Sound

Created: Thu Jan 29 2026

All about sounds and listening.

Listening to Noise and Silence: Towards a Philosophy of Sound Art by Salomé Voegelin

Natural Sounds and Environmental Aesthetics by John Andrew Fisher

1. Aesthetic appreciation of natural sounds

Music vs natural sounds. Music is a human made art object and does this mean we can only appreciate music as sound? Where does natural sounds fit into our aesthetic appreciation? This is a similar question to visual art versus experiencing nature in the flesh.

"oculo-centrism" by Barbanti. Our nature based on vision. Howoritz -> we think and describe our surroundings through visual terms. And in philosophy, perceptual knowledge usually comes through sight.

"the soundscape around the hearer is in constant flux" (pg. 188) - Same idea presented by Ronal Hepburn, that nature is unframed. But with sound, it poses different questions than visual objects. While a landscape is changing, perceptually it will look the same second to second, but even as seasons change, we can refer to it as still the landscape since we identify it as a place. With natural sounds, as Fisher notes, is the passing of wind the same sound or something different as it goes on? It also comes and goes so there's a transient aspect.

"In any case, our aesthetic perception of sounds roughly tracks common sense ontology, which counts the roar of a waterfall as one long sound but rumbles of thunder as separate sounds." (pg. 188). Even if wind changes from moment to moment, we'll consider the entire duration as one sound.

Common sense object - New term. Fisher uses this to describe natural sounds because we can identify the sound of wind or a waterfall without having to see the object, or to understand what it is. Or another example, is to hear birds chirping, we can generally know it's birds without knowing the specific bird.

1.2

Music thesis. Sounds can only be aesthetically appreciated if intentionally arranged. This means sounds in nature, we would have to assume that sounds being produced by animals or non-living, is intentional. But of course, this isn't true since there is no intention in nature since there is no human making natural sounds (unless sounds from our own bodies). Wanted to make a connection with another thinker about intention...there's the history theory of art, which is arranging things to induce aesthetic pleasure. But what else? There was Berleant who say design of art similar to that of order of nature. And it's perhaps not the intention, but how sounds in nature fits within one another. Fisher also notes that we have many aesthetic reactions to natural sounds such as finding them harsh, pleasant, relaxing, etc., so it would suggest that we can appreciate natural sounds. This may seem obvious to us now, but perhaps it was overlooked at the time of aesthetic theory when thinkers were narrowed in only in the art world.

1.3

Thought - what about noise? We also find white noise pleasing. Personally, sometimes I put on a white noise playlist to help with going to sleep because I find it calming. Sounds that have no referential object...

Noël Carroll - Arousal model of nature appreciation. Where our mood changes based on the environment, being moved by nature. But Fisher questions whether this is actually an aesthetic appreciation? We might be instinctively hearing sounds souch as a lone's wolfs cry at night that can induce fear in us.

Casual result of hearing vs being moved by nature aesthetically. Pyschological vs aesthetic.

Soundscape - a collection of sounds but focus on prominent ones or the ones we want to.

Music - meaning, intention, emotion of composer / performer. Natural sounds - what we are interested in and what we know of the environment.

2 Natural sounds vs. musical sounds

Cautious of always having versus to create a binary relationship. This would align with feminist aesthetic theory. I do find it helpful sometimes to compare and contrast, and even within this type of analysis, this would create a binary relationship because there's still separation. I wonder how to escape this paradox of difference. I mean, I guess a solution here for a subheader would to replace "vs" with "and".

Roger Scruton - music listening is acousmatically, while natural sound we listen referentially.

Acousmatic listening according to Hamiton, "detached from the circumstances of their production". Is this not similar to what Kant was saying about disinterestedness? To be objective to the aesthetic experience is to attend to the object itself and not how the object was made.

AL - associated with musique concreté.

In music, we can attend to the structure through tempo, scales, instruments etc. For natural sounds, while there is timbre, pitch, and loudness, we generally refer to them by an object. "But note that we hear them as properties of dripping water, rustling leaves, or George’s voice." p. 191.

Dyck -> “the microtonal thesis: Natural environments tend to have a greater variation of microtones, microrhythms, and microtimbres, than human environments”. Read this in another paper too...maybe by the one that Fisher is referring to. Will get back to this. But when I read the other paper, I was thinking that there's an "organic" feeling to natural sounds that Dyck is trying to describe. Or maybe I'm just ascribing organic because we have associated nature to have this quality.

3 The concept of a soundscape

Schafer - “any portion of the sonic environment regarded as a field of study” Geisler - “those elements that shape or compose a landscape from an acoustic perspective” Fisher - "all the sounds that can be heard over a range of times and auditory positions"

Fisher takes into account that a soundscape of an environment is constantly changing, and that there are large environments like the Grand Canyon that makes it impossible to hear the totality of the environment from one location which is why he adds in "auditory positions".

5.1

Why do we find natural sounds appealing and not the sound of traffic? William and Budd -> "otherness strategy" Dykc -> natural sounds are caused and belong to the land, and they have an "otherness" quality to them. This isn't really expanded on but what I understand from this is that it's sounds being produced by nature, which nature is mysterious at times and we don't fully understand it, but we accept it. And perhaps it's this mystery that we are drawn to, or in Dyck's terms, "otherness".

In other aesthetic theory about beauty, what we find beautiful is something that is harmonious and united to create a whole. In this sense, traffic sounds do not belong in a natural environment and therefore we find it displeasurable.

But what about mixed soundscapes, the one from urban environment and the natural environment? Can both live harmoniously together which creates a pleasurable experience?

There's a correleation between natural sounds and placing them in music. This is Dyck's approach. If artificial and natural sounds can be composed together, can this be extrapolated to larger objects like the environment.

Deep Listening: A Composer's Sound Practice by Pauline Oliveros

Preface

Disapperance of natural soudns in the 21st century. Inner listening - thought. Our inner listening, is it clearer than our inner images? For me, easier to hear my inner voice than to mentally picture myself.

basso ostinato - stubborn bass. Need to expand my music terminology.

Introduction

What is deep listening? Consciousness? Hearing?

Listening -> to hear with intention and attention and there's a psychological dimension. Hearing -> To perceive an audible input. A physical dimension. Consciousness -> to be aware of an input/stimuli and to react to it. Oliveros states "Consciousness is acting with awareness, presence and memory." There's an active engagement with the input to take notice, to acknowledge its existence and to file away into our memories to be accessed in the future.

Auditory cortex - part of the brain that's responsible for perceiving sounds

Deep listening - Side note. Often a description or a reason why for exploring a project is to create a deeper connection to x , or a deeper relationship with x. But what does it mean to actually explore this depth? This depth sounds as if there's is something further to be explored that hasn't been discovered yet. This depth could also be seen as pushing the boundaries. The depth could be the uncharted territories hidden in the darkness waiting to be discovered. Could this depth also be referring to the metaphysical? And in this case, is it not depth, but then the loft heights that aren't attainable?

Ok back to deep listening. Oliveros claims that this practice is where time-space merge through sound. That the sound occupies the space it lives but also the temporal dimension. Deep has connotations of complexity and boundaries for Oliveros. Not your sterotypical knowledge or understanding. To be unified with sound in the moment.

DL - to expand consciousness by being attentitive and present with sound.

Meditaton - listening as a form of compassion.

Series of exercises

Deep Listening Through The Millennium (1998) - Long form listening over a span of 3 years, to contemplate on the nature of listening. To interview people and ask them what is the difference between heaering and listening. See how different people around the world respond.

Thought - explore the la jonction producing different sounds from the materials/objects of the environment. Not only listening but now performing. Reacting to the soudns heard, disocvering the sonic qualities of the materials.

Open Field (1980) - "art experience" or in other words, when something aesthetically grabs your attention whether sound, sight, actions or movements, translate this experience into another medium for record/documentation. Ex. a stream of soft light peering through translucent curtains. Do you try to capture the feeling or the quality of light? What are the sounds you are hearing in this moment, how do you translate the sound to a visual medium?

Rhythms (1996) What are natural rhythms and how can we be aware of them? Do they influence how we move in the world? How do all the rhythms work together? How do they work against each other? Thought this is an interesting exercise.

Sound Fishes (1992) Oliveros has conceptualized the idea of fishing for sounds. That you are waiting patiently, attentively for the sounds to appear. You have to have the equipment and the goal in mind of listening/fishing the sounds. Had thought of this idea last year, and echoed by a sound artist I interviewed, and the poster for my WIP diploma project is titled "Fishing for Sounds".

I mis-read "sound could" as "sound cloud" which then made me think about SoundCloud as a platform, but also where does the term "sound cloud" comes from. Well, turns out it's not a term because I mis-read the initial text. Anyway, was thinking word clouds that were popular on on blogs as a way to visualize popular terms used in a blog. I wonder what a sound cloud would look/feel/sound like? How would one interact with this cloud?

The Narrative and the Ambient in Environmental Aesthetics by Cherly Foster

What is the narrative and ambient aspects of the environment and how do they contribute to our aesthetic knowledge?

How do we gain knowledge in the aesthetic realm? Reminds me of aesthetic testimony and the acquiantance principle (Frank Sibley and Richard Whollheim).

The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World by R. Murray Schafer

Where does music come from? Emotion + Nature Greek mythology - Athena creating a nomos after beheading Medusa's head because she was touched by the cries of Medusa's sisters. Let's put aside how wild Athena is because she literally kills their sister, and then was like, oh, actually, I'm feeling emotional now and I'm going to make art to honour this moment. She's wild. Anyway, this is about the myth of music creation, and one POV is from emotion.

The other, is from nature, but and again from Greek mythology. Hermes discovered that a turtle's shell has resonance which produces sounds. This was the inspiraton of the lyre, a small string instrument similar to a harp. From an aesthetics point of view, and from Ancient Greek philosophy, art was also mimemsis and micking nature.

Something about within us, versus what is outside of us.

"Seeing is believing."

Sonic archetype - "all roads lead back to water". If it's true, this statement refers to us evolving from water and also emerging from fluids as humans.

Terminology (Schafer)

Bibiliography

No Specific format...

Natural Sounds and Environmental Aesthetics by John Andrew Fisher. In Routledge Handbook of Nature and Environmental Aesthetics. https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-Handbook-of-Nature-and-Environmental-Aesthetics/Parsons-Hettinger-Shapshay/p/book/9781032298221

Deep Listening: A Composer's Sound Practice by Pauline Oliveros https://www.agosto-foundation.org/sites/default/files/upload/oliveros_pauline_deep_listening_a_composers_sound_practice_2005.pdf

To Read

Listening After Nature: Field Recording, Ecology, Critical Practice by Mark Wright https://www.bloomsbury.com/ca/listening-after-nature-9781501354519/

Silence: Lectures and Writings by John Cage https://monoskop.org/images/b/b5/Cage_John_Silence_Lectures_and_Writings.pdf

Bodies of Sound: Becoming a Feminist Ear by Irene Reveil and Sarah Shin https://www.silverpress.org/products/bodies-of-sound-1?srsltid=AfmBOooaRRS2ETAL1-69EpGXhR0bTUk8cvoH9B2wMcGujvmUvnO5I49t

Sounding the Limits of Life: Essays in the Anthropology of Biology and Beyond by Stefan Helmreich https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691164809/sounding-the-limits-of-life?srsltid=AfmBOorLx-atWZ4m8U6T4TSErOHWSrqVP2qybsdQE5zcEBPAdeoqp3RO

The Routledge Companion to Sound Studies edited by Michael Bull https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Companion-to-Sound-Studies/Bull/p/book/9780367659745

The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World by R. Murray Schafer https://monoskop.org/images/d/d4/Schafer_R_Murray_The_Soundscape_Our_Sonic_Environment_and_the_Tuning_of_the_World_1994.pdf

The Value of Natural Sounds by John Andrew Fisher. The Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 33, No. 3 (Autumn, 1999). https://www.jstor.org/stable/3333700?casa_token=H3gULkFPwDkAAAAA%3A7yo66tGKxyFvym4P6qqQiiMGXMTBkKnB9RCSOMKCqXbtTS5z8_ec__IQakXOohqXnXXgzcEY6gz_33Cy28DI8cuvK-eJCCobdNku_IrfPFknhiCi-FM&seq=1

Listening: An Introduction to the Perception of Auditory Events by Stephen Handel https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262581271/listening/

The Narrative and the Ambient in Environmental Aesthetics by Cherly Foster https://www.jstor.org/stable/432251

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