Soundmark
Soundmark
The Soundmarks are part of the Humanity’s Patrimony

They aim to listen, to visualize, to chart, to list, to preserve, to restore, to transmit, to create the sound identity of the territories

To record the soundmarks of the Territories

To each territory, if it is a village or a city, a harbor or a valley, a region or a district, it is tied to a specific soundmark, an acoustic signature, familiar to the habitants of the community’s residents living there and recognizing itself. This is how, beyond landscapes, the soundmark creates the identity, the spirit of the locality.

The sound gives form to a space, it characterizes a community ; and one can even maintain that it engenders a territory in its way.

To establish a sound ID

It is essential that all territories - a village, a city, a region and even a whole country - establish its sound ID while attaching to mark out, to select and to preserve what makes its specificity as sound plan. Because the sound contributes not only to the feeling of belonging to the residents, but it is also aimed to visitors by participating to mold and form the identity of a territory, to express its singularity.

Lou Canoun de Miejour

Another engaging example of soundmark : in Nice, every midday at twelve o’clock, the blow of a cannon echoes yet today, with the risk to scare the tourists. This perpetual tradition since 1861 comes from a Scottish Lord, Sir Thomas Coventry-More, who lived on the Riviera. He was exasperated

to see his wife coming back home always late after her morning walk, for lunchtime. He got the permission by the Municipality to get a blow of cannon shot every day from the hill of the Castle, at his own cost, so as to call his wife back to order in time. This tradition still continues, even if the cannon today has been exchanged by an artifice bomb.

Soundmark

Nice, Plage des Ponchettes - Le canon de midi 01.11.19

The origin of the ”Soundmark” concept

Murray Schafer, inventor of “soundscapes”, has been the first one to talk about “soundmarks”. In his book “Le paysage sonore” from 1979, the Canadian composer explained : “the soundmark, unique specimen, deserves to be as memorable as a Beethoven symphony. Its memory should not be erased by the time passing. What would Salzburg be without the Salvatore mundi, Stockholm without Stadshusets carillon, London without Big Ben ?”. Resident of Vancouver, where he recorded the sound of the ocean from which he praised the famous foghorn, he added : “Certain soundmarks are monolithic, printing their mark on a whole community”.

To each territory, if it is a village or a city, a harbor or a valley, a region or a district, it is tied to a specific soundmark, an acoustic signature, familiar to the habitants of the community’s residents living there and recognizing itself. This is how, beyond landscapes, the soundmark creates the identity, the spirit of the locality.

The sound gives form to a space, it characterizes a community ; and one can even maintain that it engenders a territory in its way.

It is essential that all territories - a village, a city, a region and even a whole country - establish its sound ID while attaching to mark out, to select and to preserve what makes its specificity as sound plan. Because the sound contributes not only to the feeling of belonging to the residents, but it is also aimed to visitors by participating to mold and form the identity of a territory, to express its singularity.

Lou Canoun de Miejour

Another engaging example of soundmark : in Nice, every midday at twelve o’clock, the blow of a cannon echoes yet today, with the risk to scare the tourists. This perpetual tradition since 1861 comes from a Scottish Lord, Sir Thomas Coventry-More, who lived on the Riviera. He was exasperated

to see his wife coming back home always late after her morning walk, for lunchtime. He got the permission by the Municipality to get a blow of cannon shot every day from the hill of the Castle, at his own cost, so as to call his wife back to order in time. This tradition still continues, even if the cannon today has been exchanged by an artifice bomb.

Soundmark

Nice, Plage des Ponchettes - Le canon de midi 01.11.19

Murray Schafer, inventor of “soundscapes”, has been the first one to talk about “soundmarks”. In his book “Le paysage sonore” from 1979, the Canadian composer explained : “the soundmark, unique specimen, deserves to be as memorable as a Beethoven symphony. Its memory should not be erased by the time passing. What would Salzburg be without the Salvatore mundi, Stockholm without Stadshusets carillon, London without Big Ben ?”. Resident of Vancouver, where he recorded the sound of the ocean from which he praised the famous foghorn, he added : “Certain soundmarks are monolithic, printing their mark on a whole community”.