A Review of The Soundscapes of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900-1933
Emily Thompson
Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2002
ISBN 0-262-20138-0 $44.95 pp. 510 with 117 illus.
http://web.mit.edu/mitworld/content/authors/thompson.html
Review by Marguerite Helmers
University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh
Overview
In an interview given to Tom Strini, music critic
of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel in February 2003, composer John
Corigliano asserted that "technology changes art":
Liszt could not have written what he did without the factories that made pianos with steel frames. Now we have electronics, television, the Internet. Soon we'll have plasma screens. Young composers should be thinking about these new technologies and new forms instead of symphonies and quartets. (Composer Embraces New World)
Corigliano's mantra "technology changes
art" could be the epigram for Emily Thompson's The Soundscape of Modernity.
In this work, Thompson, Senior Fellow at MIT's Dibner Institute for the History of
Science and Technology, not only describes how the planned environment of performing halls and recording technology affected the way
music was heard in the twentieth century, but also how the human reaction to
sounds of all kinds changed across the early decades of the century. Her field
of interest is "aural history" and "aural culture," the
history of sound.
At some
point in the early years, the urban public began to view the urban scene as
"noise." Horse hooves, cart wheels, street vendors, all contributed to
the sense that the city was unhealthy in its level of noise pollution. In fact,
certain New Yorkers sought to enact laws against sound. In 1906, Mrs. Isaac (Julia Barnett) Rice founded the Society
for the Suppression of Unnecessary Noise in New York, although admitting herself
that
most noise was unavoidable. The problem was that noise often was needless, could
potentially be damaging, and remained, above all, inefficient to a modern
society bent on progress.
Today, when we overhear all manner of personal
conversations shouted through cell phones at the grocery store, while the
incessant beep of the check-out scanner forms an ostinato under the Muzak, we may find it
difficult to sympathize with the efforts of Mrs. Isaac Rice. Moreover, as we sit
amidst Surroundsound at the Ultrascreen to watch XXX, we wonder what the
fuss was about in 1927, when outraged New York audiences moaned loudly and waved
handkerchiefs in surrender after a performance of American composer George
Antheil's Ballet Mécanique that featured real machines. However, Thompson encourages us to listen closely:
our world is circumscribed by ambient sounds that are magnified or diminished by
the building materials of our classrooms, our offices, and our homes. Thompson's
book should cause us to ask, "What do we hear and how
do we hear it?"
This work is not a comprehensive examination of
the changes in sound technology from the twentieth century, but rather a
description of a myriad of developments
from 1900 to 1933, from the opening night at Symphony Hall in Boston to the
opening of Radio City Music Hall in New York. The book alternates between
acoustical theories and social theories, in other words, how the sounds were
produced, measured, and controlled by technologies and how the changes in the
way auditory phenomenon were heard and received by the public. Thompson draws on urban histories,
architecture, and film studies, making the book wide-ranging in its appeal. The
book is useful for teachers, students, and general readers interested in
science, architecture, music, and history. It is also a book that
challenges our notions of language, for we discover in this text that the idea
of "noise" shifted and changed with expectations for sound.
Chapters
Chapter One. Introduction: Sound, Modernity and History.
A soundscape
is a sonic environment, an auditory landscape. It is "simultaneously a physical
environment and a way of perceiving that environment" (2). Theoretically
important to this book is a thesis that the condition of modernity relies on a
kinship with the machine and a culture of efficiency. Thus, a key need for theoretical
researches into auditory environments was the desire for an efficient – one might
even say nonembellished – nonreverberant
space. Looking ahead in the work for an explanation of this sound property
(or lack of sound property), we find Thompson's description of the modern
acoustic space in Chapter Six, Electroacoustics and Modern Sounds:
Radios, electrically amplified phonographs, public address systems, and sound motion pictures transformed the soundscape by introducing auditors not only to electrically reproduced sound but also to new ways of listening. As people self-consciously consumed these new products they became increasingly "sound conscious," and the sound that they sought was of a particular type. Clear and focused, researchers issued directly toward them with little opportunity to reflect and reverberate off the surfaces of the room in which it was generated. Indeed, the sound of space was effectively eliminated from the new modern sound as a reverberation came to be considered an impediment, a noise that only interfered with the successful transmission and reception of the desired sound signal. (234)
If we think of the difference between a choir performing in a cathedral and another performing in a modern symphony hall, we can mentally imagine the differences in reverberation and the contrasts of sound between the newly undesirable Baroque "noise" and the admirable, streamlined, and efficient Modern sound.
Chapter Two. The Origins of Modern Acoustics.
Boston's Symphony Hall
opened on October 15, 1900. The story of the acoustics of Symphony Hall begins
in 1890, when the owner of the Boston Symphony, Henry Lee Higginson, hired
renowned architects McKim, Mead & White to design an orchestral performance
venue "that would shelter its audience from the 'sounds from the world' and
do justice to the great music of the past" (15). Higginson also contacted a
young professor of physics at Harvard University, Wallace Sabine. The chapter
details the ongoing testing of acoustics, experiments with sound and its
reverberation patterns, theories of acoustics, and practical negotiations
between Higginson, Sabine, and the architects. In the end, the hall represented
not only developments in research into the absorption properties of various
materials such as wood and plaster, but a shift in the social processes of
listening to music.
Chapter Three. The New Acoustics, 1900-1933.
Early
in this chapter, Thompson points out that in 1931, "children were
 William Hogarth, "The Enraged Musician" (1741) Princeton University Library |
Chapter Four. Noise and Modern Culture, 1900-1933.
Featuring the engraving from Hogarth of a serious musician unduly provoked by the
noise of street vendors, buskers, and childhood pranksters, Thompson turns to
the significant problem of ambient sound in twentieth century life. "Over
the course of the nineteenth century," she writes, "the clanking din
of the factory, the squeal of the streetcar, and other new sounds were
increasingly incorporated into the soundscape" (117). Simultaneously,
efforts to reduce noise emerged on the social and political agenda while
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Chapter Five: Acoustical Materials and Modern Architecture, 1900-1933.
The twentieth century cannot be said to invent the distinction between public
and private space; however, it can be said to invent the acoustic properties of
these spaces. The interior emerged as oppositional to the exterior; its
job was to close the exterior out in order to create silence and refuge. This
was accomplished through acoustical building materials: "Akoustolith,
Acousti-Celotex, Acoustone, Sanacoustic Tile, Sabinite, and Sprayo-Flake,"
"gypsum, mineral wood, volcanic silica, flax, wood pulp, sugarcane fibers,
disinfected cattle hair, and asbestos," "insulating papers, rigid wall
boards, stonelike tiles, plasters" (170). The outcome of these efforts was to shield
the human ear from the ambient sounds of modern life. For instance:
Just as modern technologies like pneumatic riveters, automobiles, and loudspeakers transformed the soundscape of city streets, so too did acoustical materials fundamentally transform the aural dimensions of interior space. These materials didn't simply eliminate the noises of the modern era, they additionally created a new, modern sound of their own. (171)Typewriters, voices, dictaphones, elevators, escalators, kitchens – all the sounds of the modern office could be muted by the acoustic insulation products on the market. A more acoustically refined environment was attractive to businesses, for a quieter environment signaled an increase in productivity and efficiency. The benefits were often projected in terms of health and the preservation of "human energy" (198).
Chapter Six: Electroacoustics and Modern Sounds, 1900-1933.
When Radio City Music Hall opened in 1932, it was wired for sound, effecting
a marriage between technology and acoustics. Accordingly, "Physically as well as
conceptually, the distinction between sound in space and sound signals in
circuits [the electronic] fell away, as acousticians and sound engineers sought
to achieve ever greater degrees of control" (234). In fact, sound in space
could, by 1930, be manufactured electronically. Phonographs transformed
"domestic listening" and public address systems transformed
"public listening." The American public now received sound with new
expectations for appropriate audio levels and clarity. The movie industry's
interest in the talking picture, initially distrusted as a fad, faced new
challenges: synchronizing sound with image; eliminating ambient noise such as
fans and air conditioning on the soundstages; developing acoustically sensitive
sets; isolating the camera in a booth to eliminate the whir of its gears;
establishing volume levels for closeups and long shots; and synchronously
layering dialogue, music and sound effects. Each development to control sound
resulted in a new reception of sound by the audience and new standards and
expectations were established.
Chapter Seven. Conclusion: Rockefeller Center and the End of an Era.
Radio City Music Hall was intended to be a vast temple to acoustics. It featured
recording and broadcast studios and the enormous performance space of the auditorium.
The building "was not just a symbolic tribute to the tremendous industry of
sound communication and control," writes Thompson, "it was also
constructed of the very products of that industry," a harmonious weaving of
acoustical building supplies and engineering (309). Ironically, the kind of sound that
Radio City projected was now common enough "to be unremarkable." The
Hall suffered, as well, from its size. "While microphones, amplifiers and
loudspeakers ensured that all members of the audience heard everything as if
they were right up on stage themselves, there was no visual equivalent to
amplify and transmit the performers' emotions" (311). Experiencing live,
amplified sound, wasn't as pleasing as a film. In the fantastic
space of the movie palace of the 1930s, the audience could project themselves;
they were able to see and hear
and vicariously experience the gesture and nuance of the
performance – which leads us to the present.
Today, a concert at the local auditorium by Paul
McCartney is amplified visually as well as acoustically. Huge screens tower to
the right and left of the stage and a camera operator is as necessary to the
musical tour as a set of engineers operating the sound board. Even Corigliano
admits that symphonic concert halls need a makeover. "We need speakers,
monitors, microphones, jacks. [...] I can assure you, as a composer, that if
amplification had been available to Puccini, he would have loved it."
Other
Listening Projects
Thompson's book makes us aware that, as
educators, we devote an inordinate amount of time to the emphasis on the printed
word at the expense of the rich world of audio materials. For instructors
wishing to incorporate audio files into their repertoire of materials, these
Web sites will provide a beginning.
Save Our Sounds:
America's Recorded Sound Heritage Project
As they announce on their splash page, "The Smithsonian Center for
Folklife and Cultural Heritage and the American Folklife Center's Archive of
Folk Culture at the Library of Congress house collections of grass roots music,
storytelling, poems, oral history, and cultural documentation from all fifty
states and around the world." This site should be a first-stop for the
educator who is interested in incorporating historic sounds – or audio material
in general – into the classroom. There is an excellent online article about how
sound can be preserved,
as well as information on caring for one's own private
collections (books, films, even those eight-track tapes). Sixteen sound files from the AFC's
Online Collections are indexed and accessible through the site, with links
to the Library of Congress.
Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage
Dedicated to exploring and understanding grassroots cultures from American
and around the world, the Web site that accompanies the Save our Sounds project
is under development, but promises to present a vast electronic archive of
significant sounds to the public in the future. For example, the Center is
launching a Web site for the study of "global sound" in the spring of
2003. The mission of the Save our Sounds Project at the Smithsonian is to
"restore and preserve original recordings, make digital and archival
copies, put recordings on the Web and in CD form." Some recordings may be downloaded
at the site, among them Langston Hughes reading "A Negro Speaks of
Rivers."
Save our Sounds, History Channel
"Imagine America with the sound turned off," the History Channel
asks visitors to its Web site. "A critical part of our heritage could be lost in silence."
The fifty minute Save our Sounds program on the history channel (available for
purchase on VHS) presents a look at the efforts of the Smithsonian Institution
and the Library of Congress to preserve historic recordings from American
history, among them Woody Guthrie's original "This Land is Your Land" and oral histories of
former slaves. The video offers a good introduction to the range of material
available at the Smithsonian and LOC, while also offering some details about the
issues of preservation. The History Channel offers a free, downloadable, PDF
format, twenty page teacher's guide for grades 5-12.
American Memory, Library of Congress
The digitized archives at the Library of Congress are simply vast. There are
letters, maps, playbills, photographs, short films, and, yes, sounds. The sounds
include presidential speeches, the American Variety Stage, day after recordings
about Pearl Harbor, Indian music, and African American music. Sound recordings
in American Memory are offered in three formats, RealAudio, MPEG 2, Layer 3
(.mp3) and .wav (WaveForm).
Lost
and Found Sound, National Public Radio
Presented through a collaboration of radio
producers, artists, sound collectors, and public radio listeners, this series
ran on public radio from January 1999 to January 2000. In addition to archiving
the ambient sounds from America in the twentieth century, the site offers
downloadable recordings of John Philip Sousa's recording of the march "King Cotton" and an
excerpt from a 1938 newsreel extolling the marvels of the telephone system. The
site features an excellent bibliography
on sound events of the twentieth century.
The Yiddish Radio Project,
National Public Radio
In 2002, NPR debuted a
ten-part series that presented audio files from Yiddish radio in New York during
the 1930s and 1940s. The collection of more than 500 hours of recordings
involves captures interviews, news programming, drama, and music. The Yiddish
Radio Project also has its own Web site containing audio files.