WHAT IS SOUNDSCAPE CREATION?
Soundscape and the power of timbre
To compose music and to create soundscapes are two specific activities in the vast field of music and they are partly different. Musicians who study music composition and regard themselves as composers may, if they are introduced to the domain of communication, want to express musical communication in other ways than by writing a music score. Notably they may focus on acoustic communication, which includes sounds and conversations coming from the everyday life of human beings, in the three time dimensions that are past, present, and future.
‘Soundscape’ is a word invented by music composer and researcher Murray Schafer. It may refer to natural sounds as well as audio recordings. In that last case, soundscape creation is related to the fact that human beings are literally tuning the world, playing with sounds to create effects, stimulate thoughts, and enhance emotions. Soundscape creation is, technically speaking, centered on timbral listening, and timbral listening, as its name suggests, is centered on timbre and not on pitch. Thus to create a soundscape, it is necessary to study the relationships between timbre and spectral content, a relationship analogous to the one linking pitch and frequency.
The will to study timbral variations while creating soundscapes is, some specialists say, a main difference between soundscape creation and music composition. However, a style of music like shakuhachi music in Japan is an example of music where timbre has an important place. Contemporary music like that produced by Richard Emsley, tends to evoke soundscapes, by moments. Recently, some composers have created new electronic timbres for their compositions, however such compositional works are still little known.
Where do soundscape creators find their inspiration? It can be everywhere: on the street, at the beach, in an office, at home, etc. A police siren, seagulls, a pen scratching, and the microwave may provide the material for specific soundscapes that combine them. Let us notice that today, software provide blocks of pre-recorded sounds. It helps amateur musicians as well as professional ones to enter the soundscape creation process more easily.
Where are soundscapes used?
One can create a sound design environment, a sound design prototype, for any reason. For example, recordings can be made to produce surround sound that will be used in a video game. In a single game, different soundscapes may coexist: one environment may immerse players in a specific scene and in another scene, sounds may inform players of a new element: a place, a character, an object, etc. In doing so, they maintain an atmosphere that stimulates gamers to carry on with the game.
Of course, various soundscapes are used in movies to produce all sorts of effects: dramatic, romantic, poetic, etc. These effects will be added depending on the script: to enhance a movie based on fantasy, a post-production executive will require material originating from castles, waterfalls, underground chambers, holes, etc. These elements, once recorded, are reshaped in a digital audio workstation, all the sounds being combined with dialog and placed between snatches of conversation. Actually, movie scenes rely on soundscapes as much as they rely on images or music compositions.