SOUND LINK

HOW TO LISTEN

This work can be listen to in any location ; the home, a gallery space or in nature. The idea of free listening anywhere allows all to access the work without limitations of finances or physicality. Listeners are encouraged to create their own “musical” score of the Dighty by walking along its banks and engaging in deep listening creating a real time physical score, personal to the individual.

SOUNDSACPES

Every place has a soundscape, each individual to its time and location. Soundscapes are the physical spaces in which sounds are made or the abstract spaces where environments are created. Soundscapes are often constructed of both environmental and natural sounds. Environmental sounds are sounds made by humans such as voice, machinery, domestic sounds and music. Natural sounds are things such as animals and the natural elements; wind, water, earth.

The soundscape of the Dighty is composed of both elements. Murray R Schafer a Canadian composer and acoustic ecologist refer to the world as a "macrocosmic musical composition". Playing with the idea of the world as a natural organic composition I have arranged the sounds of the Dighty burn into composition that follows its journey and separates it into 5 stages of different sounds. This idea links with the representation of the landscape and soundscape in classical music. Example – the representation of the environment in Baroque and Romantic music demonstrate in works such as Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. The recording of the Dighty burn looks at the landscape being represented through pure sound in order to increase sonic awareness within the environment.


THE DIGHTY

The Dighty burn,labelled the hardest working stream in Scotland flows through the city of Dundee. The Dighty begins its journey at Lundie loch located in the Sidlaw hills, from here it travels down through the countryside into Dundee passing Trottick and Caird Park flowing into the more populated areas of Fintry and Douglas ending its journey by joining the Firth of Tay at Monifieth beach. The Dighty is an energetic body of water with a highly diverse green space, hidden amongst Dundee’s housing estates and natural reserves. Along its banks - which stretch 15 miles- you walk through the low rolling hills of the Sidlaws down into the city through Claverhouse - where you can spot ruins of mills - then into Douglas where modern industry such as the wind turbines have taken over from the mills. Eventually returning to nature and ending beside the sea.