Scholars on the beat: qualitative and quantitative sensory perception

Text: Heikki Uimonen

The 24-hour field recording combined with the traffic count started on Friday at 6 am on Storgatan and Gamla vägen.  Samples of 10 minutes were recorded every full hour. The method differed from the listening walk presented here on 5 February in that it was stationary and headphone-based. The first three rounds were made in partly cloudy weather with a wind of 3 m/s, turning the temperature from 0 degrees to -4 degrees.

During the first shifts you could hear the village waking up. Heavy equipment was transported along Storgatan, cars drove by and children’s voices could be heard from the schoolyard. Again, the sound of the train and the booms carried clearly to the hilltop observation point and could be heard for a minute or two. A fairly familiar soundscape from the year 2000.

The location of the recording site was approximately 250 metres south of the late Hotel Snus balcony where the traffic count took place 25 years ago. This should not radically change the results of the comparative study. Closer to the railway line and the industrial areas, the result would undoubtedly be different, especially for machines and forklifts. 

We noted in Acoustic Environments in Change -publication, that despite its seemingly quantitative and perhaps a bit “tedious” nature, traffic count combined with 24-hour recording is also a highly qualitative method of observation for a researcher. Listening and observing daily practices is leading to questions aimed to deepen the qualitative understanding of the area and hopefully to novel scholarly encounters with the community.

This was demonstrated on Thursday evening in the public discussion Hur låter det i Skruv (“How does it sound in Skruv”) at local community centre Folkets Hus. The previous observations and documentations were used to ask local people about their past experiences, present knowledge and future aspirations. A recording of the diesel engine from 1975 sparked a discussion about the abolition of local trains and how, if they were to be revived, they would make it easier to travel to work in nearby towns in the future.