Soundscape

A soundscape is the acoustic environment as perceived, experienced, or understood by people in context. It includes sounds, their relationships, and the meanings listeners give them.

Sound: Mechanical vibrations that propagate through a medium and can be heard. Sound is the physical material from which any acoustic environment is formed.
Auditory scene analysis: The perceptual process of grouping sound into distinct sources and events. Listeners use it to separate simultaneous sources into an intelligible acoustic scene.
Soundscape ecology: The study of biological, geophysical, and human sounds across landscapes and time. It applies soundscape analysis to ecological patterns and landscape change.
R. Murray Schafer: A Canadian composer and writer who developed influential ideas about soundscape and acoustic ecology. Schafer helped establish soundscape as a way to study and shape acoustic environments.
Sound pressure level: A logarithmic measure of the pressure variation caused by sound, commonly expressed in decibels. It quantifies sound energy but does not by itself capture perception, meaning, or context.
Acoustic ecology: The study of relationships between living organisms and their acoustic environments. It provides a framework for understanding how soundscapes connect organisms and surroundings.
Sound masking: The reduction in audibility of one sound caused by another sound. Masking changes which elements of a soundscape can be heard.
Environmental noise: Unwanted or harmful sound in outdoor or built environments. Noise assessment emphasizes disturbance, while soundscape assessment also considers valued sounds.
World Soundscape Project: A research initiative founded at Simon Fraser University to document and study acoustic environments. Its recordings and field studies made soundscape research concrete and comparative.
Noise control: Methods for reducing unwanted sound at its source, along its path, or at the receiver. Noise control targets unwanted sound, whereas soundscape work can preserve or enhance valued sounds.

Linked from 13 pages