This recording was taken outside of Crown Hall on the campus of Claremont McKenna College. Due to the pandemic, CMC contracted with various local food trucks from the Los Angeles area to serve CMC students lunch and dinner for the Fall 2021 academic semester. These trucks were parked outside of Crown Hall. This recording was taken directly adjacent to these food trucks at the very beginning of a weekday lunch rush. The soundscape is dominated by the hum of the trucks and the mechanical noises of food preparation. At one point, you can hear an order being announced on the loud speaker.  Since these trucks are parked outside of a dormitory, this soundscape potently highlights the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on campus soundscapes. 2 years ago, this same location would have sounded quiet and residential. In 2021, it sounds industrial and lively.

This recording was taken using the Shure MV88 portable microphone, which attaches to an iPhone and operates via an iOS app. The app allows for control over the directionality of the input. For this recording, I used an omni-directional setting which captures the full 360 degree soundscape.

This recording is of the cube (AKA the “Living Room”) on the campus of Claremont McKenna College. The cube itself is an enclosed glass box, furnished with chairs and tables for studying and talking. The cube sits in a reflection pool, about an eighth of an inch deep with water, that flows continuously from the base of the cube outwards. There’s a concrete pathway that cuts through the reflection pool to enter the cube. The above recording was taken at this entrance. The recording reflects how the centrality of the water in the surrounding soundscape. This particular audio clip was recorded on a Sunday at 10 AM, which represents a particularly quiet time on CMC’s campus. If this recording were taken 24 hours later, we would expect the sound of the water to be accompanied by talking, passing longboards, and doors opening/closing.

This recording was taken using the Shure MV88 portable microphone, which attaches to an iPhone and operates via an iOS app. The app allows for control over the directionality of the input. For this recording, I used a semi-directional setting which still captured the 360 degree soundscape but which slightly compressed all sounds besides the ones directly in front of the microphone. This allowed for a “focus” effect in which the water becomes the pre-eminent sound, while still allowing other background sounds to be audible.

Recording Setup: This sound was recorded on Tuesday, October 5, 2021, at 11:00 AM at the first floor of the Keck Science Center. The TASCAM DR-40 microphone was put on the public seating area facing professors’ offices. 

Description: There were a couple of students around, with two professors chatting while their door was open. The recording was done inside the building, the human voice is clear, the sound has less mass and is more transparent. The keynote is the underlying machine sound, the signal is the sound of opening and closing the door.

Recording Setup: This sound was recorded on Tuesday, October 5, 2021, at 10:51 AM outside of the Keck Science Center. The TASCAM DR-40 microphone was put on the public seating area near the entrance of the building.

Description: There were a couple of students around, there was also one girl talking to her friend on the phone nearby throughout the recording. Since the recording was done outdoors, the human voice is not as clear, the sound has more mass and passes further away. The keynote is the underlying machine sound, the signal is the “beep” sound from the truck and the sound of opening and closing the door.

Recording Setup: This sound was recorded on Thursday, September 30, 2021, at 11:59 PM at the Benton Art Museum. The TASCAM DR-40 microphone was put on the floor in the courtyard of the art museum facing northeast, in the direction of N College Ave. 

Description: There were no students around, just a security guard who was talking on the phone. The security guard was walking around, so their voice drifts in and out of the recording. A few shouts from students can be heard from afar. At this time of night, there were many crickets chirping, which can be heard very clearly and consistently throughout the recording. A car driving along College Avenue could be heard driving by at a relatively slow speed, as indicated by the gradually increasing sound of the car approaching and the gradually decreasing sound as the car passes by. An ambulance can also be heard in the background. The wind can also be heard faintly, which drifts in and out of the recording. A beeping sound was chimed when it was 12 AM. Because this recording was made very late at night, it would be very different compared to if it was made during the day, or if it was made on a Friday/Saturday night, where more students would be out and about along the dorms on the other side of Bonita Ave. Since most crickets only chirp at night, this sound is also unique to this recording which was made close to midnight. Surprisingly, there were more cars than we expected to be driving at this time.

Recording Setup: This sound was recorded on Thursday, September 30, 2021, at 11:35 PM at Carnegie Building. The TASCAM DR-40 microphone was put on the sidewalk in front of the large steps that lead to Carnegie, facing southwest. 

Description: The sound of the sprinklers is consistent throughout this recording, which serves as a keynote. Cars passing by, students shouting, and the wind are other noises that can be heard. When the recordings were made, it felt like the cars were passing by very quickly, but in these recordings, the sound of the car seems to pass at a slower pace. The cars are the loudest parts of these recordings. Various student voices can be heard from afar, it is hard to decipher what they are saying. The students’ voices are an archetype of a college campus. The sound of the wind can also be heard in the background, which fades in and out. During the day, Carnegie is very lively as many students go in and out of the building and are walking around campus to go to class, study, and meet with others. The lack of people allows for natural sounds like the wind and sounds we wouldn’t normally pay attention to like the sprinklers to be heard at the center. There were also more cars driving by at this time than expected, which normally we wouldn’t pay as much attention to but because there is a lack of students at this time, the sounds of cars go from being a keynote to a sound that is much more noticeable.

Recording Setup: This sound was recorded on Thursday, September 30, 2021, at 11:47 PM next to the President’s House. The TASCAM DR-40 microphone was put on the sidewalk next to the President’s House and W Fourth St, facing northeast towards Carnegie Building /N College Ave.

Description: A few cars can be heard as they drive by at a moderate speed. The sound of sprinklers can be heard, which were watering the patch of grass next to Carnegie across the street from the President’s House. Sprinklers are usually a keynote, but they can be heard very clearly in the recording since there is an absence of students. The noise that is consistent in the background was probably the wind–since it was cold during that time of night. The loud shuffling noises were because we were adjusting the microphone while recording. The two prominent noises from this recording are the sprinklers and the wind. At the end of the recording, the wind gets louder.

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Location: Coop Fountain 2/28/20 5:58 pm, 37XP+QH Claremont, California

Recording setup: The microphone was set up on the back table alongside the south windows. It was pointed toward the register at the front of the Coop (on the east side).

About the Soundscape:

This recording was taken in Coop fountain right before closing. The building is comprised of two conjoined rooms divided by a wall. Both the spaces are filled with tables, chairs, booths and sofas. The southern room also houses the kitchen. The outermost walls on both sides are almost completely glass. Students were studying as well as ordering food before the kitchen closed. The most prominent feature of the soundscape is the music that is playing over the speakers. The music, as well as the chattering, would be the archetypal sounds of the Coop. As Coop is a very busy location, it is possible to hear the doors opening and closing as people enter and exit. The speaking of the students is also heard intermittently throughout the recording, but it is difficult to decipher more than a few words at a time as the background is very loud. The dialogues are heard more as mumbles. There are also various sounds that are hard to identify, which are mostly people moving things around (pushing chairs, dropping books etc.).

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Location. The walkway is wide, with a few trees, picnic tables, and small lawn spaces flanking both sides (in front of the dormitories). Small, unpaved pathways branch off the main walkway and lead to the entrances of each dormitory. The area is usually occupied by any number of students; however, because the recording was taken at a later time of night, the area and its soundscape have a fairly subdued quality. Beyond the stretch between the two dormitories, the area surrounding the walkway is generally open.

About the soundscape. The description provided below was written to reflect a Friday night during a heatwave in early September, while the present clip was recorded on a Sunday night in mid-October. I’ve chosen to keep the unaltered description here because this temporal juxtaposition reflects both the dynamism and thematic continuity of the soundscape. Listen, and compare.

—–

The walkway that spans the distance between Pomona’s Frary dining hall and College Way road is a central feature of Pomona’s landscape. Situated between Walker and Clark V dormitories, where upperclassmen traditionally live, it lies at the heart of North campus. Being the main means of access to academic buildings, dormitories, and the dining hall, this walkway is usually occupied by any number of people. It’s normally a fairly subdued area, aside from passing conversation and the bell tower that chimes every hour. However, the atmosphere varies greatly depending on time and day. The soundscape I will describe here begins at around 10:30 pm on a Friday night, outside Walker dormitory.

The whirr of fans turned to the highest setting emanates from open dorm windows, mixing with the muted rustle of leaves in a faint wind and the hum of distant cars. Subdued music can be heard, most likely leaking from an open window. Window blinds are clicking softly in the wind. These sounds comprise the keynotes[1] of the soundscape; they disappear from consciousness unless one actively listens for them, and yet are indispensable to the soundscape as a whole. The occasional buzzing of an airplane overhead and faint splashing from the Bosbyshell Fountain the in front of the dining hall are a step up in salience, but fall into more or less the same category. An occasional train horn blares in the far distance, and every once and a while a passing skateboard rumbles by on the sidewalk—noticeable, but not demanding attention.

The most distinctive aspect of this soundscape, however, is not the characteristic sounds of a still night. It’s a Friday; at 10:30, groups of people are beginning to appear on the walkway, on their way to a party or perhaps just walking around. Loud conversations and laughter come and go in the sonic foreground as people pass by, the sounds apparently amplified by the concrete sidewalk and buildings on either side. These signal[2] noises evolve as the as the night progresses, and the soundscape with them. As people begin to head back for the night, their voices become slurred and inflected, and laughter rings louder—clear evidence of some form of intoxication. Every once and a while, a passing group will sing off-key to the cheers of others, or even walk up to the entrance of Frary just to hear their voices reverberate. As the night gets older, the soundscape evolves again; the number of people thin, and with them so does their laughter and cheerful conversations. The atmosphere equilibrates, eventually returning to the cool color of a quiet night.

[1]The term “keynote” as used in this context was coined by R. Murray Shafer in “The Soundscape,” reprinted in The Sound Studies Reader, edited by Jonathan Sterne (London and New York: Routledge, 2012), 95–103. Shafer describes a keynote as the “fundamental tone” of a soundscape which “[does] not have to be listened to consciously… [and is] overheard but not overlooked.”

[2]The term “signal” as used in this context was introduced in R. Murray Shafer’s “The Soundscape,” reprinted in The Sound Studies Reader, edited by Jonathan Sterne (London and New York: Routledge, 2012), 95–103. Signals are, as Shafer puts it, “foreground sounds that are listened to consciously,” which thereby convey some message or meaning to the listener.

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The Rick and Susan Sontag Center for Collaborative Creative, known as the Hive, is a space on Pomona devoted to promoting collaboration and creative, nontraditional learning. This is reflected in its physical image, as well as its soundscape.
The building has a ground floor with two large and connected central rooms, one of which holds classes, the other serving more as a communal gathering space, with couches, tables, and whiteboards. All Hive spaces are remarkably rearrangeable. Overlooking these central rooms is the second floor – really more of a balcony. Since the main first floor rooms are open at the top to the balcony, it’s easy to hear what’s going on in there, and even join in.
In its efforts to bring collaborative creative to the 5Cs, the Hive hosts academic classes with collaborative focuses, helping professors bring those qualities to their courses. Hive classes are characterized by their groupwork and discussion. This specific recording is of the Human Centered Design class, a class that had been practicing how to tell and how to listen to others’ stories for months when the recording was taken.
This recording was captured during the Human Centered Design Class (~2PM) on Wednesday, 11/20. The class was taking place in the first room, and the recorder was placed on the floor of the balcony, in the alcove closest to the classroom, and angled towards it. During the recording, the class was performing a warmup of sharing “Lemonade Stories”.
The soundscape was interesting as an observer, but it seems as though participants would experience it differently. From my second floor vantage, I could hear everything, but I got a muddled burble of conversation as a keynote[1], rather than coherent speech as signal[2]. Despite not being able to pick out individual speech most of the time, laughter came across pretty clearly a couple times, signaling that the community has a value on play and humor within their work and stories. In addition, students were clearly listening for the signal of the instructor’s instructions, as the sound shifts gradually when she tells them to switch (53), and stop (120). I wouldn’t say that any of these sonic qualities are particularly unique to this soundscape, but they do seem typical of collaborative spaces – conversation is necessary for collaboration, after all.

[1] In the field of Sound Studies, a “keynote” sound is a background aspect of a soundscape, that doesn’t need conscious attention, such as a low hum. The term is introduced in R. Murray Schafer’s piece, “Soundscapes and Earwitnesses,” reprinted in Hearing History: A Reader, ed. Mark M. Smith (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2004), 100-101.

[2] In Sound Studies “signal” refers to a sound that needs to be consciously attended to – a “foreground” sound. The term is introduced in R. Murray Schafer’s piece, “Soundscapes and Earwitnesses,” reprinted in Hearing History: A Reader, ed. Mark M. Smith (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2004), 100-101.

From a distance, the bell tower is the first thing you notice about the area. The bell rings every hour during the day. One can hear it from a distance. It is unique to this area and may therefore be considered as the soundmark[1] of this area. When the area is not crowded, one can hear the soft pitter patter sound produced by the water fountain. Which gives the soundscape[2] an ambient sound that can help one relax and meditate. During different times, different sounds can be heard. Birds in the nearby trees, squirrels jumping from one branch to another. Students riding their skateboards, bicycles or just walking. Students heading to Frary dining hall for a meal. People laughing, talking, running, playing different types of games such as basketball and volleyball. People playing musical instruments at Walker beach. Pomona college employee driving carts or nearby construction trucks. Depending on the time of the day, the area produces a sound that is unique and rich. Due to the variety of people passing by, one can hear different sound signals as mentioned above. This area provides sound that is a combination of human-made sound and sound made by nature. It can be soft, ambient, loud or aggressive.

[1] Soundmark: a sound which is unique to an area

[2] Soundscape: a sound that is heard in a particular area

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I recorded the soundscape on Parents Field right below Green Beach on a Saturday afternoon, specifically on December 8th starting at 2:45pm.

This area lies right outside of Green Hall, one of the dorms on Claremont McKenna’s campus. As a resident of this dorm, Green Beach lies right outside of my window, so I am extremely familiar with this soundscape. For this recording, I set up the TASCAM recorder at the edge of Green Beach so it could pick up sounds from both students relaxing in the grass and students playing soccer down the field.

The most prominent sounds in this recording emirate from the students playing soccer down the field. The keynotes of this recording would be the low murmur of the students talking to each other as they’re playing soccer, as well as the music being played in the background. While the music sounds faint in the recording, from the position of the recorder it could be heard fairly loudly to the human ear. One sound signal that occurs in the recording several times is the soccer ball being kicked aggressively towards the goal. Another sound that occurs multiple times is the various exclamations from the soccer players. These sounds are another signal of something exciting happening within their game. Because of my experience with living in this dorm, I would consider the music playing in the background to be a sound mark. Most of the students who live on Green Beach listen strictly to electronic dance music (EDM), so most of the music that plays in this area falls under that genre.

The day this recording was taken, humidity was high and this affected the quality of the sound in the recording. I processed the recording using notch filters and noise reduction in Audacity.

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Location: Frary Dining Hall is located at the North side of Pomona College’s campus close to Claremont Mckenna College. It is located near the clock tower and next to the residential area of Pomona students.

About the Soundscape: On the premise that food is one of the basic necessities for human life, Frary Dining Hall is a critical component of the 5C ecosystem. Considering that a majority of the students at our small consortium is on a meal plan, Frary’s soundscape says much about the atmosphere of the 5Cs. Frary’s high ceilings, wooden interior, and long tables make it a dining hall experience unique at the colleges. It’s also worthy to note that this dining hall has a large amount of students who are doing work and eating alone compared to others, perhaps the soundscape of the environment can explain this.

When listening to the soundscape of this dining hall, the keynote sounds are the people chattering, the lights and cooling system rumbling, and the sound of metal utensils and plates hitting each other. These sounds are constant in Frary. These noises although so loud, become the background of the dining hall; everyone is accustomed to it being this noisy. When any one of these keynote sounds, especially the people chattering, is not present, I experience a very uncomfortable sensation. This is because people are typically accustomed to hearing these keynote noises when they enter Frary. These keynote noises can be compared to the coffeehouse chatter that many people find relaxing to listen to which might explain why people enjoy studying here. Furthermore, the indistinguishable nature of many people’s conversations occurring simultaneously even creates a false sense hood of staying hidden.

The signal sounds include occasional uproars of laughter/ screams and chairs moving. The soundmarks of Frary are when certain items fall to the ground. This produces a loud echoing noise that permeates the entire dining hall. This sound is very specific to the dining hall due to its design. Whenever anyone dropped anything, especially a cup, the noise disperses so widely in the hall that everyone’s head turns to observe it. Combined, the soundmarks and signal sounds keep those who are working awake and alert The echo produced in the room also contributes to the lively atmosphere within the dining hall.

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The Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum, affectionately referred to by students and staff alike as “the Ath”, is a place for intellectual engagement, water cooler conversations, and, most importantly, great food. Though the Ath is known best for its lunch and dinner speaker series– where specialists in a variety of fields come to the Athenaeum dining room throughout the week to talk about their theories and accomplishments– a quintessential aspect of many a CMCer’s experience is Athenaeum Afternoon Tea, or Ath tea. Held in the library of the Ath Monday through Friday, 3p – 4:30pm, Ath tea is the perfect midday pick-me-up.

Ath tea is held in a room with hundreds of books, a piano, and soft lighting. There are often people who play the piano at Ath tea, adding layer of performance to the general spectacle that is Ath tea. These cultural elements work to supplement the attendee’s experience, for there is no proper way to be to be able to get some sweets and enjoy music, as opposed to the Ath’s dining room programming which has a dress code.

There are certain signals¹ that people who frequent the Ath, known as “athletes”, know very well and use to inform their conduct at Ath tea. There is the familiar sound of one of the student fellows exiting the kitchen, equipped with a tray of baked goods that will be gone in an instant if the listener does not act fast. Beyond this, there is the seasonally persistent phenomenon of tours full of potential future Stags and Athenas coming to the Athenaeum, and those people can devour treats like no other. The trained ear is attune to hearing phrases like, “And this is the Ath, here we have…,” for that indicates what would soon be the end of whatever goodies are still available.

For all that Ath tea has to offer in sugar and calories, its biggest asset is the small talk and light banter its attendees have there. This is a keynote² of Ath tea for one never knows who they may run into at Ath tea; peers, professors, even President Chodosh have all been known to stop by Ath tea to get their sugar fix. This daily event is an opportunity for students to ground themselves in the presence of others, exchange pleasantries, and take themselves out of the high-stress environments they often put themselves into. For me, Ath tea reminds me of my elementary days, where a snack at 3pm was all I needed to believe that everything was right in my world.

-Isaiah Tulanda

¹”Signal” is used in R. Murray Schafer, “Soundscapes and Earwitnesses,” reprinted in Hearing History: A Reader, ed. Mark M. Smith (Athens: University of George Press, 2004), 7. It represents “foreground sounds… listened to consciously”, examples of these are “acoustic warning devices.”

²”Keynote” is another term used in R. Murray Schafer, “Soundscapes and Earwitnesses,” reprinted in Hearing History: A Reader, ed. Mark M. Smith (Athens: University of George Press, 2004), 7. It “identifies the key or tonality of a particular composition”, so the one sound could be seen as most encompassing of a particular soundscape.

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I chose to examine the soundscape of the open courtyard right outside of the main entrance of Frary dining hall during the Pomona “snack” time. I thought that studying this specific moment and place would be fascinating because the area suddenly comes alive with sound, along with movement and energy, at around 9:55 p.m. as students come out of their study sessions to eat food together. Another interesting component of this soundscape is that it only replicates itself about 4 times a week during the school year.

A couple of keynotes anchor the soundscape outside of Frary.[1]The fountain is the sound that I first identified. Naturally drawn to the sound of moving water, I found this sound very constant and comforting. It adds a tranquil bottom layer to the atmosphere of the open square, and it is fundamental to the acoustic design of the area. The next keynote I identified was the sound of bugs. Claremont hosts many crickets and wildlife that emit their songs out into the soundscape during nighttime. Their sounds evaporate into our subconscious, but they are present and help to define the soundscape.

Sporadically, different types of signals enter and exit the soundscape naturally.[2]Because this area is central to many dorms and other buildings, the sounds of doors opening, closing, and creaking are very noticeable to any person in the area. Of course, human voices also are pretty consistent signals in the soundscape, and the voices and words are always changing. The entrance to Frary dining hall is designed as an echo chamber, and because of that, the texture of voices from inside of the arch is more resonant than the texture of voices in the open courtyard. In a way, these voices may also compose a soundmark for this area.[3]

I found that the overall volume level for this soundscape rose and fell from around 9:55p.m. to 10:30p.m. Afterwards, the soundscape was stripped of most of the voices and doors.

[1]The term “keynote” is introduced in R. Murray Schafer’s piece, “Soundscapes and Earwitnesses,” reprinted in Hearing History: A Reader, ed. Mark M. Smith (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2004), 100-101. Keynote sounds are the fundamental tones of a soundscape that are created by the geography and climate.

[2]The term “signal” is introduced in R. Murray Schafer’s piece, “Soundscapes and Earwitnesses,” reprinted in Hearing History: A Reader, ed. Mark M. Smith (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2004), 100-101. Signals are foreground sounds in a soundscape that are often consciously heard by observers.

[3]The term “soundmark” is introduced in R. Murray Schafer’s piece, “Soundscapes and Earwitnesses,” reprinted in Hearing History: A Reader, ed. Mark M. Smith (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2004), 100-101. A soundmark is a community sound that is relevant to that specific place and time.

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A former student has recorded the Rose Garden and has described it as a “silent” area, one that serves as “a quiet refuge from the noise of the campus”. I disagree with this analysis, and instead see the Rose Garden as a crossroads for much of campus life. As someone who lives by the edge of the Rose Garden, I can say that I have heard a surprisingly diverse range of noises enter my room through my two windows.

My room is located right next to a side entrance of the building, the “Rose Garden entrance”. The door beeps loudly every time students enter from this door, but even before that, I usually hear voices or footsteps of students approaching the door. The beeping door is probably the first thing I hear every morning. Later in the day, I can hear the loud rumbling of leaf blowers, and maintenance people working hard to keep the area beautiful. When the sun finally sets, especially on the weekends, the Rose Garden does not fade back into silence but instead becomes an intersection of many 5C students heading to, from, and through Scripps.

This is a recording of the Rose Garden on a Saturday night.

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The soundscape that I chose to record is in Claremont Memorial Park, found on Indian Hill Boulevard and 8th street. The park is an important part of the history of the city and serves us a public space where people can come to enjoy nature and relax. It is quite big (spans the entire block between Indian Hill Boulevard and Yale Avenue). It is across the street from Sycamore elementary school and contains trees, a swing set, and a medium sized playground set. This variation in the (visual) landscape gives rise to subtle variations in the soundscape of the park.

This recording was taken on the side of the park that is closest to the elementary school. I recorded in the afternoon (around 3pm) when the students from Sycamore were leaving school, which resulted in a lot of car sounds and conversations being included in the soundscape that aren’t there at other times.

The archetypal sounds that can be heard in this recording include cars passing by on the streets, the leaves of trees rustling, and little kids’ voices.

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Oldenborg Dining Hall at noon is a rich soundscape that clearly shows the human aspect of sound. On a surface level, Oldenborg is a clear example of how people across the world verbally communicate. Nowhere else on campus can one hear not only the sounds of people speaking, but speaking in so many different languages at the same time. On a deeper level, Oldenborg serves as a reminder that the majority of languages are sounds made and used by humans to communicate. The verbal buzz at Oldenborg captures just a few of the complex, unique sound-based systems that humans use to connect with one another, depicting the close connections that humans inherently have with each other and with the phenomenon of sound. Thus Oldenborg Dining Hall is a necessary addition to the soundmap of Pomona, as it showcases the diversity and importance of human-created sound in the form of language.

This recording was taken starting at 12:56 PM on October 29th, 2018 by one of the French tables located near the stage within Oldenborg Dining Hall. In the recording, one can hear people speaking French, the general background noise of people speaking different languages at the other tables, and people eating. The sounds of language can be fast and fluid when spoken by native speakers, or slower and more hesitant when spoken by beginners. Notably, at the time of the recording, people were beginning to leave the dining hall to go to class, so the volume throughout the recording gradually lessens. One can hear clinking plates and keys as people get up to leave. Eventually, everyone left the French table that the recorder was placed next to, and one can hear people speaking Chinese and English at other tables nearby.

In the recording, one can hear signals, sounds that dominate over the other sounds in the soundscape and are listened to consciously. These signals often occur in the form of laughter, singing, or of loud greetings between tables, when friends shout “hey!” to each other in different languages just to get each other’s attention for just a quick moment. Additionally, one can hear the keynotes of the situation—that is, the fundamental sound of a situation—which are the sounds of utensils and plates as well as the sounds of languages. The two intertwine to represent the key components of Oldenborg Dining Hall: food and language.

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A noteworthy soundscape[1] can be found on the soccer field in south campus Pomona. The grass field, sunken into a semi-bowl and ringed by trees, is removed from the din of quotidian campus life, but nonetheless contains its own sonic information. During a game, regardless of the fan turnout, the field is filled with a constant cacophony, at first seeming chaotic and at times frenetic. However, there is direction and meaning behind each sound, as is true with any soundscape. Potentially the most salient acoustic feature of the game are the shouts of encouragement, instruction and occasional scolding that ring out from a majority of the players and coaches on and off the field. Though they might seem overwhelming, each shout carries with it its own purpose, a communication that connects each player on the field to each other by solidifying team shape and organization and creating a psychological connection. This can only truly be appreciated by those who know the sport, as defensive or offensive tactics may not be intuitive, but rely on prior knowledge of the listener.

However, not all sounds on the field require their own context. Sounds of the referee’s whistle, or rises and falls of pitch that players communicate with imbue certain intuitive meanings. These signal sounds[2] convey meaning to the listener despite the listener’s knowledge of the sport. The whistle, for example, carries an inherent significance of warning, and therefore is recognizable and deconstructable by any listener. The change in intensity of the whistle (86.1s) can provide the listener with a sense of the severity of the infraction, while the rise and fall of the shouts of the crowd or players can convey the emotional reaction to the event.

In addition to these knowledge-dependent and signal sounds there are some moments in the game with archetypal qualities[3], specifically in the moment before a long pass, or between a shot on goal and the subsequent goal. There is a moment, between the movement of the leg back and the ball forward, in which most shouting is ceased, no instruction commands the soundscape, and silence dominates. It is a moment like the moment between inhalation and exhalation, a pause before a rapid and inevitable outcome.

As in many soundscapes, there is always information and meaning to be gleaned, but often it is left unrecognized.

As is the case with any recording, this is merely a representation of the soundscape. Therefore factors like wind noise appear more salient in the recording than in the actual soundscape.

[1] The term “soundscape” is discussed by Emily Thompson, “Sound Modernity and History” (Cambridge, Mass: MIT University Press 2002) who argues that a soundscape is an “auditory or aural landscape”, making it both “a physical environment and a way of perceiving that environment”.

[2] The term “signal” to describe a certain sound in a soundscape was coined by R. Murray Schafer, “The Soundscape”, reprinted in The Sound Studies Reader, ed. Jonathan Sterne (London and New York: Routledge, 2012), 101. Schafer describes a signal as a sound that must be listened to “consciously”, like that of a “whistle or bell”.

[3] The term “archetype” in the description of a feature in a soundscape is provided by R. Murray Schafer, “The Soundscape”, reprinted in The Sound Studies Reader, ed. Jonathan Sterne (London and New York: Routledge, 2012), 100. Schafer describes archetypal sounds as sounds which we recognize from “remote antiquity or prehistory”, calling on a collective memory that conveys collective, deep significance.

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Hixon Court is a spot on the western edge of campus by the entrance of Galileo Foyer, which leads into the Libra Complex and many underground classrooms. It contains the koi pond, the Venus Fountain, and several tables and choirs. It sits at a basement level, significantly below the main walkways of Harvey Mudd’s campus.

About the Soundscape

I visited Hixon Court on a Friday afternoon at 4:00 PM. There were not many students around, but it wasn’t entirely deserted either. For the majority of the time I sat there, I heard mostly planes overhead, traffic from the north on nearby Foothill Blvd, and the continuous splashing of the fountain into the pond. I would define the Venus Fountain as a soundmark, as the sound of the water that came from it altered the quality of the surrounding sounds.1 The water was not a continuous sound, but rather a lengthy succession of short sounds that overlapped and varied in pitch. Traffic and airplanes are familiar sounds around most of the Claremont Colleges. To me the sounds mostly sound like low, continuous hums or whooshing noises unless they come quite close (especially the airplanes). The choppy quality of the water seemed to also chop up the continuous sounds of the traffic and the planes, interrupting their long hums.

In addition, the fountain seemed to have several levels of sound, mostly corresponding to the multiple tiers of the fountain itself. The water from the top tier’s spouts made up one level and bottom tier’s spouts made another. Both of these were steadier sounds, as the water came from the spouts in a mostly unbroken stream. This water also seemed to have a higher pitch, maybe because of the thinness of the water stream. Another level of sound came from water spilling in irregular sheets from the top to the bottom tier, and yet another cam from water flowing from the bottom tier to the surrounding pond. These were lower in pitch, again possibly due to the surface area of the water that fell, and was probably the main contributor the the aforementioned choppiness.

It was difficult to determine the direction of most sounds I heard from outside the court itself, but sounds from within were much clearer. While I was there, I noted that the few other visitors’ footsteps were quite crunchy due to the small drying leaves and purple flowers strewn on the ground. Footsteps outside the courtyard were inaudible—I could only tell that people were passing by above me if they were riding a skateboard, in my line of sight, or talking (though I could only hear voices, not distinguish words). The sound of a skateboard rolling over pavement is also quite familiar around the 5C campuses, but the first one I heard from in the courtyard I was unable to identify until I saw someone rolling by. The fountain drowned out most of the rolling sound, so that the only audible part was when the board crossed a crack or a bump. Without the context of the wheels over flatter pavement, the sound of the wheels going over a bump was strange.

I was also unable to identify the source of a low hum that could be defined as a keynote, as I didn’t realize that it was there until I had been in the courtyard for some time.2 While I was in the courtyard I thought it might just be part of the muted traffic and planes, but when I left I was able to distinguish the hums from one another. I believe that the softer hum was coming from climate control, lights, or a generator within Galileo Hall or the Libra Complex.

About the recording: It was made during a different visit on October 5, 2018. Fountain sounds are audible throughout; also a bird beginning about 0:55.

1 The term “soundmark” is discussed in “Soundscapes and Earwitnesses” by R. Murray Schafer, reprinted in Hearing History: A Reader, ed. Mark M. Smith (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2004), 8. A soundmark, derived from the term “landmark”, is an integral sound- related aspect of a community, deserving of preservation because of the particular sonic qualities it lends to its community.

2 The term “keynote” is discussed in “Soundscapes and Earwitnesses” by R. Murray Schafer, reprinted in Hearing History: A Reader, ed. Mark M. Smith (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2004), 7. Keynote sounds are sometimes unconsciously heard, the backgrounds of soundscapes that set their tones.

There exists a hidden space on the Claremont campuses, to the left of the humanities building at Scripps College, at the end of an arching row of olive trees. Walk hurriedly to your next destination and you will not see it; pass by after sunset or on the weekends and you will be denied entry. Three doors that lie in three separate corners serve as the entryways, although choose carefully since one has been mysteriously bricked off. This is the Margaret Fowler garden.

Entering through the green door located on the southeast end of the walled gardens next to the only sign indicating the existence of this space, you will encounter a small collection of orange trees. These trees dangle their fruits above a couple of tables and chairs lying next to a fountain on which is inscribed ‘incipit vita nova’ or ‘here begins new life’. The south wall is covered with murals of indigenous women, some of whom carry baskets full of lilies. A canopy of wisteria covers most of the garden, the home of small purple chandeliers and our first source of noise. It is quiet in these gardens compared to the rest of the campus. Entering them feels almost for a split second like an absence of sound, until you hear the birds singing from within the canopy above you.

The next sound to reach your ears is the babbling of the main fountain, which lies in the center of this oasis, opposite a statue of a woman holding a child. The birds and the fountain quickly become the Keynote¹ of the scene. You have only been here a few minutes and yet the removal of their noise would render the scene foreign and the gardens less real. Various signals² can be observed; planes fly overhead from the nearby airport, a golf cart from campus security hums nearby, and you hear the familiar sound of conversations passing around you from every angle.

All of these sounds are coming from outside of the walls of the garden. You can hear them, yet you cannot see their source. Perhaps this is the essence of the soundscape in these gardens; you can hear the distance that separates you from the outside world and its accompanying noises. Even when closing your eyes, you remain aware you are in an enclosed space. This is the ultimate attraction of the Margaret Fowler gardens, and to many this perceived distance from the rest of campus creates a sense of calm, one tied to the steady fountain and birdsong. Here begins new life.

¹ keynote- the ‘ground’ of a soundscape, may not be consistently consciously heard but is omnipresent and crucial to the overall scene.

² signal- the ‘figure’ of a soundscape, listened to consciously. (Schafer)

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In general, the soundscape in Wig’s common room is integral to my experience at Pomona–the sounds surround me as I am working on homework, spending time with friends, or just simply relaxing on my own. Sometimes, I will practice jazz piano on the piano located in the common room, contributing my own unique aspect to the fullness of the soundscape.

The concepts of keynote, soundmark, archetype, and signal posited in R. Murray Schaefer’s work involving soundscapes are present within my Wig soundscape. Most importantly, the constant “drone” of students either socializing or collaborating on schoolwork is ubiquitous and serves as keynote. This “drone” provides a sort of foundation for the soundscape, as the common room wouldn’t feel very “common” if this aspect of socialization wasn’t present. The same droning, however, easily fades into the background and may even go unnoticed by many. Furthermore, signals–circumstantially purposeful sounds–are also present as the occasional beep of the front door being unlocked heralds people entering, and students yell to get the attention of others. Sterne’s idea of soundmark–a sound that has unique implications to those involved in the soundscape–is also present in the hall in the quiet humming of the air conditioning units, which represents to Wig residents an escape from the heat of the rest of the building. Finally, an archetype–an aspect of the soundscape which relates it to sociocultural implications–is present, as the general experience of college is represented through the archetypal nature of the soundscape as a whole.

As Sterne posited in his “Sonic Imaginations,” sound, and the study of such does not exist as an inward pursuit–it supplements and is supplemented by a plethora of other disciplines. As such, the soundscape within the common room of Wig Hall supplements and is is intrinsically connected to the general “college experience” that all of its residents have–sound is just one piece of the immense puzzle of experience.

Addendum: I wrote the description of my impressions of this soundscape near the beginning of the semester, but the soundscape recording itself was made over a month later. Naturally, then, a shift in the characteristics of the soundscape would be expected. The variety of sounds that was represented in my explication wasn’t present to the same extent in the recording–an important feature of this recording is the sound of a pool game going on. I initially described a soundscape where students were transitioning to college, but the recording itself captured students who were already immersed in the college experience.

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The Skyspace structure, designed by artist James Turrell, is a large permanent art installation on Pomona College’s campus consisting of a square courtyard enclosed by metal columns which uphold a flat roof with a square opening in the center to allow viewing of the sky. The columns are surrounded by various palms and ferns, and three sides of Skyspace (north, east, and south) are encircled by the Lincoln-Edmunds building. The loudest feature of Skyspace is the central fountain, with its rush of water falling down the sides of the pool and into the depths below. The sound of the water is so strong that all other sound in the space is dampened by it. The fountain sound is the keynote of Skyspace: it forms the aural center and sets the backdrop for all other sounds in the space. All of these architectural and spatial factors serve to insulate the space so that the courtyard echoes with the sounds produced within reverberating across the space. Skyspace is lit each morning and evening with multicolored lights which paint a wash of color over the roof and change the viewer’s perception of the color of the sky seen through the roof’s opening. Although the lighting is, on first glance, the primary aesthetic value of the space, I believe Skyspace’s sonic qualities are equally important.

I entered the Skyspace at 5:45pm on a Tuesday night for the sunset program and sat down on the stone bench on the southwest side, near the western entrance to the courtyard. There were six people present besides myself at the time of recording: one group of three, a pair, and one person seated alone. The groups engaged in soft chatter as the sunset program began. Though some individual voices were distinguishable, the content of their conversations was indiscernible in the wash of sound, though some laughter punctuated the indistinct murmur. The sounds of people interacting with the art installation can be considered another keynote of the space, as this background noise gives shape to the space and “outline[s] the character of men [sic] living among them.”

A number of signal sounds were also present during the 45-minute duration of the sunset program. These included the loud whirring of airplanes overhead, the sound of which rose and fell in pitch as they grew nearer, and the occasional distant whistle from a train passing through the Claremont station. The door to Lincoln Hall emitted a high pitched squeal with each student who entered or exited, followed by a slow descending whine as it closed. Every so often, a student on a skateboard would ride past the south end of Skyspace on the walkway between the courtyard and Edmunds. The pavement of this walkway has a resonant cavernous quality when trod upon, and the skateboards riding over it created a thunderous noise as the wheels went over the fissures in the sidewalk.

The overall sonic atmosphere of Skyspace is quite loud, but the consistency of the sound, particularly of the fountain, creates a tranquil, white noise effect, muting the external environment in favor of the sounds contained within. The space serves as a sonic cocoon which holds its sounds close and then lets them flutter and bounce off of each surface. Overall, the Skyspace creates an intimate setting in which the wash of sound conveys an aural serenity to match the effect of its visual display.

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*The recording and image do not necessarily reflect all of the sounds written about below. The recording was taken on a Wednesday afternoon whereas the writeup was done on a busy Sunday afternoon.

The Scripps pool at the Tiernan Fieldhouse is a significant soundscape of the Claremont Colleges. I was here on a Sunday afternoon between 12:00 pm and 3:00 pm. There is a certain level of exclusivity to this soundscape, since only Scripps students and faculty are allowed to enter the pool at these hours. However, the recording was made on a quiet Wednesday afternoon. Some keynotes[1] I noticed were the constant hum of the water filtration system, the bubbling fountain next to the pool, and the gentle waves created by swimmers. These place the listener in the atmosphere of a public pool. It is easy to tune out these sounds since we are so used to hearing them in such a space. Other keynotes include the wind rustling the leaves and the birds chirping occasionally. The mixture of nature-based and man-made keynotes reflects how a pool is a man-made construction with the qualities of emulating nature. The recording reflects these keynotes, however the recording lacks some of the signals that I heard on the Sunday afternoon.

Some signals[2] I noticed included chattering voices (consisting of both lively and quiet conversations), a pet dog barking occasionally, and the subtle clicks on keyboards of people doing homework. During the first couple hours here, there were only a few people, mostly at the pool to do homework. It was an overall quiet and peaceful atmosphere. But later in the day, more people came to relax and strike up conversation. The function of the pool changed from a study atmosphere to a social atmosphere. Unlike keynotes, the signals changed over the course of my visit at the pool.

Around 2:45, I could hear the trains from the Claremont Metrolink station passing by. This was surprising to me considering that the station is relatively far away from the pool. I would consider the sound of the trains a soundmark[3] since it is a sound that can be heard from many places in the Claremont Colleges and many students can relate to hearing it. Claremont would not be the same without the sound of the trains passing by.

[1] The term “keynote” is defined in R. Murray Schafer, “The Soundscape.” Reprinted in The Sound Studies Reader, edited by Jonathan Sterne, 101. London and New York: Routledge, 2012. He describes the keynote sound as the “anchor or fundamental tone and although the material may modulate around it, often obscuring its importance, it is in reference to this point that everything else takes on its special meaning.”

[2] The term “signal” is defined in R. Murray Schafer, “The Soundscape.” Reprinted in The Sound Studies Reader, edited by Jonathan Sterne, 101. London and New York: Routledge, 2012. As he puts it, signals are “foreground sounds that are listened to consciously”.

[3] The term “soundmark” is defined in R. Murray Schafer, “The Soundscape.” Reprinted in The Sound Studies Reader, edited by Jonathan Sterne, 101. London and New York: Routledge, 2012. “Soundmark” refers to a community sound which is unique or possesses qualities which make it specially regarded or noticed by the people in that community.

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Beyond the desire to turn lemons into lemonade, so to speak, I believe this soundscape makes a valuable contribution to the Soundmap. The existing Soundmap doesn’t have a soundscape outside a relatively rowdy dorm on a weekend night, something that captures a quintessential college experience. Further, this particular soundscape contains examples of keynotes, sound signals, soundmarks, and even archetypes.

I made this recording right outside my dorm window on the ground floor of Lowry A tower. At first, the sounds of people talking loudly dominate the soundscape. At around (0:46), the occasional woop or shout becomes a constant din. I consider these shouts Sound Signals of something particularly exciting happening in the party. Finally, at (1:14),  after a nearby door closes, the music gets going. At first it is accompanied by some sound which may be some piece of equipment at Frary dining hall — I am not sure. I consider the party music to be a Soundmark, as it is something that carries important cultural information, and orients people to the nature of the party.

Not on this particular night, but sometimes, the sound of Campus Safety shutting down a party (more of a sudden absence of sound) is a welcome (or unwelcome) sound signal, depending on whether one is trying to sleep or to party. When I’ve been at parties, the knock on the door from either an R.A. or Campus Safety is more than just a sound to be listened to (a sound signal). It can evoke fear and is instantly recognized, rendering it a unique sound among college partygoers.

While the sounds of music and people yelling or singing ebb and flow over the course of the week, they are pervasive enough that I would call them Keynotes of college, certainly of college weekends. Because they are so often used in movies as a shorthand for a certain kind of free-spirited “college life,” they also serve as Archetypes.

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About the soundscape: Located at the heart of the Smith Campus Center, the Coop Fountain is a must-hear aspect of Pomona College that all visitors of the College are recommended to visit and enjoy. The student-run restaurant has been supplying Pomona with food and employment opportunities for years, and has played an integral role in supporting its culture, throughout that time. For instance, there have been many times where I was forced to seek out the eatery’s services. I have spent many moments in the Coop Fountain to both eat and study, and for this reason, I thought it would be interesting to record what a typical afternoon sounded like at the restaurant.

I arrived at the Fountain at about 3:15 p.m. in the afternoon and the first sound that was most distinguishable to me was the music. The student workers are in charge of supplying the dinery with music through their phones and an AUX cord. As “Wake Up” from Travis Scott’s Astroworld album sounded through the eatery, I looked around the cafe for an open seat and set up my laptop at one of the booths. After taking a moment to hear other sounds, I looked around at the walls of the establishment. As the doors opened and closed, the metallic sound as the pull of air rushed through became more noticeable the more I focused on them. In conjunction with the sounds of doors, the background noise of the Coop Fountain was marked by the sizzle of the stove, the murmuring of the air conditioning vent, the general chattering of the student workers and restaurant customers, and the squeezing, airy sound of the cushion of the booth seats as people sat in them. All of the sounds were initially masked by the sound of the music playing and did not become immediately apparent to me until I started looking around and focused on others.

Due to the music being so loud, it became apparent to me that it was meant to be the aspect of the restaurant that attracted people, characterizing it as the signal of the establishment. While I initially characterized the sound of the doors as keynote sounds; after reflecting and even before noticing the sound itself, I noticed how my eyes would automatically shift and glance over at the doors as soon as I heard them open, in order to see who would be entering the establishment. Thus, I would also argue that I am consciously listening to the sounds of the doors, characterizing them as an additional signal sound. Although none of the sounds in the Coop Fountain were clearly manufactured by the natural environment, I would characterize all of the components that contributed to the background noise as the keynote sounds of the restaurant. This includes the sounds of the people air conditioner, general kitchenware and seats.

Other sounds that I expected to hear more clearly included the sounds of footsteps and the sounds of plates and kitchen utensils being used. While I could not consciously define those sounds, the sounds that I was able to distinguish intrigued me and all contributed to the feel of the establishment.

While the actual recording of the Coop Fountain was fairly similar to my observation, there were a few differences. The actual recording of the soundscape was marked by the chatter of the customers, the general sounds of kitchenware, the sound of the doors closing, and the music of the establishment. Additional sounds included a footstep (2:57) and sounds from a faucet (or another instrument of liquid dispersion) of some sort (5:42). I could not distinctly hear the sounds air conditioning vent or the booth seats, which may have been present but masked due to the increase in the amount of people from the time in which I originally wrote about my examination of the soundscape. Under the context of the recording, both the music and the sound of people talking were the most notable (and attractive) aspects of the soundscape, making them both appear to be signals. With the other miscellaneous sounds, I would again regard them as keynote sounds in the fact that they formed the background of the soundscape.

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Location

This recording was made at the Bernard Field Station in Claremont. More specifically, this recording was taken next to the chicken coop at the BFS. On the day this recording was made, there were no chickens in the coop. The day was hot and the recording area is a large open space, far away from any commercial activity or roads.

Recording

This recording was made using a TASCAM DR-40 Sound Recorder. The recorder was placed on a tripod under a tree.

Description

The predominant sound in most of the recording is birds chirping. There seem to be multiple types of birds. Then, at the 0:31 minute mark, a low whirring noise is heard. This was due to an airplane flying over us. At the 1:23 minute mark, a train horn is heard. It is interesting that the train horn is heard, considering that the recording was made very far away from the train tracks; about a mile north. The train horn sound travels over a mile to the BFS, while all the other noises from the Claremont Colleges do not reach this spot of the BFS at all. The soundscape depicted in this recording is calm, natural and almost rural. It’s interesting to know that this soundscape was recorded very close to the dorm rooms and dining halls of the Claremont Colleges, because this soundscape tells a unique story.

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Location: Augie’s Coffee

Augie’s Coffee house is a charming coffee spot across the street from the Claremont packing house. I would depict the coffee house as a quaint, transparent, cute, and timeless canvas that is definitely worth taking up some space in anybody’s  photo gallery. Along with being photogenic, the business is also extremely skilled at making delicious coffee.

Recording Setup. The TASCAM DR-40 Linear PCM was placed on one of the counters along the wall to the right side (looking from the front door) facing out towards the middle of the space.

About the Soundscape. The recording was at 6:00 on a Friday evening. This seemed like a busy evening for the coffee house, but as customers received their beverages and decided whether to stay or leave, those who decided to stay did not engage in much conversation. The recording illustrates this anomaly in the beginning. It is not until the crescendo of a musical song led by the playing of guitar that you start to hear inklings of dialogue being exchanged between customers. As I listened to the recording I found this sequence of events most fascinating because we are able to observe how sound, specifically musical sound, prompts one to engage in discussion with another–or at least lighten the mood of people within close proximity of this sound. Moreover, I would say that the keynote of this place that may not have been heard in the recording would be the sounds of customers making orders. Additionally, I believe that the customers’ conversations, typing of laptop keyboards, music , and coffee being made would all contribute to the soundscape of Augie’s Coffee House. Lastly, the archetype of Augie’s Coffee House encompasses the use of various machines to complete the customers’ orders, the constant arranging and occasional dropping of cups by employees in midst of fulfilling orders, and music being played at high volumes over the PA system within the cafe.

bgmp 2312

Location and Recording description:

Recorded on a clear yet windy morning, by the gated pool area on Pitzer campus. It was relatively early and it seemed not too many people were out. The open space was framed by dorms, tables, and the gate. I assumed the water would affect the sound quality, and it did seem to thicken the audio somehow. I also wonder if wind played a role in distributing sound? Overall, a somewhat pleasant atmosphere.

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Location:

This recording was taken in the machine shop in Harvey Mudd College’s Libra Complex. The Libra Complex is Mudd’s series of tunnels and halls that lie below the academic half of campus. The halls are filled with classrooms and labs. Specifically the room of this recording is an Engineering machine shop filled with student workers and high-end machines such as computer-led lathes and presses. The shop itself lies underground which separates the sounds in the environment from the areas around them. This also adds an interesting soundproofing between many of the rooms as the noise has to penetrate earth walls between rooms. The room has machines lining the walls, spaces for shop proctors (read: instructors) and for students to work, and a radio on a table at the far end for music.

Recording:

I made this recording using the TASCAM DR-40 Sound Recorder by putting it on a small tripod that I set on the ground next to an unused machine. The recorder was in the middle of the room and faced a machine about 7 feet away that a student was working at.

Description:

This clip begins with a prominent soundmark of the machine shop: machines whirring. This noise is presented in conjunction with music from the radio, another soundmark of the machine shop, and student chatter, a keynote for the hallways of the Libra Complex. At roughly 3.4, we hear the clang of a lathe stopping. This is a signal in this soundscape as it alerts others that something important is happening with a machine. The general chatter and whirring continues until we hear another signal at 37.7, the laughter of one of the students. This is a signal of the student’s feelings. At 47.7 we hear another keynote of the Libra Complex’s, explanation from a supervising student, in this case a shop proctor, to another student. This dynamic occurs frequently among students working in the different rooms of the complex. At 59.7 we again her the signal of another machine stopping, and after this point the recording is much quieter, leading us to hear more of the background music and conversation. The final noise of the recording is the song changing and the shop proctor reacting to change the song at 84.3 on. This is a signal of how the shop proctor responded to the new sound, as well as a soundmark that characterizes the space of the machine shop itself, as music changes are quite common.

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Location:

Picture of recorder setup and washing stations at time of recording.

The Village Mutt is located in a shopping center on Foothill Blvd. In Claremont, right across the street from Harvey Mudd College. It is a pet-wash located right next to an animal orphanage and child day-care. These unique buildings all near each other form a very interesting segment of the greater 5C soundscape. The store itself is filled with animals waiting to get washed and a lot of equipment to clean them. My recording takes place at about 11 AM, so the shop had just started running for the day.

Recording:

I made this recording with the TASCAM DR-40 Sound Recorder by setting it on a small tripod placed on a table about 3 feet off the ground. The table was placed near the middle of the main lobby of the dog-wash, facing toward a sink/hairdryer machine that a dog was being cleaned on. The recorder was underneath a speaker in the ceiling playing music.

Description:

When the recording begins, we can hear a few people talking in the wash and music lightly playing from the aforementioned speaker. Starting at 12.9 we begin to hear a large dog wagging its tail on the ground. This is the first sound that marks the soundscape as something special: a place for pets and animals. This wagging is thus a soundmark of the location of the recording, but at a more general level this is an audible signal from the dog about how it feels at that moment. At 24.0, we hear another small squeak, namely a dog playing with a dog toy. This too is a soundmark for a location such as ours, as it is not usual to hear such a noise in any place without pet prominence. A pet-shower begins running at 30.4, another soundmark for a pet-wash, and at the same time we hear a small child talking with her dad. This was an interesting and unexpected addition to this soundscape recording, but I believe it acts as a keynote for the greater area, showing the interactions between the area and the daycare nearby. Though the exact sound itself may not be common, a set of very similar sounds pervades the area. 36.9 on to about 54.0, with a final instance at 69.2, introduce a routine dog bark that acts as not only a soundmark, but again a signal to the trained ear as to how the dog is feeling or perhaps even the breed of the dog in question. The recording wraps up with another listen in to the father and daughter, and hear the inflection of their voice can be used as a specific signal to help listeners understand the feelings between the two in the recording.

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Location: Yogurtland is a self-serve yogurt store in the Claremont Village. It is an asymmetrically shaped room. For this recording, the microphone was rested on one of the tables that I was sitting at in the middle of the room. The recording was made at the end of the night when Yogurtland was starting to close.

Soundscape: At the time of the recording there were about 4 other people in the store plus 2 Yogurtland employees. Yogurtland is a prominent yogurt store in Claremont and one of the only stores open late at night. In the soundscape you can hear lots of different noises during all times of the recording, with a constant noise level that has few surprises. In the background there are speakers playing soft music to set the ambiance. You can hear people talking and laughing as they eat yogurt. The sound of the door opening and closing as people come in and out of the store can also be heard. There’s the sound of metal chairs screeching against the floor as people get up and sit down. Because I was in the store late at night there were some sounds that are unique to a store closing. There were sounds of trash cans being wheeled around. The sounds of a sweeper and mop are in the soundscape because of workers cleaning the building as they prepare to shut down. Overall, the ambiance is light and friendly, as is expected of a yogurt store. There were some unique sounds I captured due to the store closing. This particular soundscape is important to my Claremont life because I eat yogurt here all the time. Also, Yogurtland is in the village, which practically makes it an extension of the Claremont Colleges due to its close proximity.

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Location: Outside of Thatcher Music Building

Recording Setup: The TASCAM DR-40 Linear PCM was placed on top of the black and yellow sculpture, and was facing in the direction of Little Bridges.

About the Soundscape: This recording took place at 3:42 PM on Tuesday, February 28. At this time, most students are either still in class or studying, so not many people were out and about. The characteristic sounds of this soundscape are not unique to the area; throughout the recording, cars driving on College Avenue, birds chirping, and wind can be heard. The sound of the wind was exaggerated because it was an unusually windy day, and the wind screen was not on the recording device. Based on my experience in this location, keynotes of this soundscape are wind through trees (the rustling of leaves inaudible in the recording), cars driving on College Avenue, and birds chirping. If I had made my recording about 15 minutes later, there would have been more sounds of people, because classes end at 4:00 PM, so people leaving the building would have been picked up by the recording device.

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Location: Harwood Court Room 233 Balcony

Recording Setup: The TASCAM DR-40 Linear PCM was placed on the balcony of the room facing Bonita Avenue.

About the Soundscape: The recording was made at 8:51 PM, on February 28, 2017. This was a lively evening in the room, as one resident was playing a video game while talking to a friend through the console’s headset; the other was watching a show on Netflix with a friend. The prominent feature of this recording is the voice of the resident playing video games, as he was closer to the recording device. He was speaking in Portuguese. The voices of the others can be heard faintly in the background, as well as periodic coughs and laughs. About a third of the way through the recording, a character in the show breaks out into song. Later, an emergency vehicle drives down College Avenue with sirens on. The room is close enough to that street to hear its traffic, especially when the window is open. The main keynote of this soundscape is traffic on College Avenue and Bonita Avenue. The soundmark of this soundscape are the conversations each resident is having; it is not uncommon for either of the residents to be playing a video game or watching a show. Despite this, the room is not usually that loud – most of the conversations I have had with people living in that room or a neighboring room have happened in either the hallway or a different room.

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Location: Fountain in the middle of the academic quad

This location was the fountain in the middle of the academic quad at Pomona College. It was a relatively clear and sunny day.

Recording Setup: The recording device used was the TASCAM DR-40 Linear PCM Recorder, and it was placed on one of the benches next to the quad.

About the soundscape: The recording took place around 2:00 p.m., so many students were either in their dorms or in class. This led to a rather uneventful, yet peaceful soundscape of the fountain. Specific keynotes in this soundscape had to be the constant rushing of water going down the fountain, as well as the underlying hum of vehicles passing by. The recorder was placed at a moderate distance from the fountain, so it was audible throughout the recording but definitely never overpowering. The humming of car engines was also present in most of the soundscape, but it was loudest around 3 seconds in the start of the recording, leading me to believe that a vehicle passed by in the adjacent street to the fountain. A signal that was heard near the end of the recording was the two students talking indistinctly as they were walking by. The final “yeah” from one of the students was the only word that was discerned from this conversation. The rest of the recording consisted of the peaceful sound of the fountain.

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Location: Scripps Music Practice Rooms are hidden underground, to the northeast of the Performing Arts Center. The rooms lie on the sides of two nested rectangles. Both the encompassing and the encapsulated rectangles have longer sides extending in North-South direction. The rooms are usually busiest on weekday afternoons. For this recording, the microphone rested approximately 10 inches above the ground in the Southwest corner of the rooms in the corridor between the two rectangles. The recording was made on a busy Saturday night when 5 piano students are practicing.

Soundscape: When the recording was made, there were at least 5 piano students practicing concurrently; however, since the microphone was placed in a corner, the two neighboring rooms’ music was most audible, with the practice on Liebestraum being much more dominant. The second piece can most easily be heard when Liebestraum was paused or weak at 00:13, 00:26, and 00:32. Besides the sound made by piano, the clock in the background is also audible. In fact, among the sounds, the clock’s is the most clear and crisp because the piano musics were played in enclosed rooms and their sounds had completed multiple reflections within the rooms before they reach the microphone.

There is no keynote in this soundscape, all of the major sounds intrigue conscious listening. The pianos played in the foreground are archetypes of the soundscape: they identify the rooms as music practice rooms. The fact that the pieces are often paused or interrupted informs the listeners that this is a practice room rather than a recital hall. The pianos can also be considered sound signals because the listeners perceive them consciously. The ticks of the clock may also be classified as a sound signal if the listeners are actively aware of them; otherwise they are the only keynote in this soundscape. The clock ticks are definitely community sound as they are the universal signals of time.

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Location:

Case laundry room is in the Northeast corner of 1^st floor case dorm. It is the only laundry room in the dorm. The room has one door and one window facing Case courtyard. The room is rectangular, with four washers and four dryers lined up along the two longer sides. For this recording, the microphone rested approximately 7 inches above the 3^rd washer from the wall. The recording was made on a Sunday afternoon when only one dryer was operating. There is another person in the laundry room waiting for the drying to end during the recording.

Soundscape:

the most prominent sound in the soundscape is the noise of the dryer. Since there was only one operating dryer throughout the recording, the dryer’s noise is single layered. This background noise was interrupted by the sound of water (00:12), footsteps (00:40), and the opening and closing of the door (00:42). An interesting feature of the interrupting noises is that they are very informative: a listener can visualize the actions and movement of the actor in this scene by tracing through the noise. Even without knowing what the laundry room shapes like, an listener can deduct that a person walked across the room after washing something and left the room.

The noise of the dryer is the keynote as well as the archetype of the soundscape. It is very consistent throughout the recording and it informs the listeners that this place is unmistakably a laundry room. Sound signals in the soundscape are the interruptors mentioned above: sound of water (00:12), footsteps (00:40), and the noise of the door (00:42). They provide cues to the movement of the person. There is no community sound in this soundscape, but there would be one if the recording was made when the drying finished and signaled with a “beep”.

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Soundscape: Harvey Mudd Cafe

Media:

Recordings (see above)

Location:

The location of this soundscape was in the Harvey Mudd Cafe. This location is spacious. There are two components. Majority of the space is made for study area where there are students working. There is also a Starbucks attached to it. This recording was done at around 5 in the afternoon on Sunday, 26^th Feb.

Recording Setup and Recording Device:

To record the soundscape, the TASCAM DR-40 sound recorder was placed on the table in the study area. It was left there for a total of 5 minutes and 30 seconds and was not touched.

About the Soundscape:

Due to the time and date this was taken, the café had quite a few people there and therefore that also meant more activity in Starbucks. It was a Sunday afternoon when most people are trying to finish up their work so there was quite a lot of action. The soundscape, therefore, was never quiet.

In the recording, most of the soundscape is comprised of the background music playing on speaker rather than people talking. This soundscape promotes a calming atmosphere. It is interesting that in the beginning, the music does not start playing until 00:09. At 00:24-00:25, there is a rustling of paper illustrating that there was someone close by doing homework. At 00:35 there is a fidgeting noise, sounding like somebody clicking on their computer. Surprisingly, there is not much noise coming from the Starbucks aspect of the environment. The one place in the recording resembling something being made is at 00:44-00:46 which is heard very slightly in the background.

The keynote of this soundscape is certainly the music playing in the background. There is also a buzzing sound in the background but that is probably from the fans or the whirring noise from the air conditioning. An example of a sound signal in this recording is a faint laugh in the very beginning at around 0:05. It is very noticeable because the recording starts as complete silent because the music is not playing yet, and then the laughter comes up and it is very distinctive because it breaks the silence. Another example would be the slight background noise of drinks being made or coffee being brewed in the background. This, however, is very faint. There is no specific sound mark happening in this recording. There seems to lack a unique community sound. The rustling of the paper, however, can almost be referred to as a sound mark in this case to the audience of the soundscape due to the lack of significant sounds throughout the soundscape. The rustling of the paper happens closes to the mic of the recording, and therefore it is very clear and crisp and becomes very noticeable. It can be specially regarded because it also provides a clue to the “workspace” atmosphere of the soundscape.

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Location: Starbucks at the Village

This location was inside the Starbucks inside the Village, next to Pomona College. It is a relatively small-sized shop, with multiple tables and a cozy environment.

Recording Setup: The recording device used was the TASCAM DR-40 Linear PCM Recorder, and it was placed on top of a table in the corner of the shop, next to the entrance.

About the Soundscape: The soundscape was recorded around 6:00 P.M., which seemed to be quite a busy time for Starbucks. There were people moving in and out constantly, and there was never a quiet moment when recording my soundscape. The keynote of this soundscape consists of two components. One has to be the constant indistinguishable conversations of the people around us. I was not able to make out a conversation from other people, but there were some moments where someone would say something louder than normal, such as a high school student exclaiming something to his friends. This would be regarded as more of a signal. Another keynote in this recording was the music playing through the speakers of the shop, and it help set the overall soundscape of a bustling coffee shop. Finally, a soundmark that was present in this soundscape was definitely the prominent sound of the fan and door when someone was entering or exiting the store. It would happen at regular intervals and indicates that this particular Starbucks was having a busy day.

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Location: Scripps College Rose Garden

Recording setup: I placed the TASCAM recorder on the table right next to the garden. The table is in between two dorms and in front of the quad.

About this soundscape: The Scripps Rose Garden, nestled between two dorms and the border of Harvey Mudd College, is a quiet sanctuary at the Claremont colleges. Not only is it aesthetically beautiful, with trellises decked in flowers and rows of roses, but it is also very quiet. I chose this space to see if a place designed to be quiet really was quiet.

Keynotes and sound marks: You will hear ID cards swiping into dorms, feet crunching on pebbles, doors slamming, voices chattering, and a slight breeze. Even with all that, it is still very silent. I sat at a table by the entrance and observed students walking into their dorms, walking to and from the dining hall, and stopping to chat with each other. Though there are walls on either side, which could make it echoey, I believe the roses and plants absorb the sound. I also couldn’t hear what was going on inside the dorms, which makes it a rare, peaceful campus location. I had to amplify it a little on Audacity to hear most of the sound. It’s interesting how the spikes in sound on the intensity graph are extremely large with certain cues (for example, the door opening, which sounded across the garden) and then are relatively quiet until the next big cue. It shows that this space really does not have a constant interaction with sound; unlike many other places on campus, this one is extremely filtered and sheltered.

Archetypes and signals: Again, this is an extremely typical location on a lot of college campuses (a quiet refuge from the noise of the campus); however, I doubt most colleges are this quiet. I wonder if it would be different to do this at a large state school, as opposed to a small liberal arts college for women. The few signals there are are the “boundaries” of the rose garden — ID cards swiping, voices floating from the dining halls which remind us that we’re not actually in a sanctuary.

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Location: The hub at CMC. I was sitting outdoors on the patio eating some food on a table. The recorder was standing on the table. Behind me was a series of glass window panes and doors that served as the walls of the inside of the hub. I was surrounded by other tables and in front of the patio is a big walkway and fountain.

Soundscape: At the time of the recording the Hub was busy with lots of students eating and talking. You can hear the chatter and conversing of students all around. The area is bustling with student activity. You can also hear the fountain, which is a soundmark of the area. Metal chairs banging and screeching across the floor along with footsteps and clapping make up the majority of the rest of the soundscape.

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Location: The Bernard Field Station is a natural laboratory located on the Northest part of the 5C campus that serves as a natural environment in which students can conduct experiments in. It is a piece of land that has been left mostly untouched and is isolated from any outside disturbances which replicates the natural ecology of California. Since it is home to a lot more wildlife and gets rare visits from humans, the soundscape of the field station is very much different than the rest of the 5Cs campus.

At the time of my recording they were working on the construction of a new facility within the field station (at a distance), which can be heard in the recording.

Recording: I made my recording on the edge of the (artificial) lake located within the Field Station, at 8:30am in order to capture all the wildlife activity that goes on in the morning. The capturing was done using a TASCAM DR-40 Sound Recorder at a height of 3ft with the windscreen.

Description:
The clip starts with a strong industrial humming sound which sounds like an airplane, but is actually coming from the construction. Although the humming is prominent, you can still hear bird calls going on in the background. Since the geo-spatial aspect of the audio is removed in the recording it is hard to tell if the calls are made by a single bird, or multiple birds. However, to the sophisticated ear these bird calls act as signals, acting as identifiers of the birds species, and possibly intention. Since the birds live, or frequently visit the field station, the presence of bird calls can be considered a soundmark, although the individual calls change with season and time of day. By themselves, these calls can additionally be considered as signals between the birds. At 0:27, we hear the train whistle coming from the train station down in the Claremont Village. This is a sound that can be heard all across the campus, and I’m surprised that it could also be heard from the north border of the campus. It acts as both a signal, letting people know that the train has arrived, and also a keynote. At 0:50 and 1:10 you can hear quiet rustling noises which was caused by a bird diving into the reeds located near the lake.

Part 1:

Part 2:

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Location: The quad is in located in the middle of four dorm buildings, and is a very active part of campus. It’s surrounded by concrete roads which students walk or skate on to travel between their dorm rooms, classrooms and the dining hall. Both West Dorm and North Dorm have student-operated speakers (facing East and West respectively) that they use to broadcast music to their residents during the day. Since both dorms’ speakers are angled slightly outwards, the quad in between the two dorms gets two separate streams of loud music from both dorms. Since this is the residential end of the campus, you can often hear students walking or skating around, shouting to each other, or having conversations. The flat architecture of the inner dorm can result in echoing of music and voices, sometimes making it hard to locate the sources of sounds.

Recording: The recording was done in the grassy area in the middle of the four inner (U-shaped) dorms using a TASCAM DR-40 Sound Recorder at a height of 3ft with the windscreen.

Description: From the beginning of the clip, you can hear music on the background which is a a distinctive soundmark for this location. The clip starts with somebody screaming/calling to their friend–a signal–and then we can hear scratching noises which are made by people walking by. Halfway through the first recording we hear another speaker go on, resulting in two different streams of music. The cacophony of multiple speakers is once again very characteristic of the soundscape of the quad. At 0:40 we hear some rustling/scratching noises again. Although this sounds like an artifact, I think it is the result of people walking on the sidewalk along the quad, and can be considered a keynote sound. At 1:20 (Part 2, 0:20), you can make out slight talking which is mostly masked by the music. At 1:40 (Part 2, 0:40), you can hear the sound of wheels going across the sidewalk. This 2-part sound is a result of the the front and the back wheels crossing cracks on the quad sidewalk, and is a very prominent keynote within the Mudd soundscape.

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Location: Lebus Court.

This is located near a fountain behind Little Bridges and in front of the Harwood Dorm. It is a very small courtyard with several wooden tables and a fountain that is prevalent in the recording.

Recording Setup. The TASCAM DR-40 Linear PCM Recorder was placed on a table facing the Harwood Dorm.

About the soundscape. The recording was made at about 2:40 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon. There were no other people around so it was fairly quiet. There were only a few sounds and only one that could be considered a soundmark. The soundmark is the sound of the fountain, though there are several fountains throughout Pomona College, so it is not very significant or unique. The keynote is the sound of the bird throughout the recording. There is also the sound of a car passing at some point. These sounds could be considered characteristics of the archetype of the typical outdoor soundscape at Pomona College.

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Location: Weight Room at the Rains Center, Pomona College.

The Rains Center is near East 6th Street and Smiley Dorm. It is a center for sports and other physical activities. The weight room contains many weight machines and free weights.

Recording Setup. The TASCAM DR-40 Linear PCM Recorder was placed on a table near the entrance of the weight room.

About the soundscape. The recording was made at 5:30 p.m. on Monday. It was fairly busy with 1 person using the squat rack, 2 people using the bench press bars, about 6 people using the machines, and 4 people using dumbbells. Music from the radio is very prevalent in the recording along with conversation about weight lifting from a pair of people. There are many sounds of weights being put down or slid around. The soundmark of this soundscape are the metallic sounds of the weights shifting. The keynote could be the voices of people talking to each other about their workout routines. The sound of the weights and bars, the content of the conversations, and loud music could be considered characteristics of the archetype of typical weight rooms.

During recess

End of recess

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Location and time.  The primary-grades playground of Chaparral Elementary School during first recess.  The recorder (a TASCAM DR-40) was on the eastern edge of the playground.

About the Soundscape.
Kids are talking, yelling, and screaming.  There is the sound of tetherball chains rattling. We hear balls bouncing off the handball wall or the ground, and the soft thuds of rubber balls hitting black top. There is rhythmic bouncing of balls from the handball wall to the ground. There is also the sound of kids kicking the soccer ball. Ropes and shoes quietly click and shuffle as kids jump rope.

When the bell [actually a loud electronic tone] rings at the end of recess, everyone squats down until a whistle says to get up and go inside.  It gets quieter after the bell rings and louder after the whistle. Some indications that this is an elementary-school playground include the high-pitched voices of kids, the sounds of playground games such as tetherball, and the sound of the bell.

—By the students in Mrs. Andrade’s 3rd-grade class

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Location

The soundscape was recorded within the walls of Haldeman pool at Pomona. It was about 8:30 pm on Wednesday, March 5, 2014, and the water polo team was mid-practice.

Recording setup/device

With the coach’s permission, I stood in the corner of the walled-in pool area and recorded the minute-long recording above with the TASCAM DR-40 SOUND RECORDER. I kept the recorder generally pointed at the center of the pool.

About the soundscape

As previously stated, the recording documents a Wednesday evening water polo practice at the Pomona pool. It’s a full-sized pool surrounded by thick walls maybe 8 feet high. Out of the water are several other people, some coaches, some other team members not playing, and a few lifeguard chairs. The coaches are in steady but spaced out communication with the athletes in the pool. Most of the sound consists of the splashing of water, which I would label a sonic archetype of any active swimming pool as well as a keynote of the recording as it pervades the entire recording. In addition, one hears shouts and calls by the players and coaches, the blowing of a whistle, and the blunt smack of flesh hitting the ball, which is similar to a volleyball.

I would designate the sound of the whistleblowing a signal that there was some interruption in the game, be it a time-out or a goal scored. I hear the sporadic vocalizing of the team and the coaches as a sound mark, as well as the impact sound of players hitting the ball. These sounds plus that of the water allow our minds to locate ourselves in a water sports setting, and if we pay attention we can specify that the game involves a ball.

Media: 

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Location: The Hoch Shanahan dining hall is located in the middle of Harvey Mudd College’s campus. Within, the hall is primarily serviced by a single, large, open room. Though as tall as two story buildings elsewhere on campus, the hall itself is only on the ground level; within the dining space, the ceiling is very tall. The north wall is entirely windows or glass doors, and the ceiling is broken by skylights. The food service area is separated from the seating by a wood paneled structure that supports drink machines. In both the dining space and the service space, the floor is tile. The chairs are plastic, and the tables only appear wooden on the surfaces. In the food service area, counters are chrome or otherwise metallic, with sneeze guards all around. At the time of recording, the dining hall was several minutes into Sunday dinner: not the most populous meal, but various bodies entered and exited the hall and various areas, sparsely filling seats and eating.

Recording Setup: The microphone was placed on a table in the center of the dining area, pointed away from the north windows and slightly up, almost aiming at the open space above the service area. The table it was on had no people sitting at it, but surrounding tables were occupied.

About the soundscape:

At the time of the recording, the Hoch is quiet compared to it’s usual buzz of human activity. Still, there was a general hum of people talking almost constantly present; this is a keynote of the space, and is so typical a sound that it is tuned out almost to background noise. Similarly, intermittent clattering can be heard. This comes from both silverware on plates in the dining area, and the shifting of serving platters in the back. These clinks and clacks are an archetype, since the space is foremost a dining hall which means food and the presence of these utensils to consume it. Various signals are present as well. About 5 seconds into the recording (0:05), a beep can be heard. This is an individual “tapping into” the dining hall, arriving for dinner. At 1:05, a chair scraping against the ground is heard, signaling the arrival of someone else to a table. The sounds coalesce into a clearly social space, but still one primarily for dining. It is arguable whether or not any soundmarks are present in the recording. One may argue that the distinct laughter heard at 0:14, sticking out from the background noise, is a sound of joy. It may be worth preserving, as it s a characteristic only achievable in a relaxed, open atmosphere. But it may also be just a signal of the individual’s amusement, conveyed and then dissipating into the background again.

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Location.  The Honnold Café is on the first floor of the Honnold Mudd library.  The library is central to the Claremont colleges – it sits right between Pomona, Scripps, CMC, and CGU, and serves as a study space for students from all of the colleges and graduate schools.

Recording Setup.  A table in the center of the cafe, about 15 feet from the cafe counter, with the recorder pointed towards the counter.

About the Soundscape.  It’s 4 pm on a Sunday, so there are plenty of people in the café studying and ordering coffees to help with their studying.  The café is large, with low ceilings and wood-paneled square pillars about every 15 feet.  There are square tables, couches, and chairs littered everywhere, and all of them are occupied.  The walls are a dull beige, and the floor is carpeted with a print that would not look out of place in an airport.  It seems like the library has spent some money on lighting fixtures to make the place feel hip, but there are too many of these trendy lighting fixtures to make them feel original and not mass-ordered from a trendy-library-lighting catalog. Talking is allowed in this part of the library, so there is light chatter, the main keynote of the space.  I would designate the sound of conversations as an archetype sound of cafes, a representation of discourse and learning and academic banter.

It is difficult not to listen to neighboring conversations.  Surprisingly, the microphone did not pick up the conversation of two female students sitting a mere 3 feet away from me, probably a good thing as I did not want to intrude on their private conversation.  Conversational noise, when interesting enough, can function as a signal noise by directing my attention away from my own studying.

Wherever you are in the sitting area beyond the counter, you can hear the espresso machine whirring away to prepare coffee orders, and you can hear the clanging of the barista loosening the used espresso grounds from the portafilter after she has made an order.  Both of these espresso-related sounds, the whirring and the clanging, are the prominent keynotes of the cafe counter, though the portafilter clanging is loud enough to be a signal.  My brain snaps to it whenever it occurs.  Other keynotes emanating from behind the counter include the electric buzz of the freezer and the squelching noise whenever someone opens it.  Another signal that happens at about 10 seconds into the soundscape is the whirring of a blender behind the counter.  This is so loud, that I’m often surprised cafe patrons don’t get annoyed by it.

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You can listen to a related recording “The Cafe, Mudd, 1:05pm on Monday” here.

This soundscape sample was recorded at The Cafe in Shanahan Center at Harvey Mudd College. It was around 2:35, and because many classes in the Shanahan building that began at 1:15 end at 2:30, we can expect a huge influx of people in the cafe. I was holding the recording device with its two mics facing toward the counter and people lined up.

Unlike the recording done at the same place about an hour ago (where there weren’t as many people), the background music is almost inaudible because of all the sound generated from the people around the location. Near the end of the recording, as some people move away from the location (or exit the room), the music becomes a lot more noticeable. We still hear the same steam noise and some metallic clangs which comes from either the coffee machine or other various kitchen tools. However, now all these noises are more or less blended together and less prominent that they were in the earlier recording (The Cafe, Mudd, 1:05pm on Monday). These background noises aren’t constant throughout the recording, however, and it is hard to decide whether these noises can be considered as keynote of the soundscape. On the other hand, we hear at least a couple conversations among several students pretty clearly, at least compared to the muffled conversation we hear in the earlier recording. This is mostly because the students were quite close to the recording device. Nonetheless, the Cafe was pretty crowded at the time so even if I tried picking a different spot within the room, I probably would have ended up with at least one person near me and the recording device. I consider these conversations as a signal. They are exchanging information in the form of questions and answers (“He has.” “He did?” “Did you take a picture of it?” “Do you have class?”).

Media:

Recording:

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Photograph:1wt

Image from http://www.cmsathletics.org/facilities/zinda-burns/index

This picture was taken from the western/top-most portion of the stadium.

Location: This soundscape was taken at 2:15 on Monday, February 10^th, 2014 on top of Fritz B. Burns Stadium at Claremont-McKenna College.

Recording Setup:  The recorder was placed on the top-most purple bleacher (see picture) on the west third of the stadium.  It was located furthest east on this third of the stadium.  About a foot from behind the recorder was a concrete wall that was around 3 feet high.

Recording Device: TASCAM DR-40 Sound Recorder, set to volume 33

About the Soundscape:

This space really demonstrates the sense of calmness and quiet that is present in the non-classroom-setting of the Claremont Colleges in the middle of a weekday. One keynote of this soundscape is the scraping sound of the groundskeepers shoveling dirt and sand at the softball field.  Interestingly, sound seems to carry very well from atop this stadium, and we can hear the rise and fall of the sand fairly distinctly even though it is far away.  This keynote is also probably seasonal because maintenance seems to be occurring on the field areas mainly during the peak of sports’ seasons.  Another keynote present here is wind, which I did not originally associate with the Claremont Colleges, but atop the stadium, it is quite prevalent.  The main soundmark of this stadium is the runner we hear towards the end of this recording.  This is not only an archetypal soundmark to signify that this is an athletic area with a track, but one that also distinguishes it from Pomona’s track, acting as an actual soundmark.  If we heard a runner on Pomona’s track, which does not have stadium bleachers, the sound of her footsteps would be much softer and of a different quality since track material is rubberized and absorbant.  In contrast, we hear the runner’s cushiony sounding steps at first (while he is on the track), followed by slightly reverberating, louder steps, made by the runner’s shoes on the concrete of the stadium steps as he runs up and down.

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You can listen to a related recording “The Cafe, Mudd, 2:35pm on Monday” here.

This soundscape sample was recorded at The Cafe in Shanahan Center at Harvey Mudd College. It was around 1:05, which is for most people in between lunch and their 1:15 pm class. The recording device was placed on one of the tables close to the counter, toward which the recorder’s two mics were facing.

There were only about 3-4 people (who were making noise/sound anyway) at the location, probably because it was right after lunch hours. Most of the sound is generated from the background music, various machines in the kitchen, and a small group of students discussing their work. The background music seems to be the keynote here. Although its volume is not small, one may be able to notice from its muffled sound and slight reverb that it is in fact played in the background throughout the entire space for the purpose of creating an ambience. Combining the sound of music with the machine (or clinging metal) noise, one may also consider this soundscape to be an archetype of a modern day cafe (at the beginning, we also hear a male voice ordering a drink). If you listen closely to the conversation between three male students, you may be able to figure out they are working on some kind of a math/science assignment (a word “complex conjugate” at 20.5 s is pretty audible). At 23 s, you hear a male voice saying “thank you.” Knowing the sample was recorded in a cafe, one may consider this to be a signal that the guy who ordered his drink in the beginning of the recording had just received his drink.

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The OUTBACK at Pitzer, Saturday, 9 February 2013, 9:30a.m.

Location.  Pitzer College OUTBACK natural field area north of the New Dorms on Pitzer Campus at the southwest corner of Foothill (US Route 66) and Claremont Blvd. in Claremont, Ca. 91711

Much of Mother Nature can be heard here.

Recording Setup: On a sunny Saturday morning at 9:30a.m. Set Recorder vertically on a rock in the middle of the field.

Recording device used:  Olympus DM-620
Record Settings:  Central Mic – ON (3 Mics operational) !!, Sensitivity – Medium, Mode: WAV 44100 bps  16 bit,  Level – Manual,  Zoom: OFF,  Lo Cut – OFF,  Volume Level – 15  (1-16 max)

Keynotes are the Wind and Traffic which comes and goes throughout the recording.

Soundmarks include Crows, Quail, Birds and Squirrels in the field.

Archetypes heard are the Traffic that signifies a Highway nearby

This natural wild area should be preserved for the students to enjoy.

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Location – Rains Center at Pomona College

It was the Pomona-Pitzer vs. CMS Mens’ Basketball game. The stands were full of fans. One side of the room had all the college students cheering for their team, and the other side had mostly parents, teachers, some students, and children. The men were playing on the court, the basketball pounding on the floor, and reps blowing their whistles and making calls. When a basket was scored or the ref made a favorable call, the crowds went wild. I stood near the western entrance to the gym inside the building. For part of the time, I held the recording device in my hands while watching the game. Later on, I sat on the bleachers and set up the microphone right by me on the bleacher level in front of me.

Keynotes: various voices, shoes against the floor

Soundmarks: heightened cheers, applause

Signals: whistles, announcer, chanting

Archytypes: cheers

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About the soundscape: This was recorded at a Pomona-Pitzer vs. CMS baseball game during parents weekend. I was recording from the bleachers slightly above the field on the third base side.

Signals in this soundscape include the applause and encouragement from parents and fans in the stands.

The main Keynote in this soundscape is the crack of the bat against the ball. A defining and unique sound of a baseball game that tells you why the people you initially hear chattering are there.

The crack of the bat is also an archetype, as well as some sounds that were cut off by the shortening of the recording to 2mb. One important archetype is the introduction song that is played for each new player who comes to bat. This is also a signal because each player has his own snippet of a different song played, communicating who is coming to bat.

The only soundmark I could hear would potentially be the birds chirping in the background.

Train Arriving

Train Picking up Passengers

Train Departing

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Location: Claremont’s Metro Station is an outdoor station situated in-between streets near 1^st Street and College Avenue. Providing public transportation to passengers, the train travels up to 90mph (132 feet per second) and weighs approximately 450 tons. There is a parking lot for passengers to park their cars, a shopping center, and a dog park nearby. During this recording, there were about 3-5 people waiting for the train in the afternoon.

Recording Setup: (Recording device: TASCAM-40). Recording was done near the ticket machines on a bench. Microphones were set up in opposite directions approximately 5ft. away from the train. The train was coming from the left side of the recorder.

About the soundscape: Before the metro arrived, two railway-crossing signs, each within approximately one block away in the vicinity of this station, signaled nearby vehicles to stop with 2 distinct, quick and repetitive bell-like sounds and railroad crossing gates. The train then blew its horns: two long, one short, and one long. When the train was one-half mile away from the stop, it gradually began to slow down, making an overpowering screeching noise that overrode the bell sounds. Once the train came to a complete stop, the doors opened for the passengers and an announcer made announcements. After all the passengers got on board, the doors closed and the train departed. The noise created from the acceleration of the train’s engines dominated the soundscape. However, once the train left, the soundscape consisted of people making noises.

Keynotes: Since this metro station is situated in an outdoor atmosphere and in-between streets, the keynote is composed of the everyday sound that nearby vehicles, pedestrians, and any other common organisms make; for example, people talking, their footsteps, the sound of passengers rolling their baggage, nearby car sounds, etc.  The soundscape was recorded on a windy day, so the sounds generated by the wind can also be identified as a keynote.

Soundmarks: The main sound from this soundscape is the horn: two long, one short, and one long. The train’s horn sounds are loud enough to be heard on Pomona College’s South Campus dorms such as Lyon, Harwood, etc.

Signals: The rapid bell sounds that the railroad crossing signals make and the horn of the train can be identified as signals of the soundscape. Both sounds signal the passengers that the train is about to arrive.

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Location: The intersection is a stoplight a block outside of the main village. There are homes on the north side of Bonita, apartments on the south. There is a bus stop on the northwest corner, and an audible cross walk speaker on every corner telling the crosser when the button has been pressed and when it is safe to cross which direction. Though not present in the recording, there is a train crossing a block down Cambridge, which is very audible from the intersection. A block east on Bonita are the fore and police stations, so sirens often pass.

Keynotes

• Wind
• Birds
• Cars

Soundmarks

• Cross walk audio
• Bus

Signals

•  Cross walk audio

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Location.
The soundscape recording was made at Pitzer college in front of the admissions office next to the Mesa parking lot. The ZOOM H2N recorder was placed on a low rock wall.

About the soundscape.

Keynotes: Keynote sounds in this soundscape include that of air ventilation that can be heard in the background throughout the recording, The wheels of small electric vehicles,footsteps of people walking by, A leaf is heard scraping the ground blown by the wind. There are a fair amount of bird sounds and frequent noise of small airplane traffic as the building is near a municipal airport. A car starting and driving by indicates this is near a parking lot.

Soundmarks: The soundmarks do not indicate clearly where this place is. There is an incongruent mix of natural, mechanical, artificial and human sounds in seeming random order.

Signals: The small electrical vehicle activate a beeping sound when they back up and this is a signal that is well known..

Archetypes: The small airplane traffic indicates that this is an area that may contain an airport.

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Location. Frank Dining Hall, on the campus of Pomona College, at Sunday brunch around noon. Specifically, the recording site was the wall of the room in which the food is served that is located by the door to the meeting room near the pizza and dessert serving areas. There are various serving areas throughout the room, both on the sides and in the middle, that break up the space. As one of the two dining halls on Pomona’s campus, and as the closest one to all South Campus dorms, Frank is a popular destination for students on Sunday mornings (or early afternoons) to fill their stomachs and to recount the weekend’s adventures. Many of the sounds captured thus relate either to serving food or socializing.

About the soundscape.

Keynotes: Keynote sounds in this soundscape include that of air ventilation that can be heard in the background throughout the recording, the squeak of shoes, footsteps of people walking by, and the fairly muffled voices of brief background conversations among students and workers; when in Frank, these sounds are not noticed unless one tries to pay attention to them. Various unclear noises, like rustling, that are heard at times in the recording are also keynotes.

Soundmarks: The noticeable soundmarks of Frank are the clinking of silverware being grabbed and the clattering of plates being set down or picked up; the intensity of these sounds varies throughout the recording, but they are quite common and noticeable in Frank due to the noisy nature of the plates and silverware holders there.

Signals: There are not any signals in this recording of the soundscape since none of the sounds are created with the intent of conveying a message.

Archetypes: The two soundmarks of clinking silverware and clattering plates can also be viewed as sonic archetypes, as the sounds of silverware and plates are widespread indicators of dining halls in general.

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Location: The quad between the four inner dorms of Harvey Mudd College. This is a grassy area with paved pathways running along the sides and dividing up sections of grass into large squares of about 250 square feet. The four inner dorms, each shaped like the letter U, open up into the quad. The recorder was placed in the middle of one of these grassy squares on top of the padded carrier it came with.

About the soundscape:

Keynotes: At the very beginning of the recording, the wind makes its appearance and establishes itself as a prominent keynote of this area. Throughout the recording, there are moments when the wind overpowers all other sounds of this soundscape, but this is mostly due to the microphone having no shielding. Another keynote might be the sound of aircraft over the quad. During the recording, two different aircraft fly overheard and this sound should be considered a keynote since this happens so often and it is not always noticed.

Soundmarks: The main sound that comes to mind is the music playing in the background. If you ever travel to the quad during the afternoon or night, you will most likely hear one of the dorms blasting music from speakers. This is a sound that is important to the community around the quad and unique to this area.

Signals: In the second half of the recording, there is a span of several seconds where there seems to be some clapping going on. Clapping is usually a signal of some sort and this might have been applause of some sort for someone performing in the quad. Also, there is human conversation throughout which is another signal.

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Location. A tree-filled garden stretches along the southern edge of Marston Quad, near Fourth Street.  Although college tourguides still call it a Shakespeare garden, it is now mostly planted with plants appropriate to California (including giant sequoia trees, of which one or two are still standing but not doing well in this climate).  For this recording, the microphone rested about six inches above the westernmost of the three concrete walkways that cross the garden, about 65 feet due north of Thatcher Music Building.

About the soundscape.  Two kinds of sounds are constant in this recording.  First is the steady hum of a machine that was being operated in the distance, probably at Smith Campus Center on the opposite corner of the Quad.  It’s not a sound I ordinarily hear at this site, and it was hard to ignore, so notwithstanding its unremitting presence in this recording I certainly don’t think of it as a keynote of the southern edge of Marston Quadrangle.  On the other hand, there is usually work being done by heavy equipment somewhere on the Pomona College campus, so perhaps in a general way the hum is a keynote of the College.  The second constant is the presence of bird songs and calls heard throughout the recording, mostly coming from trees and bushes.  As a constant sound that recedes to the background of consciousness, the bird sounds are a keynote of this scene–unless one is thinking about the scene as a naturalistic garden dominated by trees (or a Shakespeare garden!), in which case the birdsongs become archetypes indicating and epitomizing the kind of place this is, a garden.

Two sounds join and then leave the soundscape:  a car being driven down College Avenue (only one during the two minutes of this recording!), heard most prominently between 0:30 and 0:40, and a golf-cart-sized vehicle being driven on Fourth Street which passes close to the microphone between 1:30 and 1:40.  At the time of this recording, Fourth Street was a street with asphalt and curbs; during the summer of 2013 it was made into a wide walkway–but College groundskeepers and other support staff still travel on it in their small vehicles whose intermittent whirr, like the hum of heavy equipment, is a keynote of College life.

One might expect, on a concrete path in a College’s central quadrangle, to hear sounds archetypal of College:  the sounds of professors or students walking and talking, perhaps, or of frisbee being played.  Such sounds are absent here.  Marston Quadrangle is large and therefore almost never dense with people; and at 9:03 in the morning, those students who are awake are in class or working.  Shortly before 9:00 a few people were walking here and there, but at 9:03 people were not part of the scene.