Location: Edwards Humanities Building @ Scripps College
The Edwards Humanities Building is located in the center of Scripps’ campus, at which a variety of courses are held other than humanities, including language and STEM. This soundscape was recorded in its outdoor courtyard that has benches, trees, and two fountains.
Recording Setup: TASCAM DR-40 Linear PCM Recorder, handheld while sitting on the bench near the fountain.
About the Soundscape: I stopped to record this soundscape on a Friday afternoon at a time in which classes are not usually scheduled. I was compelled to do so because I wanted to know what the space sounded like when less inhabited by humans; to hear what the various aspects that don’t come and go sound like and what they communicate. It was a calm, sunny Friday with a slight chill that has persisted for almost two weeks now in this winter season. Throughout the recording, one might hear the blowing of the wind and some consequential cracking noises from the recorder. Though it was not completely uninhabited by humans, as not only was I there to record the “empty” space but a group of students and a professor congregating outside of a classroom where there as well. The hum of the water fountain serves both as a keynote and a soundmark, for it is both the central theme of the soundscape and it is a sound iconic to the courtyard itself. If one were to hear this soundscape without knowing where it was taken from, any Scripps student would include this fountain in their list of guesses. Though one might argue that the sound of the people talking nearby is a sort of keynote, given that the Humanities Building is a space for verbal, collaborative learning, it is not a constant sound emitted from the space as the sound of the fountain is. However, it is fair to call it the keynote of the Humanities Building during the daytime, while at nighttime, the keynote is the fountain. I suppose what I’ve taken away from this is how factors like the time of day can confound the defining of a soundscape’s keynote.
