Ethnography on Mediation: Musica Mobilis and Sonic Effect
Text: Heikki Uimonen
The SOMECO research team organised a soundscape workshop at Nauvo Library on 4 June. We were well rehearsed and prepared to present the project to the audience in Swedish and Finnish, and to play recordings of previous studies carried out 25 years ago. Above all we were also very much looking forward to spending a nice evening discussing about the sonic environment with the locals.
Just before the workhop started, a car drove past the library window. A music from car stereo with relatively loud bass was intruding a space generally considered to be quiet. This was particularly ironic given that the public premises were intended to be used for discussion about changing acoustic environments. The sound of the passing car was definitely a fitting and humorous introduction to the theme to the audience.
In my previous blog post, I wrote about people on the move. Now, it seems appropriate to take a look at sound and music on the move, since these are often experienced by stationary listeners. A thumping car stereo reminded me of oft-cited text in popular music studies called the Walkman Effect including the concept of Musica Mobilis defined as ”music whose source voluntarily or involuntarily moves from one point to another coordinateded by the corporal transportation of source owner(s)” (Hosokawa 1985).
Drawing from this, we could define Sonus Mobilis as any mobile environmental sound that momentarily connects its listeners and makes them aware of its source, whether familiar or not. A sound that moves from an organic or inorganic source transcends the limits of the listener’s field of hearing and usually requires some kind of reaction, or alternatively the ability to ‘dishearken’ it, that is, not pay attention to it. (Uimonen 2016.)
So, how should we investigate the Sonus Mobilis? Our dear colleagues at CRESSON have applied a concept called Sonic Effect that is suitable for this purpose. Described as an interdisciplinary tool, it processes the interactions between: 1) acoustic sources, 2) layout, 3) sonic perception and, 4) sonic actions. (Tixier & McOisans 2022.)
During a walk in the city environment diverse effects can be found such as streetcar bell (interruption effect), which is heard before it arrives (crescendo effect) and followed by familiar elements such as the sound of the brakes and the doors opening (chain effect). The effects are a seemingly useful tools for categorising the relationship between a listener, sound sources and actions in detail.
In an example of Musica Mobilis outside Nauvo library several effects can be detected. We can definitely find interruption and crescendo effects when the car was approaching. Also, for the lack of better word, there is a cultural effect, since everybody in the room found the sound event hilarious which requires a certain state of mind caused by the presupposition that you are about to take part in a discussion on environmental sounds. Cultural knowledge of the booming sound event and its ironic dimensions at this specific moment was also apparent.
In the context of the sonic environment, music and movement definitely require attention, not only because they are often part of our everyday soundscape, but also because music is special. It has cultural, societal and infrastructural implications, for example: what are the culturally appropriate sonic practices in public places; what is the role of media regulation and copyright organisations in relation to music in public places; and what is the economic structure of consumer culture in the context of music and its availability?
This was particularly evident when we enquired about the use of background music and other applications of mediated music in six European (electro)acoustic communities. While some of these implications mentioned can also be found in non-mediated everyday sonic environments, mediated sonic phenomena do require culture specific analytical approaches that ethnomusicology has to offer when music and sounds are studied as culture and in culture.
Bibliography:
Hosokawa, Shuhei. 1984. The Walkman Effect. Popular Music.
Tixier, Nicolas & juL McOisans. 2022. An Interdisciplinary Notion – Sonic Effect. CRESSON
Uimonen, Heikki. 2016. Muuttuvat suomalaiset äänimaisemat ja kuulumisen politiikka. [Transforming Finnish Soundscapes and Politics of Belonging] In Kalevalaseuran vuosikirja 95. Helmi Järviluoma & Ulla Piela (eds) SKS.