Interdisciplinary soundscape project

In 1989 an entirely new kind of listening to immediate surroundings was begun in the Department of Folk Tradition (nowadays the Department of Music Anthropology). It started up the soundscape project the motto of which is: it is not insignificant what we hear when we walk in the local shopping centre, pop into pub for a beer, or stop off at the library.

"Canadian R. Murray Schafer was the one who introduced the term soundscape. The word has been used to describe the field of sounds that surrounds us: noise, music, the sounds of nature, people and technology", PhD Helmi Järviluoma explains.

Soundscape research was brought to Finland by broadcasting people but later on other people also became interested in the idea. The Department of Music Anthropology is an indisputable pioneer of soundscape research in Finland.

"The best thing about soundscape research is that there are no rigid limits drawn between science and art or between various domains of science; we can't hear soundscape as pieces of sound that correspond to the research subjects of universities. It is an entity that needs to be studied by many kinds of experts: for example architects, sociologists, artists, broadcasting persons and urban planners. For a researcher of music this kind of soundscape thinking is a very welcome change", Järviluoma says.

Soundscape theories could certainly be put into practice but at least so far environments have been built more for the eyes than for the ears. The sense of sight dominates environmental planning. "In a sense soundscape thinking is a revision to the past times when sounds were also paid attention to in designing. I am certain that one of the future professions will be soundscape designer", Järviluoma says.

Helmi Järviluoma thinks that the soundscape designer should have technical skills and an interest in social questions: "However, every man's, every woman's and child's creativity and imagination is the basis of soundscape thinking. Soundscape is a composition that everyone can compose, perform and listen to."

In 2004 soundscape teaching continues in cooperation with Tampere Polytechnic. Researchers Noora Vikman and Heikki Uimonen apply soundscape cultural analysis in their work. MA Noora Vikman has been interested in methodological learning and applying as well as the concrete themes found during the fieldwork period in Italy: how silence as an ideal can be experienced, used and commodified and how the music can be heard as part of the soundscape.

In the beginning of 2003 Vikman began also a project called ‘Palace sounds’. Following its starting point a group ‘identity’ can be defined through a sounding space the group is using and the meanings given they give to those sounds.

MA Heikki Uimonen has studied cultural values connected to sounds, and the changes in urban sonic environment caused by technology. His research interests include mobile phones and the deregulation of Finnish Radio. Uimonen has published articles dealing with issues of soundscapes of Skruv, Sweden; Dollar, Scotland and Sointula, B.C., Canada.

Among with four other European villages Cembra, Skruv, and Dollar are included to research called Acoustic Environments in Change. The reseach is conducted by docent Helmi Järviluoma, and it is a continuation study to Five Village Soundscape research which was carried out in 1975.

More information:
www.6villages.tpu.fi

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