“A soundscape is any collection of sounds, almost like a painting is a collection of visual attractions,” says composer R. Murray Schafer. “When you listen carefully to the soundscape it becomes quite miraculous.” David New’s portrait of the renowned composer becomes a lesson unto itself, gracing viewers (and listeners) with a singular moment of interactive subjectivity. This film was produced for the 2009 Governor General’s Performing Arts Award.
Listen | Via U.S.O / Luís Antero
A great short, whose message is even more pertinent only two years after production.
Unfortunately we are now being bombarded with too much unnecessary sound which we as individuals are unable to switch off and just ‘listen’.
In addition to the long standing environmental problem of transport noise, we now have the all pervasive mobile phone ring tones, alarms, piped shop music, outside music events etc.
I do however find myself switching off more and more of one particular device capable of being controlled, that is the TV; but this is mainly due to the excessive use of highly compressed, low dynamic range, poor quality music being over-dubbed on everything from feature films through to nature documentaries, hopefully a passing fad used by poorly trained mastering engineers.
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