What sounds?
I wondered about what sounds were in my sound images. And about whether cities, parks, streets, and buildings have a unique sound that would make people recognise them. Schafer would say 'yes, of course' and that they are the sum of the human activity taking place there, for example, the blacksmith’s hammering on iron.
But I was also curious about sounds that are nice or interesting to listen to - like stained glass windows are to vision - and sounds that are important for navigation - like the church tower is to vision in a new city. Surely, such sounds must exist? People who are blind navigate by sound all the time and we all recognise the music we love.
Experience in listening
A conversation I had overheard years earlier between four people who were blind sprung to mind: three had lost vision as adults and one was born blind. They were all training with their new guide dog and walking the same route. On Saturday morning those who had lost vision as adults got lost, one after the other, in the exact same spot. The one who was born blind did not.
- So what had happened?
Those who got lost had used a fan in a medical clinic that they walked next to as their cue for turning left, but the clinic was closed that day so there was no fan. Whilst the one who did not get lost had used the echoing sound from her footsteps against a hard surface (wall), a soft surface (bushes), and a hard surface again (wall) on the other side of the road as her cue. During lunch, the three who had got lost agreed that they would never ever trust a sound further away than the fan. Strongly disagreeing, the one who had carried on walking the route argued that the sound of a fan is unreliable, as that of a photocopier or a radio, because it may be switched off.
Sound album
I now turned to previous research, soundscape recordings, and soundwalks. To my surprise, I found that most, if not all had used vision first - to determine what to listen to - and then tuned in on how it sounded.
- This did not help answer my questions.
So, I decided to ask people who rely on sound for spatial information, work with or study music, or both to help. And together we created The Oxford Sound Album.
