The WSP group at SFU, 1973; left to right: R.
M. Schafer, Bruce Davis, Peter Huse, Barry Truax, Howard
Broomfield and Hildegard Westerkamp (see photo below)
(also see the "acoustic crew",
2010, recreating this iconic photo)
Schafer's call for the establishment of the WSP
was answered by a group of highly motivated young composers
and students, and, supported by The Donner Canadian
Foundation, the group embarked first on a detailed study of
the immediate locale, published as The Vancouver
Soundscape, and in
1973, on a cross-Canada recording tour by Bruce Davis and
Peter Huse, the recordings from which formed the basis of the
CBC Ideas radio series Soundscapes of Canada. In 1975, Schafer led a larger group on a
European tour that included lectures and workshops in several
major cities, and a research project that made detailed
investigations of the soundscape of five villages, one in each
of Sweden, Germany, Italy, France and Scotland. The tour
completed the WSP's analogue tape library which includes more
than 300 tapes recorded in Canada and Europe with a stereo
Nagra. The work also produced two publications, a narrative
account of the trip called European
Sound Diary and a detailed soundscape analysis
called Five
Village Soundscapes.
Schafer's definitive soundscape text, The Tuning of the
World published in 1977, and Barry Truax's reference
work for acoustic and soundscape terminology, the Handbook for Acoustic
Ecology published in 1978,
completed the publication phase of the original project.
In 2009 Five Village Soundscapes was reprinted (with
2 CDs) along with the results of the Finnish study (Acoustic
Environments in Change) that re-visited those
sites. The publication is available here
as a download (Table of Contents).
The WSP group in the churchyard, Dollar (Scotland), 1975. Left to right: R. M. Schafer, Jean Reed, Bruce Davis (standing), Peter Huse, Howard Broomfield.
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 Howard Broomfield at SFU, ca. 1972 |
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The foundation laid by the WSP has been continued through the teaching and research program in acoustic communication at SFU, as well as through Truax's 1984 publication Acoustic Communication (2nd ed. 2001) which deals with all aspects of sound and the impact of technology, and the soundscape compositions of individual composers. One such composer, Hildegard Westerkamp, edited the Soundscape Newsletter (1991-95) and Soundscape – The Journal of Acoustic Ecology (2000-2012), and was instrumental in helping found the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology (WFAE) in 1993 that connects groups and individuals around the world who are concerned with the soundscape.
In 1997, the World Soundscape Project and Cambridge Street Records re-issued the original Vancouver Soundscape recordings from 1973, along with the 1996 soundscape compositions and documentary Soundscape Vancouver 1996, on a double CD. The same year, Truax served on the City of Vancouver's Urban Noise Taskforce and contributed to the educational recommendations of its final report, Urban Noise. In 1999, Cambridge Street Publishing issued the original Handbook as a CD-ROM.
The catalogue of the WSP Tape Library and the Sound References in Literature database is available on the Sonic Research Studio website.
Hildegard Westerkamp with the WSP Tape Library, ca. 1982
More studio photos
Related sites: Sonic Research Studio, Simon Fraser University: http://www.sfu.ca/sonic-studio/
World Forum for Acoustic Ecology (WFAE): http://www.wfae.netSoundscape Explorations Video Collection: www.soundexplorations.blogspot.com
