Academic literature on the topic 'Soundscapes'

Among various sounds in the environment, natural sounds, such as water sounds and birdsongs, have proven to be highly preferred by humans, but the reasons for these preferences are not yet completely understood. This research study explores the differences between various natural and urban environmental sounds from the viewpoint of objective measures. Moreover, since numerous studies of soundscape perception and evaluation have revealed that besides the conventional parameters, e.g., A-weighted sound pressure level, additional parameters are necessary for soundscape measurement, in this study more possible parameters are explored. From alternative algorithms of the features proposed in literature for both perception of the auditory system and practical application in music and speech, the algorithms applicable for environmental sound are searched through comparison. The sound samples used in this study include the recordings of single sound source categories of water, wind, birdsongs, and urban sounds including street music, mechanical sounds and traffic noise. The samples are analysed with a number of objective parameters in three aspects, which include psychoacoustic parameters that have been recommended in previous soundscape researches, additional psychoacoustically related parameters that have previously mainly been applied in music perception, and 1/f noise dynamic that has been observed in music, speech, and soundscapes. Based on one-way analysis of variance, hierarchical cluster, and principal components analyses of the calculated results, a series of differences are shown among different sound types in terms of key parameters, which include fluctuation strength, pitch, loudness, and 1/f noise. Generally, both water and wind sounds have low fluctuation strength, pitch values, and pitch strengths; birdsongs have high fluctuation strength, pitch values, and pitch strength, low loudness, and exhibit generally 1/f behaviour of loudness in short and medium time intervals; and urban sounds have low pitch values, high loudness, and relatively wide ranges of other parameters. With the parameters, furthermore, the sound categories of recordings are automatically identified/classified using discriminant function analysis and artificial neural networks. With the artificial neural networks, which have better performance than the discriminant functions for the identification, based on all the psychoacoustic, music, and 1/f noise indices, the prediction accuracies are above about 99% for the three natural sound categories, i.e., of water, wind, birdsongs, and about 90% for the urban sound category.

A novel blind source separation algorithm applicable to extracting sources from within 3D soundscapes is presented. The algorithm is based on constructing a binary mask based on directional information. The validity of filtering using binary masked based on the ω-disjoint assumption is examined for several typical scenarios. Results for these test environments show an improvement by an order of magnitude when compared to similar work using speech mixtures. Also presented is the novel application of a dual-tree complex wavelet transform to sparse source separation, providing an alternative transformation to the short-time Fourier transform often used in this area. Results are presented showing compara- ble signal-to-interference performance, and significantly improved signal-to-distortion performance when compared against the short time Fourier transform. Results presented for the separation algorithm include quantitative measures of the separation performance for robust comparison against other separation algorithms. Consideration is given to the related problem of localising sources within 3D sound- scapes. Two novel methods are presented, the first using a peak estimation on a spherical histogram constructed using a geodesic grid, the second by adapting a self learning plastic self-organising map to operate on the surface of a unit sphere. It is concluded that the separation algorithm presented is effective for soundscapes comprising ecological or zoological sources. Specific areas for further work are recog- nised, both in terms of isolated technologies and towards the integration of this work into an instrument for soundscape recognition, evaluation and identification.

Biodiversity is an important provider of ecosystem services. There is a sense of urgency running through the scientific community regarding its protection and conservation. This urgency is fuelled by a wealth of research into the effects of habitat destruction, intensive agriculture, destructive industries (such as mining and oil exploration) and the insidious threat of climate change. It might reasonably be suggested that the biodiversity crisis we are facing today is in large part due to a lack of regulation around human-activities with regard to biodiversity impacts. In order to impose regulations, protecting biodiversity has been incentivised through various governmental and non-profit private-sector certification initiatives that aim to minimise the negative impacts that industry can have on the environment. Agri-environment schemes are largely governmental initiatives that aim to enhance the biodiversity and societal values of farmland. Timber certification initiatives, such as the Forest Stewardship Council, promote woodland management that takes into account the economic, environmental and social aspects of forestry with equal measure. Protection and enhancement of biodiversity is integral to achieving the environmental aims of certification. However, several studies have highlighted that many schemes (notably agri-environment schemes and some timber certification schemes) ultimately fall short of their projected targets, which is often due to a lack of suitable monitoring with regard to biodiversity. This is unsurprising since biodiversity monitoring is not a straightforward process. Many considerations need to be made when choosing suitable indicators of ecosystem health such as whether to measure species diversity or functional diversity. But perhaps one of the biggest issues is the ability of landowners and managers to contribute to efficient, objective, standardised data collection. Acoustic monitoring offers a means of producing unbiased data that can be analysed objectively and stored indefinitely. With significant advances in hardware and software technologies, the proliferation of acoustic monitoring is evident in the scientific literature. The field of soundscape ecology was in many respects borne out of these technological advances. It has since been usurped by the newer field of ecoacoustics (I use these two terms interchangeably throughout this thesis). Ecoacoustics offers a range of soundscape analytical techniques that aim to understand the spectral and temporal composition of the soundscape. As such a number of acoustic indices can be used to measure different facets of acoustic diversity. This study offers an overview of the current literature in bioacoustics and ecoacoustics. It applies several of these indices to studying the soundscape of Forest Stewardship Council certified plantation forests in the UK. Specifically it investigates the soundscape in relation to habitat and landscape metrics and explores temporal variation in acoustic activity. It offers insights into the relationship between man-made/machine noise (technophony) and biological sounds (biophony) and suggests future directions for research and large-scale monitoring of habitats. Finally it provides a set of instructions on how to build an automated recording unit using readily available parts and provides links to necessary software and guidance on types of hardware available. The key findings indicate that the use of acoustic indices for monitoring landscapes could be a useful tool. Clear relationships were observed between forest structure and stand age, and vegetation structure, with acoustic diversity in Thetford forest over two consecutive years. Although these relationships were not clear in Bedgebury forest, the effects of landscape structure were statistically significant, particularly when using automated recording units. Road proximity had a strong influence on the soundscape in all study sites. And the use of ecoacoustic methods to explore this offers an insight into a new means of investigating the impact of roads on acoustic biodiversity. The development of a low-cost automated recording unit is a significant contribution to the field of soundscape ecology in terms of encouraging participation by the non-governmental organisation (NGO) sector. Likewise, the use of a handheld recording unit and the application of traditional ecological survey methods provide evidence that soundscape/ecoacoustic studies that yield interesting, informative and biologically meaningful results can be done on a relatively low budget. As such this thesis offers a significant contribution to the field of soundscape ecology in terms of both data and logistics. It may be particularly relevant to researchers on a limited budget and/or the NGO and citizen science sector.

Inspired by Chinese poems, the overall characteristics of the work reflect the assimilation of several non-Western musical and philosophical influences such as the use of pentatonic scale patterns, the principle of embellishing a single note, and the application of the I-Ching in dealing with active instrumental passages over a long-sustained computer music drone. Traditional Western compositional techniques such as aleatory counterpoint, serialism, and moment form are also employed in the treatment of thematic material, developmental processes and formal design.

Music History<br>M.M.<br>Once a year over the week leading up to and including Labor Day, tens of thousands of people drive hours into Nevada’s barren Black Rock Desert to build an ephemeral city equal to “the size of downtown San Francisco.” This place, Black Rock City, home of the annual Burning Man event, only exists for a fraction of the year. For one week, participants gather together at Burning Man and operate under its ten guiding principles, including “radical self-reliance,” “communal effort,” “radical self-expression,” and “participation.” Everything, with the exception of porta-potties and ice, must be brought in and packed out by individuals. The decommodified, volunteer-run city is what its inhabitants make of it. At Burning Man, attendants are their own event planners, food providers, structure builders, gift givers, and activity coordinators. On the penultimate night of the event, an effigy of a forty-foot man is set aflame, a ritual left open for interpretation by participants. Two days later, the entirety of Black Rock City is torn down, leaving scarcely any trace that it ever even existed. Burning Man has gained social traction exponentially since its launch in 1986, leading to the formation of dozens of individually organized regional burns across the United States of America and internationally. Scholars from many disciplines have flocked to the event attempting to unpack its distinct subculture. While publications have analyzed Burning Man’s ethos, logistics, business organization, community, art, rituals, fire, and performances, only two have considered sound worthy of focus and few have addressed the regional burn network. “Aural Substance: An Ethnographic Exploration of Regional Burn Soundscapes” analyzes Burning Man’s regional network, expanding on sound artists Stephan Moore and Scott Smallwood’s brief initial study of the national event's sound by way of ethnography and field recording. From June 2016 through February 2017, I conducted fieldwork and collected fifty-five hours of field recordings at seven different regional burns. I employ ethnomusicologist Steven Feld’s concept of “acoustemology,” or “sound as a way of knowing.” Through my observation, analysis of recordings, and interviews, I consider how the sounds at regional burns can signify the time, date, and location to burn participants. Sound-studies scholar David Novak writes that “noise is a crucial element of communicational and cultural networks.” In this study, I analyze how noise at a burn is not solely a by-product of participants’ “anarchistic freedom,” but a key part of the burn that relays information about regional burn values, public and private spaces, and burners’ lived experience.<br>Temple University--Theses