4pNS2 – Sound of the City: Creating a Balanced Sound Composition in Urban Green Spaces

Lauren Gray – lreedgray@gmail.com
Jack Sullivan – jack@umd.edu
Christopher Ellis – cdellis@umd.edu
Ian Hoffman – ihoffman@jhu.edu

University of Maryland
4291 Fieldhouse Dr
College Park, MD 20742-5235

Popular version of paper ‘4pNS2 – Sound of the city: Creating a balanced sound composition in urban green spaces’
Presented Thursday afternoon, December 2nd, 2021
181st ASA Meeting, Seattle Washington

Sound in the landscape is an important and often-ignored aspect of the human experience. In different landscapes seemingly cacophonous sounds can create a symphony, combining the beloved sounds of nature and humans with the often less desirable, but no less important, sounds of traffic and sirens. This symphony of sounds forms a soundscape, a “sonic environment” (Schafer, 1977) that humans experience. Much like landscapes, soundscapes can vary greatly depending on the sound sources adding their voices. This thesis puts the urban soundscape, and its relationship to the landscape and design, under a microscope.

The work of this thesis began with an investigation into the theories of composers John Cage and R. Murray Schafer, along with key research of outdoor soundscape design and application. By establishing ways in which sound had previously been explored from a musical perspective and practical application, the creation of a new design theory and methodology for surveying sound was formed. The design theory demands that the existing soundscape of a landscape be documented and analyzed to ensure that it best suits the wants and needs of its users. Once the soundscape has been documented and the needs established, any necessary changes can be made by altering the landscape. The method of sound documentation was formed in using both auditory and visual components. The auditory portion for this sound documentation methodology has the surveyor take auditory recordings using a portable recording device. The visual portion was created in this thesis and inspired by styles of notation in Western Classical Music, John Cage, R. Murray Schafer, and Landscape Architect, Lawrence Halprin. This combined method allows for sounds in the landscape to be recorded for both the eyes and ears, showing the many attributes of a soundscape over the course of 10-minute intervals.

To test the theory and method, they were then applied to the re-making of an urban soundscape and landscape. Located in Washington D.C., the site was chosen based on a variety of factors including but not limited to, sound sources, size of space, and geographic location. To begin the design process, the site was then analyzed both sonically and visually. The resulting soundscape and landscape design created a more varied and engaging sonic experience, further exploring the impacts of sound on the perception of place and a close examination of the conscious, subconscious, beautiful, and necessary in the design of landscape.

Urban Green Spaces

Schafer, R. Murray. (1977). The tuning of the world. Knopf. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000086818

4aMU5 – Do Lyrics help individuals to sing in tune?

Do Lyrics help individuals to sing in tune?

Simin Soleimanifar- simins2@illinois.edu
Hannah E. Staisloff- staislo22@illinois.edu
Justin M. Aronoff – jaronoff@illinois.edu

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
901 South Sixth
Urbana-Champaign, IL 61820

Popular version of paper ‘4aMU5 – Do lyrics help individuals to sing in tune?‘
Presented Thursday morning 8:00 AM – 10:15 AM, December 2, 2021
181th ASA Meeting, General Topics in Musical Acoustics III.
Read the article in Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics

Singing in tune means singing the correct notes and changing the pitch of notes. There are some factors in singing that help people to change the pitch from syllable to syllable to be able to replicate a familiar pitch contour of a song. However, individuals are not able to accurately sing a familiar song such as Happy Birthday when they are asked to replace all the words with a vowel. It is possible that lyrics have an important part in singing correctly. The goal of this study was to study whether lyrics help individuals to sing in tune.

Five young normal hearing listeners participated in this research. Participants were recorded singing Happy Birthday once with the lyrics and once when the lyrics were replaced with the sound /ah/.

The results showed that the accuracy of their singing with and without lyrics was not different. Additionally, the notes produced both with and without lyrics were significantly and highly correlated with the target note.

So, it seems that using the lyrics does not improve the singing in tune.

BHL 309 Singing Happy Birthday with lyrics

BHL 309 Singing Happy Birthday without lyrics

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See also: Simin Soleimanifar, Hannah E. Staisloff, and Justin M. Aronoff, “Lyrics provide a small benefit for singing accuracy”, Proc. Mtgs. Acoust. 45, 035001 (2021) https://doi.org/10.1121/2.0001524

 

7 December 2020 – IYS International Student Competition – EXTENSION

7 December 2020 – IYS International Student Competition – EXTENSION

Student Competition Updates

Update IYS – 7 December 2020 – The IYS Student competition was first launched in late 2019 with the deadline for submissions being the end of 2020. The enthusiasm and efforts of the competition organiser Sergio Luzzi and his team in Italy has been outstanding.

In view of the many challenges during the later part of 2020 it has been agreed to extend the deadline from end of December to end of April 2021. This allows for extra school terms in both the northern and southern hemisphere.

Updated information on the competition are available at https://sound2020.org/society/student-competition/. Rules for the participation and submission details at: IYS-2020_Competition-Regulations.

The students of primary schools are asked to produce drawings inspired by the motto of IYS 2020 “Importance of Sound for Society and the World” and, possibly, by melody and refrain of the song “The Sound of The World”. The students of high schools are asked to write a stanza of 4 verses (lines) in their mother tongue and/or in English, inspired by the melody and the refrain of the song “The Sound of The World” as well as by the motto of IYS 2020 “Importance of Sound for Society and the World”.

Competitions organized by La Semaine du Son

In conjunction with the International Year of Sound, the partner organisation, La Semaine du Son, has launched a competition for tertiary students “2068, MAKE PLACE FOR SOUND!”.

The aim of this competition is to encourage students specializing in space design to collaborate with students specializing in sound by developing thoughts on the sound design of our living spaces, beyond the question of noise control, in order to imagine the soundscapes of to-morrow’s public places. This competition is open for students of architecture, urban planning, landscape, design, art, engineering, audio engineering, music, engineering, design, etc.

 

 

Another competition for students by La Semaine du Son is on the theme “WHEN SOUND CREATES IMAGE”.

Students are provided with a sound track composed by a well-respected film score composer and the challenge is to provide a video to complement the music.

Deadlines for both these competitions are currently end of December.

AiF Press Releases – 180th Meeting of Acoustical Society of America

Acoustics in Focus: Virtual Press Releases for the 180th Meeting of Acoustical Society of America

Tuesday, June 8, 2021 @ 11:30 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Wednesday, June 9 at 11:30 a.m. Eastern U.S.

Thursday, June 10 at 10:00 a.m. Eastern U.S.

 

 

2pPP8 – Teenagers with ADHD may perceive loud sounds in a different way

Alexandra Moore – Alexandra.Moore@nemours.org
Shelby Sydenstricker – Shelby.Sydenstricker@nemours.org
Kyoko Nagao – Kyoko.Nagao@nemours.org
Nemours Biomedical Research
1600 Rockland Road
Wilmington, DE 19803

Popular version of paper ‘2pPP8’
Presented Wednesday afternoon, June 9th, 2021
180th ASA Meeting, Acoustics in Focus

Hyper-sensitivity and hypo-sensitivity (increased and decreased reaction to sounds) are common among patients with ADHD, but have not been well-studied. Complicating this circumstance, no physiological measure for assessing auditory sensitivity has yet been established.

In this study, we explored how adolescents perceive loud sounds using one physiological measure (gauging middle-ear muscle responses) and two psychological measures (self-reported uncomfortably loud levels and psychological profile scores based on common sensations questionnaire). We also examined whether the relationship between physiological and psychological measures to loud sounds differs between adolescents with and without ADHD.

Thirty-nine participants aged 13 to 19 were divided into two groups: 19 participants with a current ADHD diagnosis (ADHD group) and 20 participants without ADHD (control group).

We evaluated the participants’ physiological response to loud sounds in the middle ear, known as acoustic reflex. Acoustic reflex testing is a non-invasive means of detecting the middle-ear muscle contraction as a response to tones or noise stimuli presented to the ear. To evaluate psychological response, we measured loudness discomfort levels, asking participants to report when a sound (tone or noise stimuli) was uncomfortably loud. To further assess psychological response, we used the Adolescent/Adult Sensory Profile questionnaire. All participants were asked how they respond to common sensations. Low registration and sensation sensitivity scores from the Sensory Profile were used for measures of hypo- and hyper-sensitivity (or under- and hyper-responsiveness) based on a previous adult study (Bijlenga, D., et al. 2017. Eur Psychiatry, 43, 51-57).

Preliminary results in the ADHD group showed a weak relationship between physiological (acoustic reflex) measures and sensory sensitivity scores (hyper-sensitivity), as well as a relationship between loudness discomfort levels and low registration scores (hypo-sensitivity). The control group did not show any relationships between the physiological measures and psychological measures we used in this study. We also found that older participants (16-19 years old) tended to be less sensitive to loud sounds than younger participants (13-15 years old). This insensitivity to loud sounds may be attributed to prolonged headphone use for schoolwork and recreational use (e.g., watching TV, listening to music, or playing video games).

Our results seem to suggest that some adolescents with ADHD perceive sound loudness differently from their peers without ADHD. Even within the ADHD group, their responses to loud sounds could be completely opposite from one another. Further research is needed to deepen our understanding of the relationship between physiological and psychological measures of sound sensitivity in patients with ADHD. We hope to continue to examine sound sensitivity in patients with ADHD by examining the effect of ADHD medications and of age on sound sensitivity. [Work supported by the ACCEL grant (NIH U54GM104941), the State of Delaware, and the Nemours Foundation].

The research team at Nemours Children’s Health System