Product Description

Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 2007.

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #50783 in Books
• Published on: 2006-12-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 436 pages

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

"Blesser and Salter have thoughtfully synthesized a wide range of technical, aesthetic, and humanistic considerations of aural architecture to create a valuable interdisciplinary resource for anyone interested in thinking about sound, space, and society."
—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

"The authors present a groundbreaking synthesis of auditory spatial awareness as it has developed from cave acoustics through the modern concert hall to digital simulations of virtual spaces. Drawing on numerous disciplines, they summarize the scientific and cultural knowledge of the subtleties of acoustic spaces in a clear and readable manner, while challenging our social values about the optimal design of those spaces. A must-read for every student of architecture and aural culture."
—Barry Truax, Professor and Composer, Simon Fraser University

"This book is a serious overview of aural architecture and its growing importance in our world. Its comprehensive range—from historical essay to technical and social aspects of the field—makes it an important addition to the existing literature on this subject."
—Karen Van Lengen, Dean and Edward E. Elson Professor, School of Architecture, University of Virginia


"This wide-ranging, articulate, and probing investigation of how humans listen helps us to appreciate the value of natural and constructed acoustics. It also shows that our sense of the space of sound has largely been lost in the vast library of recorded music. This book will change how you listen. Well done!"
—Floyd Toole, Vice President of Acoustical Engineering, Harman International Industries

Outstanding Academic Title, 2007.
— Choice

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.

Customer Reviews

An interim review...
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.

Spaces Speak - review
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 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _?