The term soundscape popularised by Canadian composer and researcher R. Murray Schafer represents the collection of all acoustic events occurring in a particular space. According to Schafer, the term soundscape derived from „landscape” represents the sonic components that shape the auditory landscape, including their historical, cultural, and geographic context. The concept was formalised in this book The Tuning of the World in 1979, where he defines acoustic ecology as a field studying the relationship that sound builds between humans and their environment. Schafer described our sound environment as a musical composition and, furthermore, claimed that we as humans are responsible for its shape and condition.

Bernie Krause, a soundscape ecologist, introduced terms into the field of acoustic ecology to define three separate sound sources in the soundscape: geophony (non-biological natural sounds such as the effect of wind in trees or grasses, waves at the ocean, or movement of the earth), biophony (sounds produced by living organisms), and anthropophony (human-generated acoustic signatures such as language or music, but also sounds produced by human-developed technology).

When examining the transition from rural to urban soundscapes, we utilize two terms developed by R. Murray Schafer: hi-fi and lo-fi. A hi-fi denotes a favorable ratio between the desired sound and background noise, allowing for clear distinction of individual sounds. In hi-fi soundscapes like the countryside or during nighttime, sounds are easily distinguishable, and there is a noticeable sense of depth and perspective due to less overlapping. This clarity of audio enables long-range listening, reminiscent of the wide panoramas experienced in rural areas. On the contrary, a lo-fi soundscape is characterized by a dense acombination of sounds that obscures specific acoustic signals. The distinctness of particular sounds, such as footsteps or distant church bells, is concealed by a wide range of noise, leading to a loss of perspective. In the modern city, particularly on bustling downtown streets, the absence of distance and the dominance of overwhelming presence shape the auditory experience. This shift from hi-fi to lo-fi signifies a significant transformation in how we interpret our environment.

As far as we share the same space in the visual context, we can’t say the same about our acoustic reality. To move through a modern urban public space is to move through a space with dozen sounds playing simultaneously, but to hear none of them.

In Hush, Media and Sonic-Self-Control Mack Hagood uses the term orphic media to cover all of the media people use to fight sound with sound. Orphic media is a reference to Orpheus, who in Greek mythology was “a musician-priest heroically drowning the sirens’ fatal, mind-captivating voices in sound waves of his own, singing and playing his lyre to create a space of safe passage for the Argonauts who sailed across the sea.”

Portable listening devices let us shape our soundscape giving us total control over our audio environment, which results in privatizing our public spaces. We cut ourselves from our soundscape to stay more focused and not get overstimulated. But who creates the noise we’re escaping from? We long for the silence that we ourselves as an urban society are destroying. In a personalised-everything times we choose to control our soundscape with no afford – simply by cutting off our sonic reality. Using earphons and listening devices we create separate sonic worlds, post-authentic soundscapes without a chance for the sound to be reflected in space. The only space for the sound to reverbe is our head.

Our hearing shapes the way we experience and understand space. We are not usually aware of it, but sound dynamises everything we see and describes the space. At the same time the space shapes our experience of sound. Sound is manifested in space while being characterised with the dimensions and acoustic potential of it. The echo within each city for example is based on factors such as the size and arrangement of its streets, the dominant architectural style, and the choice of materials employed. Our everyday audible experience is shaped by the materials surrounding us in our environment. Modern interiors full of stone, glass and metal are simply acoustically unfriendly. It is remarkably easy to feel overwhelmed by the multitude of audible stimuli in a space that strongly reflects sound and offers little absorption.

Field recording is a practice of capturing and documenting sounds in various environments. It involves using specialized recording equipment, such as different types of microphones and recorders, to capture the unique acoustic characteristics of a specific location or the sounds produced by living organisms in their natural habitats.
Field recording has expanded beyond its artistic and musical applications and has been embraced as a scientific tool for studying the soundscapes of the biological world. This approach, known as soundscape ecology or ecoacoustics, aims to understand and analyze the relationships between organisms, their environments, and the sounds they produce.

Microphone plays a crucial role in this scientific practice by serving as „sonic microscope” and enabling researchers to capture sound in ranges inaccessible to the unaided human ear. This way it is possible to analyze the intricate details of sound in different frequency ranges, allowing researchers to study acoustic patterns, communication signals, and behavior of organisms. By listening to and examining these recorded sounds, scientists can gain insights into ecosystem dynamics, species interactions, and environmental changes.
The transformation of field recording into a scientific practice has opened up new avenues for understanding the role of sound in the biological world, offering a valuable perspective on the complex relationships between organisms and their acoustic environments.