Soundscape in Time at the AJLC Pond

by Annie Goodridge and Paulus van Horne

        The pond by the AJLC building is a striking representative of Oberlin campus' intricately crafted and controlled natural features. Our group's study aims to investigate the difference in soundscape between two locations beside the pond (position 1 and position 2) at two times of day (around 11 AM and 11PM). We hope to determine by direct comparison in what ways location and time of day affect the soundscape around the pond by the AJLC. 

        The locations (see figure 4 for map) were chosen also because direction of the microphones (our audio recorder has a stereo X/Y microphone pattern) created a unique spatialized listening experience. Listening to the first recording, the listener will mostly hear cars in the left ear since the left microphone was facing the street while the right microphone faced the pond. Similarly, in the second recording, the listener will hear pedestrians move from the right ear to the left ear as they walked from one side of the microphone to another (this was not planned, a happy coincidence). The authors hope that a listener will hear how location, time of day, and activity of the person recording affect the soundscape of the AJLC pond. Additional thought should also be given to how parameters outside the scope of this study (season, longer time scale, weather) might have equally strong impacts on soundscape perception.

        The first recording we took was located at position 1 on the map (Figure 4), the stone wall next to the AJLC pond. The recorder has two microphones, one of which was facing the street (left ear) and the other, the pond (right ear). The listener is thus “facing” towards the building, looking across its façade from east to west. The length of the recording was 25 minutes, but two minutes have been chosen as exemplary of the soundscape of this location at approximately 10:36 AM on a Wednesday.

        The keynotes of the ~3 minutes selected for your listening are the rain, which (when listening closely) can be heard throughout, and the relentless crickets. Likewise, another keynote is the sound of rain as it hits the umbrella that was held directly above the recorder. Each keynote belongs to its own sonic category: the rain, geophony; the crickets, biophony; and the rain on the umbrella, anthrophony. Both the rain and the crickets were the sole members of their respective sonic categories during the first recording. The anthrophony was the most diverse in all of the recordings in terms of what-made-what-sound. Most of the anthrophony could be labeled as belonging to the subcategory “electromechanical sounds.” The periodic sound of cars passing by, the sound of the police sirens in the distance, and the sound of Annie’s phone buzzing twice rapidly at the end of the recording are examples of this category of electromechanical sounds. Aside from the repetitive breathing that begins approximately 1 minute into the recording, all other anthrophonic sounds heard in the first recording are labeled as “incidental.” For instance, the sound of Annie opening their umbrella, the sound of Annie moving their keys, and the sound of workers unloading a truck nearby each fall under this category of incidental sounds.

        The second recording was taken at position 2 on the map (Figure 5), on a bench at the northeast corner of the AJLC. The microphones were facing east (left ear – towards Talcott) and west (right ear – towards AJLC back entrance). The listener is thus “facing” towards the pond from the north with a path 5 feet in front of the recorder and tall grass just beyond that. The length of the recording was 20 minutes, and 3 minutes have been chosen as exemplary of the soundscape of this location at approximately 10:50 AM on a Wednesday.

        The keynotes of the ~3 minutes selected for your listening are, again, the rain, and the crickets. Again, there are no other geophonic or biophonic sounds. And again, the main sounds heard in the 3-minute snippet are anthrophonic. Here, because the bench is some 40 feet further from the street than the stone wall, the sound of cars passing, though it happens often, is more faint. The most common anthrophonic sound in the second recording is the sound of students talking to each other (later in the recording, yelling as they exit the building). About halfway through the recording, the listener hears two students walk west to east (from the right ear to the left ear) away from the AJLC past the recorder. Incidental sounds include the sound of people’s shoes as they traverse the grass, and the sound of a person’s bike chain as they unlock their bike after class.

        The third recording was made back at location 1 but in the late evening (at 10:45PM) shortly after a light rain storm. As in the first recording, the crickets are a constant presence in the recording. The recordist is distinctly present in this recording, and can be heard eating nachos fairly close to the microphone. The surrounding soundscape has a muted quality when compared to the early recording (Recording #1). The soundscape is also significantly less varied, consisting of crickets, eating, occasional passersby and a single car in the duration of the thirty minute raw recording. The excerpt below attempts to provide a representative sample of the larger recording. 

        The fourth recording was taken at location 2 in the late evening (around 11:15PM) shortly after a light rain storm. Cicadas, once again, dominate the soundscape which is peppered with the muttering voices of drunk students passing by the bench at location 2. The recordist's presence can again be felt in this recording, near the end when they rustle a plastic bag. The bag seems much louder than the rest of the soundscape to the proximity of the sound to the recording device.

        

        Our duo has concluded the following about the AJLC pond based on our soundscape (time) study:

• Time has little to no effect on the volume of cicadas around the pond.
• Time does have significant impact on human voices passing by the pond
• specifically, the later recordings exhibit a much more muted and/or muttering quality to the voices in contrast to the chatty students in between classes featured in the midday recordings.
• Anthrophony (in the form of car traffic) is a strong presence in the AJLC pond soundscape due to the pond's proximity to a semi-busy road.
• These sounds more frequent during midday (relative to late night) for fairly obvious reasons. 

        Although this falls outside the scope of this study, this author noticed a striking difference in soundscape around the pond relative to that of last year, namely in the absence of frog mating calls. In years past, this throaty chorus has been the keynote sound of the environment. This school year, no such chorus can be heard. The authors believe this may be due to the season (going on winter time) and/or the noticeable drop in water level and overgrowth of vegetation at this time relative to previous years. This observation, more than those gathered over the few days of recording, is of the greatest significance to our class. As  Bernie Krause describes in his numerous soundscape studies, a change in environment was accompanied by a correlated change in soundscape.

        Since part of this conclusion relies on lived experience over years (not weeks or even months) at this pond, the authors conclude that a soundscape study as a research tool is highly susceptible to changes in variables such as time scale (days/weeks vs. months/years) as well as microphone placement (as evidenced by eating sounds in Recording #3) and, of course, prior knowledge (lived experience) of the recording location.

Figure 1: Location 1 for recording, stone wall by AJLC pond - Photo taken by Annie Goodridge

Figure 2: Location 2 for recording, wooden bench by AJLC pond - Photo taken by Annie Goodridge

Figure 3. Location 1 for recording, taken at the time of the second recording - Photo taken by Paulus van Horne

Figure 4: Location 2 for recording, taken at the time of the second recording - Photo taken by Paulus van Horne

Figure 5: Map of recording area, with locations marked in red (not to scale)- Illustrated by Annie Goodridge

To hear the recordings, please visit the soundcloud link here.

See below for sonographs of the audio recordings:

Sonograph corresponding to Recording no. 1 and Figure 1.

Sonograph corresponding to Recording no. 2 and Figure 2.

Sonograph corresponding to Recording no. 3 and Figure 3.

Sonograph corresponding to Recording no. 4 and Figure 4.