Daniel Hill Dissertation

M A rc h D I S S ER TAT I O N I N A R C H I T EC T U R E DAN HILL

ECOACOUSTIC IDENTIT Y A S O U N DWA L K M E T H O D O LO G Y F O R E S TA B L I S H I N G T H E R ECO G N I S A B I L I T Y O F T H E S O U N D S C A PE

ECOACOUSTIC IDENTIT Y A S O U N DWA L K M E T H O D O LO G Y F O R E S TA B L I S H I N G T H E R ECO G N I S A B I L I T Y O F T H E S O U N D S C A PE

M A rc h D I S S ER TAT I O N I N A R C H I T EC T U R E DAN HILL 14 0304 3 18 S CH O O L O F A R CH I T EC T U R E , P L A N N I N G A N D L A N D S C A P E N E W C A S T L E U N I V ER S I T Y

I would like to extend thanks to Dr. Tim Shaw and Dr. Usue Ruiz-Arana for their insightful guidance after stepping in to supervise this piece of work.

Also, thank you to Dr. Nathaniel Coleman and James Craig for their advice in directing this research paper.

Finally, thank you to all of the volunteers who took time to participate in the study, particularly through this difficult period of global, pandemicinduced instability.

TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S

CHAPTER

HEADING

PAG E

Introduction

1

Literature Review

4 Rhythm, Music and Space-Time

4

Auditory Spatial Awareness

5

Listening and Perception

7

Soundwalking

8

Methodology

11 Soundwalk Routes

11

Hardware

13

Volunteer Participation Results

14 15

Maps

16

Tables

25

Discussion

26 Soundwalk 1

26

Soundwalk 2

29

Unexpected Results

32

Usefulness

35

Implications

36

Shortcomings

37

Conclusion

40

Bibliography

44

List of Figures

47

I nt r oduction

“When, in due course, man invented words and music he altered the soundscape and the soundscape altered man.”

(Fuller, 1966, p. 52.)

As I sit to write this paper in the ground floor bedroom of my temporary student home, I hear the boiler beside me activate for its pre-programmed evening period. I recall the first occasion it did so, and how it startled me. Its gurgling is a sound I encounter in the same place and time every day that passes. It has become a part of my own personal soundscape, a rhythm that announces itself only to me. I think also of the previous tenants who once occupied this room and were subject to its rhythms, wondering if they too shared such an intimate relationship with their home’s boiler. Probably not.

The boiler’s sparking to life is not only a sound; and although in knowing its daily rhythm, I

have been made aware it is approximately half-past six; nor is it simply an imprecise clock. The sound is indicative of activity, the beginning of a warming process of the space I occupy. Though I considered it a disturbance at first, it reassures me of the proximity of thermal comfort in my near future.

An hour or so from now, I will at last be warm.

Sound and activity are intrinsically linked, for they are fundamentally two outputs of the same physical process: the vibration of matter. In the context of the city, there is such a difference between these two scales of vibration that we often fail to observe or accommodate for their affiliation.

I ntroduction

1

Figure 1.1. Photograph showing the adjacency between boiler cupboard and desk.

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EC O AC O U S T I C I D EN T I T Y

Dedicated to studying this connection is the discipline of Acoustic Ecology, sometimes referred to as Ecoacoustics or Soundscape Studies, pioneered by R. Murray Schafer in the late 1960’s as part of the World Soundscape Project (Schafer et al., 2007). The movement sparked huge scholarly interest, resulting in a vast amount of diverse literature from fields ranging from art and architecture to geography and the medical sciences.

I have looked at significant works from as many of these diversified sources as possible, in an attempt to deliver a comprehensive methodology for analysing Newcastle’s soundscapes. Motivated by the soundwalk method produced by one of Schafer’s most prominent students, Hildegard Westerkamp (1978; 1989), I invited volunteers to listen to pre-recorded virtual soundwalks around the city and asked them to map out their perceived journeys in real-time based on the sound environments they encountered.

By isolating the ear from the other sensory organs, I hope to discover the significance the soundscape has on perceived space and orientation, and furthermore, establish the strength of Newcastle’s acoustic identity.

REFERENCES: Fuller, R. B. (1966) “The Music of the New Life.” Music Educators Journal. 52(6), pp. 52-68.

Schafer, R. M. Truax, B. Westerkamp, H. Broomfield, H. Davis, B. and Huse, P. (2007) “Information.” The World

Soundscape Project . Available at: https://www.sfu.ca/sonic-studio-webdav/WSP/index.html [Accessed: 04 March 2021].

Westerkamp, H. (1978) “Fantasie for Horns I.” Hildegard Westerkamp, Inside the Soundscape. Available at: https://www.hildegardwesterkamp.ca/sound/comp/4/fantasie-1/ [Accessed: 3 February 2021].

Westerkamp, H. (1989) “Kits Beach Soundwalk.” Hildegard Westerkamp, Inside the Soundscape. Available at: https://www.hildegardwesterkamp.ca/sound/comp/3/kitsbeach/ [Accessed: 3 February 2021].

I ntroduction

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L ite r atu r e Re v ie w

R H Y T H M , M U S I C A N D S PAC E -T I M E Sara Adhitya’s Musical Cities (2017) addresses the sonic issues of the modern urban environment through a process of rhythmanalysis, a term popularised by Henri Lefebvre in his compilation of essays, Rhythmanalysis: Space, Time and Everyday Life (2004). Adhitya considers: “Both cities and music are compositions of various rhythms: they both structure time; they both produce sound; and they have the ability to move us, both physically and emotionally.” (2017, p. xxii.)

Adhitya’s writing on rhythm takes much from Lefebvre, referring to urban rhythms as “the approximate repetition of any urban interaction at a given spatio-temperal [sic] scale.” (ibid. p.

4). Urban rhythms exist in many forms, from naturally occurring days and seasons, to man-made working hours or school holidays. All of these rhythms bring about changes in activity, be it natural or human, which in turn welcome a plethora of new acoustic information. A conversation in the reverberation-suppressing snow, for instance, sounds very different to one enjoyed in the heat of summer.

The subject of rhythm raises alongside it the importance of the passing of time, both at large and minute scale. Without time, there can be no sound; from monthly or seasonal changes in urban rituals, to the many thousands of air fluctuations resonating the eardrum each second in listening to the uppermost limits of a violin’s frequency range. The passing of time is intrinsically linked to the creation and reception of sound itself, and the soundscape should be considered no differently.

Lefebvre, on music and rhythm writes: “Sound occupies a space, and the instruments of existence. The spatialisation of musical time cannot be deemed a betrayal. Perhaps music presupposes a unity of time and space, an alliance. In and through rhythm?” (2004, p.60.)

The implication here is that rhythm, in the case of music, is the binding agent between time and space, relative to both. Rhythm acknowledges the symbiosis of time and space, and through using it as a framework for constructing a methodology, Lefebvre feels able to analyse more effectively the generative and reactive context of the urban soundscape. Through the critical relationship highlighted in his work, I have sought my own methodological approach to connect time, space and sound.

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Lefebvre was far from the first to explore the twining of music and architecture. The Renaissance welcomed a great appreciation for the golden ratio; a sacred cosmic proportion believed to guide art towards inherent beauty. This mathematical enlightenment encouraged the masters of music, architecture and the arts to express the golden ratio in their compositions (Vergo, 2005, p. 142), thus imbuing their work with aesthetic infallibility. A few centuries later, perhaps the most famous of all historical observations on the link between architecture and music was made by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, speaking to Johann Peter Eckermann as noted in Conversations with Goethe in the Last

Years of his Life: “ ‘I have found, among my papers,’ said Goethe, ‘a leaf, in which I call architecture frozen music.

There is something in the remark; the influence that flows upon us from architecture is like that from music.’ ” (Eckermann, 1839, p. 282.)

Goethe’s dictum, usually shortened to “Architecture is frozen music” (and frequently supplemented with “Music is liquid architecture”), like many short and potent philosophical statements has fallen victim to clichéd use over time. It is often used in a positive context to highlight the technical, artistic and emotive qualities deemed to be shared between the subjects. The use of the word ‘frozen’ implies stasis; a lack of movement and thereby an irrelativity to time. Reading the statement in this light holds resonance more clearly with Peter Vergo’s observations on the aesthetically ordered connections between music and space during the Renaissance. Lefebvre and subsequently Adhitya’s interpretations of sound and space lie in direct opposition to this; ever evolving and dynamically shifting with the rhythms humankind and nature impose.

These contrasting viewpoints highlight the basis of argument much contemporary environmental sound study is built upon. An appreciation of these tensions fosters further critical perspective on contemporary works, and on the field as a whole.

AU D I T O RY S PAT I A L AWA R E N E S S Barry Blesser and Linda-Ruth Salter assert that perceptions of auditory space are little considered in the production of architecture (2007, p. 1). The concept of ‘auditory spatial awareness’ is introduced to the reader through comparisons between what can be heard and what can be seen, since vision is for most, the sensory system prioritised above all others regarding the perception of space.

Amongst the most important notions within Blesser and Salter’s umbrella of auditory spatial awareness are acoustic horizons, acoustic arenas and auditory channels, taken from Barry Truax’s Acoustic

Communication (2001).

Truax defines acoustic horizon as “…the farthest distance from which sound may be heard.” (ibid., p. 26) If a visual horizon is as far as the eye can see, then an acoustic horizon is as far as the ear L iterature R e v iew

5

Figure 2.1. Diagram showing the theoretical acoustic relationships between Sound Source X and Listeners 1, 2 and 3.

can hear; the acoustic horizon is centred at the listener (Blesser & Salter, 2007, p. 22). An acoustic arena, however, is centred at the sound source, delineating an area inside which listeners can hear a particular sound (ibid.). When a sound source can be heard by a listener, an auditory channel is created between the two.

Consider the theoretical diagram (Figure 2.1.), where point X is a sound source and points 1, 2 and 3 are potential listeners. aX illustrates the acoustic arena for Sound Source X, whereas h1, h2 and h3 show the acoustic horizons of Listeners 1, 2 and 3, respectively. The acoustic horizon of Listener 1 is within the acoustic arena of Sound Source X, thereby forming the auditory channel, cX-1. The acoustic horizon of Listener 2 also lies partially within the acoustic arena of Sound Source X, creating another auditory channel, cX-2. Listener 3’s acoustic horizon does not lie within the acoustic arena of Sound Source X, and therefore Listener 3 will not hear the sound. However, Listeners 2 and 3 could share a conversation if it were to have an acoustic arena equal to their acoustic horizon, thereby creating the auditory channel c2-3.

In reality however, sound does not behave like the solid, definite boundaries of a Venn Diagram.

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The volume of a propagated sound decays as the energy of its waves combat air resistance, topographical features and ambient background sounds, whilst the acoustic horizons of individual listeners are affected by constantly fluctuating foreground and background noise levels. Except for within highly sonically controlled environments, no sound ever produces a perfect circle of propagation, and likewise, no listener has an exact radius of hearing. Adding an element as basic as a single wall into the diagram would introduce a multitude of complexities (in the form of reflected sounds, muffled sounds and so on), which would completely change the interplay and dynamics between source and listener.

Truax’s lexicon is referred to throughout soundscape literature, and therefore a grasp of its key phrases is necessary to progress any work that references the field. I have used this language sparingly as some of the terms can generate more confusion than clarity, unless used precisely as Truax describes. Blesser and Salter go some way towards clarifying examples of where certain expressions could be used, but as outlined above, many of the theories discussed do not necessarily translate clearly into physical space from the realms of the theoretical.

LISTENING AND PERCEPTION As Adhitya explains in reference to William Gaver’s How do we hear in the world? (1993), humans “perceive events and sound sources rather than the sounds themselves.” (Adhitya, 2017, p. 10) This theory is known as ‘ecological listening’; the ability to understand the physical and spatial attributes of an event based on the specific characteristics of the sound it produces, principally through previous experiences of similar sounds or situations (ibid.). For example, hearing the whirring of a bicycle cassette alerts the listener to the presence of a nearby bicycle; the change in volume over time could signify the direction of movement (getting louder = getting closer); and the frequency of the clicking could indicate the cyclist’s speed. Listening in this way allows us to spatialise events with our hearing, usually to supplement information that we see visually.

When Roland Barthes writes, “Hearing is a physiological phenomenon; listening is a psychological act.” (1991, p. 245), the implication is that any human, or in fact being, can hear, whereas listening is an active mode of hearing determined by the being. This activity is perception, the sophisticated mental processing of sensory data into usable information. Pauline Oliveros goes further to explain: “To hear is a physical means that enables perception; to listen is to give attention to what is perceived both acoustically and psychologically. Hearing turns a certain range of vibrations into perceptible sounds; when listening, there is a constant interplay with the perception of the moment compared with remembered experience.” (Oliveros, 2015.)

Perception is subjective to the listener; the crunching of a leaf for a human may embody natural autumnal delight, yet for a rabbit may signal the presence of a nearby predator. To summarise,

L iterature R e v iew

7

listeners may hear different sound sources and perceive them similarly, or listeners may hear similar sound sources and perceive them very differently. Through the lived experience of sonic events, listening interprets hearing via perception.

S O U N DWA L K I N G Sound is pushed into the background of our sensorium, often by necessity, as we move around our noisy cities. Hearing seldom enters the foreground but for when something out of the ordinary or intentionally interactive occurs, such as the passing of an emergency vehicle or the beeping of a pedestrian traffic signal.

Since the introduction and growth of the portable music industry, this phenomenon has grown ever greater, especially emphasised by advancements in Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) technologies for headphones and cars. Mack Hagood notes that ANC headphones act as “soundscaping devices, carving out an acoustically rendered sense of personal space” (2011, p. 574), allowing the listener to ‘other’ oneself from the surrounding world.

Since the founding of the World Soundscape Project by R. Murray Schafer in the late 1960’s (Schafer et al., 2007), soundwalking has been used as an effective methodology to deepen auditory understanding by attempting to reunite the body with its ears. The process focusses not simply on hearing but listening to the surrounding environment and its sound sources in order to engage a deeper perception, a pedagogy echoed by Oliveros (2015). The process often highlights the intricacy and natural beauty in everyday sounds.

Of particular interest to this study is the work of Hildegard Westerkamp; in particular, Kit’s Beach

Soundwalk (1989), where the artist connects the listener to the “quiet lapping of the water and the tiny sounds of barnacles feeding” on the water’s edge in Vancouver. Concerned by the drastic change to the city’s sonic identity, formerly characterised by the foghorns of large ships before the increase in mechanisation of coastal lighthouses, Westerkamp searches for new individualities in the soundscape of the coastline. A previous work, Fantasie for Horns I (1978), documents the foghorns shortly before they began to disappear in the 1980’s. She writes of them, “They are sound-marks that give a place its character and give us, often subliminally, a ‘sense of place.’ ” (ibid.)

The ever-increasing population density of cities increases activity, bringing in turn an increase in noise pollution. It is important at this juncture to define a difference between ‘sound’ and ‘noise’.

Using terminology for audio-playback technology, Schafer distinguishes a “signal-to-noise ratio” (1994, p. 71), whereby signal is welcome audio, and noise is unwelcome audio. For the purpose of avoiding confusion between Truax’s use of the phrase sound signals (2001, p. 67) and Schafer’s definition of signal , I will use the word sound to describe any audio which is welcome (unless otherwise stated). Although very different in end product, ANC technology and soundwalking ultimately target 8

EC O AC O U S T I C I D EN T I T Y

the same goal; to sift noise and seek sound. In the case of ANC headphones, noise is considered to be any audio outside the control of the listener’s music playback device. However, noise in regard to soundwalking, and the sonic environment in general, is far more difficult to define. For example, Westerkamp may define Vancouver’s foghorns as desired sound, yet for many they could conceivably constitute noise, even nuisance.

The phrase “sense of place” used by Westerkamp in her description for Fantasie for Horns I helps to clarify some of this mystery. Sound in the case of soundwalking is perhaps best described as audio that pertains to a sense of place, whereas noise is audio that does not. This distinction is an argument of primary focus throughout the following study.

REFERENCES: Adhitya, S. (2017) Musical Cities. London: UCL Press.

Barthes, R. (1991) Responsibility of Forms . Translated by R. Howard. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Blesser, B. and Salter, L. R. (2007) Spaces Speak, Are You Listening? Experiencing Aural Architecture .

Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Eckermann, J. P. (1839) “Conversations with Goethe In the Last Years of his Life.” Specimens of Foreign

Standard Literature. Vol. IV. Translated by S. M. Fuller. Boston, MA: Hilliard, Gray, and Company.

Gaver. W. (1993) “How Do We Hear in the World? Explorations in Ecological Acoustics”. Ecological Psychology.

5(4), pp. 285–313.

Hagood. M. (2011) “Comfort: Noise, Otherness, and the Mobile Production of Personal Space”. American

Quarterly. 63(3), pp. 573–589.

Lefebvre, H. (2004) Rhythmanalysis: Space, Time and Everyday Life . Translated by S. Elden and G. Moore.

London: Continuum.

L iterature R e v iew

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R E F E R E N C E S (C O N T I N U E D) : Oliveros, P. (2015) “The difference between hearing and listening.” TEDxIndianapolis. Available at: https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QHfOuRrJB8&ab_channel=TEDxTalks [Accessed: 2 March 2021].

Schafer, R. M. (1994) The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World. Rochester, VT: Destiny Books.

Schafer, R. M. Truax, B. Westerkamp, H. Broomfield, H. Davis, B. and Huse, P. (2007) “Information.” The World

Soundscape Project. Available at: https://www.sfu.ca/sonic-studio-webdav/WSP/index.html [Accessed: 04 March 2021].

Truax, B. (2001) Acoustic Communication. Westport, CT: Ablex Publishing.

Vergo, P. (2005) That Divine Order: Music and the Visual Arts from Antiquity to the Eighteenth Century.

London: Phaidon Press Limited.

Westerkamp, H. (1978) “Fantasie for Horns I.” Hildegard Westerkamp, Inside the Soundscape. Available at: https://www.hildegardwesterkamp.ca/sound/comp/4/fantasie-1/ [Accessed: 3 February 2021].

Westerkamp, H. (1989) “Kits Beach Soundwalk.” Hildegard Westerkamp, Inside the Soundscape . Available at: https://www.hildegardwesterkamp.ca/sound/comp/3/kitsbeach/ [Accessed: 3 February 2021].

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EC O AC O U S T I C I D EN T I T Y

M et h odolo g y

Using key themes derived from research on urban rhythm, auditory spatial awareness, aural perception and soundwalking, I have been able to establish an original, holistic methodology for interpreting the sonic identity of Newcastle’s soundscapes.

I recorded continuous audio of two separate soundwalks, which I then asked volunteers to listen to remotely whilst plotting a route a based on the sound they were confronted with. Both of the walks begin at my home in Sandyford with a distance of around 2km each, so as to retain volunteers’ attention for no longer than 30 minutes at a time on playback when factoring in my average walking speed (Figure 3.1.). The mappings were then sent back for analysis.

An interesting soundwalk is one which provides a rich and diverse range of environmental sounds and textures, stimulating as many of an infinite number of audio cues and sonic memories as possible (Bowers and Shaw, 2020, p. 23). Newcastle makes for an ideal place to practice soundwalking, as there are such a great diversity of sonic environments in an easily walkable radius.

S O U N DWA L K R O U T E S The first soundwalk, Soundwalk 1, travels east through Milton Green housing estate, which features a pedestrian footpath beneath raised dwellings, forming a short and unexpected reverberant acoustic environment between generally quiet suburban surrounds. I then move along the footpath past City Stadium, a largely open expanse of playing fields subject to prominent wind and some bird activity, with the sounds of nearby busy roads and children playing in the schoolyard in the background.

Heading south, the descent into the Ouseburn is characterised by the gradual fading of background traffic noise replaced by the gushing of the river, which moves quickly and audibly during the winter when the recordings take place. I use the steep staircase to progress down into the valley, where I then cross a bridge to the west side of the River Ouse Burn. I pass the petting farm, cross back over the river and continue walking south along the bank until I reach its mouth connecting it to the River Tyne. The water is at the foreground of the recording with frequent interjections from ducks and geese, and I pass through the echoic space beneath a steel road bridge. Travelling further along the river, construction noise from a large project on the opposite bank consumes the recording with

M ethodology

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F I G U R E 3 . 1 . S O U N DWA L K R O U T E M A P

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EC O AC O U S T I C I D EN T I T Y

mechanical buzzing and whining. I then walk west to the water’s edge on the Quayside where the walk terminates. The force of the wind once again is prevalent, with the construction noise pushed slightly into the background. The recording and walk last twenty-three minutes and twenty-nine seconds with a total distance of 2.0km (5.1km/h average walking speed).

Soundwalk 2 advances south towards Shieldfield before crossing a bridge over the Central

Motorway, an audible sound source from long distances in the background as a kind of urban white noise. I then ascend up to the network of elevated pedestrian walkways, travelling west towards Princess Square. The aerial route passes over busy road junctions and between tall buildings, generating audible reverberation of footsteps in the recording. Featured along the route’s length are many of the surrounding buildings’ service outlets and fans, which sum to create a ubiquitous mechanical drone. As I make my way to Northumberland Street, the distant festive music from the shopping mall echoes eerily around the building fabric. I then walk the street’s entire length northwards passing the now more clear and reassuring music, before crossing the road to St. Thomas’ Church and crossing again to enter Newcastle University’s campus. I proceed up the wide staircase and pass the student’s union, observing its uncharacteristic lifelessness during the pandemic (this is my first venture onto campus this academic year). I complete the route below the School of Arts and Cultures, a space aurally dominated by a cacophony of extraction fans and heavy machinery. The second walk lasts twenty minutes and one second, covering a distance of 1.8km (5.4km/h average walking speed).

H A R DWA R E I made the recordings using a pair of Roland CS-10EM Binaural Microphones/Earphones plugged into a Canon EOS 80D DSLR Camera capable of recording audio in 2-channel stereo via an external microphone input jack. The recorded sound could then be monitored in real time using the earphones via the camera’s headphone output jack. I set the camera to its least-lossy video setting whilst recording the audio through the external microphones on the earphones. This technique allowed me to use the video footage to accurately plot the location of the recording against elapsed time after completing the walk.

Using this particular pair of binaural microphones/earphones allowed me to walk, record

and listen to the recorded sound at the same time, whilst maintaining more discretion than large professional external microphones that could spook passing pedestrians (the set appear as a regular pair of earphones at a glance). As the microphones are placed on the outside of the earbuds, the sound incidental to them is very similar to that which would reach the naked ear, allowing them to record environmental sound with high-fidelity (Roland, 2012). However, all recording and playback equipment has some agency over true sound reproduction, however little, which differentiates any recording from naturally experienced sound.

M ethodology

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VO LU N T E E R PA R T I C I PAT I O N I asked volunteers to download a package of information, including a set of instructions, the two soundwalk audio files, and an Adobe Photoshop template containing a blank map of Newcastle centred around the starting point, highlighted by a black dot. The volunteers were then required to select and listen to one of the soundwalk recordings using a pair of headphones or earphones and draw their estimation of the route as the audio played. Volunteers were asked not to pause, rewind or fast-forward the audio file once it had begun playing. Once the first recording and route were completed, they were asked to attempt the second.

I accounted for some contingency for mistakes if the listener recognised the sound of a particular place but was not near to it on their drawn route. If this was the case, I asked volunteers to cease drawing their current route and begin drawing again at the recognised location. After the recording was completed, I requested volunteers connect the end of the previous route and start of the subsequent route with a single straight line.

After both soundwalk routes had been plotted, I asked volunteers to upload their submissions back to the original download folder, with their student number as an extension to the original filename of the template to ensure anonymity. This way I would be able to recognise each of the pairs of routes drawn by the same person without the possibility of identifying that person specifically, which could have led to biased results.

REFERENCES: Bowers, J. and Shaw, T. (2020) “Ambulation: Exploring Listening Technologies for an Extended Sound Walking Practice”. Birmingham: NIME-20, pp. 21-25.

Roland (2012) “CS-10EM Binaural Microphones/Earphones.” Roland. Available at: https://www.roland.com/ uk/products/cs-10em/ [Accessed: 22 January 2021].

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Results

I compiled the results in the series of maps (Figures 4.1. - 4.9.) and tables (Figures 4.10. - 4.11.) that follow. Broadly, there is a trend in volunteers correctly identifying the more natural soundwalk as taking place to the east of the map, and the more urban walk taking place to the west. The majority of the volunteers’ plotted routes are also of a feasible length within the time, with the exception of a few.

To analyse the routes in closer detail, I broke each recording in to one-minute-long segments, using the video footage to precisely plot time markers on each soundwalk. For every one minute of time elapsed, a dot is shown along the routes. Each volunteer was then scored on their accuracy for every one-minute stretch of route; 0.0 for inaccurate, 0.5 for partially accurate or close to accurate, or 1.0 for accurate. I then took the mean average percentage score for each segment of route across all volunteers; 0% Total Segment Accuracy for none of the volunteers accurately plotting the segment, 100% Total Segment Accuracy for all volunteers accurately plotting the segment. Finally, I categorised the one-minute segments into environments depending on their topographical character, then took a mean average percentage of the Total Segment Accuracies within each environment to arrive at the Topographical Environment Accuracy.

Amongst the least accurately plotted environments for Soundwalk 1 were the suburban surrounds of the walk’s origin through to the open space around City Stadium. The most accurately plotted environments were the Ouseburn and the Quayside.

The least accurately plotted environments for Soundwalk 2 included the elevated pedestrian walkways into the city centre and Newcastle University’s campus. The most accurately plotted environment by some margin was the shopping area of Northumberland Street.

R esults

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MAPS

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F I G U R E 4 . 1 . VO LU N T E E R 1 R O U T E M A P

EC O AC O U S T I C I D EN T I T Y

F I G U R E 4 . 2 . VO LU N T E E R 2 R O U T E M A P

R esults

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F I G U R E 4 . 3 . VO LU N T E E R 3 R O U T E M A P

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F I G U R E 4 . 4 . VO LU N T E E R 4 R O U T E M A P

R esults

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F I G U R E 4 . 5 . VO LU N T E E R 5 R O U T E M A P

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F I G U R E 4 . 6 . VO LU N T E E R 6 R O U T E M A P

R esults

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F I G U R E 4 .7. VO LU N T E E R 7 R O U T E M A P

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EC O AC O U S T I C I D EN T I T Y

F I G U R E 4 . 8 . VO LU N T E E R C O M B I N E D R O U T E M A P

R esults

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F I G U R E 4 . 9 . VO LU N T E E R P L O T T I N G AC C U R AC Y M A P

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Stadium

TA B L E S F I G U R E 4 . 1 0 . S O U N DWA L K 1 P L O T T I N G AC C U R AC Y TA B L E Soundwalk Plotting Accuracy by Timestamp

Soundwalk 1 - Chester Street to Quayside Time / minutes:seconds

Volunteer Segment Accuracy*

Location

Total Segment

Topographical

Topographical

Accuracy / %

Environment

Environment Accuracy /%

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

00:00 - 01:00

Chester Street

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0%

01:00 - 02:00

Milton Green

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0%

02:00 - 03:00

Milton Green/Barker Street

0.0

7.1%

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.5

0.0

03:00 - 04:00 Barker Street Soundwalk Plotting Accuracy by Timestamp 04:00 - 05:00 Barker Street/Stoddart Street/City Stadium

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.5

0.0

0.5

14.3%

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.5

0.0

0.5

14.3%

05:00 - 06:00

City Stadium

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.5

0.0

0.0

7.1%

0.0

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.5 0.0 Volunteer 0.0 0.0Segment 0.0 Accuracy* 0.5 0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

7.1% Total Segment 7.1%

08:00 - 09:00

City Stadium

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.5

0.0

0.0

Accuracy / 7.1% %

09:00 - 10:00

City Stadium City Stadium Chester Street City Stadium/Ouseburn Woodland

0.5 2 0.5

0.0 3 0.0

0.0 4 0.0

0.5 5 0.5

0.0 6 0.0

0.0 7 0.0

14.3%

10:00 - 11:00 00:00- -12:00 01:00 11:00

0.0 0.01

0.0 1.0 0.0 1.0

0.0 0.5 0.0 1.0

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

0.0 0.0 0.5 0.5

Soundwalk 1 - Chester Street 06:00 - 07:00 City Stadium Time /- minutes:seconds Location 07:00 08:00 City Stadium

01:00 02:00 12:00 -- 13:00 02:00 03:00 13:00 --14:00

to Quayside

Milton Green Ouseburn Woodland Milton Green/Barker Ouseburn WoodlandStreet

03:00 04:00 14:00 -- 15:00 04:00--16:00 05:00 15:00

City Stadium Ouseburn City Stadium Ouseburn

07:00 08:00 18:00 --19:00 08:00--20:00 09:00 19:00

0.0 1.0 0.0 1.0

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

City Stadium Ouseburn/Walker Road City Stadium Walker Road/Quayside

11:00 22:00- -12:00 23:00 12:00 - 13:00

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

City Stadium Ouseburn City Stadium Ouseburn

09:00 10:00 20:00 -- 21:00 10:00 -- 22:00 11:00 21:00

0.0 1.0 0.0 1.0

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

Barker Street Ouseburn Barker Street/Stoddart Street/City Stadium Ouseburn

05:00 06:00 16:00 --17:00 06:00 07:00 17:00 --18:00

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

City Stadium/Ouseburn Woodland Quayside Ouseburn Woodland Soundwalk 1

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

0.0 0.5 0.0 0.5

0.0 1.0 0.0 1.0

0.0 0.5 0.0 1.0

0.0 1.0 0.5 1.0 0.5 1.0 1.0 1.0

0.0 1.0 0.0 1.0

0.0 1.0 0.0 0.5

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

0.0 0.5 0.0 0.5

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

0.5 0.0 0.5 0.0

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

0.5 0.0 0.5 0.0 0.5 0.0 0.5 0.0 0.5 0.0 0.5 0.0

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

0.0 1.0 0.0 1.0

0.5 0.5 0.0 0.5 0.0 0.5

0.0 1.0 0.0 1.0

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

0.0 1.0 0.0 1.0 0.0 1.0 0.0 1.0

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

7.1% 42.9% 7.1% 42.9%

Ouseburn

42.9%

14.3% 42.9% 14.3% 42.9%

7.1% 42.9% 7.1% 42.9% 14.3% 42.9% 14.3% 42.9%

0.5 28.3% 0.5

0.0 34.8% 0.0

0.0 0.0 0.0 13.0% 0.0

21.4% 35.7% 21.4% 23.6% 28.6%

Ouseburn

0.0

1.0

1.0

0.0

0.5

0.0

0.5

42.9%

15:00 - 16:00

Ouseburn

0.0

1.0

0.5

0.0

0.0

1.0

0.5

42.9%

16:00 - 17:00 Time / minutes:seconds 17:00 - 18:00

Ouseburn Location Ouseburn

0.0

1.0 0.5 0.0 0.0 1.0 Volunteer Segment Accuracy* 1.0 0.5 0.0 0.0 1.0

0.5

18:00 - 19:00

Ouseburn

19:00 - 20:00 00:00 - 01:00 20:00 - 21:00 01:00 - 02:00 21:00 - 22:00 02:00 - 03:00 22:00 - 23:00 03:00 - 04:00

04:00 - 05:00

Ouseburn Chester Street Ouseburn/Walker Road Chester Street Walker Road/Quayside Chester Street/Byron Street Quayside Byron Street/ Camden Street Soundwalk 1 Camden Street

0.0 1 0.0 1.0 0.0 0.5 0.0 0.5 0.0 1.0 0.0% 0.5

1.0 2 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 0.5 56.5% 0.0

1.0 3 1.0 0.0 1.0 0.0 1.0 0.0 0.5 0.0 32.6% 0.0

0.0 4 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0% 0.0

0.0 5 0.0 1.0 0.0 1.0 0.0 1.0 0.0 1.0 28.3% 1.0

1.0 6 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 34.8% 0.5

0.0 7 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 13.0% 0.0

42.9% Total Segment 42.9% Accuracy / % 42.9%

05:00 - 06:00

Camden Street/Central Motorway Bridge

0.5

0.0

06:00 - 07:00

Central Motorway Bridge/Ellison Place

0.0

0.5

Accuracy /%

23.8% 7.1%

0.0 0.0% 0.0

Soundwalk 2 - Chester Street to Newcastle University Campus

42.9% 57.1% 42.9% 50.0% 42.9% 50.0% 35.7% 50.0% 23.6% 28.6%

University Campus

09:00 - 10:00

Elevated Walkway

10:00 - 11:00 00:00 01:00 11:00 - -12:00

Princess Square Chester PrincessStreet Square/Northumberland Place

03:00 04:00 14:00 -- 15:00 04:00--16:00 05:00 15:00

Byron Street/ Camden Northumberland StreetStreet Camden Street Street Northumberland

01:00 02:00 12:00 -- 13:00 02:00--14:00 03:00 13:00

1.0

0.5

0.0

1.0

0.5

0.0

35.7%

0.0

0.0

28.6% Total Segment 14.3%

0.0 0.01

0.0 2 0.0

0.0 7 0.0

0.5 1.0

0.5 0.5 1.0 0.0 0.5 0.0

Ellison Place/Elevated Walkway Newcastle University Campus Elevated Walkway Newcastle University Campus/School of Arts and Cultures

09:00 - 10:00

0.0

0.0

0.5 1.0 1.0 1.0

Camden Street/Central Motorway Bridge Northumberland Street/St. Thomas' Church Central Motorway Bridge/Ellison Place St.Thomas' Church/Great North Road/Newcastle University Campus

07:00 08:00 18:00 --19:00 08:00--20:00 09:00 19:00

0.0

0.0

0.0 0.0 0.0 1.0 0.5 Volunteer 0.0 0.0Segment 0.0 Accuracy* 0.5 0.5

1.0 0.0 0.5 0.5

Chester Street Northumberland Place/Northumberland Street Chester Street/Byron Street Northumberland Street

05:00 06:00 16:00 --17:00 06:00 07:00 17:00 --18:00

0.0

1.0 0.5

0.0 3 0.0

1.0 0.5 1.0 1.0

0.0 0.5 0.0 1.0

1.0 1.0 0.5 0.5 0.0 0.0

0.0 1.0 0.0 1.0 0.0 1.0 0.0 1.0

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

0.0 0.5 0.0 0.0

0.0 4 0.0 0.0 0.5 0.0 1.0 0.0 1.0 0.0 1.0 0.0 1.0 0.0 1.0

0.0 0.5 0.0 0.0

0.5 5 0.5 1.0 0.5 1.0 0.5 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0

1.0 1.0 1.0 0.5 1.0 0.0

0.0

1.0 6 1.0

1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.5

1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0

0.0 1.0 0.0 1.0

0.5 1.0

0.5 0.5 0.5 0.0 0.5 0.0

0.0 1.0 0.0 1.0

0.0 0.5 0.0 0.0

28.6%

Accuracy 21.4% /% 21.4% 57.1% 42.9%

50.0% 78.6% 50.0% 100.0%

28.6% 0.0%

0.0 0.0 0.0 32.5% 0.0

0.0 0.0 0.0 30.0% 0.0

0.0 0.0 0.0 30.0% 0.0

0.5 0.0 0.5 75.0% 0.5

0.5 0.0 1.0 70.0% 1.0

0.0 0.0 0.0 25.0% 0.0

Princess Square/Northumberland Place

0.0

0.5

0.5

0.5

0.5

1.0

0.0

Northumberland Place/Northumberland Street

0.5

1.0

1.0

1.0

0.5

1.0

0.5

78.6%

Northumberland Street

1.0

1.0

1.0

1.0

1.0

1.0

1.0

100.0%

1.0

1.0

1.0

92.9%

1.0

1.0

1.0

1.0

1.0

85.7%

1.0

1.0

1.0

0.5

1.0

71.4%

0.5

0.5

0.0

0.5

28.6%

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0%

75.0%

70.0%

25.0%

44.3%

Elevated Walkway Soundwalk 2 Princess Square

11:00 - 12:00 12:00 - 13:00 13:00 - 14:00 14:00 - 15:00

Northumberland Street

15:00 - 16:00

Northumberland Street

1.0

0.0

16:00 - 17:00

Northumberland Street/St. Thomas' Church

0.5

0.0

17:00 - 18:00

St.Thomas' Church/Great North Road/Newcastle University Campus

0.0

0.0

0.5

18:00 - 19:00

Newcastle University Campus

0.0

0.0

0.0

19:00 - 20:00

Newcastle University Campus/School of Arts and Cultures

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

47.5%

32.5%

30.0%

30.0%

1.0

Soundwalk 2

Volunteer Segment Accuracy*

0.5

Total Segment

Topographical

Topographical

Accuracy / %

Environment

Environment Accuracy /%

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.5

0.0

0.0

7.1%

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.5

0.0

0.5

14.3%

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.5

0.0

0.5

14.3%

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.5

0.0

0.0

7.1%

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.5

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.5

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

0.5

0.0

0.0

7.1%

0.0

0.5

0.0

0.0

0.5

0.0

0.0

14.3%

0.0

0.5

0.0

0.0

0.5

0.0

0.0

14.3%

0.0

1.0

0.0

0.0

0.5

0.0

0.0

21.4%

0.0

1.0

0.0

0.0

0.5

0.0

0.0

21.4%

1.0

1.0

9.5%

Quayside

40.5%

Woodland

23.8%

Ouseburn Topographical

42.9% Topographical

Environment

Environment

Suburban Quayside

52.4% 40.5%

Central Motorway

35.7%

Topographical Elevated Walkways Environment

Topographical 21.4% Environment Accuracy /%

Suburban

Pedestrian/ Shopping 50.0% 92.9% 28.6% 85.7% Central Motorway 28.6% 71.4% 35.7% 28.6%

0.0 0.0 0.0 47.5% 0.0

10:00 - 11:00

Open

Accuracy /%

F I G U R E 4 . 1 1 . S O U N DWA L K 2 P L O T T I N G AC C U R AC Y TA B L E Soundwalk 2 - Chester Street to Newcastle 07:00 - 08:00 Ellison Place/Elevated Walkway Time /- minutes:seconds Location Walkway 08:00 09:00 Elevated

Topographical 9.5% Environment

Woodland Suburban

0.0 32.6% 0.5

14:00 - 15:00

Topographical Open Environment

0.0% 21.4% 7.1% 28.6%

1.0 56.5% 1.0

Ouseburn Woodland

7.1%

14.3% 0.0% 21.4%

0.0 0.0% 0.0

13:00 - 14:00

Suburban

14.3% 0.0% 21.4% 44.3% 21.4%

52.4% 78.6% 35.7%

Campus

9.5%

Elevated Walkways

21.4%

Pedestrian/ Shopping

78.6%

Campus

9.5%

42.9%

0.0%

* 0.0 = inaccurate 0.5 = partially accurate 1.0 = accurate

0.0% 0.0% Suburban

7.1%

Open

9.5%

Woodland

23.8%

7.1% 7.1%

R esults

25

* 0.0 = ina

0.5 = pa accurate

1.0 = acc

* 0.0 = ina

0.5 = pa accurate

1.0 = acc

D iscussion

The results suggest that to at least some extent, the ear can indeed position the body in space without other sensory aids if knowledge or memories of that space are present in the listener. In the same way that the perceptive visual assemblage could recognise a space from a silent film or photograph and be able to position itself as photographer, human hearing can recognise particular environmental soundscapes and situate the mind spatially as environmental listener.

S O U N DWA L K 1 At the beginning of both soundwalks, there was arguably a fifty percent chance of the volunteer picking the right direction to begin their route, although I would counter this by suggesting that a very careful listener could have detected the sound of the busy street decreasing in volume as the recording moved further away through Milton Green in Soundwalk 1. However, this would rely on one using ambient background noise to orientate oneself, a great challenge considering the ear has become accustomed to largely ignoring the sounds of road traffic in the modern city. The suburban streets around the beginning of Soundwalk 1 are lacking in recognisable sound signals or sound-

marks, as Truax would describe them. Sound signals are defined as informative sounds standing out amongst ambient or background noise, often intentionally in the form of church bells or sirens for instance (Truax, 2001, p. 67). Soundmarks are sound signals that have been elevated by their cultural value, in the same way a landmark is a culturally valued fragment of topography (ibid.). One reason the segments following the walk’s beginning were less easily distinguished could have been because of their lack of sound signalling. This portion of the route contains very few specific or significant aural orientation cues other than slight variations in the volume of background traffic noise. In charting a course for the route, I hypothesised the reverberant, covered section of walkway exiting Milton Green would have provided place-specific locational information, but perhaps its short duration allowed it to slip through the aural net.

As the walk moves into the open space around City Stadium, again there are very few identifiable audio cues to reveal its precise location. Chirping birds indicate the presence of nearby trees, and at a stretch, the frequent passing of bicycles could imply a nearby cycle path. However, neither of these

26

EC O AC O U S T I C I D EN T I T Y

Figures 5.1. and 5.2. Photographs of Shieldfield House located near City Stadium; and the bank of the River Ouseburn.

D iscussion

27

sounds were at all specific to City Stadium and could have been present in a number of locations around the starting point. If the walk had taken place in summer, and a summer free of lockdown regulations at that, the sound of football training and runners on the track may have more precisely detailed the location of this part of the route. It is important to recognise that as the seasons change, so do our activities and as an inseparable by-product, our soundscapes (Adhitya, 2017, p. 4, 5). The only prominent sound signal serving to fortify recognition of a more specific location features towards the end of this part of the route, where school children can be heard playing in the yard nearby as the walk begins to descend into the woodland environment leading to the Ouseburn. This was noticed by Volunteer 2, who was previously much further north on Jesmond Road (see Figure 4.2.). This volunteer was able to plot the route almost perfectly from this point onwards.

Through the woodland down into the Ouseburn, the unrelenting drone of background traffic noise finally begins to fade, replaced by the sounds of wind through the leafless trees and the distant running water of the river. The increase in specificity of these natural sounds resulted in an increase in plotting accuracy across two of the volunteers. Interestingly, two other volunteers had made their way to Jesmond Dene, an entirely different location where similar sounds could be present.

The woodland environment is far richer in sonic texture than the previous two topographic areas, with multiple layers of sound stacked upon one another; leaves and trees rustling, the river flowing, and the sound of heavier footsteps descending stairs. It would be curious to examine whether this environment would be as recognisable if a layer of traffic noise were superposed onto it, as was already present in the previous environments. This would divulge whether the woodland is recognisable because of the sound it possesses, or rather the noise it does not. Schafer writes of the “Lo-Fi Soundscape of the Industrial Revolution”, which resulted in “unhappy consequences for many of the natural and human sounds which they [new, industrial sounds] tended to obscure” (Schafer, 1994, p.

71). The overall trends seen within the results of this task, especially concerning the sounds of traffic and service spaces, certainly suggest that this could be true.

The Ouseburn itself is characterised in winter by the running of the river over coarse stones along the shallower depths of its length. The water can be heard clearly in the aural foreground, with sonically vibrant interjections from aquatic birds and local businesses. All of these factors quite specifically locate the soundscape, although the volunteers who chose to plot this part of the route in Jesmond Dene could be forgiven for doing so, as some of the water and wildlife sounds are also prevalent there. The main sound signals which could have differentiated the two areas for listeners were the presence of active-frontage businesses, which were noticeably muted during the time of lockdown in which the recording was made. The usually bustling pubs, bars and cafes around the Ouseburn would have indicated with more certainty the location of this sonic environment. Human activity accounts for a substantial portion of the environmental soundscape as Adhitya (2017, p. 5) and Shannon Mattern (2020) have contended, which at the time of recording and writing was and remains hugely reduced.

28

EC O AC O U S T I C I D EN T I T Y

The Quayside was the final environment along Soundwalk 1’s length. At the time of recording, the foreground soundscape was dominated by heavy construction noise and traffic from two construction sites adjacent to the mouth of Ouse Burn, in place of the usual, more approachable sounds of passing pedestrians and seagulls above. Despite this, the route here remained accurately plotted by some of the volunteers, conceivably because they were either so certain of the Ouseburn sound environment that led them there, or perhaps because of the huge increase in audible wind intensity as the recording approached the bank of the Tyne. Wind, like traffic, is another sound which is usually ignored during embodied hearing, but the use of microphone recording equipment captures its energetic effect clearly and potently, even when using wind mufflers as I did.

S O U N DWA L K 2 The second soundwalk begins with a slightly higher plotting accuracy average for the first topographical environment, with four of the volunteers beginning their walk in the correct direction. As the recording moves away from busy Sandyford Road, the sound of the motorway begins to enter the soundscape as the route travels south. The walk avoids the housing estate on this occasion, the least accurately plotted area of Soundwalk 1, and instead makes way directly along a single street towards the next environment. Although the recording in this area is no richer nor more textured than the first walk, it could be that the stability in surrounding topography provided a more orientable aural experience. Alternatively, the three-minute stretch of audio recorded on the single length of road could have allowed enough time for volunteers to identify and retrospectively confirm their location.

Given time to adjust, one can eventually see and navigate in near darkness; perhaps the same is true of sound.

As the walk progresses through the Central Motorway environment, the plotting accuracy of the volunteers drops off slightly, with three plotting the route in this area with some accuracy. The soundwalk at this point crosses the A167(M), using a pedestrian footbridge leading to Northumbria University’s campus from the east of the city. Since the period of post-war development referred to as the Newcastle East Central Plan (Carrol, Harper and Perry, 2014a), the east has been effectively split from the rest of the city chiefly by the Central Motorway, which in some parts comprises two or more vertical layers of traffic. This huge topographical barrier also produces a huge sonic barrier, serving to separate each side physically, visually and aurally. The most concerning aural effect of the Central Motorway’s impact is its expansive acoustic horizon, which reaches a great distance either side into the surrounding topography (see Figure 5.5.). One volunteer that initiated their route north and westward plotted this part of the route on Sandyford Road, where the pedestrian footway travels beneath a stretch of the same motorway slightly further north. This volunteer heard the motorway at D iscussion

29

Figures 5.3. and 5.4. Photographs of Bewick Court and some of the elevated walkways into the city from the east.

30

EC O AC O U S T I C I D EN T I T Y

approximately the right time, but the start of their walk had committed them to a different location by this point.

After crossing the motorway, the route begins to climb a ramp up to the elevated walkway network into the city, another post-war intervention made as part of the Newcastle East Central Plan (ibid.). The soundscape of the walkways comprises background traffic noise with the intertwining hums of mechanical ventilation and extract fans, as well as an increase in footstep volume in parts due to the construction of the deck and reverberation from surrounding buildings. The East Central Plan was intended to separate vehicular traffic from pedestrian urban space vertically, together with the Newcastle Central Development Plan (ibid., 2014b), in an almost utopian vision for the modern city and its increasingly car-reliant population. Although far from fully realised in relation to the complete plan, the walkways do provide essential access from the east of the city into the centre across the motorway. However, this is not to say the system is anything close to a utopian intervention. In reference to the walkways, Professor Stephen Graham points out in a guided tour with Karl Whitney of The Guardian , “everything looks like everything else. There’s no legibility. There are no maps. No landmarks. So it’s incredibly easy to get lost, and to be disorientated.” (Whitney, 2017.) As Schafer so often semanticises in his many visual-to-aural parallels, one might note that Graham’s analysis could also be applied to that of this environment’s soundscape, with its steady mechanical din and ambient traffic noise. This could provide some explanation as to why this part of Soundwalk 2 was inaccurately plotted in comparison to other environments along the route.

By far the most accurately plotted topographical environment of this walk, and overall, was the shopping area of Northumberland Street, with a one-minute segment (between thirteen and fourteen minutes elapsed) accurately plotted by all of the volunteers (see Figures 4.8. and 4.11.). This can be attributed to an instant recognition of the festive music emanating from the Fenwick department store’s shopfront window amongst volunteers. The music can be heard echoing eerily through the quiet streets on the walk’s approach towards the shop, an appropriate atmosphere on account of the pandemic’s bleakening effect on the usually lively festive season. Three of the seven volunteers’ routes were elsewhere on the map before the music became clear, with the other four already in the vicinity of the shop (this is represented by the volunteer’s corrective lines, drawn in faded tones on Figures 4.1. to 4.8.). It is unsurprising that the most sonically recognisable space in the city, as per this study, is one which costs hundreds of thousands of pounds to produce each year (Silver Bullet, 2016). Lefebvre’s Rhythmanalysis explores space itself as a product of private enterprise. He writes: “The commodity prevails over everything. (Social) space and (social) time, dominated by exchanges, become the time and space of markets; although not being things but including rhythms, they enter into products.” (2004, p. 6.)

Fenwick’s domination of the soundscape at this location in time is a very literal instance of the phenomenon Lefebvre describes. A public space has been claimed by a single retailer for the purpose D iscussion

31

of promoting their product, to such an extent that even the sound alone it projects onto the city can be instantaneously recognised. Thus, one could argue that the space, both physically and aurally, exists as a product of and thereby belongs to Fenwick.

The final and least accurately plotted topographical environment of Soundwalk 2 was Newcastle University’s campus. The soundscape in this part of the route is notably empty, with nothing in particular taking up the foreground of the recording except for a few passing conversations, and eventually the mechanical whining of plant spaces beneath the art school outside its workshop. The main reason for the drop in accuracy compared with the last environment could be as a result of the pandemic’s forcing of the University’s all-but-closure. Back in April 2020, in the retrospectively early days of the coronavirus pandemic, Mattern writes of its sonic impact on urban space: “These new sounds and silences are so affecting because cities have long been defined by their din: by the density and variety of human voices and animal sounds; the clamor of wheels on cobblestones; the mechanical clangs, electrical hums, and radio babble; the branded ringtones and anti-loitering alarms. Most hearing people are adept at interpreting the cacophony.” (2020.)

The lack of any spirited student activity; conversations, music, laughter; renders the campus a desolate atmosphere and serves to remove its aural identity. Unlike Northumberland Street and its inhabitant shops, which were open (at least partly) to the public at the time of recording, the university is almost completely stripped of life.

U N E X P E C T E D R E S U LT S One of the most significant observations taken from these results is that the presence of vehicle traffic noise was largely in direct correlation with inaccurate route plotting by volunteers. Topographical Environment Accuracy is shown in shades of green from palest to darkest, least accurate to most accurate, respectively (see Figure 5.5).

The noise and air quality map, assembled using data from Extrium (2019a) shows the ‘Lden’, defined as: “(day-evening-night) - annual average noise level in decibels with weightings applied for the evening and night periods.” (Extrium, 2019b). The darkest shade of purple represents an Lden of greater than seventy-five decibels, an average level higher than which the U.S. E.P.A. considers a risk to causing hearing loss when sustained throughout the day (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Noise Abatement and Control, 1974, p. 4). The palest shade of purple represents average levels between fifty-five and sixty decibels, a level similar to normal conversation (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2019). Overlaying the route map onto the noise data reveals that the areas of the Ouseburn and Northumberland Street, the most accurately plotted environments in Soundwalk 1 and Soundwalk 2 respectively, lie outside

32

EC O AC O U S T I C I D EN T I T Y

F I G U R E 5 . 5 . P L O T T I N G AC C U R AC Y / T R A F F I C N O I S E M A P

D iscussion

33

of Extrium’s minimum 55dB threshold for traffic noise. Therefore, in these locations traffic noise contributes a lower sound pressure level on average to the soundscape than the approximate volume of a normal conversation, as can be heard particularly in the length of the recording along Northumberland Street. Schafer writes: “Today the world suffers from an overpopulation of sounds; there is so much acoustic information that little of it can emerge with clarity. In the ultimate lo-fi soundscape the signal-to-noise ratio is one-to-one and it is no longer possible to know what, if anything, is to be listened to.” (1994, p. 71.)

Schafer uses the modules of the human voice and ear as a means of measuring the acoustic environment (ibid. p. 206-7). If the voice is to be taken as the ideal module of volume for the ear’s reception, it is difficult to argue against Schafer’s assertion when accounting for the noise map data and the results gathered in this study. The signal-to-noise ratio (a ratio defining audio fidelity as wanted-to-unwanted sound) is in fact significantly lower than one-to-one in many locations along these routes in Newcastle, assuming of course that the sound of traffic is considered unwanted noise.

Traffic has the effect of washing over the soundscape, homogenising the minutiae of extant

Figures 5.6. and 5.7. Photographs of green and yellow leaves, without and with a red filter. The filtered green leaf remains recognisably green, but its desaturated brown-yellow counterpart has assumed the colour of the filter.

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EC O AC O U S T I C I D EN T I T Y

sound signals into a monotonous din. Like viewing a photograph beneath a coloured filter, only those most saturated colours pass through with recognition. The problem traffic, and thereby the sound it creates, poses to the listener is that it could be, and is, almost anywhere in the city. This disassociation from place can be held responsible for the lack of volunteer plotting accuracy in locations where the sound of traffic is most prevalent. Just as the international style of the post-war period aimed to standardise architectural output visually, the transport system the movement’s proponents most favoured resulted in an even more successful standardisation of the acoustic output of the city.

USEFULNESS The health and wellbeing implications of exposure to quantitative measures of noise, especially from traffic or in the workplace, are historically well-documented, including stress, anxiety, hypertension and sleep loss (Jones, 2019, p. 17). Less so, are the effects of noise on qualitative hearing or listening that Schafer alludes to (1994, p. 71), largely because it has proven difficult to measure the quality of a sound or soundscape objectively.

The intention of sound artists/ecologists like Westerkamp, and more generally the soundwalk method, is to reveal often unheard elements of familiar sound environments for artistic and cultural value, or to “inspire people to listen and engage with natural environments in new ways” (Barclay, 2017, p. 145). However, work from this field often stops short of providing distinct qualitative data that could be used to inform modification to the sonic and built environment.

On the opposite end of the sound studies spectrum, lies the work of bodies like Extrium, who produce massive amounts of quantitative numerical data with the aim of providing governments, planning authorities or medical groups with factual information on how they might better direct their efforts. However, datasets such as the one shown in Figure 5.5. require further expert interpretation and often reference to other material to reveal any information of relevant value. Sound pressure levels on a map bear little relation to the daily life of the general public and its rhythms.

Herein lies the disconnect between the many professions working around the broad topic of sound in the built environment. In an introduction to a collection of essays on architecture, music and acoustics, Colin Ripley writes of the lack of a shared literature between students, academics and professionals in these different fields, identifying that in particular architecture students have a tendency to “start from the beginning with each new exploration; no real progress is possible.” (2007, p. 2). From personal experience, I would agree this is true to some extent, at least in my case. Neither my architectural study at university nor few years in practice, has for more than perhaps an hour of lecture material, addressed acoustics or environmental sound even from sources within architecture, let alone study from other fields and professions.

In attempted answer to this, the reading, methodology and analyses I have applied to facilitate D iscussion

35

and conduct this research have been, by necessity, transdisciplinary; acoustic, architectural, artistic, geographic, medical and scientific works and literature have all been considered in the composition of this investigation. Although it has been challenging engaging with texts from such a diversity of disciplines, I found using this approach offered a far more inclusive attitude in regard to sound.

As a result of encountering such a diversified range of source material, this study has attempted to unify ideas and methods from across these disciplines. The study evaluated the aural recognisability of sonic environments as a measurable quantity, which could provide a significant, objective tool towards analysing a soundscape’s more qualitative properties. This is a furthering of sonic investigations that often simply measure sound pressure or dominant frequencies to arrive at a result, or those that highlight sound’s intricacies without providing a charted course for adherents to navigate.

I M P L I C AT I O N S Sounds of New York City (SONYC) is one example of a system that employs transdisciplinary approaches to addressing sound in the city (Bello et al., 2019, p. 68), particularly emphasising computing at its core (ibid. p 70). The system relies on a vast network of sensors located around New York City, whose ‘311’ telephone service for civil complaints receives hundreds of noise-related grievances every day (ibid. p. 69), to improve the detection of potential acoustic disruptions. These sounds are then annotated by means of human input, which the computer controlling the network can subsequently learn to distinguish, categorise and visualise. The idea driving SONYC is to provide New York City’s controlling government bodies with real-time sound data in order that mitigative measures can be put in place as quickly as possible, or even before a disturbance occurs.

The interdisciplinary nature of the SONYC system is what sets it apart from numerical data collection and artistic endeavour. As a simplification, using technology and science alone to analyse the soundscape frequently results in data without meaning, whereas human input alone often yields meaning without data; SONYC’s approach uses the benefits of both to arrive at a usable output. While the system’s primary purpose is to mitigate noise nuisances, it would certainly be of benefit to employ elements of such a system somewhere in the design process of buildings and environments in order to better understand the sonic impact of planned and built changes to the city.

It has become clear in the writing of this paper that neither architecture nor any other field can effectively manage the soundscape of the modern city alone. Methodologies or systems that accommodate a number of fields of research are necessary to progress the discourse on environmental sound and ultimately provide guidelines towards achieving an improved soundscape for the future.

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SHORTCOMINGS In re-formatting the task to be completed remotely during the Covid-19 pandemic, I had to relinquish some control over certain aspects of the study, which otherwise would have been maintained as control variables. If it were safe to do so, taking participants on an in-person soundwalk prior to the remote listening exercise may have aided this study by initially engaging participants in first-hand active listening. The necessity for segregation has also required that the listening and mapping take place remotely, whereas it would have been beneficial to have control over the consistency of the listening environment, audio playback hardware (headphones / loudspeakers / volume control etc.) and drawing techniques. Control of these factors became impossible in light of the intermittent and unpredictable onset of UK lockdowns.

In attempting this task, it is possible that each volunteer could improve in their spatial listening ability from beginning to completion of the soundwalk plotting, having been unlikely to have attempted something similar to this before. By allowing volunteers to select which soundwalk to complete first, I attempted to negate the influence of the volunteers developing a technique as much as possible, and therefore prevent an overall skewed result in favour of either soundwalk. If the data were able to have been captured in person, I would have ensured as close to fifty percent of volunteers attempted each soundwalk first in order to achieve an overall balance in the systematic skewing of results to this effect. As I was not able to control the order in which the soundwalk plotting was completed, I cannot claim conclusively that there was no systematic skew in favour of either soundwalk for the cause outlined above.

In re-designing the task to be completed remotely, there were some compromises made regarding its accessibility. Given the time frame I had in which to conduct the study, I made the decision to use Adobe Photoshop as the drawing platform for volunteers to use. This was in knowing that the University had provided free Adobe software access licenses to all architecture students this year, and thus I knew the platform would be accessible to many of my peers. However, using drawing software such as this limited the volunteer sample greatly to people who were aware of how to use it, compared to traditional pen and paper plotting. Given more time and funding, it could be possible to design a more intuitive, web-based tool that would be readily accessible and easier to use for a much larger sample of volunteers if distanced learning and interaction is to continue.

During the analysis of the volunteers’ routes, it became apparent that in some cases volunteers had identified part of the correct route, but in a different portion of their route (for instance, identifying part of the Ouseburn environment nearer the start of the walk rather than the end). I tried to account for this by approximating the length of the volunteer’s route, establishing an approximate walking speed, and then deciding whether the volunteer would feasibly have been listening to the sound from that part of the route whilst drawing it. In these cases, there was some agency on my part in assigning an accuracy to the segment (scoring the segment 0.0, 0.5 or 1.0), which is not ideal for

D iscussion

37

any study. If a future study were able to make use of a web-based drawing platform, plotting could be analysed simultaneously during the playback of the recording, ensuring greater result accuracy by accounting for plotting-against-time. Again, if the plotting element of the task were able to take place in person, I could have observed the volunteers in real-time and accounted for this in my analysis.

Moreover, a well-developed result analysis platform could provide more precision when recording plotting accuracy than the nominal “inaccurate, partially accurate, accurate” system I have used.

Loaning equipment from the university was more difficult than usual, due to sanitisation and virus transmission during the pandemic. I therefore made my own arrangements to acquire any necessary equipment for my own and others’ safety. I obtained this equipment at my own expense, and therefore purchased it according to my own financial situation. Of course, in a time of non-pandemic study, it would have been greatly advantageous to make use of the university’s well-stocked Culture Lab to loan or borrow higher quality audio recording equipment (Newcastle University, 2021), however in the current climate, I came to the decision that it would not be a risk worth taking.

REFERENCES: Adhitya, S. (2017) Musical Cities . London: UCL Press.

Barclay, L. (2017) “Listening to Communities and Environments.” Contemporary Music Review. 36(3), pp.

143-158.

Bello, J. P. Silva, C. Nov, O. Dubois, R. L. Arora, A. Salamon, J. Mydlarz, C. and Doraiswamy, H. (2019) “SONYC: A System for Monitoring, Analysing, and Mitigating Urban Noise Pollution.” Communications of the ACM –

Contributed Articles . 62(2), pp. 68-77.

Carrol, R. Harper, C. and Perry, J. (2014a) “Newcastle East Central Plan.” Something Concrete and Modern.

Available at: https://www.somethingconcreteandmodern. co.uk/building/newcastle-east-central-plan/ [Accessed: 15 December 2020].

Carrol, R. Harper, C. and Perry, J. (2014b) “Newcastle Central Development Plan.” Something Concrete and

Modern. Available at: https://www.somethingconcreteandmodern.co.uk/building/newcastle-central-development-plan/ [Accessed: 17 December 2020].

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R E F E R E N C E S (C O N T I N U E D) : Extrium (2019a) England Noise and Air Quality Viewer. Available at: http://www.extrium.co.uk/noiseviewer. html [Accessed: 2 November 2020].

Extrium (2019b) England Noise and Air Quality Viewer - FAQs. Available at: http://www.extrium.co.uk/ noiseviewer/FAQs.pdf [Accessed: 2 November 2020].

Jones, S. J. (2019) “If electric cars are the answer, what was the question?” British Medical Bulletin. 129: pp.

13-23.

Mattern, S. (2020) “Urban Auscultation; or, Perceiving the Action of the Heart.” Places Journal , April 2020.

Available

at:

https://placesjournal.org/article/urban-auscultation-or-perceiving-the-action-of-the-

heart/?cn-reloaded=1#0 [Accessed: 5 February 2021].

Newcastle University (2021) “Facilities.” Culture Lab. Available at: https://www.ncl.ac.uk/culturelab/facilities/#theballroom [Accessed: 2 February 2021].

Ripley, C. (2007) In the Place of Sound: Architecture|Music|Acoustics . Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Schafer, R. M. (1994) The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World . Rochester, VT: Destiny Books.

Silver Bullet (2016) “If Christmas shopping is going increasingly online, why do shops like Fenwicks invest so much in their Christmas windows?” Silver Bullet , 2 December. Available at: https://silverbulletmarketing. co.uk/news/view/139-if-christmas-shopping-is-going-increasingly-online-why-do-shops-like-fenwicksinvest-so-much-in-their-christmas-windows [Accessed: 8 February 2021].

Truax, B. (2001) Acoustic Communication . Westport, CT: Ablex Publishing.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2019) “What noises cause Hearing Loss?” Loud Noise can cause Hearing Loss. Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/ hearing_loss/what_noises_cause_hearing_loss.html [Accessed: 23 February 2021].

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Noise Abatement and Control (1974) Information on Levels

of Environmental Noise Requisite to Protect Public Health and Welfare with an Adequate Margin of Safety.

550/9-74-004. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.

Whitney, K. (2017) “ ‘A brave new world’: what happened to Newcastle’s dream for a vertical city?” The

Guardian, 7 February. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/feb/07/brave-new-worldnewcastle-dream-for-vertical-city [Accessed: 18 December 2020].

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39

C onclusion

Adhitya (2017) and Lefebvre’s (2004) work acknowledges the passing of time as being central to the generation of urban rhythms. An inclusion of the additional dimension of time into space, through rhythm, allows for a deeper understanding of the dynamic relationship between ourselves and the environment we occupy, a dynamism lacking in much architectural and spatial literature, both classical and contemporary. Truax (2001), and Blesser and Salter (2007) aim to clarify concepts to spatially describe sound relative to the body and the surrounding environment. Although my personal view is that some of the language and concepts introduced can present some confusion in application to the physical world, the systems behind their delineation of terminology are incredibly useful in gaining an awareness of how to talk about sound’s interaction with space theoretically. Barthes (1991), Gaver (1993) and Oliveros (2015) explain that the body and mind form a relationship with the sound environment through aural perception. Their differentiation between hearing and listening is essential to clarify why sound is interpreted so subjectively. The inclusion of experiential memory into the perception of sound highlights one of the chief difficulties in establishing a common practice towards addressing this field of study. The World Soundscape Project (Schafer et al., 2007) and two of its most significant protagonists, Schafer (1994) and Westerkamp (1978; 1989), pioneered the soundwalking method as a means of documenting, celebrating and analysing some of the often undervalued nuances of the sonic environment. Through subjective studies of particular environments’ sonic ecologies, Schafer and Westerkamp’s work shows a clear concern for the gradual fading of the urban soundscape’s identity throughout the post-industrial period.

Using the work of these researchers, amongst others, I was able to devise a methodology for studying the identity of Newcastle’s soundscape. The process of planning and subsequently engaging in two soundwalks allowed me to begin to discover and characterise some of the acoustic communities prevalent around the city of Newcastle. The compact nature of the city lends itself well to soundwalking, and so it may be the case that a more sprawling context would be less conducive for the use of a soundwalk-based methodology.

The study was limited in two key areas raised by the national imposition of Covid-19 lockdown restrictions. The first of these areas concerned the restrictions in borrowing audio recording equipment and hardware, which resulted in the creation of recordings using equipment I had available or was able to acquire on a limited budget; and secondly, the inability for soundwalk playback and

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volunteer route plotting to take place in-person.

The results showed broadly that close environmental listening can yield spatial orientation amongst listeners. Most of the volunteers accurately identified at least one Topographical Environment across the two soundwalks, with two achieving overall accuracy of seventy percent and above in Soundwalk 2. Having noted that success, it would be unfair to fail to mention that two other volunteers were completely inaccurate (zero percent each) in their plotting of Soundwalk 1.

This inconsistency arises as part of the debate around the subjectivity of perceived sound, raised by Oliveros (2015). If a similar study were able to be conducted with a far larger volunteer sample size, the inconsistency in these results could be partially eliminated by means of establishing outliers.

The positive discussion raised in this study developed through the successful identification of particular sonic environments by volunteers. Areas such as the Ouseburn, the Quayside and Northumberland Street all possess strong acoustic identities, which many of the volunteers were able to recall and consequently plot with accuracy. More negatively, those areas that were most profoundly characterised by vehicular traffic or other mechanical acoustic cues, were generally plotted with a significantly poorer level of accuracy. Unfortunately, in the context of Newcastle as represented in this study, this type of sonic environment is found in a large proportion of the city and its surrounds. In these locations the topography has shown to retain a far less distinct acoustic identity, which concerns me personally as well as, I speculate, the many researchers working in this field around Newcastle and beyond.

The study I have conducted has shown that the untrained ear can position the body in previously experienced places with some accuracy. The degree of accuracy to which this recognition can occur is highly dependent on the acoustic conditions of the given place or space in question, especially regarding its particular sonic individuality. While this study in Newcastle showed that recognition of location was much improved by aural stimuli like running water and busy retail centres, and was hindered by the presence of traffic, a study taking place in a more rural location may reveal recognition improves with the incidence of a much rarer busy road in the sonic foreground.

Although this study showed that poor environment recognisability largely correlated with the sounds of traffic, that is not to say that any one group of sounds can only offer or take away from a space’s identity. For instance, the Central Motorway environment in Soundwalk 2, where traffic dominated the recording, was plotted more accurately by volunteers than the less traffic-populated City Stadium and Woodland areas in Soundwalk 1. Schafer’s observation that an “overpopulation of sounds” (1994, p. 71) is to blame for the lack of “high-fidelity” (ibid.) in the modern soundscape has, in part, shown to have been true. Yet on the grounds of this study, I would propose that the soundscape’s richness, or fidelity, is defined less so by its quantity or population of sounds, but rather the individuality offered by the combination of those sounds. As the city, its inhabitant population and thus its activity grow in scale, it would be unreasonable to expect a decrease in sonic population as Schafer implies. Required rather, is the prevention of a ubiquitous singularity in the soundscape.

C onclusion

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The sonic environment could be regarded then as a balanced diet; nutrition for the city. Too much or too little of any combination of nutrients can lead to poor health, or as Lefebvre might say, arrhythmia. In the case of the expanding city and its soundscape, I return to the very beginning of the paper, where I quote an essay, The Music of the New Life, by R. Buckminster Fuller: “When, in due course, man invented words and music he altered the soundscape and the soundscape altered man.” (1966, p. 52.)

Fuller observes the changing soundscape over time, forming parallels between the quickening of dance music and the speeding up of society. Although the city and its population of sounds are likely to grow, so long as its great variety of individual sonic nutrients are preserved, a rich and saturated sonic identity for the environment will remain.

REFERENCES: Adhitya, S. (2017) Musical Cities . London: UCL Press.

Barthes, R. (1991) Responsibility of Forms. Translated by R. Howard. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Blesser, B. and Salter, L. R. (2007) Spaces Speak, Are You Listening? Experiencing Aural Architecture.

Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Fuller, R. B. (1966) “The Music of the New Life.” Music Educators Journal. 52(6), pp. 52-68.

Gaver. W. (1993) “How Do We Hear in the World? Explorations in Ecological Acoustics”. Ecological Psychology.

5(4), pp. 285–313.

Lefebvre, H. (2004) Rhythmanalysis: Space, Time and Everyday Life . Translated by S. Elden and G. Moore.

London: Continuum.

Oliveros, P. (2015) “The difference between hearing and listening.” TEDxIndianapolis . Available at: https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QHfOuRrJB8&ab_channel=TEDxTalks [Accessed: 2 March 2021].

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R E F E R E N C E S (C O N T I N U E D) : Schafer, R. M. (1994) The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World. Rochester, VT: Destiny Books.

Schafer, R. M. Truax, B. Westerkamp, H. Broomfield, H. Davis, B. and Huse, P. (2007) “Information.” The World

Soundscape Project . Available at: https://www.sfu.ca/sonic-studio-webdav/WSP/index.html [Accessed: 04 March 2021].

Truax, B. (2001) Acoustic Communication . Westport, CT: Ablex Publishing.

Westerkamp, H. (1978) “Fantasie for Horns I.” Hildegard Westerkamp, Inside the Soundscape . Available at: https://www.hildegardwesterkamp.ca/sound/comp/4/fantasie-1/ [Accessed: 3 February 2021].

Westerkamp, H. (1989) “Kits Beach Soundwalk.” Hildegard Westerkamp, Inside the Soundscape. Available at: https://www.hildegardwesterkamp.ca/sound/comp/3/kitsbeach/ [Accessed: 3 February 2021].

C onclusion

43

B iblio g r a p h y

Adhitya, S. (2017) Musical Cities. London: UCL Press.

Barclay, L. (2017) “Listening to Communities and Environments.” Contemporary Music Review. 36(3), pp. 143-158.

Barthes, R. (1991) Responsibility of Forms . Translated by R. Howard. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Bello, J. P. Silva, C. Nov, O. Dubois, R. L. Arora, A. Salamon, J. Mydlarz, C. and Doraiswamy, H. (2019) “SONYC: A System for Monitoring, Analysing, and Mitigating Urban Noise Pollution.” Communications

of the ACM – Contributed Articles . 62(2), pp. 68-77.

Blesser, B. and Salter, L. R. (2007) Spaces Speak, Are You Listening? Experiencing Aural Architecture.

Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Bowers, J. and Shaw, T. (2020) “Ambulation: Exploring Listening Technologies for an Extended Sound Walking Practice”. Birmingham: NIME-20, pp. 21-25.

Carrol, R. Harper, C. and Perry, J. (2014a) “Newcastle East Central Plan.” Something Concrete and

Modern. Available at: https://www.somethingconcreteandmodern. co.uk/building/newcastle-eastcentral-plan/ [Accessed: 15 December 2020].

Carrol, R. Harper, C. and Perry, J. (2014b) “Newcastle Central Development Plan.” Something Concrete

and Modern . Available at: https://www.somethingconcreteandmodern.co.uk/building/newcastle-central-development-plan/ [Accessed: 17 December 2020].

Eckermann, J. P. (1839) “Conversations with Goethe In the Last Years of his Life.” Specimens of Foreign

Standard Literature. Vol. IV. Translated by S. M. Fuller. Boston, MA: Hilliard, Gray, and Company.

Extrium (2019a) England Noise and Air Quality Viewer. Available at: http://www.extrium.co.uk/ noiseviewer.html [Accessed: 2 November 2020].

Extrium (2019b) England Noise and Air Quality Viewer - FAQs . Available at: http://www.extrium. co.uk/noiseviewer/FAQs.pdf [Accessed: 2 November 2020].

Fuller, R. B. (1966) “The Music of the New Life.” Music Educators Journal . 52(6), pp. 52-68.

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Gaver. W. (1993) “How Do We Hear in the World? Explorations in Ecological Acoustics”. Ecological

Psychology. 5(4), pp. 285–313.

Hagood. M. (2011) “Comfort: Noise, Otherness, and the Mobile Production of Personal Space”. Amer-

ican Quarterly. 63(3), pp. 573–589.

Jones, S. J. (2019) “If electric cars are the answer, what was the question?” British Medical Bulletin .

129: pp. 13-23 Lefebvre, H. (2004) Rhythmanalysis: Space, Time and Everyday Life . Translated by S. Elden and G. Moore. London: Continuum.

Mattern, S. (2020) “Urban Auscultation; or, Perceiving the Action of the Heart.” Places Journal, April 2020. Available at: https://placesjournal.org/article/urban-auscultation-or-perceiving-the-actionof-the-heart/?cn-reloaded=1#0 [Accessed: 5 February 2021].

Newcastle University (2021) “Facilities.” Culture Lab. Available at: https://www.ncl.ac.uk/culturelab/ facilities/#theballroom [Accessed: 2 February 2021].

Oliveros, P. (2015) “The difference between hearing and listening.” TEDxIndianapolis . Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QHfOuRrJB8&ab_channel=TEDxTalks [Accessed: 2 March 2021].

Ripley, C. (2007) In the Place of Sound: Architecture|Music|Acoustics . Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Roland (2012) “CS-10EM Binaural Microphones/Earphones.” Roland. Available at: https://www. roland.com/uk/products/cs-10em/ [Accessed: 22 January 2021].

Schafer, R. M. (1994) The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World . Rochester, VT: Destiny Books.

Schafer, R. M. Truax, B. Westerkamp, H. Broomfield, H. Davis, B. and Huse, P. (2007) “Information.” The

World Soundscape Project . Available at: https://www.sfu.ca/sonic-studio-webdav/WSP/index.html [Accessed: 04 March 2021].

Silver Bullet (2016) “If Christmas shopping is going increasingly online, why do shops like Fenwicks invest so much in their Christmas windows?” Silver Bullet , 2 December. Available at: https://silverbulletmarketing.co.uk/news/view/139-if-christmas-shopping-is-going-increasingly-online-whydo-shops-like-fenwicks-invest-so-much-in-their-christmas-windows [Accessed: 8 February 2021].

Truax, B. (2001) Acoustic Communication . Westport, CT: Ablex Publishing.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2019) “What noises cause Hearing Loss?” Loud Noise can cause Hearing Loss . Available at: https://www. cdc.gov/nceh/hearing_loss/what_noises_cause_hearing_loss.html [Accessed: 23 February 2021].

B ibliography

45

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Noise Abatement and Control (1974) Information

on Levels of Environmental Noise Requisite to Protect Public Health and Welfare with an Adequate Margin of Safety. 550/9-74-004. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.

Vergo, P. (2005) That Divine Order: Music and the Visual Arts from Antiquity to the Eighteenth

Century. London: Phaidon Press Limited.

Westerkamp, H. (1978) “Fantasie for Horns I.” Hildegard Westerkamp, Inside the Soundscape . Available at: https://www.hildegardwesterkamp.ca/sound/comp/4/fantasie-1/ [Accessed: 3 February 2021].

Westerkamp, H. (1989) “Kits Beach Soundwalk.” Hildegard Westerkamp, Inside the Soundscape . Available at: https://www.hildegardwesterkamp.ca/sound/comp/3/kitsbeach/ [Accessed: 3 February 2021].

Whitney, K. (2017) “ ‘A brave new world’: what happened to Newcastle’s dream for a vertical city?” The

Guardian , 7 February. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/feb/07/brave-newworld-newcastle-dream-for-vertical-city [Accessed: 18 December 2020].

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L ist of F i g u r es

FIGURE DESCRIPTION

PAG E

1.1. Photograph showing the adjacency between boiler cupboard and desk.

2

2.1. Diagram showing the theoretical acoustic relationships between Sound

6

Source X and Listeners 1, 2 and 3.

3.1. Soundwalk Route Map

12

4.1. Volunteer 1 Route Map

16

4.2. Volunteer 2 Route Map

17

4.3. Volunteer 3 Route Map

18

4.4. Volunteer 4 Route Map

19

4.5. Volunteer 5 Route Map

20

4.6. Volunteer 6 Route Map

21

4.7. Volunteer 7 Route Map

22

4.8. Volunteer Combined Route Map

23

4.9. Volunteer Plotting Accuracy Map

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4.10. Soundwalk 1 Plotting Accuracy Table

25

4.11. Soundwalk 2 Plotting Accuracy Table

25

5.1. Photograph of Shieldfield House located near City Stadium.

27

5.2. Photograph of the bank of the River Ouseburn.

27

5.3. Photograph of Bewick Court and some of the elevated walkways into the city

30

from the east.

5.4. Photograph of Bewick Court and some of the elevated walkways into the city

30

from the east.

5.5. Plotting Accuracy / Traffic Noise Map (Extrium, 2019a.)

33

5.6. Photograph of green and yellow leaves without a red filter.

34

5.7. Photograph of green and yellow leaves with a red filter.

34 L ist of F igures

47