The Sensory Environmental Spectrum

Abstract

In dealing with our sensory environment, our first concern is with the sounds of our times. The sounds have changed in the last fifty years from those of a rural civilization to those of an urban civilization, and in many ways we don’t realize how much they have changed because we didn’t record the sounds in previous periods and we can’t really listen to them. Composers with sensitive ears in some sense have recorded the sounds. It has been said that the music of Mozart, for example, reflects the buggy wheels going over the cobblestones of the streets in the city in which he lived. In the same sense, perhaps, the music of modern composers, such as John Cage, reflects the sounds of jet planes, automobiles, and machines, and I think you have all heard this music, whether or not you enjoy it.