Listening to soundscape as the music of life.

Abstract

The musician M. Shafer introduced, in 1970, the word and the concept of soundscapes as “the tuning of the world,” driving our attention to the quality of the sounding environment, therefore comparable to music. The concept of soundscape has been developed within acousticians’ communities, and the research slowly evolved from “noise effect,” “noise control,” or “noise annoyance” to “sound quality” or “soundscape” and “soundscaping.” Also, around 70 electroacoustics music has promoted every day noises as musical sounds, and nowadays computer music blurs the boundaries between musical instruments and new technological devices and tools. We would like to present here our research conducted in perception and evaluation both in music (and more precisely on digital music) and in everyday noise and soundscapes to discuss some of the following questions: What makes a noise a musical sound? Its acoustic properties? That it is produced by a specific (musical) instrument? The time, places (streets? concert halls?) or ways one hears/listens to it (personal involvement, purpose)? Are the boundaries between music and noise the same in different communities (acousticians, musicians, instrument makers, every one in the street)? How do the concepts of music/noise evolve in time and space, and people?