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Soundscape Composition as Global Music: Electroacoustic music as soundscape*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 June 2008

Barry Truax
Affiliation:
School of Communication & School for the Contemporary Arts, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC Canada V5A 1S6 email: truax@sfu.ca

Abstract

The author covers the background of soundscape composition, as initiated by the World Soundscape Project at Simon Fraser University, and soundscape documentation as an activity that is being increasingly practised worldwide. Today there are two striking manifestations of this work: the increasing globalisation of the electroacoustic community, and the increasing sophistication of digital techniques applied to soundscape composition. In addition, the tradition of listening to environmental soundscapes as if they were music is inverted to suggest listening to electroacoustic music as if it were soundscape. What analytical tools and insights would result? The theoretical concepts introduced in soundscape studies and acoustic communication are summarised and applied first to media and digital gaming environments, noting the extensions of both their sound worlds and the related listening attitudes they provoke in terms of analytical and distracted listening. Traditional approaches to acousmatic and soundscape analysis are compared for their commonalities and differences, the latter being mainly their relative balance of attention towards inner and outer complexity. The types of electroacoustic music most amenable to a soundscape based analysis are suggested, along with brief examples of pieces to which such analysis might be directed.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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References

* Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Sound Escape conference at Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario, and the Electroacoustic Music Studies (EMS07) conference at De Montfort University.

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