Author: Eleanor Anderson

I have often been fascinated by how our sonic environment affects our physical and mental well-being. As a society, I feel that we prioritise verbal language and conversational communication to be more effective for our emotions than the environmental sonics that surrounds us. When language is broken down it is a bunch of sounds, words and phrases that have formed languages through time, and tradition.

Despite the language is beautiful, it can also become a barrier if you are not bilingual. Similar to music contrast to this the environmental sounds we hear are universal. For example, the sound of traffic will be known as traffic all over the world. I want to focus my piece on the strength of sonic environments and what it does to our sense of comfort, and anxiety. We don’t value surrounding sounds until they are taken away from us.   

I studied with Christine Sun Kim, a deaf sound artist who explores the everyday sounds across city centres. Her Work ‘Capturing The City’ focussed on the natural sounds and rhythms that you hear walking around a city. First shown at the Manchester International Festival she chose to focus her soundscape on the city of manchester itself. She appreciates the sound that surrounds her daily; despite her challenges with hearing.

I found her work inspiring towards my own work and I will research further into how and why we do not normally recognise and appreciate the sonic environments around us. It urged me to go and listen to my own environments sonically. Her approach to recognising sound inspired my work for this unit as I went around certain surroundings and collected organic and natural sounds. In the end, I built up a selection of taken sounds t create a soundscape. The work I produced reflects her instinct to highlight the surrounding sounds in day-to-day life.

Soundscape listening and – slow living – covid changing

Since the tragedy of Covid-19, the pandemic has had drastic implements on our daily lives and routine. With paces of modern society running at such a high rate speed, it felt as if life had no time to pause or breathe. Capitalism has taken a hold of the modern world and brought about a fast pace of change through every element of our normal daily lifestyles. 

I want to discuss how this has changed sonically and how we chose to listen to the surroundings around us swell as chosen automated sound. Pre-pandemic music apps such as Spotify, Soundcloud, etc gave us choices and obvious options to flick through song to song as fast as we wanted to. Unlike stereo where this took a little more doing we can now be as indecisive as we chose when it comes to what we listen to. We have complete control and power over what we hear. Despite radio being less controlled this still contributes and reflects our face pace of music by only allowing 3-minute max performances and songs; often playing what is called a ‘radio edit’. 

However, when the pandemic hit and we were forced to pause this came unnatural to our mental states and physical states. With more time in our daily routines, we found that the fast abrupt listening we have been choosing was no longer needed. Long days of no work or social life meant that our society was looking at ways to pass time rather than chase it.

“Twitter found that 56.3% of people have listened to podcasts more since the pandemic” 

Listening changed from short songs to albums and with extended minutes on the clock, this enhanced the rise of podcasts! Podcasts and audiobooks showed a rise in listeners and creators during the lockdown.

Not only has there been a rise in listeners the free time meant that more creators had time to create! With the extra option of podcasts, it is almost certain you can find a podcast on almost anything nowadays. This means that there’s niche and specific audio to connect with as many people as possible; certainly increasing the enticement to listen. 

With more free time in our daily lives, we have found a newfound way of slow living and the benefits for our mental and physical state. Podcasts have seen a rise due to this and continue to do so. 

In reflection on society’s new habits of slow living, I will incorporate this into my work piece. I will leave time for pause and though and ensure that the rhythm of my piece is not rushed. As well as connecting to societal changes of slow living through sonic listening, this also brings an emotional effect on my work.

After recently being privileged enough to visit the National Library’s – Sound Archives, this made me speculate on the way in which ethically we listen to music…

There’s no denying that modes of sound listening will continue developing as time goes on. Beginning with the Edison Phonograph in 1887 technology has not only grown mechanically but also physically in numbers. Hearing music is no longer an exclusive part of society; some could say it is in fact inescapable. Although it should be celebrated for its exclusivity, this can have alarming effects on the environment.

Vinyl bagan the swarm of mass record consumption during the 1950’s however since then it has made a recent comeback in pop culture. The aesthetics of owning and playing vinyl are glamorised and many huge artists have begun releasing their albums through the vinyl. Despite the nostalgic feel and sound of listening on record, Vinyl and its PVC materials is only bad news for the environment. Polyvinyl Chloride is a highly toxic and difficult-to-handle product It is actually the most environmentally damaging plastic to exist. The toxins released during production and disposal infect our food, air and water. These poisonous facts truly make you question how worth it, it is to listen on vinyl. 

Moving forward with the times, these moral queries don’t stop there. In 2006 the Stockholm, Sweedish company ‘Spotify’ was created. At first glimpse streaming sites seem a perfect solution to environmental well-being as well as economical and general convenience. However, with Spotify only paying the artists $0.0033 per stream, their control and moral compass begin to drop. Generators have to be continuously run for 24/7 streaming. Spotify themselves have stated 42% of its GHG emissions come from listener streaming.  

The graph shown above shows you that despite streaming sites showing a huge drop in plastic consumption the amount of greenhouse gasses caused by generating is astronomical.

As I move forward making my own work these figures have made me question the most moral way in which I will choose to present and export my work into the world. Despite our generation is fortunate enough to experience easy access to all forms of music, it is we who need to be cautious of the implications that this causes. 

Andrew Hugill is a British Composer and Academic. His recent work on his 2022 Aural Diversity presents how humans, physiological and physical build; the complexities in which we embody all affect the way we hear and listen.

His book focuses on and informs all the known hearing differences humans can adopt. 

This shows how most of us do not have “normal hearing”. I found this graph fascinating as it tells me how and why certain sounds and aesthetics sonically stand out to others. 

It is obvious and clear by the divide in genres of music that humans develop their own tastes and opinions on certain sounds throughout life. Some people find ASMR relaxing whereas others find it uncomfortable to listen to. Across the world, no human stands the same and everyone prefers different things. After researching Andrew Hugill’s work I came to the conclusion that hearing differences are a key factor in sonic diverse taste. Despite environmental and emotional attachment to certain sounds, I believe that we hear things differently from each other due to hearing differences. This will affect the physiological response that we have to certain sounds resulting in genre boundaries and other diversity in the sound world. 

I found His work fascinating and will definitely reference his studies in my own up-and-coming work regarding the way we listen.