SCHIZOPHONIA or SCHIZOPHONIC

(Greek: schizo = split; phone = voice, sound) The term was first employed by R.M. Schafer in The New Soundscape (Toronto, 1969, pp. 43-47) to refer to the split between an original sound and its ELECTROACOUSTIC reproduction in a SOUNDSCAPE.

Original sounds are tied to the mechanisms which produce them. Electroacoustic sounds are copies and they may be reproduced at other times or places. Schafer employs this 'nervous' word in order to dramatize the aberrational effect of this twentieth century development.

See: MOOZAK, LO-FI, SOUND INTRUSION, SOUND POLLUTION, TAPE RECORDER. Compare: FIDELITY, SOUND PHOBIA, SOUNDSCAPE DESIGN.

Sound Example: Recording of Gordon MacRae played from the bell tower of a church in Hanley, Saskatchewan.

Sound Example: Amplified voice at a fast food restaurant in Halifax, N.S.

Sound Example: Amplified voice from a mobile public address system.

Sound Example: Amplified voices at the Atlantic Winter Fair, Halifax, N.S.

Sound Example: Background music at a shopping mall.


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