Painting with Sound
Exploring the art of composing soundscapes
“As more and more people crowd into the cities, we are losing contact with the earth, with birds and animals, with sunsets and starry skies.”
R Murray Schafer
In my last post, I talked about finding inspiration amongst the landscapes of French painter Paul Cézanne and how through immersing oneself in the mystic rituals of nature can help us to understand, relate and communicate this phenomena into our world view and our creative flow.
Check it out below if you didn’t already…
Recently, I was invited to contribute a work to celebrate the 20th birthday of the French eco-design agency Canopée at their wonderful home in the centre of Arles. Known as Villa J, this beautiful location is the creative hub for the integration, conception and realisation for their diverse range of projects, which seek to explore the connections between human nature and conscious action - integrating an invested, sustainable and eco-responsible approach through, as they put it, observing nature to see if the solutions we are looking for are not already there.
Having worked closely with Canopée on the conception of one of these wonderful projects (see the above Sensorium) I was inspired to utilise some of the sounds I had recorded for this project to form a soundscape which would highlight the sonic richness of the PACA (Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur) of Southern France.
Supplementing this with sounds sourced from the four years that I have been a resident here, this soundscape flows gently trough terrains, forests, oceans, gardens, parks, caves, trails and fields explored and observed during this time — mostly wandering, always listening, in awe of the diverse environments that one can find in these parts.
Take a listen below. The piece was designed for looping and non-linear listening, so don’t be afraid to scan through and listen to the different environments!
So what exactly is a soundscape…? 🎧
Well this is what the English dictionary has to say, but depending on who you ask, the word soundscape possesses a plethora of different connotations and meanings…
Coined perhaps most famously by the Canadian composer R Murray Schafer in his book The Tuning of the World —
“…the soundscape designates those elements that shape or compose a landscape from an acoustic perspective, not just aesthetically but also historically, geographically and culturally.”
Pioneering electronic musician and Mother of Deep Listening - Pauline Oliveros defines a soundscape as :
“All of the waveforms faithfully transmitted to our audio cortex by the ear and its mechanisms.”
My personal view is that a soundscape cannot best be defined in any one strict sense, leaning more into the realm of subjectivity and open interpretation. Soundscapes are personal, shared, experienced, created, representative, interpreted, destroyed — the latter a word that we are sadly increasingly seeing attached as a prefix to the term as the ecological condition of our planet continues its graceful decline at the hands of its spoilt tenants.
I use the word graceful because to me, despite the aggressive role that industrialisation, consumerism and instant gratification plays in continuing to poison, pollute, pillage and degrade our planet’s prosperity — we are fortunate enough to live in a time where the wonders of Nature remain available to us and can still very much be appreciated and heard.
From the perspective of the listener, a soundscape convoques a moment in time. A unique code of information that details whole ecosystems, environments and networks of life. Perhaps it is worth saying then, that a soundscape does not need to be one that purely focuses on the sounds of Nature…
A few weeks ago I found myself in Tottenham Court Road in Central London stopping still to appreciate the complex cacophony of the thousands of beings passing through this portal. Caught in this man-made soundscape, beauty can still be found — the jingling keys of the stranger on the piano, the melodic chirps of card readers, a dense and diverse walla dense with dialects, an utopian orchestra of sounds that wouldn’t seem out of place in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner universe.
The avant-garde artist John Cage supported this notion that the sound that surrounds us is just as valid as that which is performed. His iconic work 4’33 encouraged us to pay attention to all kinds of sound within any given environment. To use our ears as a way of interpreting and interacting with the world around us.
One of my favourite soundscapes I’ve recorded is of the city of Sapporo, located in the Northern island of Hokkaido, Japan. This city has such a beautiful energy. Some of these sounds are just so wonderful!
I’ve always liked the comparison with composing soundscapes to painting. It helps me to visualise my process, and understanding sound in the same way that the artist appreciates colour is a fascinating approach to embrace. Both start with a blank canvas and require elements from the natural world to be manipulated and imbued with imagination and concentration in order to produce results. Through layering, experimentation and perspective — what began as an abstract idea, or a subject of appreciation is transformed into something ethereal, formless and forever imperfect.
I want to leave you this wonderful quote from Tuğba Avci’s Substack
. I highly recommend reading her work and subscribing. Her words and reflections are endearing, insightful and written from the heart.The truth is, I often find it difficult to access my inner garden, even though it is essential for my creativity. It is the foundation for my artistic work. Creativity involves reusing ideas, thoughts, and experiences to create something unique by finding new ways to express them. Everything we love and every experience we have shapes us and contributes to filling our inner garden.
Got your own soundscape you’d like to share…?
I really dig hearing other people’s sounds — the challenges, joys, trials and tribulations, however simple, arbitrary or convoluted your process is I’d love to hear about it - so please feel free to get in touch!
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It’s a pleasure to have you here with me.
🌻🌻🌻
Mat
