Thoughts on Nature vs. Human-made 

The natural water sounds very similar when compared to the human-made sounds; however, the amount of human interference, such as talking, cell phones, etc. was much less in the nature recordings, as can be expected, since there are generally many more people in an urban setting than in a “natural” one. This idea relates to David Dunn’s ideas about humans’ place in the soundscape, as without the collective soundscape, recording water is similar to recording air in that without the influence of the external environment, it is difficult to provide a complete sonic picture. Our initial attempts to isolate the water sounds proved ineffective due to the nature of the sounds and their relation to the soundscape.

 

Catergorizing the Diversity of Water Sounds

Going into this project, we had some notions about the diversity of water sounds, but after doing literature analysis on different uses of water sounds and the noise pollution, we realized water is both diverse and similar in acoustic value. We decided to divide the water sounds into 3 categories: 

Steady/no flowrate, turbulent, projectile water (human-made water structures, fountains, waterfalls). Looking at water uses in terms of our 3 categories we made some interesting discoveries.

 

Turbulent Water

Turbulent water we defined as fast moving, changing velocity water. This included the Rapids at the American Tobacco Campus and the waves in Florida.

We noticed that turbulent water above the surface of the water worked very well as a noise blocker. However, under the water, the turbulent water experienced noise pollution, for example from boats in the Florida recordings.

 

Static/Steady Flow Water

Static/Steady Flow water was defined as water with a constant velocity, moving at a slower pace (or not at all).

Static water recordings included several of the recordings from Lake Crabtree. 

We noticed the static water had a more peaceful aspect, and the outside and inside water for each recording better matched each other than the turbulent water.

 

Projectile Water

We defined projectile water as water with a vertical component (such as waterfalls or fountains).

This included recordings from the ATC fountains, Puerto Rico Waterfalls, etc.

We noticed that projectile water was interesting in that the natural and humanmade sources were almost impossible if not impossible to distinguish without considering the environmental factors. Additionally, the waterfalls probably have uses for relaxation and noise canceling.