The Vancouver Soundscape 1973

Soundscape Studies is a field that was born in Vancouver through the World Soundscape Project under the direction of R. Murray Schafer in the early seventies. Barry Truax, Hildegard Westerkamp, and recently Susan Frykberg, have continued the legacy of the World Soundscape Project at Simon Fraser University through a program of courses in Acoustic Communication. This work is now known throughout the world by many educators, composers, musicians, architects and people in other disciplines, and much consciousness has been raised towards the quality of the acoustic environment. In fact, in international circles Vancouver is recognized as the original centre for soundscape studies.

This double CD includes most of the original recordings published in 1973 by the World Soundscape Project at Simon Fraser University in its landmark study of the acoustic environment of Vancouver (re-released on CD I), plus new digital recordings and compositions made in the 1990s that show the changes in Vancouver’s soundscape in the intervening years. It is an oportunity to listen back into the seventies and to “revisit” the Vancouver Sounscape 20 years later. Vancouver’s growth and enormous changes within that time span are reflected in its soundscapes. By placing soundscapes from today and the 70s side by side these changes become audible.

– Hildegard Westerkamp and Barry Truax

The Vancouver Soundscape 1973

1. Ocean Sounds

2. Squamish Narrative

3. Entrance to the Harbour

4. Harbour Ambience

5. The Music of Horns and Whistles

6. Vancouver Soundtracks

7. Homo Ludens – Vancouverites at Play

8. The Music of Various City Quarters

9. New Year’s Eve in Vancouver Harbour

10. On Accoustic Design

Soundscape Vancouver 1996

11. Harbour Ambience

12. Recharting the Senses

13. The Hidden Tune

14. Vanscape Motion

15. Pacific Fanfare

16. Vancouver Soundscape Revisited

17. Documentary: The Changing Soundscape