{"word_count": 2997, "character_count": 20486}
by&#160;Jean-François Augoyard + juL McOisansThe urban sound environment can be the object of two operations: either the description, or the intervention. To do it, there is not lack of analog or digital quantitative tools. Nevertheless, the metrology is not always effective in situ; Thereby, the open spaces and the small closed spaces are today measurable neither in the whole of their components, nor with all the desirable sharpness. Moreover, in situ the human dimension of the acoustic phenomena escapes partially the quantitative evaluation.Two questions thus are to be put.1-Are there qualitative tools specifically adapted to the analysis of the sound environment and what is their operational value?2-Can we define qualitative tools which are usable complementarily to the quantitative tools?Two fundamental notions were invented during the last century: the sound object (Pierre Schaeffer) and the soundscape (R.Murray Schafer). Precious in pedagogy or for the very fine analysis of a precise sound phenomenon, the first is of a too heavy use at the scale of an architectural or urban complex. The second, also fundamental to reveal the compositional and landscaped dimensions of thesound, leans on an attractive but too discriminatory esthetics for a trivial approach of the daily situations.Between these two approaches was needed a tool allowing to work on the intermediate level, the level ofconcrete configurations between three components of any sound situation: acoustic sources, constructed space and sound perception.This tool is the sonic effect which the interdisciplinary properties, the perfectibility, and the capacity to cross the analysis and the action upon the environment, were widely experienced and confirmed in our laboratory (Cresson) since the 80s.This lecture will lean on sequences of listening and collection of reactions.download the pdf of the conferenceTheSonicEffect_JFATéléchargerTranslation : One of the founding works of the team.Sonic effects – everyday soundsHe made the choice of speaking French, asthe majority of people attending are speaking French. The presentation(projected) will be in English and I (Sophie) am here.Let’s start at the beginning. Just listen.What is your general impression of thatrecording/urban soundscape? In terms of structure? à Change between the outside space and a more confined one. à Difference in the intensity – reduction, very loud sounds, veryquiet ones, almost nothing, etc. Let’s listen a second time. Structure, atwhat time, emerging shapes/sounds?à More natural sounds at the beginning – then cars – then sort ofenvelopà Water (rain, fountain?)à Engine sounds (different ones), human voices, footstepsà Space “sounds”One structure: loud intensity, weakerintensities – very quickly.We start from a fountain, walk across aplace, then into a street. Relatively narrow scheme. In acoustics: I-shapedstreet. The main differences are: when the recorder turns his back to thesound, and when we enter the street, we feel like we’re in a more confinedspace. The difference is 5/10 m into the street. Very important phenomenon.It doesn’t match with the visual scheme.The audible difference happens at that point.In terms of sounds: continuous sound, thendrop in intensity. If the slope had been slower, it would have been less harsh.Variation: we raise the intensity and lowerit back down.Questions – we can address this phenomenonin different ways:Is it just acoustics? Differences inintensity, treble, less high notes – change in reverberation. Not just that –otherwise, there would be no space.We have a spatial structure: square, thennarrow street. These phenomena: passage into an I-shaped street: narrowrectangle. If you studied acoustics a little, sounds bounce, just like a ball.Big ball for the deep sounds, small ball for the high-pitched sounds.In a narrow street, we lose energy, lessspace for the sounds to bounce. Market place in the background. Space shapesthese sonic models.Interviews with the dwellers around thatspace. “We go from noise to silence” Just as if it was suddenly silent, thingswere quieter. Semantic dimension. “We leave the square,we leave a big public space, we are back home.” Idea of a sonic/sounddoor/gate. This is this phenomenon:drastic change in the acoustic quality.“Entering the street.”Organisation of territories:social/anthropological dimension. From public to private.`If you want to study the sound geography ofa city, this phenomenon is paramount. Way to structure space. You can raiseawareness in the sounds of the city in this way.Perception rule: structure the space inwhich I am/live. Otherwise, it’s like a fog.Public, semi-public, private.How do we call this phenomenon? We can callit in many different ways: instead, we listened to what people told us. “It’slike a fracture, a hole, a fall, (fall in perceptual tonicity), feeling ofdropping into a hole.” Those are the most frequent experiences we heard about.Cuttingeffect. (most general way to express this, based onthe testimonies from the residents/dwellers).Six fields of interpretation to understandwhat’s happening: physics (acoustic signal), space psychology (space/form),perception, interactions (this phenomenon can be an instrument to organiseeveryday life (study on sounds of everyday life, and how they model lifebetween people and interactions) – importance in sonic actions. We hear sounds,but we also produce them. We are major sound actors. In the 1980s, research onthe effects of sounds. In the end, the others are the evil ones, with all theirsounds. But what about the other side? Who makes the evil sounds? Not evil.They are normal, regular, ordinary people. We are all makers of sounds (veryimportant).First material to study sounds: oneself +the others.Fifth field: representation, community,culture.&#160; Last field: norms. Norms in aregulatory way (law, European laws, etc.), but also “custom” norms: we are usedto do it like that (jurisprudence). Also level of habits: small communities,small habits. Three levels of norms. They apply to sounds.“Speak louder, less loud, etc.”Studying a sonic phenomenon – we have awide array of fields to study sounds with. Electroacoustics, sociology,anthropology, re-activated listening (articles/chapters on this method – fromCRESSON What we can learn from people), ethnography, drawing, outlining,sketching, etc.Beginnings of CRESSON: work between oneresearcher in humanities (like JF Augoyard), one acoustician, one/two studentsin architecture. Fieldwork in a joint way. What can we learn from the other?Do we just have a big square and a narrowstreet, and that’s it? Can we find this cutting effect in other places? We canpredict (with plans, models, research) the existence of the cutting effect. Great capacity to shape territory andsocial rules. Listen.Large boulevard – lots of traffic – Fridayat lunchtime, high peak for traffic and affluence. Along the boulevards, thereare buildings with double doors. Very importantAs soon as people are in the lobby, they are“home”.Feeling of being at home, thanks to thedoor, that lingers until the moment they enter to their actual home/apartment.Upstairs in the apartment, you can still hear the boulevard. “See, as soon as Ientered the building, it’s really quiet in here.” But it’s not. But thereminder of the double doors is enough to imagine that we can’t hear theboulevard anymore.Universal phenomenon? Example of a machinethat’s running. Then, all of a sudden: stop. “Oh, that used to work. Oh, it wasrunning before.” Turning off the radio: something happens. Slight differencethat notes a change in space and time.Some music uses that cutting effect. Ex:Fawzi Saheb (refused any recording except on radio). Very interesting: heplays, then stops for 5/6 seconds, then starts again. You have time to processthe music, then it starts again. In many genres, this effect is used, atdifferent levels.Anthropological meaning – Veryinteresting/beautiful foreword by Michel Foucault (Le rêve et l’existence). Verticality, laterality, depth. Feelingthat a sonic tonicity exists, then it drops. It then translates into thepsycho-motor scheme. Idea of echo (far/close) (cf. Bach)We organise a musical landscape that way.Listen – Macbeth, Verdi. (Drama from the start)The cutting effect is A general shape, scheme. Soundshold and grip – particular power. It is defined by some rules.Collective experienceEvent that is alwaysinterpreted – desire to re-express, singularity, impregnation of sounds ineveryone’s everyday life. If you do sound education, do not let children say“it’s a bell, it’s a cow”. Make them listen to sounds they can’t recognise.“What do you hear?” “It hurts my ears, etc.” àRe-express sounds in their own way. We tend to overlook our own experience, theway we feel it. Not just music, but also the everyday sounds.Paradigm between physical worldand in-situ reality, between analysis and practice. Example of Torino: work onsonic effects – work on a musical piece with 5/6 cutting effects (for example).He realised that we already have a sonic experience before even creating music.A student in music school already has some sort of musicalknowledge/background. They are already aware of effects (maybe just not byname). Musicians are not just people who think with notes, effects and so on.Sound does not exist without effect(s). Assoon as we are in everyday/ordinary life, there are always effects aroundsounds. That’s why starting from sonic effects is very open. Sonic effectsrepresent a paradigm/conceptual model. Not a closed effect, we can add to it,or specify. There is something like a centre, and what is around it can evolve.We cannot talk about an effect in aconcrete way – examples are great for that.Sonic effect:Interdisciplinary tool: startingpoint for the CRESSON, in order to process interactions between:Acoustic sourcesLayout/built surroundingsSonic perceptionsSonic actions Cresson, at the beginning: team of four.Schemes, diagrams, drawings, interviews. The main thread/synthesis: concept ofsonic effect. They had regular meetings (Thursdays?) fora few hours, where they brought one sonic effect. Working on sounds: dowhatever you want (risk and chance). Regular meetings for many years, on soniceffects – each one spoke about it, to understand. 16/18 major sonic effects.Some were entered into a repository. 90 effects in the repository/directory.They can be tackled from the field, from the work currently underway etc. Translation in 2005 (many changes)Collective way of working. Examples:Elementary effects.They always have an acoustic definition,even if they have many more uses and definitions. Filtration, delay,reverberation, etc. Listen.Successive changes. Time and treble In a corridor – exchange between mother andchildren. Reverberation. Scene from the everyday life. Children are playing andfighting – the mother used the same reverberation code and grab the sonicpower. Then, she discovers the recorder and adapts her volume (exactly what wasto be done to be understood) Intuitive process.The reverberation belongs to thespiritual/sacred environment. We can’t imagine a religious place (like achurch) without that effect. Singing in the shower, too. (or singing ingeneral)Important/significant effect, that also hasan important psychological scope. Construction of personality (cf. mirrors) –sort of parallel in the sound world. Construction of the ego with that effect. Composition effects Question of spaceEffects: drone (like in the room), urbandrone, cutting effect, ubiquity)At the end, each researcher wrote thedefinition of one effect (in the directory). Different types of ubiquity.Telephone effect: transformed voices, etc.Masking effect – created by a physicallimit, sound mask, physical rules, different approaches for that effect.Listen.The voices speak right into the microphone,and yet they can’t hear one another. Some masking effects are reallyinteresting – some scenes have actors who have to say something intimate orhard to say. Positive use of the mask too, that’s possible. Parasite effect(but in a positive way). Mnemo-perceptive effects Memory and perception at the same time,connected to memory and culture. Cocktail effect. Defined in acoustics. Justvoices in general, some speak louder than other, as everyone speaks louder andlouder, the volume goes up and up, at the expanse of intelligibility.But there are thresholds. Some sort ofcompetition between everyone. We can still hear voices. But if everyone goeslouder again, and no one can understand anything anymore.No complete intensity, some arehigher/louder then disappear. Image of the sea – mirroring effect, but itdisappears quickly. Fleeting.Psychomotor effectsSpecified actions. Niche, attraction,phonotonic effects… (music can help to focus, to be less tired, to be less sad,etc.) On a market, it’s wintertime. Competitionof voices and winter sounds. Some sellers can still be heard – position (overthe overall sound), treble (high voices). The high-pitch of a watch is made tobe heard over anything. Some babies wait until everyone else hasstopped shouting to start shouting. Trick to use the right moment to be heard.Semantic effectsSharawadji: intimately linked to personallife. Category of Chinese aesthetics (cf. Sublime– sea, mountains, crushing/overwhelming phenomena). The Chinese developedanother category – ordinary things that accidentally become magnificent, for afleeting moment, before disappearing back into the ordinary.One night, a drunk man started singingsomething so beautiful that they could have cried. But then it was gone.Sharawadji effect. Uses of sonic effects.Questions?Question 1: Quand le groupe de recherches’est formé, de quels domaines venaient les chercheurs&#160;? Architectes, géographes, sociologues,acousticiens, musicologues. Lui était philosophe et professeur à la base, puisdoctorat en urbanisme. Curieux de toutes les autres disciplines.Question 2: On sonic uses. We can use themto design architectural space. What kind of projects?Answer: Pascal and Grégoire might explainthat. Many effects are used. Some doors are sometimes left open so that motherscan hear their children crying at night, for example. The organisation of spaceincludes that. Cf. O. Balaÿ. Propagation of soundsthroughout houses. Organisation of the household, in an intuitive or voluntaryway. Every time we build something, there is a series of ambiance data that isalready available.Same thing for public space. We can enterin that world from complains, or acoustics, etc. Projects with soundrecommendations. Every time an urban project starts, we look at the field/site,and we question people. Originality of the AAU lab and Cresson – commentedwalk, see people’s expectations, etc.Question of budget (and sonic comfort isnot tackled) Passive properties of ambiances – how willsounds propagate? Reasons for the CRESSON’s existenceQuestion/Remark 3: Arabic architecture,with cupolas and so on. The question of sound is included in the construction.The concept of the use is taken into account – in terms of ambiance, too.Back in the day, in night clubs: “but youcan’t hear one another! – to say what?” Question 4: Earlier, you mentioned acatalogue. What about some sort of musical education? Answer: Repository. That we would need toknow by heart.Question 5: Sonic effects as molecules,almost isolated. Often, a phenomenon can be described by many effects. Answer: Yes, of course. Time too short togo in details, but yes, definitely. The perception moment matters andpredominates. Sound “magma” – someone can go over/above it. No sound without effect, but effects inmany different forms/shapes. The repository allows to name phenomena of oursonic experience, regardless of who we are.Question 6: to name the phenomena, did youuse people’s words?Answer: yes, for the main effects (16/18) –based on the interviews. Otherwise, it would have been something made by theresearchers, without that added layer. Very important to include.Question 7: Est-il possible d’étendre laliste des effets&#160;? Answer&#160;: C’est votre travail. Ce sontdes effets principaux. Chacun a ses particularités. Le but est de ne pas lesconfondre. Un effet = un paradigme. Question 8: The question of the human ear.Some sounds can become ordinary. The effect loses some of its power – is thattrue? Repetition. Answer: In an academic setting, we canrepeat. But that’s okay, because there’s always something to listen to. Importanceof the sonic memory. Listening only once, and then ask: “what did you hear?”Practice your memory skills. Categorising is good, but you can’t just do that.At CRESSON, one student wrote her thesis onsmells. Training in chemistry to understand + internship to become aperfume-maker. At the beginning, you can only recognise three rose scents.After 3 weeks, around 30, etc. We can never hear the same sound twice.It’s always different. Sound is first and foremost time. You can’tperceive without temporality. For sound, you always have to listen, and listenagain, and again, and again, and again… The instantaneous listening is always alittle delayed.Physiology: hearing delay – around 20s fromthe moment it happens and the moment we hear it.Question 9: the repository was designedbased on what they heard in the 80s. It is a punctual moment. Are the effectslinked to historical aspects? Answer: Some effects might disappear, mightbe less used. In the book, some are linked to the phonograph – still relevanttoday? It might be, in some music tracks, some sounds are re-introduced.Question 10: One sound: working on acomputer, when a phone is about to sound. What kind of effect? What happens?Answer (Pascal Amphoux): Very relevant andgood question. Question of universals. If they are not universals, then theyare not effects. Sounds disappear. But technically, effects are universal. Theyare never bound to one sole field, domain, etc. The main (16/18) effects mightnever disappear (should not). Some effects were subject to discussion foryears, just to see if they were relevant, actual effects.(JF A.): the concept of effect. It’s notthe effect from a cause. Slightly different – Doppler effect: on the road, acar drives past. The sound is higher and louder when the car is closer. Butphysically, the car is constant. Relativity.Compression of acoustic waves when the carcomes closer, decompression when it drives away.Effects are always connected to a context.The effects also has meaning in other fields (an effect can beanxiety-inducing, etc.).Effects have an effect.Question 11: What about the disseminationof effects?Answer: For the restitution, it’s about“what happened”. Re-activated listening. Recording, then going back to thepeople to make them listen. “Someone’s coming to my place. Listen, they jumpedthe small step. I know who it is.” You can recognise sounds.Dissemination of the book. Lucky to be inan architecture school – otherwise, there was always something that buggedsomeone with the research. What’s the use? For architects and urbanplanners. But in reality, the book is read by designers, artists, landscapedesigners, musicians, etc.Question 12: Worshops with students inarchitecture. Really hard to introduce sounds in the curriculums and minds. Howcan we do that?Answer: Architects are trained in manythings. Habits and uses in the curriculums make it hard to introduce thisaspect. Traditions?We had an acoustician at the lab. The soundregulations were respected before, but now some don’t care and prefer going tocourt to deal with the problems. Controversial issue. Question of education.PA: those fields are considered asdefensive acoustics (linked to norms). But as long as no one experiments withit, they can’t really realise the reality. Architects are often disappointed,because it’s not applied acoustics. (i.e. designing and applying acoustics)But the researchers never applied any ofthe effects they mentioned. But it completely transformed the way they now tackletheir study sites. Vocabulary of effects changes the perceptions. Now we have avocabulary to say something.Great for analysis, great for designing.(We have it for visual aspects, and we need it for sound).The thesis on smells mentioned earlier –based on sounds. Olfactory effects that was explained throughout the thesis.Without time, no sound study.New paradigm on space. On the way. Is it a way to reconsider visual space? Can we reconsider it, and in a different way? Good way to articulate other aspects. Translation by Sophie Provost 