The World Ear Project (1970–87)

Abstract

This article presents an examination of the World Ear Project, a radio program developed by Charles Amirkhanian and Richard Friedman in August 1970 in Berkeley, California, that reframes the birth of acoustic ecology, conventionally viewed as a discipline created by R. Murray Schafer in Canada during the 1960s and ’70s. The article begins by presenting the sociocultural and musical circumstances that led to the creation of this radio program, emphasizing the compositional work of Luc Ferrari, whose interest in recording ambient environments was a major influence on Amirkhanian and Friedman. Analysis of archival broadcasts suggests that the World Ear Project was a space in which composers could contribute and use the medium of field recording to interrogate their creative practices, while average KPFA listeners also steadily provided diverse soundscape recordings of environments from across the globe. Further analysis of broadcasts, scripts, and other archival materials related to the World Ear Project reveal that this egalitarian, listener-driven radio series exemplified the democratic, activist principles at the core of its parent organization, the Pacifica Foundation. Crucially, we find many soundscape recordings related to contemporaneous Cold War inflection points and decolonization efforts on the World Ear Project, highlighting the broader progressive contours in which the program was conceived. The article concludes by suggesting that the World Ear Project reframes our understanding of the early history of acoustic ecology, having developed independently of Schafer’s work in Canada and taking an optimistic view of recording technology and the soundscapes of the modern, industrial world.