Soundscape

Soundscape composition is a form of electroacoustic music built from recordings of real environments, treated as the primary musical material rather than as background. The term derives from the acoustic ecology of *R. Murray Schafer* and the World Soundscape Project at Simon Fraser University, where researchers documented vanishing sonic environments from the 1970s. Practitioners such as *Hildegard Westerkamp*, *Barry Truax*, *Annea Lockwood* and *Chris Watson* record, edit and layer environmental sound, sometimes transforming it beyond recognition, to make pieces that are at once documentary and musical, and that train the listener's attention on place.