The Tuning of the World Hardcover – June 1, 1977

Remarkably insightful and well crafted.

In the 21st century we've seen the effects of the authors concerns "in living stereo". Unfortunately the masses are incapable of understanding just what has happened, with the rollout of 5g we just might be witnessing the end of controllable knowledge as we know it. Our brains are organic instruments with a very real need to survive on resonance, currently 7.83hz as a whole. Interruptions to this cosmic signal is a literal cancer, it blocks the ability to reason properly or adjust to changing surroundings both in the inner and outer world. At issue with humanities future is the battle to tune to the changing frequency (which is meant to enlighten as cosmic resonance increases) is the interference of countless man made frequencies which keep us in an intentional darknesss. If we turned off all man-made frequencies I believe we'd notice very perceptible resonance increases that have been spiking since mid to late 2,000s

"The Tuning of the World" was written by Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer in 1977 to bring his ideas about the earth's changing soundscape and his call for "acoustic design" to the public. Acoustic design is an auditory aspect of industrial design, which seeks to consider the effects of sounds before unleashing them into the environment where they may just be so much irritating noise. Instead of simply advocating noise abatement to remove unwelcome and unhealthful noise, Schafer takes a broader, positive approach to making our acoustic environment more pleasant. He suggests that the soundscape be viewed as a huge musical composition in which some sounds need to be suppressed, while others are preserved, but most importantly, the effects of sounds must be understood before they are foisted on our ears.So he is an idealist. Thirty years after Schafer wrote this book, noise pollution is worse in most areas of the US, and the best that we can hope for are rarely-enforced noise ordinances and that the next generation of leaf blowers will be slightly quieter. But what Schafer has to say is interesting all the same, and I would not be surprised if some enterprising industrial designers returned to his principles at some point in the future. "The Tuning of the World" has four parts. In order to place our current soundscape in context, Part 1 takes the reader back to pre-industrial soundscapes, from the primordial sounds of water, forest, and animals, to the sounds of civilization in towns and cities before the advent of machinery.Part 2 explores the industrial soundscape, with its factories, machines, and, later, automobiles and airplanes. Industrial sound is notable for its continuous nature, a nearly constant low-frequency drone, whereas pre-industrial sound was discontinuous. Schafer discusses the "electric revolution"'s "schizophonia", in which sounds are dislocated from their source, such as in a recording or radio. Part 3 is dedicated to analysis, including comparison of cultural perspectives, morphology, what sounds symbolize for humans, and what constitutes noise. In Part 4, Schafer calls for acoustic design and the study of acoustic ecology, the relationship of sounds to people and societies. The emphasis here is on designing sound more than simply prohibiting it, which Schafer regards as futile in itself.Information about contemporary environmental sound is taken from the World Soundscape Project of the early 1970s. The discussion of the soundscapes of eras past is interesting, as is the data on what sounds people like or dislike. Unwanted noise is certainly not new, as evidenced by noise abatement laws in Elizabethan England, but it did seem to be associated with cities. Now it's everywhere. I wonder what Schafer thinks of iPods and customizable ring tones. On the one hand, iPods will cause a lot of hearing damage; on the other, they are a form of immersion in music, as opposed to concentration on it, which is an ancient way of listening. My eyes glazed over in a couple of chapters, but, for the most part, "The Tuning of the World" is still a provocative and relevant work.

As a naturalist whose work is based on natural sound, R. Murray Schafer's book is the bible. As a narrative it reads like one of the finer novels of the 20th Century. For insight, content, and context about the soundscape and its relevance to every aspect of our culture while, at the same time, embracing a large number of disciplines, nothing else on the subject since Helmholz's mid-19th Century tome on acoustics, "On The Sensations of Tone," comes close. His identification of the "soundscape" as a feature of our natural and urban environment is a major conrtibution to the language and the realm of ideas given our compulsion to opt for the visual for elusive clues that contain otherwise distorted information. As Schafer deftly shows, it is within the soundscape that Truth is told. In 1977, when the book was first published, Schafer correctly anticipated what would happen absent some serious attention to the soundscape as a vital resource. There's still time. But precious little to learn how to listen again. Schafer's work elegantly points the way.