Spaces Speak, Are You Listening?: Experiencing Aural Architecture [Hardcover]

Barry Blesser (Author), Linda-Ruth Salter (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0262026058 | ISBN-13: 978-0262026055 | Publication Date: October 27, 2006

We experience spaces not only by seeing but also by listening. We can navigate a room in the dark, and "hear" the emptiness of a house without furniture. Our experience of music in a concert hall depends on whether we sit in the front row or under the balcony. The unique acoustics of religious spaces acquire symbolic meaning. Social relationships are strongly influenced by the way that space changes sound. In Spaces Speak, Are You Listening?, Barry Blesser and Linda-Ruth Salter examine auditory spatial awareness: experiencing space by attentive listening. Every environment has an aural architecture.The audible attributes of physical space have always contributed to the fabric of human culture, as demonstrated by prehistoric multimedia cave paintings, classical Greek open-air theaters, Gothic cathedrals, acoustic geography of French villages, modern music reproduction, and virtual spaces in home theaters. Auditory spatial awareness is a prism that reveals a culture's attitudes toward hearing and space. Some listeners can learn to "see" objects with their ears, but even without training, we can all hear spatial geometry such as an open door or low ceiling.Integrating contributions from a wide range of disciplines--including architecture, music, acoustics, evolution, anthropology, cognitive psychology, audio engineering, and many others--Spaces Speak, Are You Listening? establishes the concepts and language of aural architecture. These concepts provide an interdisciplinary guide for anyone interested in gaining a better understanding of how space enhances our well-being. Aural architecture is not the exclusive domain of specialists. Accidentally or intentionally, we all function as aural architects.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"At last, a book that reveals that spaces are meaningful beyond their acoustics! I was captivated by this impressively well-documented book, and recommend it to anyone with an interest in acoustics or architecture."--Jean-Dominique Polack, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris

" Spaces Speak, Are You Listening? is book that would round out the collection of musician, engineer, architect, musical historian, or philosopher." Colin Novak International Journal of Acoustics and Vibration

"The 'final frontier' of computer music is undoubtedly microsound--the quantum level of acoustics--and Curtis Roads boldly leads us into this new domain, which will become increasingly important in the 21st century. In providing the history, theory, and compositional practice of the micro scale of sound design, Roads clearly lays out the roadmap to this exciting and challenging area of digital research. The book is destined to become the standard reference in the field for years to come."--Barry Truax, Professor and Composer, Simon Fraser UniversityPlease note: Endorser gives permission to excerpt from quote.

Outstanding Academic Title, 2007. Choice

"Kristen Haring has constructed an engaging account of ham radio culture in mid-twentieth-century America. In so doing, she illuminates how people assign meaning to--and identify with--technologies of all kinds, thus her book will be of value to all students of technological culture."--Emily Thompson, Professor of History, Princeton University, and author of *The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900-1933*

About the Author

As a former Professor at MIT and a founder of digital audio, Barry Blesser has spent the last 40 years working at the junction of audio, acoustics, perception, and cognitive psychology.

Linda-Ruth Salter, Ph.D., is an independent scholar who has spent the last 25 years focusing on the interdisciplinary relationship of art, space, culture, and technology.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 456 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press (October 27, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262026058
• ISBN-13: 978-0262026055
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,032,258 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An interim review..., June 14, 2007

By 

Richard D. Pierce "Consultant" (New England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Spaces Speak, Are You Listening?: Experiencing Aural Architecture (Hardcover)

A very engaging, wide-ranging look at the aural environment from many perspectives: cultural, historical, architectural, physical, sociological, political and more. The authors explore many of the deep and often times not-so-obvious connections and influences in an unusual, informative and refreshingly multi-disciplinary approach. Even though covered topics are broad in scope and complexity, the book is written in an easy and engaging conversational style that is neither academically stodgy nor technically overwhelming. But neither does it attempt to simplify the subject into shallow triviality.

Unlike many modern-day science popularizations, this book is not a simple distillation of some lofty academic field. Rather it is at once the introductory text, the major body of research and a pointer to even wider exploration of the a heretofore under-explored and under-appreciated topic. There's plenty of new and useful material here for the professional practitioner in a number of disciplines. At the same time, the entire book is accessible to the casual reader, the neophyte. No chapter or paragraph need be avoided by any reader: all are carried along with the narrative: none are left behind.

Personally, I have read book in out-of-order pieces as my busy schedule allows, without the feeling that I really should have read it in a more disciplined fashion. Rather than having to read other sections out of sheer necessity, I've gone back to fill in the holes more out of curiosity and interest.

If you want to understand the intimate connection between humans and the aural space they live in, there is no better place to find it than this book. If you're looking for a new model of understanding of a complex topic through an truly broad, interdisciplinary approach, this book is the best model I know of.

It's difficult to recommend it to highly.

5.0 out of 5 stars Ears Are Better Than Eyes, September 11, 2010

By 

AcuVox - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Spaces Speak, Are You Listening?: Experiencing Aural Architecture (Paperback)

Since I first heard Stevie Winwood sing about his choice between deafness and blindness, I have known that my ears where primary. This book is the authoritative confirmation.

Barry Blesser defines a "New Science" in this book, which mirrors his leading-edge career. This is a shining example of Nexialism (the Science of Everything) because it integrates conventional divisions of science and painstakingly assembled factoids into a raft of fresh multi-disciplinary theses. It represents a decades-long study utilizing creative insights, and flows with well written, compelling examples without sacrificing rigor.

I met Barry at the 1978 Convention of the Audio Engineering Society, where he was demonstrating the first professional digital reverberation generator. This mathematical room simulator was the starting point for elucidating how our ears provide us with more and better information about our environment than our eyes.

Aural acuity and aurally generated mental maps have been largely lost in our visual culture, starting with Guttenberg's enabling of widespread education through reading alone and continuing to television and Internet where LCD monitors have replaced most direct human contact. This has been exacerbated by the Industrial Age which has filled the aural environment with the noise of motors, controlled explosions and collisions. Further insult and injury to our hearing sense comes from audio production by alarms and annuciators and sound reproduction by increasingly cheaper transducers. Modern architecture has produced terrible acoustic environments, some masquerading as suitable concert and conference venues as well as residence and office.

"Spaces Speak" is a clarion call to re-gain this lost ground. It describes how detailed and precise hearing can be, and how to achieve a synthetic aural environment as healthy as the natural world for which our sense evolved.

Thank you, Mr. Blesser, and BRAVO!

I commend this book to all my colleagues in the AES, CAS, ASA and AIA.

4 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Spaces Speak - review, June 11, 2007

By 

a4jackson (Danvers, Ma United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Spaces Speak, Are You Listening?: Experiencing Aural Architecture (Hardcover)

Very interesting and new thinking about that sound around. Recommend for sound engineers, acoustic design architects, musicians and people who love music and/or are interested in the aural spaces abounding. Do you like John Cage, Terry Riley, ee cummings? Can you sing the sound of one _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _?