Nature Sound Recording and Its Discontents
In the group web-based project that we are doing on ecotherapy, I am exploring the use of nature sounds and their healing effects. I have been making random visits to natural spaces in Toronto where I make sound recordings with my cellphone, to be posted to the website as part of a library of sounds that can inspire students to reflect on nature sounds in their own neighborhoods.
I am learning through the literature review on this topic that there are many connections between nature sounds and meditation, not the least of which are the healing and soothing properties of nature sounds as they relate to the parasympathetic nervous system. Many researchers (Gould van Praag, et al, 2017) make the connection that nature sounds turn off the fight or flight response, which inhibits typical reactions to stressful situations. My question is: knowing that natural sounds have this sort of effect, can they translate into a web-based environment? Does listening to nature through an MP3 or MP4 file have the same effect as going out into the natural world and meditating on it?
During the process of recording the nature sounds, I started to have a very interesting experience. I was sitting in Bamburgh Park (in Scarborough, close to Warden) right under a tall tree with lots of bird sounds and cicadas, trying to record some of the sounds, when all of a sudden,I saw a lady pushing someone in a wheelchair and chatting very loudly on the trail that goes northbound toward Steeles Avenue. My initial thought was to stop the recording altogether--not only for confidentiality sake, but also because including it in the recording would make the sound seem "less natural". Immediately, I stopped recording and waited for the two to pass and for the setting to become quiet again.
The second time that I started to record, I noticed that I was being much more vigilant and aware of what counts as a "nature sound" and what does not. I started to become much more aware of the subtle sounds of the swaying branches, as well as sounds I would never have picked up on before had I lacked the intention to produce a recording of nature sounds for other people to use and consume. Finally, whenever there was some sign of a human coming or a "non-natural" element such as an airplane or a loud truck, I was ready to thumb the pause button to exclude the sound.
Now here is an interesting question: when I choose some sounds to be 'natural' and others to be 'unnatural', am I not using an artificial distinction between natural and non-natural in making my choices? How can that be "natural", then? Notice the double entendre here: where "natural" in the first case refers to things that are biological (plants/animals) that are not human, while in the second instance, "natural" is a broader term connoting a non-censoring, non-discriminating attitude toward sounds. If a person is not semantically careful, they may end up conflating these two very different expressions of the term "nature".
Some themes that I would like to explore then, related to nature sounds:
A) The question of "whose nature"? Is nature a culturally mediated construct as much as it is an unmediated one?
B) What nature are we really striving to achieve when we go into a 'natural' area? Is it the uncensored nature of "anything goes" (including loud chatter or airplane sounds) or is it simply the nature we refer to when we describe the love of living things, or "biophilia" (Wilson, 1984)
C) To what extent is the nature recording a "found" thing that is unproduced and an augmented thing that is technologically produced? Here is where I believe that nature as a concept proceeds from a process of filtering out what is "not natural" and then packaging the rest as natural.
What results here is a discussion on the way nature and online technology produce blended environments. Technology "mimics" nature by mirroring the spontaneity and unpredictability of natural occurrences (including Stephen Kaplan's notion of undirected attention of "fascination", in Kaplan, 1995) while giving the technology user some control over what qualifies as natural and what is unnnatural.
Gould Van Praag, C. Garfinkel S. N, Sparasci, O., Mees, A. Philippides, A.O., Ware, M., Ottavani, C, Critchley, H.D. (2017) Mind-wandering and alterations to default mode network connectivity when listening to naturalistic versus artificial sounds Scientific Reports
I am learning through the literature review on this topic that there are many connections between nature sounds and meditation, not the least of which are the healing and soothing properties of nature sounds as they relate to the parasympathetic nervous system. Many researchers (Gould van Praag, et al, 2017) make the connection that nature sounds turn off the fight or flight response, which inhibits typical reactions to stressful situations. My question is: knowing that natural sounds have this sort of effect, can they translate into a web-based environment? Does listening to nature through an MP3 or MP4 file have the same effect as going out into the natural world and meditating on it?
During the process of recording the nature sounds, I started to have a very interesting experience. I was sitting in Bamburgh Park (in Scarborough, close to Warden) right under a tall tree with lots of bird sounds and cicadas, trying to record some of the sounds, when all of a sudden,I saw a lady pushing someone in a wheelchair and chatting very loudly on the trail that goes northbound toward Steeles Avenue. My initial thought was to stop the recording altogether--not only for confidentiality sake, but also because including it in the recording would make the sound seem "less natural". Immediately, I stopped recording and waited for the two to pass and for the setting to become quiet again.
The second time that I started to record, I noticed that I was being much more vigilant and aware of what counts as a "nature sound" and what does not. I started to become much more aware of the subtle sounds of the swaying branches, as well as sounds I would never have picked up on before had I lacked the intention to produce a recording of nature sounds for other people to use and consume. Finally, whenever there was some sign of a human coming or a "non-natural" element such as an airplane or a loud truck, I was ready to thumb the pause button to exclude the sound.
Now here is an interesting question: when I choose some sounds to be 'natural' and others to be 'unnatural', am I not using an artificial distinction between natural and non-natural in making my choices? How can that be "natural", then? Notice the double entendre here: where "natural" in the first case refers to things that are biological (plants/animals) that are not human, while in the second instance, "natural" is a broader term connoting a non-censoring, non-discriminating attitude toward sounds. If a person is not semantically careful, they may end up conflating these two very different expressions of the term "nature".
Some themes that I would like to explore then, related to nature sounds:
A) The question of "whose nature"? Is nature a culturally mediated construct as much as it is an unmediated one?
B) What nature are we really striving to achieve when we go into a 'natural' area? Is it the uncensored nature of "anything goes" (including loud chatter or airplane sounds) or is it simply the nature we refer to when we describe the love of living things, or "biophilia" (Wilson, 1984)
C) To what extent is the nature recording a "found" thing that is unproduced and an augmented thing that is technologically produced? Here is where I believe that nature as a concept proceeds from a process of filtering out what is "not natural" and then packaging the rest as natural.
What results here is a discussion on the way nature and online technology produce blended environments. Technology "mimics" nature by mirroring the spontaneity and unpredictability of natural occurrences (including Stephen Kaplan's notion of undirected attention of "fascination", in Kaplan, 1995) while giving the technology user some control over what qualifies as natural and what is unnnatural.
Gould Van Praag, C. Garfinkel S. N, Sparasci, O., Mees, A. Philippides, A.O., Ware, M., Ottavani, C, Critchley, H.D. (2017) Mind-wandering and alterations to default mode network connectivity when listening to naturalistic versus artificial sounds Scientific Reports
Kaplan, S. (1995). The restorative benefits of nature: Toward
an integrative framework. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 15(3),
169-182. doi:10.1016/0272-4944(95)90001-2
- Wilson, E. O. (1984). Biophilia. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
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