[This section is drawn from several previously-written overviews of the field, including an online exhibition at GreenMuseum.org, a plenary presentation to the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment, an article for Zoogoer, the magazine of the national zoo, and the liner notes to The Dreams of Gaia.]

Click here to explore the global community of sound artists

From the roots of nature sound recording, originally focused on species identification and later popularized with LPs of much-loved natural sounds, the field of environmental sound production is branching wildly. Much as photography emerged as a creative medium a century ago, soundscape art is coming alive, exploring terrain that is at once more subtle, more vivid, and more experimental. Also as in photography, the artistic choices involve picking a perspective from which to record the world, deciding what takes to include in the final “show”, and using an array of studio techniques that create subtle or startling variations in the original material, highlighting different aspects of the subject matter, so that the end result is sometimes concrete and readily recognizable, and sometimes abstract and more suggestive than descriptive.

During the 1990’s, a new generation of soundscape producers emerged that is stretching the bounds of the genre in exciting new ways. Some have built on the foundations of traditional nature sounds pioneers, presenting portraits of specific habitats, while developing highly individual approaches. For example, Lang Elliott is known for stunning close-up recordings of birds, as well as his series of habitat titles that feature similarly amazing close-up recordings of rich sound communities; Jonathon Storm, by contrast, specializes in the subtle variations in water’s voices and the soft natural quiet of forest landscapes.

Meanwhile, other producers have emerged from acoustic ecology circles. Their CDs are more apt to include sonic essays that explicitly raise questions about humanity’s relationship to natural and urban landscapes. Hildegard Westerkamp is perhaps the best-known of these producers, creating works for radio, public performance, and CD that range from sparsely narrated “soundwalks” to multi-layered productions composed purely of field recordings that pull the listener deeper into the world of sound.

And, several producers, such as Germany’s Michael Rüsenberg and America’s Douglas Quin, have built on John Cage’s notion that all sounds can be considered elements for composition. Not surprisingly, the works emerging from this diverse community vary widely, from portraits of specific cities (Lisbon, Rome, Vancouver) to finely-honed compositions that utilize nature’s voices as a central element (such as Quin’s CD-length work Forests: A Book of Hours).
           
These new place-inspired artists deserve a spot alongside the writers, photographers, and filmmakers whose works have enriched our sense of the connections-and the rifts-between humanity, nature, and spirit. Whether you live in a city or at the edge of the wilderness (or, like most of us, in a place where the human world is expanding ever deeper into various local remnants of the primal richness that once filled your region) the work of these soundscape composers will help you notice the voice of the place you walk in day to day. For all of them, it's about being affected-and changed-by the experience of deep listening.

By their very nature, these audio alchemists aim to go unnoticed, observing, documenting, and then dancing with their muses in the studio. They don't churn out grand tomes, or multimedia extravaganzas, or even easily-glanced-at pictures. They invite us to slow down—at least a little. Years of paying attention to the ways of sound are distilled by these audio alchemists into ten to sixty minute sonic immersions, presented on compact discs or in gallery installations. This is not "pretty" or "peaceful" background listening, though peace and beauty can be players in these aural portraits. Rather, they offer us a conduit within which we can spend an hour sharing in their life quests of listening. And, make no mistake, once you've entered into the work of these sound artists, your ears will be open in new ways, and you'll find the voice of the planet coming alive around you.

We've all had our own experiences of the power of sound. In the multi-layered community of voices around a woodland lake or the exhilarating heart of ridgeline thunderstorm, in the gentle ambience of a neighborhood or the soul-shaking urban cacophony, we find our place in something larger than ourselves. Often, we notice our soundscapes only in passing. At times, we sink in deeply and reap the rewards of connection, feeling a context within which humanity's dance is but a peculiarly inattentive piece of the whole.

Most of the time, it's not all that dramatic. . . . it's simply about letting sound expand our awareness, both in the practical sense of revealing actions and beings that are not visible from where we are, and in the more ineffable way that attention to sound can seem to make us more present in a place. Sound is connective, revealing the living webs of community and relationship that surround us; it is physical, emotional, and direct in ways that sight alone can never quite be. Certainly, paying attention to sound in consort with the visual beauties of the world leads to a deeply enriched experience.
Offering touchstones on a path of remembering, these sound sculptors have spent thousands of hours seeking, responding to, and recording the voices of our world-from mountains to subways. They then dance with their muses in the studio, weaving sonic essays and aural portraits in a delightful range of styles.

Styles of Environmental Sound Composition

Though most of today's environmental sound artists combine elements of various approaches in developing their own styles, they draw from four basic approaches, built upon two common foundations

A key common ground is that all of these producers are engaged in their creative art from the moment they begin recording. From choice of overall locale, to finding the ideal vantage point for recording, field work is creative work. It is an exploration in listening, no less than the later choices made in the studio.

Also, these producers recognize that no environmental sound recording can possibly recreate the experience-even just the sonic experience-of being in nature. Not only is the emotional, physical presence lost, but there are also technical limitations. Each mic has its specialty, its best use, and most can amplify or highlight specific sound sources, but none can hear as richly as our ears. Once the sound is further channeled to just two speakers or even headphones, it is further transformed. The better producers fully recognize these limitations, and devote their creativity to developing new ways for us to experience these field recordings. They aim to affect, or guide us in specific ways that the more profound experience of "pure" nature may not.

From these commonalties, the styles of each producer is forged from one or more of the following approaches:

> Documentaries This purist approach is essentially "what you hear is what you get," and relies on un-adulterated field recordings, presented either separately or with gradual cross-fades from one location or take to another. These recordings celebrate the intrinsic sounds of earth as they occur, unimproved by human designs. Yet these are not dry or simple "snapshots;" rather, they are among the most vivid of soundscape productions, thanks to careful mic placement and creative sequencing of the recordings. Documentary recordings also serve as source material for other styles (see below), which often include extended unaltered sections. Gordon Hempton, Lang Elliott, and David Lumsdaine are among the recordists who primarily work with such single-takes.

> Reconstructions Here, many source recordings are combined in the creation of a single soundscape experience. It is often difficult to tell which segments are "documentary" and which are overdubbed, as the better producers work from a deep knowledge of the sorts of combinations of voices that occur in nature. The goal here is to present an overall sound journey that is true to the essence of the place-that will sound "real"-even though the events actually may not have occurred as presented. Bernie Krause, Doug Quin, and Ruth Happel often use this approach. A variation on this style is heard in the work of several composers who work in the realms of deep ambient and electroacoustic composition. Their goal is not to be "realistic", but rather to present immersive sound journeys molded from a wide variety of field recordings, often including human sounds (both "natural" ambiences and intentional soundmaking such as scratching surfaces or adding instrumentation). Eric la Casa, Koji Marutani, and Hans Ulrich Werner work in these realms.

> Transformations Some producers use their field recordings as raw material for electronic transformations and manipulations. They may isolate a particular frequency that is, to their ears, a "sweet spot" in the soundscape, then reinsert these samples into the piece. Or, they may slow down or speed up the source recording as an exploration of the nature of that sound. Perhaps they will repeat a given sound, or perform "granular synthesis", which stretches a brief snippet of sound into a prolonged tone. A related approach, often used in consort with transformations, employs sudden crosscuts from one sound to another; this is particularly common in urban soundscape composition. The transformation approach can be heard in the works of Hildegard Westerkamp, Barry Truax, Francisco Lopez, and Doug Quin.

> Musical composition Some composers add human instruments or voices to the mix. This may include woodwinds or percussion, electronic keyboards (perhaps with some field recordings sampled as voices), or even such adventurous things as Claude Schryer's choreographed tugboat horns in a harbor, heard on his Auteur CD. These producers are generally part of the vanguard of modern composition, with the resulting works being, at times, quite challenging to mainstream musical notions. Steve Heitzeg, Barry Truax, John Luther Adams, David Dunn, Paul Winter, Doug Quin, and David Rothenberg are among those pursing this path.