Cormac Crawley

Port of Call

Soundscape Composition

With a broad band of sound such as the roaring of the ocean our ears often play tricks with us. We may imagine sounds; plucked from its vast spectrum of frequencies, as the brain recalls memories but forgets the similarities of some sounds. The port, an interface to the ocean, offers access from land to water and from water to land. It is the beating heart of many cities, towns and villages. Sounds emerge from the ocean; offering a chronological description of how the port has had an ongoing effect on the lives around it. Also presented is the effect that those around the port have had on this once tranquil soundscape; previously only disturbed by nature itself. A montage of sounds emerge from the ocean and develop from natural and harmonious to unnatural and sometimes dissonant depicting human interference and pollution of the soundscape; in parallel with acoustic ecology. The struggle between human and environment is portrayed as a sway of events throughout the piece; natural and unnatural.

(Cormac Crawley)