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Acoustic Communication

 

Barry Truax

1984

244 pages

Complementary Texts

Tarasti

Roland Barthes

David Burrows

 

Keywords

Sound and Musical Design

 

Among many topics concerning sound and acoustic communication, Truax studies artificial background music, which is sound not to be listened to attentively (182).

By creating its own ambience and imposing a predefined character onto it, background music “essentially isolates the individual or group”. He names several problems with it:

1. it  blocks other sounds from being heard and reduces acoustic definition

2. it imposes its own mood and character onto the environment, instead of reflecting and enhancing the character of the environment itself

3. it is perceived as originating from the outside commercial world, the invisible seat of power – dulling the soundscape

(Truax)