Institutions, entities and research groups
Many local and international associations and research groups have emerged from the pioneering experiences of the World Soundscape Project, which began to explore the little-known areas of the soundscape in the sixties of the twentieth century. This site gives a good example. One of their characteristics is interdisciplinarity, understood as a necessary approach to understand and weigh the different dimensions at stake.
Catalonia
Catalonia
Orquesta del Caos interdisciplinary group was set up in Barcelona in 1994 to develop projects on experimental music and sound art. The Sonoscop project aims to create a free-access multimedia archive in collaboration with Barcelona Contemporary Cultural Centre (CCCB).
Europe
Finland
In 2000-2004, a Finnish research team led by musicologist Helmi Järviluoma analysed the soundscape changes in five European villages studied twenty-five years ago by the World Soundscape Project (WSP) for the Five Villages Soundscapes. (A Finnish village was included, bringing the number to six.) The wide-ranging project has received international, multidisciplinary collaboration from many researchers, including Raymond Murray Schafer himself.
France
Multidisciplinary team set up in Lyons (France) in 1983 to promote public awareness of the sound environment and to improve quality of life management through cultural, educational and heritage-evaluation projects.
The Sonic Space and Urban Environment Research Centre (Grenoble Graduate School of Architecture) has been analysing the sound quality of built-up areas since 1979, drawing on multidisciplinary methods applied to different territorial scales.
French research team dedicated to exploring the links between semiotics, acoustics and perception, and to developing tools to describe, synthesise and provide information on sounds.
Italy
AIPS, the Italian archive of sound landscapes, is a national group of Italian “soundscapers” created in 2010 and who formed the association in December 2013. The aim of the group is to promote the culture of sound landscapes and Italian “soundscapers”, artists/musicians who are dedicated to live electronics and creating visual art installations related to the concept of soundscape composition.
United Kingdom
Ongoing UK research project aiming to provide a wide range of studies on the human perception of soundscape, using overlapping methods from a wide range of quantitative and qualitative disciplines, including applied acoustics, art, social sciences, physiology, psychoacoustics and neuroscience.
International
The website of the Soundscape Group from Montevideo University School of Music includes information on its activities and projects, as well as a large section of related articles.
The World Forum for Acoustic Ecology was founded in 1993 as an international association of individuals and organizations sharing a common concern for the social, cultural and ecological state of the world's soundscapes. The website contains a large collection of related articles, as well as Soundscape journal in pdf format.
Canada
Brief history of the pioneer research group led by Raymond Murray Schafer at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver (Canada) in the 1960s and 1970s, which opened up the field of soundscape studies.
United States
The website of non-profit making Acoustic Ecology Institute in Santa Fe (United States) contains news items, academic information, articles and essays on issues relating to sound and listening.
The World Listening Project was set up in the USA in 2008 to study the links between human beings and their habitats, through active listening and field recordings. They organise artistic and educational activities such as workshops, festivals, installations and collective soundwalks.
Spain
Valencian Community
Valencia-based cultural association website promoting awareness, providing information and encouraging conservation of the old tradition of bell-ringing. The site contains detailed inventories of bells and bell towers all over Spain, as well as recordings, videos and bibliographical resources.