The WSP group at SFU, 1973; left to right: R.
M. Schafer, Bruce Davis, Peter Huse, Barry Truax, Howard
Broomfield and Hildegard Westerkamp (see photo below).
(also see the "acoustic crew",
2010,
recreating this iconic photo)
Schafer's call for the establishment of the WSP
was answered by a group of highly motivated young composers
and students, and, supported by The Donner Canadian
Foundation, the group embarked first on a detailed study of
the immediate locale, published as The Vancouver Soundscape, and in 1973, on a cross-Canada recording
tour by Bruce Davis and Peter Huse, the recordings from which
formed the basis of the CBC Ideas radio series Soundscapes of Canada. In 1975, Schafer led a larger group on a
European tour that included lectures and workshops in several
major cities, and a research project that made detailed
investigations of the soundscape of five villages, one in each
of Sweden, Germany, Italy, France and Scotland. The tour
completed the WSP's analogue tape library which includes more
than 300 tapes recorded in Canada and Europe with a stereo
Nagra. The work also produced two publications, a narrative
account of the trip called European
Sound
Diary and a detailed soundscape analysis called Five Village Soundscapes.
Schafer's definitive soundscape text, The Tuning of the
World published in 1977, and Barry Truax's reference
work for acoustic and soundscape terminology, the Handbook for Acoustic Ecology published in 1978, completed the publication phase
of the original project.
In 2009 the Five
Village Soundscapes was reprinted (with 2 CDs) along
with the results of the Finnish study (Acoustic Environments in
Change) that re-visited those sites. The
publication is available through Granum (Table
of Contents). In addition, the HTML Soundscape
Composition Documentation DVD-ROM also published in 2009
contains sound excerpts and graphics from all of the WSP
documents.
The WSP group in the churchyard, Dollar (Scotland), 1975. Left to right: R. M. Schafer, Jean Reed, Bruce Davis (standing), Peter Huse, Howard Broomfield.
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Howard Broomfield at SFU, ca. 1972 |
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The foundation laid by the WSP has been
continued through the teaching and research program in
acoustic communication at SFU, as well as through Truax's 1984
publication Acoustic
Communication (2nd ed.
2001) which deals with all aspects of sound and the impact of
technology, and the soundscape
compositions of individual composers. One such composer,
Hildegard Westerkamp, edited the Soundscape
Newsletter (1991-95), and was instrumental in
helping found the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology (WFAE) in 1993 that connects groups and individuals around
the world who are concerned with the soundscape. Assisted by
members of the Editorial Committee, she was chief editor of
the WFAE's Soundscape - The Journal of
Acoustic Ecology between 2000 and 2012.
In 1997, the World Soundscape Project and Cambridge Street Records re-issued the original Vancouver Soundscape recordings from 1973, along with the 1996 soundscape compositions and documentary Soundscape Vancouver 1996, on a double CD. The same year, Truax served on the City of Vancouver's Urban Noise Taskforce and contributed to the educational recommendations of its final report, Urban Noise. In 1999, Cambridge Street Publishing issued the original Handbook as a CD-ROM.
The catalogue of the WSP Tape Library
(including photos from many of the recording sites) and the
Sound References in Literature database is available on the Sonic Research
Studio website, along with historical and recent photos
of the studio. An extensive collection of the print, graphic,
video and audio documents related to the World Soundscape
Project including the entire collection of sound recordings
from 1972 to the present, is also available online as the WSP Database. Please
contact Barry Truax (truax@sfu.ca) for guest access.
Hildegard Westerkamp with the WSP Tape Library, ca. 1982.
Related sites: World Forum
for Acoustic Ecology (WFAE)
Soundscape Explorations Video Collection: www.soundexplorations.blogspot.com
British Library blog overview of the WSP and 1975 European
tour and village analysis (with sound clips): http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/sound-and-vision/2013/07/five-european-villages.html/
