CCT 490 Sound as Media

Written by the world's leading scholars and researchers in the emerging field of sound studies, The Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies offers new and fully engaging perspectives on the significance of sound in its material and cultural forms. The book considers sounds and music as experienced in diverse settings [ . . . ] and across an impressively broad range of historical periods and national and cultural contexts. [ . . . ]
Through an extraordinarily diverse set of case studies, authors illustrate how sounds - from the sounds of industrialization, to the sounds of automobiles, to sounds in underwater music and hip-hop, to the sounds of nanotechnology - give rise to new forms listening practices.
In addition, the book discusses the rise of new public problems such as noise pollution, hearing loss, and the "end" of the amateur musician that stem from the spread and appropriation of new sound- and music-related technologies, analog and digital, in many domains of life. [ . . . ]

Sound is integral to how we experience the world, in the form of noise as well as music. But what is sound? What is the physical basis of pitch and harmony? And how are sound waves exploited in musical instruments? In this Very Short Introduction Mike Goldsmith looks at the science of sound and explores sound in different contexts, covering the audible and inaudible, sound underground and underwater, acoustic and electric, and hearing in humans and animals. He also considers the problem of sound out of place- noise and its reduction.

Soundscape Ecology represents a new branch of ecology and it is the result of the integration of different disciplines like Landscape ecology, Bioacoustics, Acoustic ecology, Bio-semiotics, etc. The soundscape that is the object of this discipline, is defined as the acoustic context resulting from natural and human originated sounds and it is considered a relevant environmental proxy for animal and human life. [ . . . ]
Includes: principles and theory of soundscape ecology, bio-acoustic and communication theories, human dimension of soundscape, major sonic patterns like noise, choruses and vibrations, methods in soundscape ecology, description of the application of the soundscape analysis.