MU 232 Soundscapes – Music as Human Practice

Overview of Course

Stop and listen for a moment. What do you hear? Foreground sounds — voices, music, the daily rhythms of work — blend with the background hum of nature, machinery, and traffic to create a soundscape: the immersive sonic experience of a place. This course introduces students to Acoustic Ecology, the interdisciplinary field pioneered by R. Murray Schafer and the World Soundscape Project, which examines the relationship between humans and their environments through sound. Across our ports of call, we will analyze how soundscapes are composed of biophony (the sounds of living organisms), geophony (the sounds of the natural environment), and anthrophony (human-generated sound), and how each layer reveals something distinctive about a place and its people. Students will examine how soundscapes shape and reflect cultural identity, personal and community memory, history, migration, cross-cultural influence, and political life. Soundscapes can also take form within architecture, constructed environments, and the sea, from marine life to the noise of ships and ports. Coursework cultivates deep, attentive listening – a voluntary practice distinct from the involuntary act of hearing – through structured soundwalks, field recording exercises, and written analysis. This listening offers a unique lens on each port we visit and the people who live there, deepening every encounter along the way. Drawing on principles of Ethnomusicology and ethnographic fieldwork, students will learn to perceive and articulate the significance of sound to everyday lives, leaving the voyage with a critical vocabulary for listening to – rather than merely hearing – the world around them.