What is Acoustic Ecology?
Acoustic ecology, sometimes called ecoacoustics or soundscape studies, is a discipline studying the relationship, mediated through sound, between human beings and their environment. Unlike acoustics as an engineering problem or music as an art form, acoustic ecology treats the sonic environment—termed the “soundscape”—as both a subject of study and a site of ethical responsibility. R. Murray Schafer suggests that we try to hear the acoustic environment as a musical composition and, further, that we own responsibility for its composition. The field examines how sounds reveal the health of ecosystems, the character of communities, and patterns of attention in human consciousness.
Origins & Lineage
Acoustic ecology studies started in the late 1960s with R. Murray Schafer a musician, composer and former professor of communication studies at Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) with the help of his team there as part of the World Soundscape Project. The World Soundscape Project was a research and educational endeavour founded in 1969 by Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer at Simon Fraser University (SFU). The original WSP team included Barry Truax, Hildegard Westerkamp, Bruce Davies and Peter Huse, among others. The first study produced by the WSP was titled The Vancouver Soundscape.
Schafer’s The Tuning of the World: The Soundscape, published in 1977, changed this limited understanding of sound and became the seminal text on acoustic ecology. In 1978, Barry Truax published the Handbook for Acoustic Ecology, establishing terminology and methods that remain foundational. In 1993, the members of the by now large and active international acoustic ecology community formed the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology.
Schafer’s work drew on Marshall McLuhan’s concept of “acoustic space” and emerged from concerns about noise pollution in rapidly developing cities. The soundscape project, which started as an artistic undertaking – due to soundscapes having “an artistic quality” – turned unintentionally into a unique form of environmentalism, by raising awareness (through recorded sounds of the audio ‘landscape’) of the damage inflicted by humans on the natural world.
How It’s Practiced
Acoustic ecology manifests through three primary modes: research, composition, and pedagogical practice.
Field Recording & Documentation: Practitioners make detailed recordings of sonic environments to study their character and changes over time. For the acoustic ecologist, the position of the recordist and listener has been seen as one. In other words, in acoustic ecology, there has been critical acknowledgment and even recognition of an added value in the subject’s participation in the recording.
Soundwalking: A soundwalk is 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. Participants are meant to walk in silence, listening attentively to details of their surrounding space. Developed by Hildegard Westerkamp in the 1970s, soundwalking remains a cornerstone practice for cultivating aural awareness.
Ear-Cleaning Exercises: Schafer developed listening exercises to increase sensitivity to the acoustic environment, training people to distinguish between keynote sounds (constant background), signals (foreground sounds demanding attention), and soundmarks (sounds unique to a place, analogous to landmarks).
Soundscape Composition: Among the most important soundscape composers are Barry Truax and Hildegard Westerkamp, both early members of WSP, while Luc Ferrari’s Presque Rien No 1 (1970) is regarded as a significant early soundscape composition. These works use field recordings as compositional material to heighten awareness of sonic environments.
Acoustic Ecology Today
The field has expanded far beyond its initial Vancouver base. Founded in 1993, the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology is an international organization whose members represent a multi-disciplinary spectrum of individuals engaged in the study of the social, cultural, and ecological aspects of the sonic environment across the world. Contemporary acoustic ecology includes scientists studying bioacoustics, sound artists creating installation works, urban planners addressing noise pollution, and educators leading community soundwalks.
Practitioners distinguish acoustic ecology from the related field of soundscape ecology. Acoustic ecology, which derives from the founding work of R. Murray Schafer and Barry Truax, primarily focuses on human perception of soundscapes. Soundscape ecology seeks a broader perspective by considering soundscape effects on communities of living organisms, human and other, and the potential interactions between sounds in the environment.
Contemporary work addresses climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental justice through sonic lenses. The field has also faced critical examination: Some scholars have argued that Schafer’s focus on pristine, natural soundscapes can be seen as a form of romanticism that overlooks the complex social and political dimensions of sound.
Common Misconceptions
It’s not just about noise reduction: Some say that acoustic ecology places a negative emphasis on noise in urban environments. In fact, it is concerned with improving the quality of the sonic environment, or soundscape, by re-sensitizing aural faculties both on the individual and the social level. The focus is on qualitative listening and soundscape design, not simply measuring decibels.
It’s not purely scientific: Prior to the WSP, sound had been studied either as a musician’s concern or as an engineering problem. Acoustic ecology intentionally bridges art, science, and social practice.
It’s distinct from soundscape ecology: While often used interchangeably, acoustic ecology centers human perception and cultural meaning, whereas soundscape ecology (developed by Bernie Krause and Stuart Gage in 2001) focuses more narrowly on biological sounds and ecosystem health metrics.
Not all field recording is acoustic ecology: Commercial sound libraries and ambient music production may use similar tools, but acoustic ecology emphasizes place-based listening, ecological awareness, and the recordist’s embodied participation in the environment.
How to Begin
Start with listening. Find a place—urban or natural—and sit for fifteen minutes. Notice what sounds are constant (keynote), which demand attention (signal), and which are unique to that location (soundmark). This basic practice, adapted from Schafer’s ear-cleaning exercises, requires no equipment.
For deeper study, read The Tuning of the World (1977) by R. Murray Schafer, later republished as The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World. Barry Truax’s Handbook for Acoustic Ecology (1978), available free online at sfu.ca/sonic-studio/handbook, provides essential terminology.
Join or organize a soundwalk. Many cities have acoustic ecology groups affiliated with the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology (wfae.net) offering public walks and workshops. If working independently, walk familiar routes with attention focused exclusively on sound, noting how the sonic character changes by time of day or season.
For those drawn to creative practice, explore the work of Hildegard Westerkamp and listen to soundscape compositions. Pauline Oliveros’s Deep Listening practice offers complementary approaches to cultivating aural attention. Field recording can begin with a smartphone, though dedicated recorders reveal subtleties phones miss.
The discipline rewards patient, embodied engagement over technical expertise. As Schafer emphasized, acoustic ecology asks not what sounds mean in abstract, but how we might take responsibility for the sonic world we collectively compose.