Revisiting the Vancouver Soundscape Tape Collection

Motives, Intentions, & Practice

Abstract

During the early 1970s, a team of researchers at Simon Fraser University began documenting soundscapes throughout Vancouver. These recordings eventually became a significant part of The Vancouver Soundscape (World Soundscape Project, 1978), which was at the time, the most comprehensive sonic analysis of an urban environment anywhere in the world. Just over twenty years later, during the mid 1990s, the project was revisited for the first time, where the motive of the endeavor remained similar to that of the 1970s: the documentation of “typical” Vancouver sound signals, soundmarks, and soundscapes.