11

Composers hear the racket generated by urban-industrial society not as noise pollution but instead as sounds that can be incorporated into the music they write. Depending on how and where they are produced, these sounds, which may be pleasing or grating, have varying intensities. Musicians attune these into novel harmonies that form the material for constructing a distinctive soundscape. This article explores Murray Schafer’s theoretical contributions to this field and describes a work by the composer Nicolas Frize in which the University of Amiens was sonorized. This presentation of aural ecology amplifies an acoustic aesthetic that we tend too often to tune out.