Simon Fraser University's School of Communication has a long-standing history of sound-based instruction and pedagogy, dating back to R.M. Schafer's (1994) work with the World Soundscape Project in the 1970s, and Barry Truax's (2001) subsequent work in the area of acoustic communication, through the 1980s and 1990s. Engagement with sound has included listening activities such as soundwalks, sound maps, various ear cleaning exercises and written reflections (sound journals); as well as audio production assignments that connect to modes of communication and media problematics, including recording interviews, creating public service announcements, podcasts, audio-based narratives and soundscape compositions. For more info on the Stonic Studio's pedagogical approaches see here.
The Sonic Research Studio was established in the late 1960s at Simon Fraser University by Canadian composer and foundational sound studies researcher R.M. Schafer to pursue soundscape research through the World Soundscape Project. In the 1970s the studio and the WSP were home to several notable and longstanding researchers in acoustic ecology, including Barry Truax, professor (now Emeritus) and electroacoustic composer based at Simon Fraser University; Hildegard Westerkamp, freelance acoustic ecology thinker, activist, and soundscape composer; and David Murphy, senior lecturer in video and sound in the School of Communication. Today the studio is shared between Glenfraser Endowed professor in sound studies Dr. Milena Droumeva, David Murphy, and Barry Truax. The studio is home to a wealth of archival materials in soundscape studies and acoustic ecology, as well as cutting edge research in listening pedagogies, soundscape composition, sonification for social change, and various cultural studies of sound.
The World Soundscape Project (WSP) was established as an educational and research group by R. Murray Schafer at Simon Fraser University during the late 1960s and early 1970s. It grew out of Schafer's initial attempt to draw attention to the sonic environment through a course in noise pollution, as well as from his personal distaste for the more raucous aspects of Vancouver's rapidly changing soundscape. Schafer's call for the establishment of the WSP was answered by a group of highly motivated young composers, activists and students: Hildegard Westerkamp, Barry Truax, Howard Broomfield, Peter Huse and Bruce Davies. Supported by The Donner Canadian Foundation, the group embarked first on a detailed study of the immediate locale - the City of Vancouver - published as The Vancouver Soundscape in 1973/1975. In 1975, Schafer led a larger group on a European tour that included lectures and workshops in several major cities, and a research project that made detailed investigations of the soundscape of five villages, one in each of Sweden, Germany, Italy, France and Scotland. The tour completed the WSP's analogue tape library, which includes more than 300 tapes recorded in Canada and Europe with a stereo Nagra portable recorder. The work also produced two publications, a narrative account of the trip called European Sound Diary and a detailed soundscape analysis manuscript called Five Village Soundscapes. Schafer's definitive soundscape text, The Tuning of the World published in 1977, and Barry Truax's reference work for acoustic and soundscape terminology, the Handbook for Acoustic Ecology published in 1978, completed the publication phase of the original project.
The Vancouver Soundscape Project was extended in 1993 by re-recording soundscapes in many of the same locations originally visited by the WSP team. A Vancouver Soundscape CD with soundscape compositions based on those recording was released in 1996 by Cambridge Street Records. In 2009 professor Jan Marontate, in collaboration with Barry Truax at the School for Communication, funded a third iteration of the Vancouver Soundscape project, which involved re-recording most of the original locations in the city and producing video interviews with many of the original WSP members. Also in 2009 the Five Village Soundscapes was reprinted (with 2 CDs) along with the results of the Finnish study (Acoustic Environments in Change) that re-visited those sites.
