'...sounds may alter or disappear with scarcely a comment even from the most sensitive of historians.' R. Murray Schafer in The Soundscape.
'The way we think about the world is in no small way influenced by the senses we engage to appreciate this world, and in turn these senses have always already and ideological and cultural function prior to us employing them.' Salome Voegelin. Listening to Noise and Silence: Towards A Philosophy Of Sound Art.
Sound is narrative: We hear and attach meaning that is informed by socio-political and cultural worldviews. We hear the sound of our municipal and federal politics at work in our city. How does our government deal with poverty, social housing and housing development? How does the suburban migration of young affluent people sonically affect our traditionally immigrant downtown neighbourhoods? The transformation of our downtown soundscape. The sound of construction and condo development in downtown Toronto can be perceived as the sound of progress as well as the sound of destruction. The sound of money for some and the sound of a dying artistic and multi-ethnic immigrant culture and it's rich diverse soundscape.
Can the sound of construction on our harbourfront be the sound of a morally corrupt municipal government that allows proposed parklands to go to developers to build luxury condos for mostly absentee foreign owners? Where once there were abandoned warehouses with surrounding undisturbed flora and fauna there are now construction cranes and heavy machinery that come alive early each morning.
'The city is also a noise as well as a text, a culture as well as a map, a reverberant terrain as well as a space full of signs; a history surfacing through government policy as well as the potent sonority that envelops everyday life.’ B. Labelle in Acoustic Territories: Sound Culture and Everyday Life
The sound of crickets replaced by the sound of heavy machinery. Displaced wild life with the incoming bark of pets of a young suburban middle class moving to the south of the city to experience the sounds of leisure and 'hip' culture. A changing soundscape in part created by a politically conservative constituency that is attracted by the suburbanization of our downtown. The regimented sound of a Starbucks with their piped music from their very specific selection from their music label serves to provide comfort.
New soundscapes overpowering the old and now endangered sounds. Traditional Italian coffee shops, barber shops, little corner stores and 'ethnic supermarkets that close when the original owners retire. Replaced by super hip cafes that only certain people of certain age, class and colour visit. The visibly and sonically uniformity of our 'new' neighbourhood.
Drifting through neighbourhood streets capturing the sounds that will soon be extinct. Contrasting them to the new sounds of our increasingly gentrified downtown. The sound of an old Chinese woman in Parkdale nostalgically singing the Internationale out loud late at night. Not only an anachronistic sound here in Toronto but in most places around the world.
The song mashes with the ultra hip indie rock scene on Queen St. As foreshadowing counterpoint to the (d)evolution of the disappearing multicultural soundscape of the neighbourhood. The death of an old idea and old world. Also, the symbolic death of a Utopia.
What the soundscape analyst must do first is to discover the significant features of the soundscape, those sounds which are important either because of their individuality, their numerousness or their domination.' R. Murray Schafer in The Soundscape.
The loud and colourful conversation of Portuguese men in contrast to the loud and banter of the suburban migrants in the trendy queen street bars and clubs. How to interpret this new evolving soundscape? The rhythm of our downtown: Politics are about these types of encounters, more about tension than consensus.
