The Vocabulary of Sound:

How to Talk About the Aural

Slideshow Created by Dr. Jessica Gordon | Virginia Commonwealth University | Spring 2018

With some content borrowed from “A Sound Education: 100 Exercises in Listening and Sound-Making”, by Murray Schafer (1992)

The Sound Walk

The term “Sound Walk” was coined by R. Murray Schafer--a Canadian composer, writer, music educator and environmentalist--in the 1970’s.

• Take a 5 minute walk and explore your “SOUNDSCAPE.”
• Write down every sound you hear. EVERY sound.
• Write sounds in one long list leaving room to write on the right.
• Return to the classroom.

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The Sound Walk

As novice listeners, when we talk about sound, we often do so in the following ways:

• By causality
• Onomatopoeic descriptions (onomatopoeia)
• Beep, ruf, oink

Sometimes, we might even use more sophisticated language:

• Musical Terms or acoustically
• Staccato, rapid fade, etc.

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How We Can Talk About Sound

Organize sounds by ORIGIN:

• Human sounds (H)
• Nature sounds (N)
• Mechanical / technological sounds (M)

How We Can Talk About Sound

Organize sounds by VOLUME:

• Loud (L)
• Soft (S)

How We Can Talk About Sound

Organize sounds by DURATION:

• Continuous (C)
• Repetitive (R)
• Unique (just once) (U)

How We Can Talk About Sound

Organize sounds by DIRECTION OF MOTION:

• Stationary Sounds (church bells…)
• Moving Sounds (cars…)
• Sounds You Move (your footsteps, etc.)

How We Can Talk About Sound

Organize sounds by DISTANCE FROM CENTER (YOU):

• Draw a medium-size circle in middle of a piece of paper
• Write all sounds YOU made in the circle.
• Arrange the other sounds according to distance and direction from which they came.

How We Can Talk About Sound

The movement of sound can create “Acoustic Shadows”

• Imagine you have your eyes closed and you are asked to point at me as I walk around a large room.
• Note the subtle changes as I walk in different places, behind a screen, into a corner, behind/in front of you.
• We might call this “seeing with our ears!”