I’m nearing the end of this series of possible “summer listening” options, and — I suppose — the end of summer itself is coming into view. And, as it happens, this series ends alongside another ending of quite a different nature.

The idea for this series began in the midst of the pandemic, when we suddenly found ourselves sheltering in place. Instead of thinking about sheltering or hunkering down, I started thinking about the idea of being “in place,” and wondering about the place I found myself... how could I escape being in the place I sheltered. My journeys safely afield on walks confronted me with something quite different, though — the notion that I really didn’t listen very much to my neighborhood, apart from the sound of the air conditioner turning on, backup sounds from the delivery trucks that suddenly appeared in great number, and the more vocal neighborhood dogs. Somehow, I’d become a stranger to what was within a stone’s throw of my own house.
I was surprised to realize this. Despite all the past weeks' work of collecting and present some interesting diversions from quotidian listening, it’s been informed by the fact that I’m one of those people who, from an early age, came to think of listening as a mode of imaginative transport. As I’ve mentioned, it started with a record of humpback whale recordings, and extended to shortwave listening and sound effects/audio production records from the Public Library that dropped me into Parisian cafes, stormy arctic mountainsides, and seashores thousands of miles from my Midwest home. The truth is that I’ve completely destroyed several Songs of the Humpback Whale LPs over the years, and collected every single copy of Irv Tiebel’s Environments recordings I could get my hands on. (In fact, you can now grab yourself copies of all 13 of the amazing Environments Series recordings now as an Apple iPad/iPhone app).

So how did I find myself an acoustic stranger in my own neighborhood? As I pondered this and while thinking about what to end my summer listening series with, the news came to me of the death of R. Murray Schaefer, the Canadian composer. His writings on acoustic ecology transformed me from someone who thought of listening to the world as a form of imaginative transport to something very different. And I found myself with a place to begin: reading as a path to listening.
 

https://cycling74.com/articles/sounds-for-a-summer-night-part-4-some-soundscaping-and-a-farewell