Learning to respect silence is the first task of the acoustic designer

Evidence

Ear Cleaning The first task of the acoustic designer is to learn how to listen. Ear cleaning is the expression we use here. Many exercises can be devised to help cleanse the ears, but the most important at first are those which teach the listener to respect silence. This is especially important in a busy, nervous society. An exercise we often give our students is to declare a moratorium on speech for a full day. Stop making sounds for a while and eavesdrop on those made by others. It is a challenging and even frightening exercise and not everyone can accomplish it, but those who do speak of it afterward as a special event in their lives. — Schafer, Murray R, The Soundscape- Our Sonic Environment…, 679

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the core technique of ‘ear cleaning’ and its foundational practice of silence-respect.
• SEED: The one-day speech moratorium is directly actionable for readers seeking to study their own soundscape.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Schafer, Murray R, The Soundscape- Our Sonic Environment…, 679
• XREF: connects to: Acoustic design improvement must begin with internal mental silence — Schafer, Murray R, The Soundscape- Our Sonic Environment…, 875; Quieting internal mental noise precedes acoustic redesign work — Schafer, Murray R, The Soundscape- Our Sonic Environment…, 875; Placement of silent pauses in spoken text can encode complex layered meaning — George Michelsen Foy, Zero Decibels: The Quest for Absolute…, 248 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Acoustic design improvement must begin with internal mental silence #expands (0.60) — Schafer, Murray R, The Soundscape- Our Sonic Environment…, 875
• Quieting internal mental noise precedes acoustic redesign work #expands (0.60) — Schafer, Murray R, The Soundscape- Our Sonic Environment…, 875