A tone as bright and warm as sunlight rings from a giant bronze bell. There is no hint of tinkling or rattling, just a single, overtone-rich frequency a few notes below middle C, right in the middle of the human speech range. Even though I stand two meters from the bell, the sound seems to come from within me, a calming, grounding glow that spreads from my chest to my limbs and then spills out into the sensory experience of the park in which I stand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A barrel-shaped bell, one meter high and more than half a meter wide at the mouth, hangs under the domed roof of the pagoda. A horizontal wooden beam hangs on chains next to the bell. The little girl stands on tiptoe and reaches up to pull the rope hanging from the beam. She pulls it, then releases it, and the wooden striker swings onto the bell. The sound will play again.<\/a>. Clear and even-sounding, accompanied by a slight pulsation, the increase in amplitude only slightly slower than a calm heartbeat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sound is the fruit of a persimmon in the mouth. The transition from red to orange in the twilight sky. The transience of all beings. That's how it is for us from The story of the Taira family<\/a> (\u5e73\u5bb6\u7269\u8a9e, Heike monogatari) from the fourteenth century through the haiku of Masaoka Shiki to the song lyrics of the poet and teacher Uko Nakamura are conveyed by the Japanese literary tradition. The sound of the temple bell, or bonsho<\/a><\/em> (\u68b5\u9418), strengthens, elevates and puts us in a proper relationship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This bell was made by the late "living treasure" (\u4eba\u9593\u56fd\u5b9d, ningen kohuko) Masaki Katori. Like other recipients of this honor, Katori's art and craft work is considered part of Japan's Important Intangible Cultural Property System (\u7121\u5f62\u6587\u5316\u8ca1, mukei bunkazai), through which the government recognizes experts in important crafts and arts. Unlike other national programs that recognize and value buildings, landscapes, or museum artifacts, these programs seek to highlight and protect not enduring physical objects but knowledge held by people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Like cultural knowledge, sound is invisible and ephemeral. When craftsmen die, the wisdom they carried in their muscles and nervous systems goes with them. Similarly, a sound wave carries the meaning and memory imprinted on it by its maker, but it soon fades. When a craftsman teaches others, the knowledge is passed on and is modified by the interpretations and innovations of his students. Sound waves also transmit their energies, sometimes simply as the heat of friction in dispersion, but sometimes in ways that transform the living beings who hear them. The ringing lives on in my memory, sustained in electrical gradients and molecular pathways that together fuel the furnace of my metabolism. As I write these words, the vibrations of the bell flow onto the page and then into your mind and body. The sound of a single blow of wood on bronze lives on in human bodies, just as Masahiko Katori\u2019s cultural knowledge lives on in the knowledge and work of contemporary Japanese craftsmen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The sound of this particular bell \u2013 Peace Bell in the park at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial<\/a> \u2013 has received official government recognition, as has the intangible cultural value of Katori's work. Together with other bells in the park, the ringing of this bell constitutes soundscape No. 76 of 100 Soundscapes of Japan<\/a> (\u65e5\u672c\u8a9e\u97f3\u9662\u901a100\u9078), a government program that aims to find and appreciate significant soundscapes and encourage deeper listening. The program, which dates back to 1996, is a rare example of government-level recognition of the value of soundscapes. The predominant form of policy response to ambient sound has been to seek to regulate noise pollution, an important task but one that focuses on sound as a negative experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Globally, measures taken to preserve and honor valuable national or regional treasures focus almost exclusively on visible, tangible objects and physical spaces. From a conservation and care perspective, this focus is understandable. Objects can be included in collections and thus protected. However, the wonders of human culture and the living world come to us through many senses. To honor only material objects and spaces is to exclude much of what brings us joy and meaning. Is it possible to pay homage to other manifestations of human culture and non-human life, as the 100 Soundscapes of Japan project does? The unmistakable sounds of human neighborhoods and natural communities. The finely tuned seasonal cycles of scents in forests and on the seashore. The taste of foods typical of a given region. The feeling that spreads across our skin as the wind blows through a canyon, a winter street, or a spring park. The diverse sensations that rise from the ground beneath our feet. The flutter or glow of the changing seasons. These too deserve attention, celebration, and in some cases, preservation. Sounds, like the chemical components of scents, can be recorded and archived, but these static records do not capture the living, changing presence of the sensory environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The 100 Soundscapes of Japan were selected by a committee of the Ministry of the Environment from more than seven hundred nominations, some of which came from local governments and businesses, and some from individuals. The selection includes soundscapes from physical, biological and cultural sources. This breadth is particularly appropriate because sound always has an integrating, holistic nature; as waves of energy meet, merge with, and stimulate human consciousness, boundaries are blurred. Some of the 100 soundscapes are fleeting sounds, such as the sweet chirping of crickets suzumushi<\/a><\/em> (\u9234\u866b) or the singing sands of Kotogahama Beach, others are unceasing, such as the crashing of waves on the shores of the Enshu Sea. The selection attempts to capture some of the changing sonic qualities of human activity, including the anachronistic sound of steam engines alongside more contemporary sounds such as the honking of ships and the exuberant merriment of cultural festivals. The soundscapes are accessible to listeners regardless of wealth, social class or religion, although visiting all of them would require travel. Unlike other forms of cultural and natural tributes, the sound of the wind in the reed beds along the Kitakami River or the temple bells in Teramachi requires no admission fee from listeners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A 2008 survey found that five of the original 100 soundscapes had disappeared or were no longer accessible. Frogs had disappeared, trams had stopped running, or earthquakes had cut them off. Most of those that remained had some form of support or protection from local governments or civic groups. Inclusion on the list thus provided a benchmark against which long-term change could be tracked, and it sparked deeper interest and awareness among locals. Despite these successes, Japan\u2019s 100 soundscapes have changed significantly over the past quarter century. In cities, there is no escaping the beeps, voices, and music from cell phones; shipping has increased on the open sea; private vehicles have increased and then decreased; the pandemic has temporarily shut down much of industry; the sounds of forests, wetlands, and coastlines have changed according to the challenges facing local wildlife. Regular additions to the national soundscape registry would record these changes for posterity, while also turning human ears back to the world and fostering sonic curiosity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although the list remains unchanged for now, the project has sparked new forms of engagement with sound in Japan and overseas. Soundscape researcher Keiko Torigoe was a member of the selection committee and later visited some of the sites to see how local communities responded to their designation as nationally significant soundscapes. In the dunes near the city of Nagaoka on the east coast of mainland Japan, the local government commissioned and installed a statue of Namikozoa, the \u201cwave boy,\u201d an ocean spirit who uses the sound of waves to predict the weather. Torigoe was hesitant about the specific representation of the intangible spirit of the waves, although the statue opens visitors to the soundscape and pays homage to an important cultural story. The local coastline is threatened by tree planting and river damming, and some residents consider the sound of water crashing against the sand to be endangered. Further south, in the subtropical forests of Iriomote Island, Torigoe discovered that cruise ship operators had stopped using motorboats on a river whose bird and insect sounds are listed on the National Soundscape Register. One of the aims of the 100 Soundscapes project was to highlight and protect vulnerable sound communities. In this case, the river\u2019s soundscape clearly benefited from the reduction in engine noise. Farther north, on the island of Hokkaido, Torigoe noted that inclusion on the register had sparked debates about understanding soundscapes. The soundscape here includes The creaking, groaning and hissing of winter sea ice<\/a> on the Sea of Okhotsk. But the most striking \u201csound\u201d for locals is the sudden silence that falls when the rough sea is silenced by the heavy ice caps, a process that often occurs in just a few hours. The cultural significance of this silence has changed, however. It used to signal the arrival of the \u201cwhite devil,\u201d an ice-forced end to fishing that heralded months of hunger and misery. Since the 1960s, however, scallop farming has boomed, and the ice floes provide shelter for the bays where these shellfish thrive. The sounds and silence of the ice are now a sign of marine productivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The 100 Soundscapes of Japan project has led to increased sensory awareness in places outside the official list. Japan Soundscape Association<\/a> (The Soundscape Association of Japan), for example, now regularly encourages deeper listening, both by financially supporting experiences such as walks in which participants pay attention to the soundscape, and by hosting discussions on how best to appreciate, understand, and protect Japan\u2019s sonic diversity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2001, partly influenced by the success of the soundscapes list, the Ministry of the Environment extended its scope to include scents. In the list 100 Japanese places with a select scent<\/a> (\u304b\u304a\u304a\u3057\u307e\u3059\u98a8100\u9078) lists those whose scents have special cultural or natural significance. These include the scents of blooming wisteria, grilled eels and sulfur springs, to the scent of old books in the Kanda district of Tokyo. As with the soundscapes, the impetus for this project was to pay homage to Japan's sensory richness while also highlighting the need for noise and odor control. Rather than government efforts focusing solely on addressing negative experiences, these projects remind us that positive experiences should also be sought out and celebrated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That Japan is a world leader in acknowledging and celebrating its sensory richness is not surprising. Japanese religious, literary, and aesthetic practices pay considerable attention to the nuances of sound, aroma, and light, and to the embeddedness of human culture among plants, other creatures, mountains, and water. For example, Matsuo Basho\u2019s haiku is full of the sounds of frogs jumping into water, the singing of cuckoos, and the excited displays of cicadas. Buddhist and Shinto temples guide human senses to glimpse the spiritual existence of trees, the vitality of water, and insights accessible through stones and sand. The \u201cright to sunlight\u201d is protected by law, which prohibits building practices that overshadow neighbors. These are cultural foundations of sensory attention and respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The 100 Soundscapes of Japan project also drew inspiration from across the Pacific. In the 1970s, Canadian composers R. Murray Schafer<\/a> and Barry Truax<\/a> they made the terms known to the general public soundscape<\/em> (soundscape) and acoustic ecology<\/em> (acoustic ecology) and, together with collaborators among musicians and sound hunters, studied the diverse sound textures across Canadian and European landscapes. Schafer described this work as \u201cthe study of tonal soundscapes\u201d with the aim of promoting \u201csound culture\u201d and reducing noise, asking each community \u201cwhat sounds do we wish to preserve, support, multiply?\u201d Keiko Torigoe and others incorporated this Western approach into Japanese culture, which was already, in her words, \u201copen to the world of sound.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The official list of remarkable soundscapes anchors private sensory experiences in community. Just as we gather to eat, pray, play sports, view art, and listen to music, we can gather to listen to the sounds of the Earth, the wonderfully varied interplay of the voices of wind, water, and living beings, including humans. How else could we arrive at a culture of listening?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The selected example comes from the book Sounds Wild and Broken: Sonic Marvels, Evolution's Creativity, and the Crisis of Sensory Extinction <\/em>(Viking Press, 2022, pp. 353-359). Translated by Lud\u011bk \u010cert\u00edk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A tone as bright and warm as sunlight rings from a giant bronze bell. There is no hint of tinkling or rattling, just a single, overtone-rich frequency a few notes below middle C, right in the middle of the human speech range. Even though I stand two meters from the bell, the sound seems to come from within me, soothing,\u2026 Continue reading David G. Haskell: In Community<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9576,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[63,59],"class_list":["post-9380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-texty","tag-david-g-haskell","tag-preklady","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/potulnauniverzita.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/potulnauniverzita.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/potulnauniverzita.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/potulnauniverzita.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/potulnauniverzita.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9380"}],"version-history":[{"count":207,"href":"https:\/\/potulnauniverzita.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9791,"href":"https:\/\/potulnauniverzita.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9380\/revisions\/9791"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/potulnauniverzita.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/potulnauniverzita.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/potulnauniverzita.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/potulnauniverzita.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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