ABSTRACT
Sound study has evolved to become a complex field with actors representing many different disciplines. Among them, music scholars have been engaged with soundscape research since the late 1960s, while soundscape study in biology and landscape ecology has only been identified as a distinct scholarly field since 2009. In fact, a closer look at these two fields and approaches to sound studies that engage with ecological issues, especially addressing environmental change, reveals an entanglement; they offer similarities and differences in both their approaches and goals. This essay, written by an ecologist and ethnomusicologist, presents a dual landscape ecology and ecomusicological approach to sound- and music-related studies in order to explore ways that we each might engage in the study of sound more effectively together. The focus is on how behaviors, entities, and actions can be understood within scientific, social scientific, and cultural realms within the context of two new fields: soundscape ecology and ecomusicology. Drawing on research in western Mongolia among pastoral nomadic herders, and referencing community abatement projects identified with quality of life values that include sound, in a rural island site in southern New Zealand, we consider key areas that challenge some of the new and developing themes in sound(scape) studies for both ecomusicologists and soundscape ecologists. We argue for more comprehensive studies in both music and ecology to accurately consider sound in landscapes.
