A critical evaluation of the acoustic ecology movement using the Indian soundscape as a starting point for research. Introduction The concept of acoustic ecology (also known as sound or soundscape ecology) has been around since the late sixties and evolved into a discipline with a following that spans many participants in both the musical and scientific worlds. Broadly defined, it deals with how we (as humans, although other animals are also included) deal with and interpret the sounds in our environment, both natural and manmade. It frequently expresses concern for a lack of control over the sound environment, with rising decibels and the increase of broadband sound being a major worry. However, instead of taking a purely negative view by simply lobbying for bans and restrictions, the movement has sought to be positive about sound, by encouraging people to look at the sounds they enjoy and value in the environment and to find ways to preserve and promote them.

That it is becoming taken more seriously (and becoming popular) at the moment can be attributed to many factors: the continuing move into mainstream politics of environmentalism (with which acoustic ecology has moved in parallel since its inception) has been hastened by concerns about climate change and sustainability. Also, the continuing arrival of new sounds from media and communications technology crowds the acoustic environment even further becoming a potential source of stress in already pressured urban centres. Paradoxically, the proliferation of cheap high quality recording technology now gives access to far more people to actively participate in the movement as recording sound in the field is an important part of acoustic ecologys processes.

My own fieldwork focuses on a range of environments in South India where I digitally captured sounds using a Zoom H4N recorder. These sounds were later used as the basis for a series of interviews with both local Indians and a broad spectrum of people back in London to compare and analyse their reactions to what they heard.

In this essay, to put acoustic ecology into context, I will look into the history of discourses on noise and silence, from the Futurists reactions to the industrial revolution through John Cage and early concerns about increasing sound levels. The wealth of organisations, projects and journals connected with acoustic ecology that now proliferate around the world emanate mostly from the work of a pioneer group of musicians (in particular the composer Murray Schafer) that developed in the 1970s.

In retrospect, the magnitude of the achievements of Schafers first major written work Soundscape: The Tuning of the World (1977) is astonishing: it is a remarkably comprehensive in laying out the issues environmental sound involves and is prescient in anticipating (as well as influencing) the concerns about sound that have grown since its publication. It is more than just a

touchstone for those interested in the subject; it is the continuing inspiration for a generation of soundscape artists and researchers. The journal Soundscape The Journal of Acoustic Ecology is largely an espousal of Schafers ideas, continually reaffirming them and demonstrating how far and wide they have travelled: the wealth of contributors over the years provides evidence of the reach of the movement both geographically and culturally and documents its move from the margins to the mainstream.

However, the fact that the core ideas of the movement remain little changed or challenged over the years is to me worrying and something that I wish to investigate, looking for alternative ideologies where I can find them around the world, with particular reference to India, where the bulk of my field work was carried out. India has its own set of specific environmental problems, with noise being a concern as it is anywhere else. However, as it is culturally very distinct from the parts of the world that the ideology acoustic ecology developed in, I wondered how appropriate these ideas were for this region and seek to question the relevance and applicability of its concepts and practices.

Acoustic Ecology: a background The key event which shaped the formation of the movement was a research project founded by Schafer in the late sixties called The World Soundscape Project. The initial project was an investigation into what were felt to be negative changes in the local sound environment in Vancouver. It then grew to include a cross-Canada tour and the five European villages project, from which data stored in the World Soundscape Library was derived. While work under the group banner began to dwindle, the projects originators have followed their own individual courses, with Barry Truax developing methodology distinct from the group which he published in the book Acoustic Communication (1984, updated in 2001).

One of Schafers key ideas is that of the healthy sound environment. Arquette pinpoints the two main conceptual references in this as being the ecological model present in the natural environment and the musical model. Schafer (1977) describes the soundscape as a great macro-cultural composition, of which man and nature are the composer/performers (p.4). He devised methods such as ear cleaning - various exercises focused on improving the sonological competence of total societies through listening (p.181), one of which is the soundwalk (exploring a given soundscape using a map as a score). His ethos is essentially idealistic in nature, to the point where Schafer believes that (referring to sonological competence) if such an aural culture could be achieved, the problem of noise pollution would disappear (p.181).

Barry Truax, an original member of the World Soundscape Project, went on to develop his own distinct approach. It aims not at understanding acoustic phenomena in particular situations or through specifically defined paradigms (as with acoustical engineering, musicology, noise studies etc.) but rather attempts to understand the interlocking behaviour of sound, the listener and the environment as a system of relationships, not as isolated entities (2001, p.xviii). His analysis reflects a communicational framework with the three main components of listener, sound and environment interacting via the channels of what he calls energy transfer and information exchange.

Paquette (ibid., p.4) identifies a third approach in the work of Jean-Franois Augoyard and Pascal Amphoux, respectively French and Swiss researchers working at the CRESSON (Research Centre on Sonic Space and the Urban Environment) in France. Augoyard and Torgue (2005) also offer a critique of the soundscape movement (and how it has been taken up by urban planners and architects): This eagerness to approach sound like any other object and to use a key word, which in fact masks a deficiency in our knowledge about sound, is largely responsible for the loss of focus and unlikely relevance of a term endowed with a particular and precise meaning (p.9). To remedy this, they have devised the concept of the sonic effect (leffet sonore), which they use as an interdisciplinary tool. Their book Sonic Experience: a Guide to Everyday Sounds is presented as an alphabetical list of these sonic effects, covering aspects such as aesthetics, psychology and sociology for each one. Rather than borrow words from other disciplines and reconfigure their meanings for sound (as Schafer does by changing landmark to soundmark

for example), they have attempted to stay with terms already used to describe qualities and of sound such as echo or mask as the start point for defining their own terms.

Unlike Schafers concepts, their sonic effects are essentially open ended; the survey of objects that sonic effect refers to can be constantly added to, and each definition should be flexible, giving some indication of the nature and status of sound phenomena rather than trying to fix them. I will later refer to their concept of sharawadji, a sound phenomena borrowed from Chinese culture.

Steve Goodman (2010) describes the result of their work as an interaction between the physical sound environment, the sound milieu of a social-cultural community and the internal soundscape of every individual which results in the revision of the notion of the sonic city as instrument as merely possessing passive acoustic properties, replacing it with a sonic instrumentarium of urban environments (p.46).

One of the main struggles within the movement has happened on the battleground between subjective and objective models of researching the sound environment and the effect on its inhabitants, with battle lines constantly being drawn and redrawn: The drastic shift taken by the WSP and its difficulty to cope with the growing presence of technological systems raises questions concerning its capacity to deal with complex, urban situations in which for instance too much subjectivity may present tremendous methodological, or even legislative problems (Paquette, 2004). Within these ideological debates, I make no claim to having chosen the right methodology for the areas I visited: as a novice in the field, my research methods were largely dictated by what was convenient and easy for me to carry out.

Schafers ideas have not been impervious to criticism, however. David Paquette notes that the way that the ideal soundscape is defined may result in a biased, or distorted reading of the sounds around us and their signification. Sound artist David Dunn has developed his own idiosyncratic interpretation of the relationship between animals and sound in nature with much inspiration from bioacoustics. In an article entitled Wilderness As Reentrant Form: Thoughts on the Future of Electronic Art and Nature (1988), he presents arguments which reveal him to be highly suspicious of back to nature trends, both within society and issues relating to sound and sees them as potentially destructive. He advocates greater interaction with technology and believes we have reached a state where we are part of dynamic living processes from which we can never extricate ourselves and to which we owe our continued survival (p 2). In another article (1997), though he maintains respect for the World Soundscape Movement, he is critical of the vogue for recordings of natural acoustic environments that has sprung up in its wake (p.7). Several recordists market their recordings as purist audio documentation of pristine natural environments with particular appeal to the armchair environmental movement. Personally I find something perverse about many of

these recordings, as if the encoding of a semiotic referent in the form of an audio description of place could ever be something other than a human invention. Japanese soundscape designer and musicologist Keiko Torigoe wrote her thesis on the World Soundscape Project and concluded (1982) that the biased view of modern technology in the aesthetic, and even moral, sense might be the reason that prevents the Project from involving itself actively enough in the actual alteration and creation of soundscape (p.164). I see it as significant that such a view comes from someone from a different culture and will explore these ideas with relation to India and Japan. India not Japan is not the focus of my fieldwork. However, as the country outside the West where most research and work is done with soundscapes (often with much original thought relating to unique facets of Japanese culture), Japan has become an essential part of my subsequent research in attempting to locate new perspectives outside the West.

Most of the participants in the World Soundscape Project (Schafer, Truax, Westerkamp and many other composers and acoustic ecologists involved with the project) are Canadian, or Canadian-based. I wondered how their ideas may have been affected by the Canadian soundscape, in a region which, although it contains large urban centres, has a relatively low population density and abundance of space and natural landscapes Schafer (1977) does point out that some of the dominant sounds in the Canadian forests are the mechanical noises of logging, as well as snowmobiles in the northern tundra) (p 84-85). Perhaps their desire to escape from the cacophony of the lo-fi environment is reflective of the proximity and access to hi-fi soundscapes that are increasingly difficult to find in India.

Another of Schafers key concepts (1977) is that of the hi-fi environment, in which sounds may be heard clearly without crowding or masking. This is in contrast to the lo-fi environments where signals are overcrowded, resulting in masking or lack of clarity P.43). The early chapters of Soundscapes are concerned with the transition in mans history from hi-fi to lo-fi via key events such as the industrial and technological revolutions. The last chapter of the book is reserved for the subject of silence, and signifies a desire on Schafers part to return to silence, which may now be an unrealistic aim, especially for a country such as India.

Discourses on noise and silence are a dominant theme in acoustic ecology. As my research will show, noise is a particularly important issue in India, therefore to discuss what approaches may be necessary in dealing with the Indian soundscape, it is necessary to investigate the history of these discourses in detail.

Noise, Silence and Beyond Noise Debate about noise has long been vocal, particularly since the industrial revolution brought an array of new inventions with high decibel sound output into society with unprecedented frequency. The effect of having to cope with so many new and harsh sounds crowding the soundscape provoked many adverse reactions, though the most shocking came from those who appreciated it. The painter and composer Luigi Russolo was the most vocal representative of the musical wing of the Futurist art movement, which sought to break with old traditions in all artistic disciplines and embrace modernity. Instead of fearing and rejecting the new sound world, he invited it in and published his manifesto The Art of Noises (1913) which views using noise as the way out of a stagnating Western musical culture. Many of his reactions to noise paradoxically seem at the same time outdated and contemporary.

Noise, however, reaching us in a confused and irregular way from the irregular confusion of our life, never entirely reveals itself to us, and keeps innumerable surprises in reserve. We are therefore certain that by selecting, coordinating and dominating all noises we will enrich men with a new and unexpected sensual pleasure (p.86).

Outdated in that by inviting noise in from every corner into every orifice and edifice of our lives we welcome unbridled sonic chaos, which the acoustic ecology movement, and now wider sections of society, have sought to disentangle. Contemporary in that all kinds of noise have now become part of the musical landscape, from Russolos noise making machine, through the efforts of Edgar Varse to combine noise with pitched material in his compositions and constructions of found sound used in musique concrte. Industrial, punk, metal and rave, among others have helped bring noise music to the masses and given a voice to the angry and disenfranchised. Russolos take on noise, though it may be considered anathema or old hat by many, still rings true for many sections of society. Simon Reynolds (1995) summarizes one important discourse surrounding noise as a reality effect: There is a widely held view that beauty and harmony are a lie, presenting a bourgeois vision of nature and society as fundamentally balanced and ordered. And that we have an obligation to listen to noise because it shows us the grim truth of reality.

Having experienced the grim truth of reality in India in all its glory at times, it is tempting to concede that perhaps noise is its ultimate expression. However, to become entangled in these games, especially as an outsider to Indian culture where very different socio-economic and socio-political undercurrents are at play is dangerous territory, where I do not want to tread.

Other research into noise focuses not on whether it is positive or negative to the human ear or psyche but on how it is simply necessary in identifying sound:

Research in psychoacoustics has discovered the importance of noise elements in being able to define timbre with components such as attack transients perceptual cues for aural identification of the instrument.

Russo and Warner (2009) argue that one of Western musics important discourses is the notion of a structural difference between noise and signal. Noise here is defined as virtual acoustic noise (non-periodic vibrations of ambient or concrete sounds). Signals are the tones (the periodic vibrations of strings, air, vocal chords etc.) of the tempered scale and form the basis of the Western classical tradition via harmony and the symphony orchestra. The presence of others within Western music such as rock, folk and world musics which involve noisier sounds via untempered tunings, distortion and greater use of percussive instruments shows that noise has long been incorporated into Western culture, though within music it may have specific roles (pp.49-51). Although the psychoacoustic approach breaks down the structural distinction between the two, perhaps there are fundamental differences in attitudes to noise that analysis of musical discourses can reveal. It is quite possible that there is greater tolerance and possibly appreciation of noise within Indian culture.

Although this essay deals primarily with environmental sound and not with music, one of the most important developments in music during the twentieth century was the dissolution of the barriers between noise and music, allowing musical discourses to arrive in the realm of noise (and noise pollution) and vice versa.

Silence The other major discourse in acoustic ecology, which is traceable to Soundscapes and beyond to the work of John Cage, itself inspired by eastern philosophy, is that of the importance and sanctity of silence or quietness in the soundscape. Without the sudden arrival of the new noise makers it is unlikely that in the West we would have developed the appreciation of silence that exists now one necessitated the other.

Perhaps the key event in Cages career (he is quoted in many articles as saying he considered it his most important work) was his composition 433. The origin of the piece was Cages idea for a silent prayer, an uninterrupted piece of silence to be sold to the Musak company. The eventual flowering of this idea was a concert piece which, in its instruction for the performer not to play their instrument during the piece, allowed the audience to hear and concentrate on sounds coming from and around the environment it is performed in. 433 is perhaps the major artistic step towards what Schafer calls ear cleaning (a series of exercices he uses to improve sonological competence i.e. being able to hear ones environment better: one simple exercise of his is not to speak for a whole day (1977, p.181).

Schafer (1977) also quotes Cages adventures in the anechoic chamber, which also have much bearing on the insistence on silence that obsesses many people involved in acoustic ecology. Inside that anechoic chamber, insulation is so complete that no sound from the outside can enter and Cage discovered the presence of two separate tones, which he later discovered were his nervous system and blood circulation. This led him to the conclusion that there is no such thing as silence. Something is always happening that is making a sound (p 256).

The influence of many different strands of Eastern philosophy (often carried over into religious practice) has had a profound effect on the way we view sound and silence in the West. Much as the eastern influence has irreversibly changed the way we approach health and exercise in the West witness the growth of alternative and holistic medicine sound agendas from acoustic ecology and beyond simply would not exist without the arrival of these ideas in the mid-twentieth century.

The practice of meditation is firmly at the centre of Japanese Zen Buddhism, whose influence first arrived in the New York art circles that Cage circulated within in the late forties. David Patterson (2002) describes a series of lectures (which research has failed to confirm whether Cage attended or not, but assumes that he must have done) by Japanese scholar Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki which are credited with creating a fad for Buddhism, in particular the relatively esoteric schools of Zen and Chan, the Chinese school that Japanese Zen developed from (pp.52-53).

Branching out from this new concern with eastern philosophy, musician Pauline Oliveiros has been devising her own approach to listening since 1969, which involves a set of exercises to be practiced regularly with the aim of developing what she calls Deep Listening (2005). Practice of Deep Listening revolves around a pot-pourri of exercises drawn largely from various Eastern philosophies and religions (yoga, Zen and Tibetan Buddhism, Tai Chi, Chi Kung and other Taoist disciplines are all cited). The core exercises, however, are mostly developed from different ways of meditating and she draws parallels between Deep Listening (noticing my listening or listening to my listening and discerning the effects on my bodymind continuum) and meditation, which exists in various forms both religious and secular but is generally used to calm the mind and promote receptivity or concentration, (p.xxiv).

Outside Europe and North America, there seems to be most interest in acoustic ecology and soundscapes in Japan. We could attribute this to the fact that Japan is a highly developed nation with one of the worlds largest economies (and therefore resources to devote to what in developing countries might be seen as a luxury). We could also argue that the high (and still increasing) population density in a limited space has necessitated paying attention to this area. More likely is that the appreciation of natural environments (and we can include landscape and soundscape within this) long embedded within the arts in Japan made it an ideal recipient for these ideas. I would go further and suggest that Cages ideas have come full circle

and returned to the region which originally inspired some of the ideas, via acoustic ecology.

The 100 Soundscapes of Japan project, instigated by the Japanese Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), is a continuation of the World Soundscape Project. The soundscapes chosen were largely natural environments such as wind blowing through pine forests, creaking pack ice etc.). As Tadahiko Imada notes, a large variety of soundscape activities have been developed within many fields such as environmental education, social education, and so on, which most recently also includes music education. While working closely with Schafer, he recognizes that a critical analysis of the concept of soundscape, with reference to structuralism and post-structuralism is urgently needed to make a space in music education that incorporates the notion of sound as a cultural phenomenon, indicating yet further dissent with Schafers universally applied ideals. In an article about sound culture in Japan, Imada (1994) states that: The decision of whether some sounds are regarded as music or not rests with the cultural background of the listener. In other words, cultures do not share the same methods of listening; there are as many ways of listening as there are cultures and ears. (p.16) To exemplify how radically different these listening approaches can be, he describes how in the early Showa period (1925-1989) people would gather to listen to the sound of the bloom of a lotus flower. As the frequency of this sound is approximately 9-16 Hz and the lower threshold for human hearing is 20Hz, people were actually physically incapable of perceiving the sound but they loved and wanted to listen to that phantom sound. The experience was a kind of communal auditory hallucination. He goes on to summarize that it seems the ancient Japanese people considered various sounds as the total scenery, and being more imaginative than us, there was no border between sound and music in the ancient Japanese sound culture. The Japanese people regarded sound as an abstract image rather than as a pragmatic acoustic event, (ibid., p.14) Although my research is primarily about India, not Japan, I believe the presence of a unique sound culture in Japan, which many Japanese musicians, soundscape artists and academics are consciously engaging with, could give inspiration for other countries looking to address issues relating to sound and the environment, such as India which also has the ability to investigate its own sound culture. Scholars from Japan have also, interestingly, been the first to raise concerns of post-colonial misinterpretation and misrepresentation of other cultures within acoustic ecology. Imada (2005) asks the question Can we simply abstract a (universal) sound structure of which Western people may make sense from non-Western sound cultures? and sees what acoustic ecology supposes is a universal structure as a European and North American cultural product (p.13). Beyond

In an increasingly technological world, the absence of silence has become an increasing concern for planners of urban environments. Historically, the way that town planners have approached this is simply to measure decibels, with the assumption that simple decibel reduction will return the sound environment to a more healthy state. Schafer (1977) was the first to recognise the limitations of this approach and that some sounds are of importance to a society and need to be preserved in spite of their high decibel count, for example church bells which are not only loud but emit low frequencies, which range over long distances (p.55). The task of discriminating between which sounds are valuable and which are simply noise is a contentious one, which Schafer believes should not be left up to the experts, although the role of expert is one which many of his followers over the decades have wholeheartedly, and it could be argued blindly, ascribed to him.

However, Steve Goodman (2010) argues that we have in some respects gone beyond the conceptual polarity of noise and silence, which have both been subject to their own fetishization over the years and that we have arrived in a situation where agencies of both control and enjoyment, or repressive and mobilizing forces, reserve the right to zigzag as and when it is pertinent to do so (p.193).

Schafers idealistic notion that noise pollution will disappear if we learn to listen properly to our sound environment falls flat on its face when we realize that there are clearly many agendas for choosing noise in the first place. No one satisfactory universal ideology about sound can exist if dissent will be experienced not only within groups and communities of people, but by individuals wishing to exercise their rights to multiple sound agendas.

My Methods of Investigation As I already had a trip to India booked, I decided to conduct my own investigation into the Indian soundscape and to try and combine my own insight as a foreigner arriving with hopefully fresh ears with the testimonies of local people, and other tourists. The stages of my research were as follows: Firstly, I recorded sounds using a Zoom H4n portable digital recorder. These recordings include short recordings made opportunistically when interesting sounds presented themselves and longer soundwalks as well as, where it was possible to record, interviews with local people. For many of my field interviews (as it was rarely possible to record) I wrote notes, often later on, and paraphrased reactions.

As detailed in the previous chapter, various methods for research exist. The main problem encountered by soundscape researchers is that when they are interviewed people find it difficult to talk about issues that concern their everyday, contemporary sonic environment (Paquette, 2004). I was aware that, compounded with this problem, I would be dealing with cultural and linguistic barriers. Though many Indians are capable of holding a conversation in English, their ability to express themselves in the complex language needed to describe sounds and feelings is often very limited.

As both time and the technical resources I would need to carry out detailed research were limited, I resolved to keep my methods very simple. Peter Cusacks Your Favourite London Sounds project, which has since been extended to other cities worldwide involving many researchers, relies on the simple concept of asking the question what is your favourite sound and why? to elicit responses with a surprising depth of feeling. This approach was not suitable for my research, as I was making sound recordings I wanted to play to people. I was also aware that I would have limited space to present my findings, so limited my questions to the following:

1) Do you recognize this sound/place? What is it? 2) What does it make you think/feel? 3) Do you like this sound? Why/why not?

My field recordings were as rich as I had hoped for and gave me material with plenty of contrast to work with between dichotomies of urban and rural, noisy and quiet, religious and secular etc. Firstly, they provided me with the material I needed to be able to question other people about their opinions of the sounds. Secondly, the process of recording made me experience the sounds of India in a more intimate and intense way, colouring my insights into the project. On returning home, though the high fidelity of my recordings remained intact, the removal from their source geographically, culturally and temporally created a displacement of sound, sometimes referred to as schizophonia, another term coined by Schafer in his book The New Soundscape (1969). Here, I saw new opportunities to exploit by playing sounds first to expatriate Indians to see if there were any dimensions of memory and nostalgia to explore. I could also then play to those who had

little or no connection to the sounds, (who were also likely not to recognize their sources) so that I could try and draw some conclusions from the differing reactions I might encounter.

My travels began in Mumbai, currently the city with the second largest population in the world and still fast growing. It also has one of the most pronounced divides between rich and poor sharing urban space in the world and proved to be rich in urban soundscapes unfamiliar to me. Then, I travelled southwards into Kerala, by far the most literate state in India. It has an enticing mix of rural/agricultural landscapes, smaller urban centres with interesting histories and culture and is now starting to become developed for a fast growing tourist industry. With Hindus, Muslims and, more uniquely for India, Christians well represented there was be a diversity of religious sites to visit.

My Findings Sounds and Responses Firdaus Kanga (2010) reflects in his recollection of living in Bombay that in India, sounds are never discrete as there will always be so many things going on in the street at the same timesomeone performing magic tricks over here, a mongoose fighting with a snake over there, and always people trying to sell things. Its the merging itself thats fascinating. And you cant select where you want to be at any time, unless you are wealthy and just go to the theatre, which is the only time you will ever experience anything like silence.

However, I have isolated my sounds and grouped them into 4 rough categories: animal/bird sounds, religious sounds, commercial activity and vehicle sounds, though other sounds are not so easily grouped. The original distinction I wanted to make between urban and rural sounds proved to be somewhat of a blind alley. I soon realised that where there are people, there is noise, and in India there are huge numbers of people. I am not claiming that quiet, traditional villages do not exist, but as a tourist, despite a wide range of travel experiences, I never saw one. Indias national parks, however, are very accessible for tourists and as they are largely protected from the incursions of human activity are by far the easiest places to get away from sounds typical of urban areas, such as traffic and House Crow sounds.

I will use the term keynote sounds throughout this essay to describe such sounds: it is an appropriation of the musical term keynote by Schafer, in soundscape theory it acquires the new meaning of ubiquitous sounds which suggest the possibility of a deep and pervasive influence on our behaviour and moods, though they may not always be heard consciously. He considers them particularly important as they help to outline of the character of men living among them. (Schafer p.9)

Animal/bird sounds Animals are to be found, and heard, everywhere in India. With far greater biodiversity than is to be found in modern Europe, the natural soundscape is richer. Another important contrast between Europe and India is that in urban environments, whereas Europeans have driven out many wild animals by persecuting them or removing suitable habitats, in India reverence and tolerance for both wild and domesticated animals has allowed them to survive and even flourish. A more uncontrolled approach to the built environment contributes to this as it often provides opportunities and spaces for animals to breed. Goats, chickens and cows can be found wandering even the largest and most modern cities. Black kites, vultures and fruit bats roam the skies. Cats battle with rats in city streets during daytime.

The most omnipresent keynote, which struck me the minute I first left the airport, was that of the House Crow (a species similar in look, sound and behaviour to the European Carrion Crow) (CD Track 1). Present in great numbers everywhere you go in India, its incessant cawing has a tendency to permeate almost all daytime recording. When I asked Bombay residents what

they felt about the sound, reactions were generally neither positive nor negative. Some people described it as simply everywhere, as if I was asking them to say what they felt about the presence of air. Sorab Shroff, who has relocated from Bombay and been living in London for 10 years, recalled hearing an old cassette of conversation from his childhood and being surprised at how the crow sounds dominated the recording, as if he was noticing their presence for the first time (Shroff 2010). As the range of this species doesnt extend far beyond the Subcontinent, perhaps it is the characteristic keynote sound for the region.

I developed the habit of walking around late at night to allow me to capture some more unusual urban sounds such as frogs (CD Track 2) and fruit bats feeding on a fig tree (and urinating under it) in hi-fi sound quality (CD Track 3). I discovered what felt like a secret sound world: many of these sounds go unnoticed by many urban dwellers, who are usually in their homes at these times. Only one highly educated man with an interest in natural history was able to identify the fruit bats.

Hiking in the national parks such as Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary gave me some excellent opportunities to record birdsong in the natural arena of the forest and the variety of species such as Common Hill Myna, White Cheeked barbet and jungle fowl form a tapestry of sound which is beautiful and very different to that found in European forests (CD Tracks 4-5). Of the Europeans I played this to, all enjoyed the sound. The ones who reacted most enthusiastically to it were those, again, with an interest in natural history that could clearly perceive the difference between European and Indian birdsong tapestries and were therefore appreciative of its exotic nature. Of the Indians, several more educated urban Indians from Mumbai spoke about how lucky they were to even be able to hear birdsong (other than crows or pigeons) from their relatively privileged (and traffic noise free) dwellings. There are many allusions in Schafers writing to the natural world being the ultimate in healthy sound environments. In many parts of the world, bird-song is rich and varied, without being imperialistically dominating (p.29). The ecological model is an antidote in his eyes to the destructive forces of mankind, which have become increasingly out of tune with the natural environment. Although urban and rural animal sounds can have distinct characteristics (as different species can be present or absent in both), my interviewees were often not able to distinguish between the two. Mumbai has a surprisingly rich biodiversity with almost 400 species of birds recorded. Local birdwatcher Sunjoy Monga (2009) attributes the high number to the warmth of the urban world and variety of food sources available from rubbish on the street and in landfills, as well as the many fruiting and flowering trees that have been introduced (p.123). The location where I personally saw and heard by far the most bird species was the Zoological Gardens of Trivandrum, a city with nearly 1 million inhabitants (CD Track 6).

What are usually heard in recordings of natural environment where man is largely absent are animals, although there are always other elements present.

The field of bioacoustics is increasingly concerned with between animals and their acoustic environment including humans and has obvious links with the soundscape movement. Francisco Lopez, an accomplished sound artist who often works with the natural sound environment sees the interpretation of natural environments typical of bioacoustics as reductive (1998): I find particularly limiting the habitual focus on animals as the main elements of the sound environment a sound environment is not only the consequence of all its sound-producing components, but also of all its sound-transmitting and sound-modifying elements. The birdsong we hear in the forest is as much a consequence of the bird as of the trees or the forest floor. Religious sounds The abundance of temples and religious activity in India means that even if you never enter a place of worship, a variety of sounds will reach you. The sound most invasive in the general soundscape is the Muslim call to prayer as it is amplified (CD Track 7), but Hindu, and also Jain temple bells and chanting, can be heard if passing (and there are so many temples in India that this is likely to happen at least once a day). Conversely, although there are a large number of Christian churches in South India, they almost always remain silent, where in Europe their sounds would still be central to many communities. One exception to this are the bells of the chapel of the University of Mumbai, which are extremely incongruous when heard (CD Track 8). Entering a Hindu temple is not always possible, as access to many is restricted for non-Hindus, though in Madurai I captured temple music (CD Track 9). Questioning people about these sounds is a sensitive issue as Hindus can hardly be expected to react positively to the call to prayer, and vice versa for Muslims, so I was careful not to isolate these too much. However, several sound recordings contain sounds from more than one religion. One expatriate listener remarked at how remarkable it is that these sounds can co-exist without religious tension (though Kerala, in particular, is well known for the peaceable coexistence of Hinduism, Islam and Christianity). There is plenty of evidence that religious sounds can, and do, cause offence however. Compare these testimonials about Islamic and Hindu festival, respectively (Karmayog website): It is 11 pm now and the mosques in Bhandup/mulund are blaring away just now without any let up. Is there not any time limit and loudness limit and unpleasantness limit? Is raucousness religion? A procession of about 30 people with 7 large drums, 5 small drums and metallic clangers. The five small drums were the bigger problem by the way. Does it bother - Yes it does loud noise at 10.00 p.m. for 15 minutes is not welcome. And this is only the second visarjan night. While these may or may not indicate hostility of one religious group towards another (and possibly reflect preference for one group of sounds over

another), the next testimonial reveals that willingness to tackle the problem of all religious noises exists: I do appreciate that all laws are equally applicable to all. With this in mind, I have recorded noise levels at several religious places including masjids, temples, gurdwaras etc. and have filed a Notice of Motion in Writ Petition No 2053 of 2003 (in which I am a Petitioner) praying for loudspeaker use at religious places to be regulated in accordance with law. Commercial activity India has an abundance of street hawkers (wallahs) who have developed unique calls for different products. I expected to get some strong local reactions to the sounds. Most advertising sounds I encountered were produced by the voice (CD Track 10) but I also heard whistles, bells and metal rattles (CD Track 11) being used. Here, reactions to the sounds were polarized: Indians (depending on the product being sold) often found them annoying, Europeans tended to enjoy them and non-Europeans from other cultures which still have many street sellers reacted more neutrally. In Europe, the ubiquity of street selling is a thing of the past. Plenty of written reports remain as evidence of how people often regarded street cries as a nuisance: violently and hideously cacophonous, lacerating the ears and feelings of ears and feelings of all sensitive spectators are just two such reports that Schafer (1977) discovers in his research (p.64). He goes on to speculate that one possible explanation for Southern Europeans having louder voices and more boisterous street criers than their Northern European neighbours is that they have to spend more time outdoors, where ambient noise levels are higher. An important tenet of acoustic ecology is that it is beneficial to protect certain sounds in the environment to keep them for future generations. Schafer also finds evidence of how the French were lamenting the disappearance of street criers in the 1930s, less than 50 years after the first legislation to try and ban them was introduced. By the same token, is it possible that we will become nostalgic about traffic noise in the future and try to preserve some of its sound elements? Technology has brought the inevitable recorded announcements blared out through speaker systems, although I found them to be generally less invasive than in Brazil, for example. A train announcement I recorded in south Kerala included a short musical prelude before the announcement itself (CD Track 12). Everyone I played this to, both Indian and non-Indian were surprised about how pleasant it was, and enjoyed the musical aspect, suggesting that this is not the norm in India and more likely a regional idiosyncrasy. There will always be disagreement about what is worth preserving and what is not. Many Indians reacted positively to a recording of the tapping sounds the shoeshine boys make on their boxes to attract customers in the Victoria Terminus railway station. They were regarded as characteristic sounds of a charismatic building and environment, which is held in much affection by many citizens of Mumbai. However, this testimony from a Bombay local

reveals an extreme aversion to the same sounds which may be shared by many others: How such a sound can be termed as attractive, defies my imagination. I, sometimes, speak to the shoeshine boys telling them about the futility of making these sounds. I am sure, I tell them, not one customer is attracted to them because of the sound they make. They don't understand the point I try to make. However, it seems to nobody's job in the railways to stop this unacceptable practice (Karmayog website). This opinion I would say is untypical of people living in Mumbai, as most are highly aware and accepting of the fact that what one person may deem unacceptable practice will not change and are beyond control, such is the chaos in which Indian society finds itself. Vehicle sounds Arriving from London, where in my urban soundwalks I had already remarked on the omnipresence and polluting nature of car noise, I was not prepared for the sheer volume of car horns in India and how they would disrupt my sound recordings (CD Track 13). While I and many other travellers were appalled at the volume and inescapable presence of traffic sounds, locals were far more tolerant. The responses of many interviewees could be summed up as its just there. One response from an Indian expatriate was even positive: as well as an element of nostalgia for his hometown, he recognised that people need these sounds to tell them where they are (Shroff, 2010). I will reflect here on my own perceptions of traffic after doing my first soundwalk through central London. Hearing the traffic for the first time as I fully appreciated the almost complete destructive effect it had on the hi-fi soundscape, I realised how adept our brains really are at filtering it out. One myth challenged by the acoustic ecology movement is that human beings have a natural ability to get used to and accept higher levels of sound, and are therefore not being damaged by them (the habituation syndrome). Truax (2001) argues that this is not habituation, but desensitization (p.99). How much people are really affected by the ravages of desensitization may depend on other sociological and geographical factors, such as the nature of their work, and whether they have an opportunity to escape from high sound levels. Quieter Environments The biggest surprise was when I played a recording of a canoe paddling through a very quiet backwater in Kerala, with sounds of human activity coming from the few houses that stood on its banks (CD Track 14). During this stretch of my backwater journey, there was a complete absence of technological sounds, the calls of many birds could be heard clearly and children are heard playing and clearly having fun. Though there are sounds of people working: women beating washing on rocks and men using a hammer (heard in the background), these sounds are periodic, rather than

continuous, and have a lazy rhythm, which I personally found most relaxing. In fact, if I had to choose one soundscape which reflected the most tranquil environment, it would undoubtedly be this one (I remember musing with many other tourists about how nice it would be to rent a house for a few months there to do some writing). The Indians I played this to all smiled and were most curious about the human activity they could not completely identify in it, asking me many questions. However, the non-Indian listeners stated that they would never want to live in such an environment, as it was much too noisy.

There are frequent examples of expectations of responses to supposedly quiet environments being confounded within research in this domain. A study of the soundscape of Madrid by Isabel Lpez Barrio and Jos Carles (1995) threw up repeated negative responses to a recorded park sequence as excessively rowdy and did not fit the normal acoustic image parks engender (p.3). However, my guess is that if they had actually been present on the same canoe journey, they would have had similar feelings about it to me (one of the main reasons people visit backwaters in Kerala is to experience such tranquility). Listening to a recording of an environment and being there can be two very different experiences.

Another possible explanation for this comes from Francisco Lopez (2003), who notes how Quiet sounds are also "extreme". At least that's my finding with the reactions of a lot of people to very quiet or subtle sonic material. Since we live in a world overwhelmingly filled with noise and music-as-noise, subtle things produce more flabbergasted reactions - even aggressive ones- than harsh loud sound (p.3).

Focus on only sounds can be misleading and that recordings can fail to transmit vital information about other aspects of the environment when visual (and other) references are omitted. On realizing this, I began to question the validity of my research approach in playing my recordings to people and wondered to what extend my findings would actually be able to reveal anything useful about India at all.

In a more recent article (2009), Lopez outlines the problems with recorded sound itself, which stem from the fact that microphones we use are not only our basic interfaces, they are non-neutral interfaces. He advocates further tampering with microphone recordings to construct our own, necessarily subjective, realities (as well as using devices such as surround sound systems), which he calls hyperreality to represent and advocate soundscapes (p 84). In the case of soundscape recordings with further listener-based research aims, altering these recordings is clearly a very dangerous game and it is probably better to accept the limitations of basic recordings and perhaps calculate these limitations into our findings somehow.

Issues Arising From Sound Responses My Responses My initial personal impression of the soundscape on first arrival in Mumbai was of total cacophony and amongst all the unfamiliar sounds, I longed both for familiar sounds and less sounds overall. On returning to Mumbai 16 days later after acclimatising myself to India and observing how people live day to day, I was able to discern a rhythm amid the cacophony. At points during my soundwalks through the most chaotic streets I could find in the central bazaar district, this rhythm even appeared beautiful to me as I followed sound around the city. The insistence on the hi-fi environment denigrates what can be richness in lo-fi soundscapes, where sounds that are barely discernible individually can combine to produce something unique and valuable. Although natural landscapes are prized by acoustic ecologists for their hi-fi properties, equally thrilling lo-fi soundscapes can also exist in nature during extreme weather conditions or in the passage of large flocks of birds. Why therefore should it not also be possible to appreciate this in our man-made environments?

Selling the Sounds of India In fact, a casual survey of tourist websites reveals an outsider perspective of Indian soundscapes where a familiar theme arises. Compare these excerpts: Every experience, every sound, every smell shouts that youve arrived somewhere magical (Travel-India); the sights, sounds and smells that greet you in each new place will overwhelm your senses (Projects Abroad); a hurricane of sounds, smells and colour where nothing is as it seems (Majestic India); life in a frenzy of colours, smells and sounds (360travelguide). If an overwhelming, frenzied cacophony of sounds shouting at you is so categorically bad, then why is it that websites use such language to entice people to go to India and experience them? It is one thing to indulge in sound tourism or, as sound, smell and colour are frequently banded together in tourist literature perhaps we should refer to this as sense tourism. I myself was well aware that, exciting as my adventures in the sensual realm in India were, they were at times overwhelming and it was a comfort to know that they wouldnt last forever and as soon as I boarded the airplane home the experience would stop abruptly, like a television being switched off.

Local Responses However, the local people who have to endure (or enjoy) these sounds on a daily basis with no escape unless they are fortunate enough to be able to afford travel. Perhaps they can offer their own insights: I asked friends in Mumbai whether it was a relief to be travel to Europe and escape the more extreme noise levels in India:

Well, I suppose so, but there are so many other things that you notice as being different when you arrive in London like, you know, the people and the culture and so on. (Bhiwandiwala, 2010)

Another very common sound frequently complained about is broadband noise coming from air conditioners, cooling systems for mobile phone antennae and, perhaps the worst of all, generators. I noticed these while walking around Mumbai, and my recordings reveal their constant presence there. However, many people I interviewed in Mumbai were surprised at this and stated that they did not notice this on a daily basis, suggesting that broadband noise does not affect people in such an obvious way (though this is not to say that it cannot have negative effects). The majority of European tourists I spoke to had a distinct aversion to using air-conditioning systems as they dislike cold temperatures inside and consider the units unhealthy and drying for the skin. In Mumbai, however, people attach huge importance to them. They are a basic symbol of status for middle class families, who become distraught if they break down. Aside from the obvious benefits of temperature control, I would go as far as suggesting that the drone of air-conditioners and ceiling fans acts has a very important role in providing white-noise masking in peoples homes, filtering out the sounds from the outside environment. They may well also demarcate the limits of personal acoustic space; setting out an important boundary in a cramped urban environment, where the culture also allows what in the West would be felt as serious invasion of personal space.

Firdaus Kanga (2010) believes that in India, traditionally personal space is not nearly as much of a priority in the West as India is a communal culture: leaving doors open so that friends and neighbours can pass in and out freely all through the day is very common. However, with many urban Indians being increasingly influenced by Western culture. Globalisation means that more Indians are able to both work and travel abroad, just as Westerners can in India. Those most likely to have such contact (the upper middle classes and the rich) are also the ones most likely to be able to afford good air conditioning and the luckiest can spend the day moving from one air conditioned environment to another (home to car to work to gym to restaurant etc.). Kangas personal experience is that these people become increasingly intolerant of life going on outside their air-conditioned soundproofed bubbles, of which sound is perhaps the most affective element.

Augoyard and Torgue (2005) discuss the complexity of masking sound in the urban environment where different levels of masking can occur simultaneously. The urban drone (consisting largely of traffic noise but which may contain other elements such as construction noise and commercial activity) is omnipresent and can be undesirable. However, the drone in itself has the ability to mask other more discrete sounds, which may be more personal, such as activity from neighbouring properties, and therefore annoying or distressing. They note that acoustic screens, which may be there to suppress the traffic mask, can paradoxically remove the cover that the drone provides and reveal the neighbouring sounds. They draw a distinction between two types of mask: favourable (where undesirable sounds are reduced) and parasitic (where pleasant and desired sounds in a quiet or natural environment are reduced) (p.40-46).

The MP3 player, though it certainly has a presence in India, is not yet nearly as ubiquitous as it has become in countries with a higher average standard of living. My experience, even in the most international neighbourhoods of Mumbai contradicts Truaxs assertion (2001) that the proliferation of background music internationally means that every soundscape starts to resemble every other; local cultural influences are subsumed or emasculated into a bland, universal style (p 211). India has so far largely resisted this homogenization, which may be partly due to economic factors but may also be explained by the existence of a strong national culture, exemplified by the ubiquitous presence of Indian film industry, which perhaps Indians prefer as the soundtrack to their lives than imported American or European culture because it is more relevant.

Muzak a Polarized Response The highly engineered and controlled commercial spaces of the West, with their attendant soundtrack of muzak are hard to come by in India. I did not manage to find one in Mumbai, though they are starting to spring up in New Delhi with increasing frequency. Whether musak is considered unnecessary, or there is simply the lack of capital to provide the environments it is designed to soundtrack I do not know. The closest example I found was the Hanging Gardens in Mumbai (a fairly small urban park popular with families set atop a hill), which pipes relaxing music around the whole park via a set of loudspeakers (CD Track 14). The music selected was instrumental western or westernised Indian music, veering between classical (both Western and Indian) and pop which might in other contexts be described as easy listening or chill out. I suspect that the concept has been simply copied from western environments such as shopping malls with little thought for the effect on people and whether it needed to be there at all.

The people I spoke to in the park all rated the sounds positively and used the adjective relaxing to describe them. This is in some contrast to people I have talked to in the U.K. about musak who are polarized in their opinions, which range from relaxing to extremely annoying. Interestingly, among the people I asked in the U.K the majority who found it relaxing were non-nationals from southern Europe and Latin America, which may suggest that these people feel less affronted by the dictates of rampant consumerism.

Indian Responses to Noise The website Karmayog provides many testimonials from Indian citizens concerned about noise. That these testimonials are personal and much less likely to be coloured by the ideals of acoustic ecology makes them a particularly good resource for my research. Themes for the items posted included concern about firecrackers during Diwali (both sound and chemical). One claims that in a recent survey 80% of Traffic Police in Pune (a city of around 4 million inhabitants close to Mumbai) were found to be deaf (presumably from constant exposure to traffic sound), though it does not give a definition of what constitutes deaf.

The NGO SOCLEEN (Society for Clean Environment) was formed in Mumbai in 1969 to address a range of environmental problems, one of which is sound. It carried out a survey in Mumbai to determine what the main sources for noise are. They are listed as the follows (karmayog website):

1. Road Traffic 2. Use of loudspeakers 3. Bursting of crackers 4. Industrial activities 5. Railways 6. Aircrafts 7. Radio and Television

Although the traffic noise problem appears to be completely out of control, there are nominally complaints procedures in place to remedy them. SOCLEEN recommends the following: Complain to Regional Transport Commissioner or the Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic). Give the offending vehicles number/s, and the date, time and place of the offense.

I remember commenting to a Indian friend in Mumbai about the absurdity of having security screening gates at the entrance to the main train terminus that were neither manned or switched on and that allowed people to walk through the gap at the side of them to leave and enter. She replied:

It doesnt matter if they actually work or not. It is much more important that somebody is seen to be doing something. India is a country where symbols are incredibly important, you know. (Bhiwandiwala, 2010)

I feel it is much the same issue with traffic noise. The reality is that the huge size of the population, lack of resources and ingrained behaviour of the masses compound to make the problem almost completely impossible to tackle. However, as long as the authorities are seen to be doing something (however futile) then their authority is more difficult to challenge and some sense of prevailing order is maintained.

In Mumbai, for example, I came across a sign in a few places which read: Silent city = better city. Sound no horns. I quickly learned that, as well as relieving frustrations while driving, the horn has an important function: as there is little concept of lanes in Indian roads, the horn is used to warn another vehicle that you are behind and will, or want to, overtake. A hierarchy

exists with buses and big trucks at the top, moving down through cars, auto-rickshaws and bicycles to pedestrians. Anyone in the way is likely to be mown down and the horn averts what would otherwise be serious accidents. In fact, smaller vehicles such as the rickshaw commonly have the words Sound Horn painted on the back as an instruction to encourage horn use. With Indian driving culture as it is, the horn is clearly not going away and the Silent City an impossible fantasy though, as I will argue later it is the presence (and diversity) of sound which makes Indian cities so special and a silent city is not something actually desirable.

Other examples abound of the futility of the present system. The press has run stories of the flaunting or regulations put in place to deal with the problem of violation of the regulations about firecrackers. They are banned near hospitals and nursing homes, as they have been known to cause patients intense agony:

The police routinely issue lists of banned types of firecrackers. However neither the public, the police or the explosives department can state, by looking at a cracker, that it is illegal (karmayog website).

With the public machinery described as lethargic (a huge understatement if the opinions of people I spoke to in Mumbai are to believed), complaining via one of the NGOs which deal with environmental problems and forming anti-noise committees are recommended on the karmayog website.

Concern about noise in this site is still largely concerned with traditional measures for noise reduction: lowering decibels and trying to implement bans on certain sound producers, indicating that the agendas of the World Soundscape Project model of acoustic ecology (the positive approach, emphasizing wanted or important sounds in the soundscape) have yet to have an impact in India.

A Recent Project in India: Limited Potential One artist who worked as a research associate with R. Murray Schafer at the World Soundscape Project is Hildegard Westerkamp, born in Germany but now naturalized as a Canadian. She is of particular relevance to this essay as she has travelled extensively in India, recording sound for composition (the 2002 CD release Into India includes several soundscape compositions). She also instigated the creation of a sound installation Nada, situated in New Delhi and using sounds from the surrounding area. This was a collaborative process where Westerkamp played the role of composer/sound designer, while the overarching concept came from two Indians, Savinder Anand ad Mona Madan (also quoted in the last chapter), both architecture students.

Westerkamp (1999) states that, having participated in soundscape workshops, these two decided that some action regarding the state of the soundscape in India was long overdue. An analysis of her description of the installation and the reactions to it reveals the heavy influence of Canadian originated ideology. One clear agenda of the installation is to reflect how the omnipresence of sounds of multiple religions creates a soundscape perhaps unique to India, something that chimes with my own experience travelling. The instigator of these elements was a third collaborator, Veena Sharma, invited to contribute to the project with her deep knowledge about sound and the sacred (p.1).

However, the main concern of the installation is to lead participants through a listening journey from noise to silencefrom acoustic onslaught to acoustic subtlety, from worldly to sacred sound experiences, setting up what I consider to be a rather prescriptive sound agenda. Panels mounted on the walls ask questions to the listener such as why are you so terrified of silence? which could be seen as provoking necessary challenges to the visitors, or simply bullying them towards the responses desired (p.2). Westerkamp describes many visitors responses as confirming her observations that they emerged more relaxed. The problem I see with this project is that, despite the involvement of three Indians, it has not been set up as an experiment to determine what a range of Indians reactions might be to the sounds in their environment, but an attempt to confirm pre-existing ideas from the acoustic ecology movement through a somewhat cozy art project geared, I suspect, to the affluent upper middle classes.

As Brandon Labelle (2008) observes, commenting on Westerkamps outline for the same project, much acoustic ecology work is concerned with reducing sound and

paradoxically oversimplifies the sound world by reducing it to such binary terms, making the journey into sound resolutely quiet, withdrawn, dreamy and private. Yet, it does so paradoxically by relying on an outside, the environmental earthly happenings always out there, in the noisy world. (p 210).

Once again the concept of yin and yang rears its head, as noise and silence become the opposing forces which fit together as a whole to facilitate

discussion about the intrinsic values and virtues of each one, also shaping the careers of many sound artists. Labelle later goes as far as to argue that the dislocation inherent in Westerkamps transformations of her recorded sounds in soundscape compositions inadvertently makes noise of them. Her (and our) attraction to the distant, the foreign, the strange, the spooky, the haunting and the mysterious forces the sounds into abstraction (p.214).

I discovered one location in Mumbai where an astonishing variety of sounds can be heard relatively discretely, the Banganga Tank. It is an area of temples (both Hindu and Jain) and housing centred around a washing/bathing pool, which is considered extremely sacred. It lies at the tip of a peninsula close to downtown Mumbai but the lack of access for cars means that all daily activity, both religious and otherwise can be heard and recorded discretely. I have included a long soundwalk I carried out here where sounds of temple activity, cooking, sports, construction and both wild and captive animals can be heard clearly, but what is most interesting about the recording is how unrepresentative it is of the urban Indian soundscape (CD Track 15).

One sound term I find more relevant that the CRESSON team have co-opted from traditional Chinese aesthetic culture is Sharawadji: an aesthetic effect that characterizes the feeling of plenitude that is sometimes created by the contemplation of a sound motif or a complex soundscape of inexplicable beauty (Augoyard/Torgue 2005). It is the perceptive confusion one experiences while walking around the urban soundscape in all its disordered cacophony that best exemplifies sharawadji. Sharawadji is defined as being a pleasurable feeling, but necessarily dynamic rather than passive (p.118).

I frequently experienced sensations which could perhaps be identified with this concept in India, particularly when walking around Mumbais bazaar and metalworking districts (CD Track 16). The act of soundwalking (more focused and intense when actively recording sound) certainly brought me closer to this state of mind as my desire to hear and experience all sound brought me into a transcendent state where I no longer judged sound as good or bad, but simply experienced it. Whether this is sharawadji as Augoyard and Torgue define it I am not convinced about, as I feel I went beyond the pleasurable feelings they associate with it. However, being dynamic experience, accessing sharawadji is a skill which must be taught within culture and which does not happen spontaneously in the majority of people. An internal tension maintains the contradictory poles of this beauty in the consciousness of their limits and in the surpassing of these limits. And this tension, the sustained and contained attention to what is presently taking place, to the emerging sonic form, is mixed with pleasure and animates it. (ibid. p.119)

Sharawadji is not dependent on hearing aesthetically beautiful things, is without splendour or theatricality and can most often be experienced in through the embracing of the everyday, the ordinary, though it can occur while listening to the tumult of nature as well. Though many parameters are set out defining what sharawadji is and how it is experienced, no mention is made of, or evidence given for, who is likely to experience it, or where. Though the concept originates in China, it is not suggested that the Chinese have any natural cultural tendency to do this. The concept of Sharawadji as it relates to

visual aesthetics was originally imported from China to Europe in the seventeenth century and Sharawadji as a sonic effect was inspired by a 1979 article by a French writer rather than fresh research in the field in China. I would not argue that practice of Sharawadji is in any way a solution to noise problems in India, only that India is an ideal place to visit for those that wish to practice it.

The Indian Mentality: Towards The Future Mona Madan is an Indian architecture student who has partaken in a soundscape workshop in Delhi led by Hildegard Westerkamp. She came across a translation of an ancient Indian text on town-planning, the Manasara and discovered the following passage: While choosing a site for any kind of building activity, along with other considerations such as soil analysis, the sounds prevalent on the site were also an important consideration. Land which had the following natural sounds was considered beneficialhorse, elephant, bamboo, ocean, conch, veena (an Indian string instrument) and the sounds of all other animals that were harmonious with human vibrations. Once the site was selected by the sthapati (architect), it was believed that the space should first be prepared for human habitation by requesting from the natural lifeforms and energies which occupy the place to accept their new owners. This process was a very gradual one: first, the sthapati spoke to the earth accompanied by auspicious music and chanting; next, the site was cleaned and seeds of various plants and cereals were planted for one season, after which domesticated animals such as cows, bulls, calves, etc. were brought to stay on the site. The sound of these animals was considered beneficial to the environment. It was not until the earth and its prior inhabitants had become acquainted with these sounds, that the human being came to inhabit the site! To me the discovery of this passage reveals many things pertinent to my discussion. Firstly, that in Indian culture, the relationship between sound and the environment is important and that considerations about sound have been around for a long time. Secondly, that there is a unique approach to this relationship, which may be based on factors such as the unique conditions of the natural environment and the culture and spirituality of the people that live there. Thirdly, that some Indians today have a desire to explore this heritage through research and a vested interest in using it for their own ends, rather than relying solely on ideas passed down to them from the soundscape movement. Mona Madan speaks about exploring the role of sound in architecture not only in the present but also what it was in the Indian past and what it can be in the future. It is evident that she does not consider the past model she has found ideal as a template for the future as it clearly represents a bygone world with little correlation to the modern urban environment. However, that she wishes to investigate how elements of it may have relevance for the present and the future and this is something that I find extremely encouraging. Conclusion Ultimately, though I have sought to uncover ways of dealing with the sound environment that are more uniquely matched to the socio-cultural and socio-economical conditions in India, all the theories and work on the subject are

(perhaps predictably) restricted to Europe and North America. As can also be seen in the case of China, an even more rapidly industrializing country with a fast growing economy, concern for the environment is frequently deprioritized to safeguard the nations future status within the changing world order. It is also not surprising that sound/noise pollution (and movements such as acoustic ecology which grow from such concerns) lags behind other environmental issues in gaining political and popular support, as this mirrors what happened in the West.

It is my firm belief that the most effective, and probably only, way of addressing the soundscape must come from within the culture that has to live inside it. The resultant perspectives on sound may have the potential to challenge the way we perceive, and are involved in, the soundscape, in the same as the acoustic ecology movement has undoubtedly had a big impact globally. It is to be hoped that in the future, we in the West may be able to learn much about our soundscapes from research carried out in countries such as China, Japan or India, or indeed anywhere else in the world, in the same way that Schafers work has empowered people in these countries with some of the initial tools to investigate their own soundscapes.