Exploring the local in localisation: researching local identity and urban change within electroacoustic compositional practice

Cities are in a constant state of change. Old infrastructure is removed, new buildings are created, communities come and go; these processes are inevitably accompanied by transformations in the sonic experience of neighbourhoods. There is, however, a previously unrealised potential to examine these processes of urban and sonic change through the lens of musical composition.

The Birmingham Development Plan (BDP) is intended to transform the city-region through neighbourhood regeneration aimed at improving sociocultural and economic conditions. Sonic experience is often dismissed as aby-product of urban planning. My intention is to critically analyse the BDP through practice-based research, working with local musicians and communities to collect sonic information about their neighbourhoods, from which I will compose electroacoustic and live-reactive pieces.

Connecting the impact that urban change has on compositional technique is a new area of interdisciplinary research, forging connections between geography and music. Research questions:

- How can sound studies and creative sonic practice give voice to previously unheard local communities and the global majority? - How can urban change be examined alongside measures of sonic experience? - How can sonic methodologies and discourse create a dialogue between music and environmental science?

- How do our sonic surroundings impact the way in which sound is musically composed?

My methodology considers Bourdieu's ideology of Habitus (Bourdieu, 1984) in relation to Wishart's theory of surrealist environments (Wishart, 1986); Lefebvre's socio-political theory about urbanisation (Lefebvre, 1996);Clarke's theory on aesthetic, perception and ecology (Clarke, 2005); and Schafer's sound categorisation of environment and cityscapes (Schafer, 1977). I will conduct ethnographic and phenomenological research with different communities within Birmingham (qualitative).

Alongside this, I will collect sound samples and noise meter readings in different areas of the city (quantitative). Primary data will be collected through field recording in line with the SSID Protocol for Data Collection from Urban Soundscapes and the ISO standard for Soundscape(ISO12913). These data will be processed through the mapping software ArcGIS to examine spatial patterns(Margaritis et al., 2017).

I will use the collected data, recordings and sonification to compose site-specific works, installations and spatial compositions including ambisonics, diffusion, hybrid listening and live performance. The outputs of this project will include:

- A portfolio of new electroacoustic compositions using new means of projection (e.g. contact speakers using resonances of found objects and soundwave synthesis), live processing of instruments, periphonic displays of sound and site-specific installations (2-3 substantial works and several smaller pieces).

- Audio-visual documentation of performances. - A supplementary critical commentary to articulate my research context, findings, and conclusion.

- Banks of sound which identify different areas undergoing urban change in Birmingham represented in an interactive online map for communities and urban planners.

- Collaborations with local/regional groups, communities, and musicians building on the network developed from my business, Electra Music, and my undergraduate research at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire (RBC).