Reimagining Landscapes With A Cacophony of Soundscapes

Photo by Michael Competielle

“The final question will be: is the soundscape of the world an indeterminate composition over which we have no control, or are we its composers and performers, responsible for giving it form and beauty?” 

― R. Murray Schafer, The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World

As my writing exercise is winding down my experiences from the experiment has charged my creativity. The next 100 day series of challenges is moving into compositional sound recording with the added element of composing to an image and creating visual soundscapes.

The exploration of finding content in which to use to make a connection of our sense of sight and hearing is nothing new. From the days of theater or musicals through talkie films and modern-day media, sound to visuals has gelled together well. We have learned to feel a connection to a character’s emotions by using sounds of music to stage the scene as we are lured into the content.

Our minds can make connections to our emotions independently to our conscious thoughts bringing us to a place where we are immersed into the body of others, feeling what they are feeling. The spoken word isn’t required to toy with sadness or despair. Often a single reverberant piano note will bring us to a place where we feel pain and suffering.

There are many, many nouns for the act of looking — a glance, a glimpse, a peep — but there’s no noun for the act of listening. In general, we don’t think primarily about sound. So I have a different perspective on the world; I can construct soundscapes that have an effect on people, but they don’t know why. It’s a sort of subterfuge -Walter March

Hearing Emotion

The classical composers recognized by varying the connections of musical notes compositions could envoke emotion. By altering the individual notes in a phrase or chord, alters the feeling of the composition as our feelings are along for the ride. 

When we actively participate in focused listening we begin to hear the subtle nuances in sounds. Winds and rain have tonality that can paint a visual painting that takes us to that place. Rolling waves, babbling brooks to crashing waterfalls are all movements of water, however, they all have a unique audible sound that paints the picture. 

Whimsical sounds will place us in a happier mood unlike the dissonance felt from fingernails on a chalkboard. The subtle nuance of sounds of we listen closely is meditative and educational.

Intellectuals favor instrumental music as it will allow the imaginations under the wild as we define space and time. Our minds will listen for the clues and begin to develop a spatial perspective. 

Wind and leaves mean trees. A Forest? Moving water could identity a creek, stream or an ocean. The timber and intensity of the sounds become our clues. Crashing water could be oceans waves or a waterfall. 

As we listen to sounds intently we begin to spark our brain to make connections to the visual. Like an expressionist painter, we paint shapes and colors as we build the landscape from the elements of the soundscape. Our minds make the connection as we visualize the scene like reading brilliant literature. 

Packing My Life Into A Backpack

Photo by Michael Competielle

The Past

When the Communists entered my grandparent’s Austrian homestead, they were forced to pack up and leave. They were only allowed one truck amongst the family and were required to pack within the hour and head out onto the road. 

Often I try to imagine the feeling of being forced to pack within one hour everything that matters to me into a trunk and carry it away. The remainder of my belongings never to be seen again. 

What would I deem important? Are some of my worldly possessions not going to fit, easily replaceable or nonessential? For the most part yes. 

With the false sense of security feeling, this will never happen to me I can simply disregard the notion and not worry. But history has a tendency to repeat itself, and even if it will never happen, what do I really possess that could fill that trunk?

In war-torn 1940’s Europe, I’d say clothing, food, blankets and some photographs. Not much more would really matter. Discarded and left behind as I’m certain many felt lucky they were escaping with their lives.

Stuffing Your Life in a Backpack

So my experiment is what items are of essential importance to my daily needs? The backpack concept comes from a desire to travel to more remote destinations where I would need to minimize my packs. 

My passion to travel has never been stronger and my quest to document these experiences is the single most important objective. 

My pack will include a camera to capture the scenery and experience as I attempt to seize the moment and freeze it in time. 

The sound of environments has become my latest experiment and therefore I must bring along my audio recording gear. 

Recently I’ve come to the realization that I’m also a writer. Pen to paper not so much as I write on an iPad or laptop. Seems that also needs to go into the pack.

I’m looking into a lightweight Buddhist prayer rug so I can sit close to the earth and become connected to my environment.

Clothing, some snacks, and water I’m thinking the pack is full and going to be heavy.

Lightening the Load

My iPhone can actually handle most of the tasks mentioned above, photography and video, sound recording, writing, and even a few ebooks I would feel relatively complete. 

Any of the other equipment would need to improve the capabilities of my cellphone or else their value begins to fade after hours of humping the heavy pack through the paths of travel.

What about all we left behind

So now I begin to question everything I’ve left behind. Is anything essential? As a collective of physical content much of the things I own I’d say yes. However if I was forced to pack them into a trunk, never to see the items left behind could I survive? Am I willing to walk away from the clutter of life and feel complete and whole? 

One day I’m certain to find out. Be it my quest for enlightened travel or my placement into my eternal place of rest. 

Passion in Performance

 The Experience of Live Music 

Photo by Michael Competielle

With a history dating back to the prehistoric cave-dwelling era, musical performance and more than likely ritual music performances have been experienced for centuries. With sounds ranging from the human voice, banging rocks and sticks early musical creation is believed to mimic soundscapes and nature sounds.

Drums have been used for religious ceremonies and for marching into battle. And for thousands of years music was a performance art requiring the listener to be present for the presentation. It wasn’t until the late 1870s that audio recordings were possible separating the performance from the performer. 

Early forms of recorded music was in the form of notation that still required a performer for the audience to hear the musical piece. As technology improved mechanical means of sound performance existed from player pianos and organ yet again lacked the performer.

As history moved on we have passed through many technological advances for recording and reproducing sound performances yet most besides motion picture have attempted to capture the energy and emotion from viewing a live performance.

With the expansion of musical venues and advancing in sound reproduction we have been able to have huge music festivals and concerts that can capture the energy and expression from live performance.

Huge infamous musical performances such as Woodstock in 1969 and The Monterey Pop Festival were massive 3-day musical events where performers performed for hundreds of thousands of people.

With philosophies of peace, love, and art, these festivals have inspired entire generations of musical aficionados. Radio play, vinyl records, 8 track tapes, and cassettes tapes have captured the audio performance but lack in the connectivity we experience during a live musical performance.

Jam bands such as The Grateful Dead and Phish have inspired an entire generation of tapers that have been positively encouraged to record and redistribute live performances. The recordings often coming directly off the soundboard generate quality recordings that are almost like witnessing live.

What lacks in these recordings and radio play is the energy of the crowd. Nothing comes close to the experience of moving your body to the beat and rhythm to music along with tens of thousand people. Buried deep in a concert crowd is the togetherness and positive energy and vibe from concertgoers.

Walking into a concert venue brings the connectively and mutual commonality that allows us to escape into the musical journey. Lighting, sounds and smells fuel your emotion as you’ll feel a natural release of stress and angst. Swaying to the music and dancing to the groove collectively with hundreds or thousand of others.

The thrill of a performer hitting the stage, energetically charge by the sheer magnitude of a crowd, electrified by the energy, prepared to give it everything they’ve got.

The rhythmic sound of drums pounding, guitars screaming and words that will fuel your soul, music is the ultimate stress reliever and live performances the best medicine.

Hardly a chance to not even see the most pessimistic observer not tapping a foot, nodding their head and swaying to the music from a live performance.

Listening to Life… A Soundwalk

Photo by Michael Competielle

Buzzkill

Weekend mornings are a time for extended rest, free from the burdens of weekday life. Our dream sequences allowing us to transcend reality for just a few minutes more. Composed and at ease, we calmly rest.

And then the lawnmowers start, 2 cycle weed-eaters and leaf blowers wreak havoc on my silent lucidity. Environmental noise pollution poisoning my mood and making my heart beat a bit faster.

Certainly, the suburban lawn is one of the least ecologically friendly environments, a biological wasteland. I’ll ask myself how with all good conscience can I partake in helping destroy our environment willingly?

Natures Classroom

Earlier this year my wife and I took a soundwalk through The Watershed Institute, a 1,000-acre watershed reserve. The Watershed staff consists of water and land stewards working to protect our local waters and wildlife habitat.

Photo by Michael Competielle

Armed with my backpack full of field recording gear we headed into the visitors center. Kiosks explained the history of the mission of the Institute. We learned about the impact of water runoff from manicured landscaped yards. The harmful use of herbicides and pesticides and their impact on our waterways. The Watershed recognizes itself as responsible to maintain the ecology of the local landscape and teaches those practices.

As we walked outside feeling informed yet still exploratory, I read on a sign about the Institutes rain gardens that collected the building’s water runoff and how native plants are used in its construction.

Native plants have adapted themselves naturally to survive well in local environments and create a biologically stable habitat for bugs, birds, and bees. Pesticides, herbicides and added fertilizers aren’t required for native plantings to thrive.

The Trail

Putting on my headphones and holding my microphones we began heading down a wooden boardwalk that’s slightly elevated from the boggy land below I could feel the sense of life in the foliage and ground. Frogs, crickets, and bugs were immediately apparent as we headed deeper into the woods.

A smell of rotten eggs wafted towards our noses, evident that this site is biologically diverse.

The raised boardwalk ended and we found ourselves navigated a muddy terrain as we headed deeper into the watershed. Stopping every few hundred feet to observe the sounds of the remote preserve. It didn’t take a highly trained ear to hear the disturbances from near distance noise pollution.

I could hear the sound of a lawnmower trimming some local fields and a distant sound of small aircraft inflight from a local airstrip. I stopped recording as I was saddened how my excursion which felt remote was not far enough away from manmade noise.

I began to think about the animals when they are awakened from their dreams. Forced into fight or flight in an environment they call their home. None essential human-made noises that could easily be avoided if we respected the Earth and nurtured our environment.

It was on that day I learned about the environmental impacts of humans and the ecological effects of manmade noise. It was on that day I began my quest to become… An Audio Ecologist.