Acoustic Communication COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION SCIENCE A series of monographs, treatises, and texts Edited by MEL VIN J. VOIGT University of California, San Diego Editorial Board: Robert B. Arundale, University of Alaska, Walter S. Baer, Times-Mirror, Jörg Becker, Philipps- Universität Marburg, Erwin.
Bettinghaus, Michigan State University, Brenda Dervin, University of Washington, Nicholas R. Garnham, Polytechnic of Central London, George Gerbner, University of Pennsylvania, James D. Halloran, University of Leicester, Brigitte L. Kenny, Infocon, Inc., Manfred Kochen, University of Michigan, Robert G- Meadow, University of California, San Diego, Vincent Mosco, Queen's University, Kaarle Nor- denstreng, University of Tampere, Ithiel de Sola Pool, Massachusetts institute of Technology, Dieter Prokop, Frankfurt, Germany, Everett M.
Rogers, Stanford University, Herbert I. Schiller, University of California, San Diego, Russell Shank, University of California, Los Angeles, Alfred G. Smith, University of Texas, Austin, Frederick Williams, University of Southern California. Adams • Television Coverage of the Middle East William Adams * Television Coverage of International Affairs William Adams • Television Coverage of the 1980 Presidential Campaign Alan Baughcum and Gerald Faulhaber • Telecommunications Access and Public Policy Mary B- Cassata and Thomas Skill • Life on Daytime Television Hewitt D.
Crane • The New Social Marketplace Rhonda J. Crane • The Politics of International Standards Herbert S. Bradley, and Burt Nanus • The Emerging Network Marketplace Glen Fisher • American Communication in a Global Society Oscar H. • Beyond Agenda Setting Oscar H., Paul Espinosa, and Janusz A.
Ordover • Proceedings from the Tenth Annual Telecommunications Policy Research Conference Edmund Glenn • Man and Mankind: Conflict and Communication Between Cultures Gerald Goldhaber, Harry S. Dennis III, Gary M. Richetto, and Osmo A. Wiio • Information Strategies Bradley S.
Greenberg • Life on Television: Content Analyses of U. TV Drama Bradley S. Greenberg, Michael Burgoon, Judee K. Burgoon, and Felipe Korzenny • Mexican Americans and the Mass Media Cees J.
Hamelink • Finance and Information: A Study of Converging Interests Robert Landau, James H. Bair, and Jean H. Siegman • Emerging Office Systems John S. Lawrence and Bernard M.
Timberg • Fair Use and Free Inquiry Robert G. Meadow • Politics as Communication William H. Salter, and Paul Heyer • Culture, Communication, and Dependency Vincent Mosco • Broadcasting in the United States Vincent Mosco Pushbutton Fantasies Kaarle NordensTreng • The Mass Media Declaration of UNESCO Kaarle Nordenstreng and Herbert Schiller • National Sovereignty and International Communication Harry J. Otway and Malcolm Peltu * New Office Technology Ithiel de Sola Pool • Forecasting the Telephone Dan Schiller • Telematics and Government Herbert I.
Schiller • Who Knows: Information in the Age of the Fortune 500 Jorge A. Schnitman • Film Industries in Latin America Indu B. Singh • Telecommunications in the Year 2000 Jennifer Daryl Slack • Communication Technologies and Society Dallas W. Smythe • Dependency Road Sari Thomas • Studies in Communication Volumes 1-3 Janet Wasko • Movies and Money In Preparation: Bruce Austin • Current Research in Film Heather Hudson • Telecommunications and Development James Larson • Television's Window on the World Kenneth Kraemer and William Dutton • Modeling as Negotiating John Lawrence • The Electronic Scholar Armand Mattelart and Hector Schmucler • Communication and Information Technologies Vincent Mosco • Proceedings from the Eleventh Annual Telecommunications Policy Research Conference Everett Rogers and Francis Balle • The Media Revolution in America and in Western Europe Herbert I.
Schiller • Information and the Crisis Economy Keith R. Stamm • Newspaper Use and Community Ties Robert S. Taylor • Value — Added Processes in Information Systems Tran Van Dinh • Diplomacy and Communication in a Changing World Tran Van Dinh • Independence, Liberation, Revolution Georgette Wang and Wimal Dissanayake • Continuity and Change in Communication Systems Acoustic Communication Barry Truax Simon Fraser University Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada (Ä) Ablex Publishing Corporation Norwood, New Jersey 07648 Copyright © 1984 by Ablex Publishing Corporation All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without permission of the publisher.
Printed in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Truax, Barry Acoustic communication.T78 1984 534 84-20372 ISBN 0-89391-263-8 ISBN 0-89391-307-3 (pbk.) Ablex Publishing Corporation 355 Chestnut Street .Norwood, New Jersey 07648 To R. Murray Schafer and the memory of Glenn Gould Contents 4 Introduction xi Acknowledgments xxi I. Sound, Listening, and Soundscape 1.
Acoustic Tradition and the Communicational Approach 2 The Energy Transfer Model 3 Signal Processing 7 A Communicational Approach 9 2. The Listener 13 Hearing and Listening 13 Listening to the Past 17 Listening-in-Search and Listening-in-Readiness 19 Background Listening and the Keynote Sound 21 Listener Preferences and Attitudes 24 3. Voice and Soundmaking 28 Voice and the Whole Person 29 Paralanguage 33 Soundmaking in Pairs and Groups 36 4. Systems of Acoustic Communication: Speech, Music, and Soundscape 42 The Continuum 43 CONTENTS The Model 47 The Brain 51 The Acoustic Community 57 Characteristics of the Acoustic Community 58 Variety, Complexity, and Balance 70 Some Case Studies 75 Noise and the Urban Soundscape 84 Noise and Acoustic Communication 85 Interlude: The "Deaf Spots" of Noise 88 The Path Toward Change 95 Acoustic Design 99 Variety and Coherence 100 Conclusion 104 II.
Electroacoustics—The Impact of Technology on Acoustic Communication Electroacoustic Communication: Breaking Constraints 108 The New Tools: Extensions or Transformations? 109 Space and Loudness 111 Time and Repetition 115 Objectification and Commodity 118 Schizophonia 120 Electrification: The New Soundscape 123 Redundancy and Uniformity 123 Dynamic Behavior 127 Response Characteristics 130 Analog and Digital 138 The Listener as Consumer 143 Extension and Simplification 144 Analytical and Distracted Listening 147 Consumerism 153 CONTENTS ix The Electroacoustic Media: Audio Mediation 158 Form and Content in Radio 159 Radio Structure 162 Characteristics of Radio Formats 174 The Acoustic Community as Market 178 Redefinition of the Acoustic Community 178 Electroacoustic Sound in the Community 180 The International Audio Industry 185 Regaining Control: Electroacoustic Alternatives. 189 Recording and the Document in Sound 190 Text-Sound, Electroacoustic Music, and the Soundscape Composition 198 Electroacoustic Design 212 Principles of Electroacoustic Design 212 Design of the Compositional System 218 Discography 225 Bibliography 227 Name Index 235 Subject Index 239 Introduction For many people in contemporary society, sound and hearing are simply taken-for-granted phenomena of little special significance to daily life, except as they occur in the forms of oppressively loud noise or technological innova- tion, as in the latest in audio and computer technology. Change for the better or worse seems as inevitable as it is uncontrollable by the individual. Whether our response is to resist or indulge in such change, we are caught up in a profoundly altered environment whose dynamics we do not understand.
If we look to traditional intellectual disciplines for insight, we stumble not only on their esoteric language, but also on a tradition that deals with sound in isolation from real-world environments. Such disciplines may tell us how sound behaves in a particular, usually idealized context, but they are incapa- ble of showing how sound connects us to the environment and to others, how it affects human behavior, or what the impact of urbanization or technology will be on such relationships. In short, what affects us most is what we seem to know the least about. This book is an introduction to a new approach to the very old topic of sound.
I use the term "acoustic communication" because it is the most general way to describe all of the phenomena involving sound from a human perspective. After all, a scientist may study "vibratory motion," but the individual experiences its effects as a form of communication. The relatively youthful field of communication studies provides a useful framework and set of concepts for understanding a complex system such as the one which sound creates between people and the environment. It is surprising (to me at least) that no one has applied communicational concepts to the field of sound before, at least not systematically.
Just as the public tends to take sound for granted, communication specialists tend to assume that listening and sound- making work the same way they always have, and therefore they study social behavior at a more abstract level. Both groups may hear the contemporary soundscape in which they live, but neither seems inclined to listen to it with much sensitivity. Listening is the key issue in communication via sound because it is the xi xii INTRODUCTION primary interface between the individual and the environment. It is a path of information exchange, not just the auditory reaction to stimuli.
I used the term "soundscape" above, not just as a synonym for "acoustic environ- ment," but as a basic term of acoustic communication. It refers to how the individual and society as a whole understand the acoustic environment through listening. Listening habits may be acutely sensitive or distractedly indifferent, but both interpret the acoustic environment to the mind, one with active involvement, the other with passive detachment. Moreover, lis- tening habits create a relationship between the individual and the environ- ment, whether interactive and open-ended, or oppressive and alienating.
It is possible that two individuals in the same sound environment might have contrasting relationships to it. What is different is the pattern of communica- tion in each case. The communicational approach also contributes the very useful notion of context and stresses its importance to the understanding of messages. A sound means something partly because of what produces it, but mainly because of the circumstances under which it is heard.
Even an emergency signal such as a fire whistle does not have its usual meaning if it occurs in a small town with a volunteer brigade at the regular time of their evening practice. The impact of electronic technology on sound (what we will call "electroacoustic" technology) has a profound effect on communication be- cause, among other things, it can take a sound out of its original context and put it into any other. Even music becomes an environmental sound when it is produced by a loudspeaker, and we may react to it with annoyance when it seems inappropriate in its new context. We have lost the sense of magic that our grandparents felt when they first heard a radio bringing sound from far away into their homes.
Today, radio often functions as a stimulant to get us through a boring or frustrating situation; its out-of-context sound becomes the new "environment" on which we may come to depend. Acoustic communication attempts to understand the interlocking be- havior of sound, the listener and the environment as a system of relationships, not as isolated entities. The listener is also a soundmaker, and even the sound of one's own voice comes back to the ear colored by the environment. With sound, everything interacts with everything else.
Sound also results in other forms of behavior on the part of the listener, including reactions that may seem unrelated to aural experience. The worker stressed by noise may have trouble communicating with friends and family. Noise may also disrupt sleep or other activity and cause extra mental and physical stress that, in combina- tion with other sources of tension, can lead to complex physiological and psychological problems. Fortunately, the systemic nature of acoustic com- munication can also lead, through similar chain reactions, to positive change.
In fact, one of our goals in analyzing systems of acoustic commu- nication will be to arrive at principles for "acoustic design." INTRODUCTION We will find that acoustic systems of communication are vulnerable to changes of a particular kind, namely those that attack the forces which keep it balanced. Conscious intervention in the form of design strategies is needed to alter a downward course of deterioration. However, we will ask if such intervention need always take the form of "experts" imposing solutions, or whether there are means whereby the individual can bring about change and regain control.