Soundscape
What did our forefathers and -mothers hear, in their places, in the countryside and in cities? What was the meaning of the sounds? And what was the aural experience of places? The book Norges lyder: Stabbursklokker og storbykakofoni (‘The Sounds of Norway: Village Bells and Urban Cacophony’) which is now out, provides some answers to these…
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Earlier this month I participated in the European Association of Archaeologist’s 24th annual meeting, a huge conference with lots of different topics and sessions. This time, in Barcelona, three of the sessions were devoted to music archaeology and archaeoacoustics. My paper was about communication at sea, a place without hard surfaces for reflection of sound waves. One…
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Yesterday I participated in a field recording session with the Norwegian Radio in Nes in Romerike for the radio program “Museum” on NRK P2. The theme will be rural bells, or food bells, as an example of sound and soundscapes in history. Nes in Romerike had a tradition of buklokker, as the bells were called there,…
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On some quiet Sunday mornings we can hear a distant bell sound, at our place Fjellstrand, at the western side of Nesodden. This sound must come from west, from the other side of the Oslo Fjord, which is rather wide at this point. The churches of Nesodden is placed on the eastern side of our peninsula, hidden…
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Directly from Beijing: Here is the sound of a hutong, an early Saturday evening in 2015. Hutong is the name of the narrow streets found especially in Beijing. They are crowded with greens sellers, hairdressers, bicycle workshops, small restaurants and everything else you might need. People also live in the hutongs. The hutongs are the…
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What significance did various kinds of sound have for people in the distant past? How can we approach this question today? My article “Classification of Sound, Sound Tools, and Soundscapes” discusses some issues of sound, meaning and classification. It is based on a paper given at XII Nordic Theoretical Archaeology Group meeting in Oulu, Finland,…
Read MoreIn January four years ago, a cold wave lay over Scandinavia and Europe. The newspapers and media were full of headlines about this severe winter cold coming from Siberia. For those who prefer the cold and snowy winter to the wet and hot one, like this year’s winter so far, I here offer an aural…
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Norwegian: 2013-utgaven av årboka Hardanger er nå ute på markedet. Der finner du blant annet en artikkel om klokkesteinen ved Aga, skrevet av Jarle K. Øvrehus og meg selv. Det er en stor steinblokk som står i Klokkesteinviki, nedenfor Agatunet i Ullensvang kommune. Steinen har virkelig en malmfull klang. Og den har en rekke store skålgroper,…
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