Music and Landscape: Schafer Applied to Sigur Rós
To start my search into the relation of landscape to music, I decided to start with R. Murray Schafer’s ideas on soundscapes. He has been a leader in the field of soundscapes since the 1960’s when the idea started to emerge. He published “The Tuning of the World” in 1977 in which he described the modern soundscape and the way we hear it. There are certain levels of sound in any aural environment, no matter where you are. The first are background noises (what Schafer calls “Keynotes”) such as the gentle sway of leaves or the hum of an air conditioning unit. The second are foreground sounds (“Sound signals”) or sounds that are meant to grab our attention, like frogs croaking or cars driving by. The last are sounds distinct to a region (“Soundmarks”) such as volcanoes, geysers, or local cultural activities. Outside of sounds, noise is another trademark of any soundscape. Schafer labels soundscapes under two categories; “Lo-fi” and “Hi-fi”. A hi-fi environment is one in which sounds are distinct, clear, well-defined. A lo-fi environment is one in which sounds are washed out by noise; typical of urban environments where electronic hums and sirens fill the sound spectrum. All of these classifications help to define a soundscape. So how does this relate to music?
We have all heard of echolocation; an ability some animals possess which enables them to see the world around them through sending sound waves and receiving the reflections of these sound waves. We do something similar, but without the sending part. We can hear the reverberations of sounds off of objects and with our binaural reception we can trace the location of these objects. Thanks to the modern advancements in reverb production, stereo positioning, and spacial enhancement; we can create this aural placement within the studio. In effect, we can create the sound of the landscape reflecting the sound of the musicians or the environment back at the listener. This is how Sigur Rós produces their “Soundscape”. The largely reverberated sound they use in their music creates an aural image of an open space. This is their “Keynote”; their background sound. It reflects the open space of the rocky landscape of Iceland. The foreground sounds in Sigur Rós are the piano lines, falsetto vocals, and other various musical sounds they employ. This is where they vary from a soundscape, but we’re only trying to make the connection to landscape anyway. However, they do employ a few “Soundmarks”.
Iceland is notorious for its glaciers, geysers, volcanoes, and lakes. The island is situated on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and is geologically and volcanically active; enough for the entire country to be powered solely by geothermal power. This creates a barrage of natural sounds, all distinct to an environment like Iceland. Through varying between hi-fi and lo-fi environments in their recordings by introducing noise and using pitched mallet percussion, Sigur Rós creates the sounds of water and ice respectively. Moving water creates noise, and with it, a lo-fi environment. So to mimic the effect of water, Sigur Rós introduces noise. This creates a dramatic peak to their music and ads a “Soundmark”. They also use pitched mallet percussion since these instruments have similar qualities in pitch and timbre to drops of water and cracking ice. All of these natural sounds help us to place the elements of the environment we are in, creating our “Soundmarks”.
Using Shafer’s definitions of a soundscape, we can trace the sounds in Sigur Rós’s recordings to their environment. They use reverberation to create their “Keynotes” in the form of sonic environments, and they use noise and pitched mallet percussion to place us in Iceland. We could still debate whether this infiltration of their local soundscape into their music was intentional, but it is fairly clear that it’s there.
Bibliography:
Kendall Wrightson “An Intorduction to Acoustic Ecology” http://homepage.mac.com/kendallwrightson/ae/aecology.html
Schafer, R. Murray. “The Music of the Environment” in Audio Culture, edited by Cristoph Cox and Daniel Warner, 29-39
Wikipedia “Iceland”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceland
Wikipedia “Sigur Ros”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigur_Ros
Wikipedia “Soundscape
