dance Dramaturgy: Catalyst, Perspective and Memory, York University, June 23, 2011.
All members of the group began by going on a soundwalk together in a Toronto park. Andra McCartney began by leading, but then held back in order to feel which direction the group tended at different moments. She then encouraged others to take over leadership. This shift in leadership and direction created different feelings of flocking that were later referenced in the improvisatory structure of the dance. The group halted part way through the walk to exchange listening ideas, then continued. The next day, the recorded soundwalk was posted online for download. The group gathered and listened to the whole soundwalk, pausing after every ten minutes to discuss what was heard. On the basis of this discussion, sound excerpts were edited for the dancers to use in the installation. After the first rehearsal, the choreographer asked for more sounds to be generated, based on the desires of the dancers and the needs of the choreography. Lee designed a choreographic structure that gave room for improvisation in gesture and movement within scored moments of 45 seconds to 1 minute in length, creating a piece in five gestural sections that lasted around 16 minutes. Movements were linked with the experience of the soundwalk and the attributes of the sounds. In the space of the installation, dancers walked behind each other, sometimes embracing each other, leading and following, circling and pausing, sometimes listening with eyes closed, articulating the space and the sounds through staccato gestures and changes in tempo, moving closer to each other and farther apart; all of these motions translated into swirling colours and shapes on the projection. The installation relies on a bodily exploration of acoustic possibilities within a circumscribed space. The exercise also reveals relationships between bodily movements and a sense of place. For instance, stillness could result in silence, as well as the absence of visual traces on the screen, or alternatively it could result in loud sound that would be attenuated by movement. Each case provided different kinds of possibilities for bodily articulation of the space in sound. Movements inside a given place reveal its shape and boundaries. Participants explore the space, activating each sound voluntarily or by accident, returning to the most appealing, disturbing or evocative sounds and mixing them. Movements become progressively more confident, musical, gestural. Thus the choreography develops into defined phrases and trajectories through the audible memories of the walk, the circumscribed space of the installation and its various sonic configurations.
The text in this posting is developed out of a former analysis of this piece in the CJC.
Paquette, David and Andra McCartney. “Soundwalking and the bodily exploration of places.” Canadian Journal of Communication, 37 (1), 2012: 135-145.
Eric Leonardson writes about Audioparc soundwalks
http://ericleonardson.org/whatsnew/2012/11/17/photos-from-audioparc-launch-in-laval-quebec/
Eric Leonardson and Andra McCartney led soundwalks for Audioparc, curated by Magali Babin at Galerie Verticale in Laval, QC. In this post, Eric Leonardson describes the events of that weekend.
Soundwalks at metro de la Concorde in Laval, QC
Soundwalks at metro de la Concorde.
Part of the Audioparc event at Galerie Verticale in Laval, commissioned by Magali Babin.
Balade; balader.
I want to propose the notion of “balade sonore” as French translation for the English term soundwalk. Instead of “marche sonore” which seems a bit too military, or promenade, which evokes the idea of walking to show oneself, or even “dérive” in which like the Situationists one might seek to be completely lost or disoriented, I like the idea of “balader” … to do a “balade” –which has the same root in French as the word for song. A balade is also a way of slowing down. A balade is a bit vague. Not exactly lost, but not at all rushed. Slow, attentive, alert to all sounds, with all senses, all sensations.
A balade sonore or soundwalk is a form of creation and method of research that utilizes listening and sometimes recording as a way to explore a place on foot. Each soundwalk can be considered in a musical fashion, as a mnemonic tool, or as a source of information about the environment. People’s listening experiences can become the point of departure for conversations that bring together the epistemological, aesthetic and ethical dimensions of the places where sounds are found, and these same dimensions can be found in the detailed reflections of participants in soundwalks, in listening sessions afterwards, and in reaction to artworks which come from soundwalks.
Listening
There are many ways to listen. One can listen like a musician, thinking of the melodies, harmonies and rhythms of the sonic environment. One can create a musical piece out of the sounds heard. One can listen sensually, like a poet, linking senses — the touch of sound, the noises of images, the taste of a location. One can listen to sounds politically, thinking of which sounds mask others, which are more present, which dominate. Because we walk in a group, we can reflect on the internal dynamics of that structure. What can one hear of the group> Does this structure give our listening a certain dynamic or constrain it? One can listen historically to the place, thinking of the history of a certain place or culture, one can imagine its history, the people who lived there before, the sounds that are now gone, changed, or amplified. It is also possible to create imaginary bridges between different sounds, sonic resemblances that connect spaces separated in time and space, one place calling to another, echoing, producing an imaginary place in between that has characteristics of each. And one can listen as if listening to a lover. One can reserve a certain sort of attention, a certain kind of intent listening towards the sonic environment, which resembles the kind of listening that we do in the company of someone we love. With the Soundwalking Interactions project, we wish to concentrate our attention on the participants of soundwalks, and wish to talk to them about their different intentions and their specific responses to the sonic environment, their approaches to listening while moving through places.
I walked in the area around Metro de la Concorde in Laval, several times between June and September 2012. Here are some comments on what I heard during those walks.
La Route Verte.
Everyone loves the colour green. Close to the metro, there is a “route verte”, a cycling path that is also accessible to pedestrians. But I ask myself here, what does green signify in this context? A narrow asphalt laneway between barriers, cloistered between railway and parking lots, barriers of 2 to 3 metres in height, made of plastic and steel. Perhaps it is a green route just because of its very existence, a way that permits cyclists to quickly go from one place to another. But for pedestrians, who gain access only at street corners, there is no way out for long stretches, everything is closed off. Is this a green experience?
Close to here, I stand under large electrical structures while late-summer insects sing in the weeds underneath. Many insects, signalling the end of summer and beginning of school. Buzzing like electricity.
I think about the paths and what they might mean. There are ornamental paths that go nowhere, aesthetic paths of reddish stone that lead to a fence blocking the route or go round in circles. Will l listen differently on those paths? (self-consciously perhaps) Will my listening be more open or more linear, in between the lines? On escalators, rising and falling next to each other in the metro, is my listening directed by the rhythms felt underfoot?
There are different modes of transport integrated here: train, subway, buses, cars, pedestrians, cyclists. Which are most important in the design of the metro? Who uses this place at what times? According to what I found, after the 9 am rush finishes, it is cyclists who pass through most in the morning, around the metro itself. A bit further off, the sound of traffic is constant. There is little movement in the parking area after rush hour. Pedestrians walk from one entrance to another, but few seem to frequent the pleasant sitting space with wooden walkways and benches surrounded by tall grasses and subway vents, near the metro door.
A string of pearls
I think of our soundwalk near the Metro as like a string of pearls, where each sonic moment is one pearl on the string. Moments of listening stillness, moments of group listening-walking, moments where we stand and comment on what we have heard. Each moment has a distinct ambience, made of the movements of the group, the sounds of the environment, other sensations, and the effects of the commentary. The de la Concorde soundwalk contained many of these pearls, each a few minutes long, held together by listening. Walkers spoke of the eerie quietness of the residential area nearby, the lack of pedestrians on the street compared with more downtown locations. Walkers also remarked on the long length of the blocks, made more on car scale than on pedestrian. The most ubiquitous sound on the soundwalk was that of cars (comme toujours!) Close to the metro, people remarked on the strange and other-worldly breathing and creaking noises made by the subway vents, sounds that we heard as well in the installation of Jen Reimer and Max Stein.
The soundwalk was followed by a different soundwalk led by Eric Leonardson of Chicago, focused through interaction with stones picked up at the site, on the hill next to a vent (and replaced there afterwards). The group moved from one part of the site to another, clicking the stones to activate the architecture acoustically, at times conducted by Leonardson who asked different parts of the group to play to each other.
Deux ambiances au même moment / Two simultaneous ambiences
At the Ambiances in Action conference, we decided to do two simultaneous soundwalks. In the past, walkers had sometimes been frustrated by Andra’s slow pace, which some described as ‘melancholic’! So we decided to offer two walks, one more slowly moving, and one at a faster pace. Andra’s slowly moving group went through back alleys to the university. David’s faster moving group went through the tunnel and down to the highway. Both returned for a discussion at the CCA, where we told each other where we had been and what we had heard, and then talked about common interests. Many of the participants already include walking in their creative practice, so there were many points of common interest.
Here are two videos, from the same moment of the walk, experienced by each group:
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Lors de la conférence Ambiances en actes, nous avons décidé de faire deux marches sonores simultanées. Lors de marches antérieures, certains participants avaient mentionné qu’ils avaient été gênés par la lenteur du rythme de marche d’Andra, allant même jusqu’à le qualifier de mélancholique! Nous avons alors proposé deux maches, une plus lente et une plus rapide. Alors que le groupe d’Andra s’est rendu jusqu’à l’université Concordia par les ruelles, le groupe de David, plus rapide, a traversé l’autouroute et est revenu par le tunnel de la rue du Fort. Nos deux groupes cesont ensuite rejoints pour une discussion au CCA. Plusieurs participants avaient déjà inclus dans leur démarche créative l’utilisation de la marche, ce qui a nourri grandement la discussion.
Voici deux vidéos se déroulant au même moment, selon la perspective de chaque groupe:
Audioparc
VERTICALE investira les abords de la station de métro de la Concorde pour présenter AUDIOPARC, un projet de commissariat de MAGALI BABIN. Les installations, interventions, performances et présentations des artistes DOUGLAS MOFFAT, ANDRA MC CARTNEY et ERIC LEONARDSON (Chicago), MAX STEIN et JEN REIMER, NATALIYA PETKOVA, PATRICE COULOMBE et KATHY KENNEDY s’échelonneront sur toute l’année de programmation 2012-2013.
