COMPETITION SOUNDSCAPES |
The jury of the Soundscape 2000 has given their votes without knowing neither the names of the composers nor the titles of the pieces. In case a member of the jury noticed by listening that she/he had been involved in the production of one of the entries to be judged she/he did not vote for this piece. Jury member Heleen Engelen: Experiences as a Jury member of Soundscapes.. "Listening carefully to 22 pieces was a very tough job. To stay concentrated for such a long time is already hard, but judging so many different pieces was extremely difficult. To define criteria for myself why a certain piece was better than the other one was very hard. Finally I selected the pieces which told me a story, which captured my interest from the beginning until the end, because they made me curious. Curious to know how it would end, or just fascinated me because of its beautiful sounds. Some were like a fairy tale, sparkling, mysterious. Others were like a journey, entering completely new worlds. For me it was important that the piece had a very clear message. As a good designed product, a soundscape piece should explain itself, have a clear build up, be in harmony, and delight users. Which gave me the criteria to select my favorites, which suprisingly created an outcome which was very close to the other more experienced soundscape jury members selections." Jury member Hildegard Westerkamp On the one hand I want to commend the organizers of Soundscapes Voor 2000 for initiating this first-ever competition of soundscape compositions. On the other hand, I have never encountered a jury process that was quite as challenging as this one. On both counts and with a bitter-sweet smile, I want to thank the organizers for inviting me to be on this jury. In my opinion, soundscape composition cannot be juried in the same way as contemporary music competitions that deal largely with abstract composition in the instrumental or electroacoustic genres: that is, without programme notes, without translations of foreign languages that appear in the pieces or without some bridge that clarifies the cultural, social context of the submitted soundscape compositions. The term soundscape implies a relationship between listener and sound environment, it encompasses social and cultural contexts, meanings of place, and includes the experiences and attitudes of the listener. A soundscape composition is an artistic expression of such contexts, relationships and interactions. As a result it is never abstract. The fact that a jury is asked to listen to such pieces without any background information, stands in direct contradiction to what I perceive to be the essence of soundscape composition, especially if the place, context and situation are foreign to the listener. This is what we were asked to do on this jury. Reluctantly and - as I feel now - mistakenly, I accepted those terms. In a foreign country our ears and minds work hard to understand the meanings of foreign sounds and languages. Listening to soundscape compositions that originate in such a place or context has the same effect: ears become curious and want to know and understand. But if we cannot decipher the meanings, the listening becomes tiring and the pieces incomprehensible. Thus, if we agree that the essence of soundscape compositon is the artistic/sonic transmission of meanings about place, time, environment and/or listening perception, then - because of the diversity of cultures, landscapes, social positions, etc. among both composers and listeners - an additional forum for information is essential. We cannot presume that, without such information, a soundscape piece from a foreign culture can carry the listener beyond surface sensations of place and culture or communicate anything deeper than strange, exotic sounds. In the same way organizers of competitions for soundscape compositions cannot presume that the jury members will be able to relate to the meanings created by the composers, if no background is provided to bridge some of the inevitable cultural gaps. It is not surprising then that I found myself listening like a foreigner to some of the pieces. I was not able to hear those pieces in the same way as the compositions that were culturally, socially and linguistically closer to me. For my own peace of mind I would like to think that the different cultural backgrounds of all five jury members helped to balance the many variables and enormous diversities that characterized this competition from the start. To be fair, all of us - competition organizers, participating composers as well as listeners on the jury - are relatively new in this compositional area and together we took the opportunity to understand this new and exciting genre of soundscape composition. By submitting a large variety of pieces (in terms of length, structure, content, use of environmental sound, ways of organizing and processing them, etc.), participants in the competition raised - perhaps unknowingly - many questions and issues about this genre. Despite the lack of proper selection criteria and the many variables in the jurying process the competition has managed to create an official forum for discussing and grappling with soundscape composition as a musical/sonic style. All participating composers have made an important contribution to the competition no matter whether they were selected as winners or not and I want to thank them for enriching the process through their work.
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