Sound Commons in Smithsonian Folkways Magazine

     My argument in favor of a sound commons for all living creatures has just been published in Smithsonian Folkways Magazine. You can read it in full by following this link:

http://www.folkways.si.edu/magazine/2012_fall_winter/sounding_off.aspx

     Some of the staff at the Smithsonian's Office of Folklife and Cultural Heritage, which includes Folkways Records, were reading my entries on a sound commons on this blog. In response, they invited me to contribute an essay to an issue of their magazine on sounds and scoundscapes, with reference to albums on the Folkways list, many of which were recorded fifty and sixty years ago. I was happy to do so.

   The essay in the Folkways magazine summarizes an argument which I've been making on this blog since last fall or so, that we should manage the acoustic envirnoment as a sound commons shared by all living creatures who communicate via sound.

     I welcome all those who've read the essay on the sound commons and who've clicked the link to arrive here. For first-timers, you may want to know that I began this as a research blog in 2008 to gather thoughts on music, sustainability, and cultural policy, a theme of my public lectures and writings since about 2005. Over the years it's concentrated on those themes, but it's also expanded in scope to include sound and soundscapes, acoustic ecology, and ecomusicology. Please browse around; you have nearly five years of entries to look through at your leisure.