A Brief History of Soundwalks

From Hildegard Westerkamp to Ellen Reid

Soundwalk. It’s what it sounds like, right? Listening and walking. What’s so special about that, that it needs its own compound word?

The term was first used by members of the World Soundscape Project under the leadership of composer R. Murray Schafer in Vancouver in the 1970s. Hildegard Westerkamp, from the same group of artists and founder of the World Forum of Acoustic Ecology, defines soundwalking as "... any excursion whose main purpose is listening to the environment. It is exposing our ears to every sound around us no matter where we are.

So says Wikipedia. Now let’s turn to Hildegard Westerkamp’s 1989 Kits Beach Soundwalk, because I think it’s both an example and a tutorial of sorts.

It’s a calm morning. I’m here on Kits Beach in Vancouver. It’s slightly overcast and very mild for January. And absolutely wind-still. -Hildegard Westerkamp

At first she sounds like a reporter. She drills down from Vancouver to Kits Beach, to some large rocks, to some barnacles and seaweed, to the meeting of the water and the barnacles; explaining the tiny clicking sounds. Then she leads us through some listening exercises, illustrating the subjectivity of sound and also the challenges of listening in an industrialized world. About half way through the narrative goes from a David Attenborough style to nature poet (say, Mary Oliver) to a full tilt new-age ASMR-ist.

What the heck is an ASMR-ist? Give this video a minute. (headphones highly recommended):

Okay, now we are on the same page. Westerkamp concludes the piece which sneakily brings in quite a few sound design elements in addition to the Kits Beach soundscape to conclude that she draws strength from the experience of listening closely.

But why call this a Soundwalk? There are sounds, for sure. The “walk” part is more elusive.

Westerkamp seems to rely on her narrative to supply the movement in the piece. About halfway through we are swept off our feet, delivered into a dreamscapes where tiny bullets tinkled like “tiny seductive semen” and smoldering charcoal sounds (excerpted from the 1958 Xenakis work Concret PH) sound “like needles darting from everywhere.” Whoa.

It’s really quite a journey, and it’s such a bold leap that if you’re not enjoying it, you might not be inclined to stick around for the conclusion:

As soon as I make space to hear sounds like this, or to dream them, then I feel the strength to face the city again, or even to be playful with it. Play with the monster. Then I can face the monster. -Hildegard Westerkamp

Play with the monster so you can face the monster. Now that’s a big finish! A walk indeed.

So a soundwalk is quite a malleable thing! There is certainly an emphasis placed on listening to sounds; noticing sounds that may not call attention to themselves. And yet a soundwalk may or may not include actual walking. What about music?

Let’s jump to modern day. In the last few years composer Ellen Reid has made a name for herself and breathed a lot of life into the term soundwalk with her bespoke modular compositions designed to play out dynamically via her own mobile app to listeners as they navigate the space. The listener’s direction, coordinates, and speed all factor into the playback. A listener can visit several times and hear the work differently based on their route and tempo.

Commissions for high profile public spaces such as Golden Gate Park, San Fransisco; Griffith Park, Los Angeles; Central Park, New York City, as well as London, Tokyo, Dublin, Greece have generated quite a buzz, easily securing her the top Google spot for the search query “soundwalk”.

Reid’s version of soundwalk is 100% music and it relies on some pretty sophisticated tech to weave it all together and spool it out to the listener. Her sonic palette seems to marry updated new age synth pads with orchestral and choral flourishes, judging from a longer video overview. One cannot listen to her works, however, without being on location so it’s kinda hard to tell.

So a soundwalk can be just music. It can be linear or non-linear. It can be high tech or low tech.

Portland Oregon’s Third Angle commissioned soundwalks from a variety of artists over the past 3 years. There are twelve to date and no two are particularly similar. I think there’s enough to discuss there for its own post.

So…conclusions? A soundwalk is wonderfully amorphous. The walk part seems optional, but the sound part—the listening—seems essential. The term seems to invoke some sort of intentionality involving the exploration of space and sound. It can be didactic (meant to inform) or, it can be exploratory. This Winnie-the-Pooh quote springs to mind:

“But what I like doing best is Nothing."

"How do you do Nothing?" asked Pooh, after he had wondered for a long time.

"Well, it's when people call out at you just as you're going off to do it, What are you going to do Christopher Robin, and you say, Oh, nothing, and you go and do it."

"Oh, I see," said Pooh.

"This is a nothing sort of thing that we're doing right now." "Oh, I see," said Pooh again.

"It means just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear and not bothering.”