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For over two decades, passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) methods have been successfully employed around the world for studying aquatic megafauna. PAM-driven studies in Indian waters have so far been relatively very scarce. Furthermore, cetacean populations inhabiting the north western Indian Ocean are far less studied than those in many other regions around the world. This work likely constitutes the first systematic study of the vocal repertoire of humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) at a near-shore site along the western coast of India. Analysis of the observed vocalizations provides an insight into the behaviour of the species. This is significant as it assists in developing a better understanding of the habitat use of the non-migratory Arabian Sea humpback whale population. In contrast, other breeding populations such as those around the North Atlantic, South Pacific and Australia have been relatively well studied. Underwater passive acoustic data were collected during March 2017 using an autonomous logger at a shallow-water site off the eastern edge of Grande Island off the coast of Goa. Humpback whale vocalizations were found to occur over multiple days in the recordings. Time–frequency contours of individual units of vocalization were extracted with the aid of an automatic detection technique and the characteristics of the units were measured. Further, successive units were analysed for formation of phrases and themes. Reconstruction of putative songs from the identified units and themes was not possible due to the limitations imposed by the nature of data collection. Detailed analyses of units, phrases and themes are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After a spectacular rise over two decades Sound Studies appears to be at a crossroads. Many of its taken-for-granted epistemological assumptions regarding the givenness of a particular domain such as “hearing” or “sound” have become debatable. Marshall McLuhan’s largely forgotten concept of “acoustic space” and its complex relationship with the unconscious offers an opportunity to explore alternatives to sensed, emplaced sound as the normative epistemological space of sound studies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper responds to the common assumption in much recent ethnomusicology that today music is more accessible, ubiquitous and mobile than ever before. In particular, I argue that this assumption runs aground when confronted with sonic practices in South Africa. Based on fieldwork with electronic musicians in Johannesburg and its surrounding areas, I ask how music is practiced and experienced in a context where musical equipment and storage devices constantly break down and where people are largely immobile. I focus on four factors: the physical layout of urban spaces; the immanence of crime and theft; the breakdown of musical equipment; and the interruption of information storage and transfer. By examining these factors, I elucidate the ways in which breakdown, obduracy and failure have generative as well as negative effects on music production and experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This investigation-based lesson is geared toward third through fifth grade students. The lesson presented in this article was the first of three lessons designed and taught by us for our first preservice teaching course. UTeach is a teacher preparation program for undergraduate STEM majors, which originated at the University of Austin, Texas. The first course taken by UTeach interns is STEP 1—Inquiry Approaches to Teaching. All UTeach courses promote the use of the 5E (Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate) instructional model. We planned this first lesson by incorporating only Exploration, Explanation, and Elaboration and addressed the most basic principle of sound, which is that sounds are caused by vibrations that travel through some materials (mediums) better than others. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Througout the nineteenth century, acoustics or the science of sound in America lagged behind European acoustics which had been rapidly advancing. During this period, the American physicist Alfred M. Mayer made original contributions to acoustics and earned a reputation in Europe, filling a gap in late nineteenth-century American research in acoustics. Lacking fellowship with American acousticians, he was affiliated with the European community of research in acoustics in various respects such as taking up themes of research, employing experimental instruments, learning the practice of research, and adopting specific theories for research. In addition, he tried to naturalise acoustics on American soil by applying expertise to practical problems and creating specialised experimental setups for acoustics education in America. But his research was not taken advantage of by the next generation of American acousticians, who focused on practical technologies such as telephony, the control of noise, and underwater acoustics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Sound studies and Deaf studies may seem at first impression to operate in worlds apart. We argue in this article, however, that similar renderings of hearing, deafness, and seeing as ideal types - and as often essentialized sensory modes - make it possible to read differences between Sound studies and Deaf studies as sites of possible articulation. We direct attention to four zones of productive overlap, attending to how sound is inferred in deaf and Deaf practice, how reimagining sound in the register of low-frequency vibration can upend deafhearing dichotomies, how "deaf futurists" champion cyborg sound, and how signing and other non-spoken communicative practices might undo phonocentric models of speech. Sound studies and Deaf studies emerge as fields with much to offer one another epistemologically, theoretically, and practically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article takes critical issue with the well-circulated but often misapplied term "soundscape." Coined by Canadian composer Murray Schafer in his book "The Soundscape," the term has become one of the keywords of sound studies, but in its wide circulation it has become disconnected from its original scholarly concept and used broadly to apply to nearly any sonic phenomenon. Scholars either misapply it or redefine it to suit their needs. This article is an attempt to trace an intellectual history or genealogy of the term, and to open a conversation about the term's use, application, and utility for scholars of sound. This article draws on Schafer's work in an attempt to ground the term in its own intellectual history, and then traces the use of the term in a variety of sound studies works. The term "soundscape" emerges as at once indispensable and elusive, provocative and limited. By calling attention to background sound, Schafer shaped the field in ways that exceeded his own contribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conclusion: N1m growth indicates the differences in central auditory processing between bone-conducted ultrasound and air-conducted audible sound. Objectives: Bone conduction enables ultrasound to be heard by the human ear. Despite many studies, the perceptual mechanism of bone-conducted ultrasound has not yet been clarified completely. Therefore, this study investigated the ultrasonic perception of humans, especially as regards the effects of stimulus intensity or loudness. Subjects and methods: The effect of the stimulus level on N1m amplitude was measured over the psycho-acoustical dynamic range. Results: The dynamic range for 30 kHz bone-conducted ultrasound (18.2±3.3 dB) was found to be significantly narrower than that for 1 kHz air-conducted sound (85.9±11.9 dB). As the stimulus level increased, the N1m amplitude in response to bone-conducted ultrasound grew faster than that to air-conducted sound. Although the growth of the N1m amplitude for air-conducted sound saturated below the uncomfortable loudness level (UCL), that for bone-conducted ultrasound continued to grow above the UCL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a general introduction for the theme of this special issue. It attempts to give a definition of the Sound and Music Computing research field stemming from its methodologies, aims and approaches. A brief account of the disciplines involved along with their academic organization follows, along with a short description of the areas of application involved. Since Sound and Music Computing has recently enjoyed a deep world-wide reflection upon its own goals, visions and perspectives which has resulted in several roadmapping exercises, the last part of this article provides a summary of these exercises by introducing them in the context in which they were created. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the roadmap for the research and development activities at IRCAM for the period from 2007 to 2010. Published in the context of the achievement of the Sound and Music Computing Roadmap by the S2S2 Consortium, it aims to deliver an extensive and synthetic vision of the identified directions for the research at IRCAM, through noticeably the introduction of the unifying notion of representation levels of musical information. The addressed subjects include sound analysis/synthesis, physical models, sound spatialization, computer-aided composition, and interdisciplinary transversal themes concerning the links between the signal and symbolic worlds and more generally between different levels of music representations, the renewal of concepts underlying the management of time and interaction, and the issue of the elicitation and mediation of the musical knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A broad view of our field is offered in A Roadmap for Sound and Music Computing. However, additional topics should be considered. The roadmap could go further by suggesting study and involvement in economic and policy analysis. Also, the roadmap does not stress the importance of tool building to support the discipline. It could be beneficial to address directly the issues of ''high'' art vs. entertainment and popular culture, and the field should work to adopt both under the unifying theme of sound and music computing. Because the field tends to be dispersed both in terms of specializations and geography, the potential for collaboration is especially important. These and other topics are discussed in relation to the roadmap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper addresses the various contexts that determine the societal framework for research in the field of sound and music computing. Four of these contexts are identified, namely, the research context, the educational context, the industrial context and the socio-cultural context. For each context, the major trends are analysed and summarized as short statements, thus providing a background in which the state-of-the-art and the challenges of sound and music research can be situated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution attempts to give an overview of current research trends and open research problems in the rich field of Sound and Music Computing (SMC). To that end, the field is roughly divided into three large areas related to Sound, Music, and Interaction, respectively, and within each of these, major research trends are briefly described. In addition, for each sub-field a small number of open research (or research strategy) issues are identified that should be addressed in order to further advance the SMC field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the current context of the Sound and Music Computing (SMC) field, the state of the art in research and the open issues that have been identified and described in other articles of this journal issue, in this article we make a step forward and try to identify the broad SMC challenges and we propose strategies with which to tackle them. On the research side we identify a clear need for designing better sound objects and environments and for promoting research to understand, model, and improve human interaction with sound and music. In the education domain we feel the need for better training our multidisciplinary researchers and to make sure that they can contribute to the multicultural society we live in. There is also a clear need for improving the transferring of the knowledge and technologies generated by our community. Finally we claim that the SMC field should be very much concerned with its social context and that a number of current social concerns should be addressed. We accompany each of these challenges with strategies that should help researchers, educators and policy makers take specific actions to advance in the proposed SMC roadmap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compares the research done on the concept of vision with sound and hearing. Probe pupils' ideas regarding how they believe on the objects they see and how they hear a source of sound; Comparison of ideas from different age groups; Suggestions offered for teaching strategies.

Focuses on the acoustic archeology by experiments in sound recovery. Prospect of recapturing sounds by natural or artificial process; Role played by surface in the sounds recorded by ancient people; Search for the knowledge of rhetorical situation by the scholars.