Soundscape: Times Square, Weather & Acoustics

Times Square is the center of New York City and it is a soundscape that is full of life all day and night. The acoustic environment is modified, in part, by the weather as is illustrated in these three videos: sunny day, rainy night, and snow storm.

Times Square (2:27) Known as the "cross roads of the world" is the heart of a continually active acoustic environment. On a bright sunny day the street activity reverberates throughout the canyon of buildings.

Rainy Times Square (2:55) A March 2011 rain storm changes the sound characteristics of the street scene.

Snowstorm in Times Square (1:28) A 2009 December snow storm softens the acoustic environment of time square.

Video Source YouTube

Soundwalk: Times Square New York

Soundwalk in Times Square (3:08) This is a "holophonic"  sound walk in Times Square, the center of Manhattan recorded on ​​March 2, 2010, at 13:10). It is best to use headphones when listening to this image-sound presentation. Click2Hear a higher quality online recording. Source: YouTube

Click2See other Soundscape Explorations Times Square during the seasons videos.

Soundscape Installation: Times Square Sound Sculpture

Sound Sculpture (1:46)  Even in the cacophony of staccato noise that defines Times Square, one sound seems particularly intriguing. Depending on one's ear it is either a continuous oooom-like mantra, a moan, a reverberating bell or an organlike drone. 

It can be heard if you stand on or near the grating over a subway ventilation shaft on the pedestrian island where Broadway and Seventh Avenue intersect south of 46th Street. You can even detect it sometimes aboard the Queens-bound R, N and W trains before they lumber into the West 49th Street subway station. But no tourist map or sign identifies it.

That is the whole point.

"I wanted a work that wouldn't need indoctrination," says Max Neuhaus, the artist who created the work, which he calls a sound sculpture. "The whole idea is that people discover it for themselves. They can't explain it. They take possession of it as their own discovery. They couldn't do that if it were labeled 'An Artwork by Max Neuhaus.'  Full article.

Source: New York Times Video

Soundscape: Flash Mob Performances (Part 2)

As noted in Soundscape: Flash Mob Performances (Part 1) human sound making is one activity that can temporarily change the character of an acoustic space. This posting includes recent musical events that temporarily altered the cultural soundscape two different communities.

Som Sabadell Flashmob (5:41)  On the 130th anniversary of the founding of Banco Sabadell, and paying homage to their city, a flashmob of 100 people from the Vallès Symphony Orchestra, the Lieder, Amics de l’Òpera and Coral Belles Arts choirs, performed this Beethoven work on May 19th, 2012  the public square of Sabadell Spain.

Flash Choir in Times Square (7:50) To honor Phillip Glass' 75th birthday, NPR Music commissioned Glass to create a short work to be performed by a flash choir on Times Square in New York City. About 200 singers were involved along with conductor Kent Tritle and soprano soloist Rachel Rosales. The event took place July 10, 2012.

Project: SoundLife London

SoundLife London in Leicester Square Gardens was the first exclusively sound-based public art work of this scale in the UK.

It is a unique hour long sound composition created especially for Leicester Square Gardens by sound artist and musician Martyn Ware, which reveals the 3-dimensional sound world that surrounds us at all times in the most fascinating and diverse city in the world. It is a composed 'soundscape' of looped and mixed found and collected sounds with an ambient musical composition. It aims to augment the everyday background noise of Leicester Square with a distilled ‘sonic essence’ of London – a dynamic soundscape of familiar places and feelings associated with Westminster and beyond A variety of sonic themes are introduced at ten minute intervals each hour throughout the day. The installation played from 9am until 7pm every day from 4 to 14 June 2009. Source: VIMEO

There are three videos:

SoundLife London Lecture (35:40) 

Launch of the project (17:49) 

Trailer (3:07)