Handbook of Acoustic Ecology, 2nd edition.(Review)

Barry Truax, editor: Handbook of Acoustic Ecology, 2nd edition (CD-ROM version)

CD-ROM, 1999; Cambridge Street Records, 4346 Cambridge Street, Burnaby, British Columbia V5C 1H4, Canada; fax (604) 299-3864; electronic mail truax@sfu.ca; World Wide Web www.sfu.ca/~truax/ handbook.html

The World Soundscape Project (WSP) was initiated in 1971 under the guidance of composer R. Murray Schafer. It brought together individuals such as Barry Truax and Hildegard Westerkamp to conduct sound and acoustic studies and to speculate on sociological and environmental implications of urban sound pollution and the intrusion of human sound into natural habitats. In 1993, The World Forum for Acoustic Ecology (www.interact.uoregon.edu/ MediaLit/WFAEHomePage/) was established, "an international association of affiliated organizations, and individuals, who share a common concern with the state of the world soundscape as an ecologically balanced entity."

This growing global community of concerned and active individuals and organizations has created a need for demonstrative materials for pedagogy, lobbying, and research. It is therefore only fitting that the work of the pioneers in this area of research and activism be reviewed and renewed for present and future generations. The re-release of Mr. Schafer's seminal work, The Tuning of the World (reissued in 1994 as The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World, www.destinybooks.com), and a 1996 conference and CD entitled The Vancouver Soundscape Revisited (www.sfu.ca/~truax/vanscape.html) have revealed some of the rich activities of the original WSP.

The reissue of Barry Truax's Handbook for Acoustic Ecology in an easily searchable, cross-platform CD-ROM (MacOS/Windows) version makes available one of the fundamental theoretical works of the WSP. Mr. Truax is well known to the Computer Music Journal readership as a composer, programmer, teacher, and author. He is also the keeper of the Soundscape Project archives as well as a practitioner of what he preaches in his unique compositional output. Originally published as Volume 5 of The Music of the Environment Series in 1978, the second edition of the Handbook for Acoustic Ecology brings Mr. Truax's classic lexicon of sound terminology in hypertext format to new generations of students and practitioners. As the back of the CD-ROM states, the Handbook contains "500 terms defined, with 125 graphics and 150 sound examples covering the areas of: Acoustics, Psychoacoustics, Environmental Studies, Noise Measurement, Electroacoustics, Music, Linguistics, Audiology, Communication." If you want a definition of audiocentric, sociocusis, EPNLs, or thermal noise, they are now just a click away!

The Handbook consists of a collection of HTML and audio files. A copy of Netscape 3.4 is included on the CD-ROM for convenience, but for this review it was perused with more recent browsers from Netscape and Microsoft. There are numerous ways of searching this vast cross-referenced database of audio terms. Besides fixed alphabetical and keyword search facilities available from the main index page, one can also access an Interdisciplinary Thematic Search Engine based upon Mr. Truax's years of cross-referencing these terms and definitions while using the text in his teaching at the School of Communication and School for the Contemporary Arts of Simon Fraser University. An interesting aspect of the thematic search engine is that the principle disciplines (as listed above) are indicated by a background color scheme (e.g., "Acoustics" terms are on gray pages, "Soundscape" terms are on orange pages, etc.). A search that leads from "electroacoustic" to "microphone" to "directivity" to "minimum ...