Performance Research

ISSN: 1352-8165 (Print) 1469-9990 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rprs20

Listening Glasses
To cite this article: (2010) Listening Glasses, Performance Research, 15:3, 43-46, DOI:
10.1080/13528165.2010.527202
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13528165.2010.527202

Published online: 29 Oct 2010.

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Date: 04 April 2016, At: 00:26

Dawne Scarfe, Listening Glasses, 2009

glass sculptures and pamphlet, commissioned by Electra
photos: courtesy of the artist

Pe rf o r m a n c e R e s e a r c h 1 5 ( 3 ) , p p . 4 3 - 4 6 Ta y l o r & F ra n c i s L td 2 01 0
D O I : 1 0 . 1 0 8 0 / 1 3 5 2 8 1 6 5 . 2 01 0 . 5 2 7 2 0 2

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INTRODUCTION
Listening Glasses explores the act of listening through the lens of Helmholtz resonators: hollow, spherical acoustic tools
designed by scientist Hermann von Helmholtz (182194) to identify and quantify simple tones within compound tones.
Helmholtz asserted that a single note from a musical instrument could consist of a number of partial tones, and set out to
prove the objective existence of these. The resonators are prosthetic devices, with a small funnel at one side (figure 1: a), which
is inserted into the ear, and a larger opening at the other side (figure 1: b). They function by vibrating in sympathy with
specific tones, amplifying them, and making them distinctly audible. Helmholtz likened the process of revelation they offer to
the refraction of white light through a prism, which displays the range of different colours present within the light (1954: 48).

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This range of curiously shaped, sympathetically resonating tools interested me, but it was a particular anecdote about how they
were (mis-)used which inspired the Listening Glasses project. As an aside from his more rigorous research, Helmholtz took the
resonators outside of his laboratory and listened for their tones in noises1 such as the whistling of the wind, the splashing of
water [and] ... the rumbling of carriages (1954: 44).
The anomalies in this act provoke many questions about the purpose of listening. What could be the point of identifying
particular tones within the prevailing soundscape? The gesture of taking the tools outside to listen is a playful one, suggesting
pleasure in a kind of aural detective work. But does the form of listening promoted by the resonators foster a more sensitive
engagement with sound? How might the devices direct our listening, and what other instruments and practices do the same?
The task of making new resonators was inspired by these questions.
Helmholtz claimed that the resonators could assist their users so that any one, even if he [sic] has no ear for music, or is quite
unpractised in detecting musical sounds, is put in a condition to pick [specific tones] out of a great number of others
(1954: 44). He suggested that, formerly, partial tones were accessible to only a very few individuals with trained musical ears
and the ability to give sufficient strained attention to the exercise. In this sense, the resonators not only facilitate but also
embody a mode of listening that strives for enhanced sensitivity to tone, and for standardization of tone. Eric Leigh Schmidt
identifies the drive for the improvement and extension of listening as crucial to the formation of the rational, and discerning,
modern citizen (2000: 3). In his account of how listening was implicated in the Enlightenment project, he describes how
technologies such as the stethoscope required users to have cultivated powers of selective attention, encompassing the
concentration and disregard that make one a learned auditor (2000: 3). His study suggests that habits of listening are
determined by cultural and moral standards.
There is something eccentric about the image of Helmholtz using the resonators in a non-scientific context, such as on a
carriageway, listening to traffic. Perhaps this is because it seems peculiar to be listening to these sounds so intently, with a
prosthetic musical ear. The resonators not only make the act of listening clearly visible, but also suggest, through their size,
their notational markings, and the posture of the listener, what the user might be listening to; they help to reify the intention
in the act of listening. In doing so they hint at how our acquired notions of propriety and musicality might influence our daily
listening practice.
All listening necessarily involves selection: paying attention to a particular aspect of the range of audible sound within ones
acoustic horizon (Blesser 2007: 22)2. R. Murray Schafer, credited with founding the interdiscipline of Acoustic Ecology3,
aims to direct the ear of the listener towards the new soundscape of contemporary life (1969: 3). He suggests that we try to
listen to our acoustic environment as if it were a musical composition, the intention being to open our ears. However, this
model of listening is by no means indiscriminate. Schafer urges his followers to take responsibility for the sounds around them,
to promote those that are desirable, and to rage against abhorrent sounds:
Unmuffled power saws or electrified kitchen gadgetry: could not their plangency be dimmed?
All motors . are repetitive and ultimately boring.
No sound contains less interesting information than that of an airplane. (1969: 578)
Schafer asks how we might define music after figures such as John Cage have announced that all sound has the potential to
be considered musical4. Schafer suggests that, in this cultural climate, the main principle distinguishing music from noise is
whether or not a sound is intended to be heard (1969: 18). The potential of the resonators to give an incentive to listen was a
key reason for my wanting to re-create them. Encouraging reflexive listening was the primary aim, rather than identifying any
partial tone in a particular sound. When a resonator is held to the ear it amplifies its own tone, should this be present in the
air, and slightly dampens all others whilst still allowing them to be audible. I saw in the devices a way of questioning the values
that influence our listening, without calling for any particular sound to be silenced.
I asked John Cowley, a scientific glass blower at Queen Mary, University of London, to make a new set of resonators based
on Helmholtzs descriptions and measurements5 and on my encounters with the resonators from the Whipple Museum of
the History of Science, Cambridge. I was invited to present them in the exhibition Sound Escapes, the artistic strand of the
Positive Soundscapes Project (PSP). As the name suggests, the ambition of the PSP was to shift the emphasis of soundscape
studies away from noise abatement strategies, and towards more optimistic engagement with the acoustic commons (Dixon
2009: 5).

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Fig 1: Helmholtz Resonator, circa 1860

I tried to emulate the form of Helmholtzs resonators as sensitively as possible, to make it clear that they were not my own
inventions, and to ensure that their historical context remained evident. However, I manipulated some details of their
presentation in order to emphasise that the act of listening itself had become the main focus of the work. I re-named the
resonators Listening Glasses, and produced a pamphlet in the voice of Helmholtz, inviting visitors to listen through the
glasses to ambient sounds, such as other works in the exhibition and traffic outside of the gallery. I did not provide an
instrument to play the tones of the glasses, which would have offered an instant demonstration of their effects, as the tones
in themselves were of little importance. Instead, I offered a challenge to the audience: to find correspondences between the
sound of the glasses, and whatever sounds were audible. It was for them to decide which sounds might be worth listening to.
This reflects my interest in how listeners have the capacity to modify their acoustic environment simply by shifting attention
from one sound to another, and how the act of listening, in an everyday context, could be considered a creative process.

Fig 2: Dawn Scarfe, Listening Glass, 2009

Listening Glasses have two openings as shown in Fig 1. One opening (a) has
sharp edges, the other (b) is funnel shaped for insertion into the ear.

In order to document the effects of the glasses, I went

on a search for their tones in the whistling of the wind,
the rattling of carriage wheels, and the splashing of
water as Helmholtz had done.
I had varying levels of success in this exercise. The
first task was to find appropriate locations from which
to listen, and then to choose the best glass for the
circumstances.
The recordings were made with binaural (in ear)
microphones. Because of the subject matter and
the manner of recording the audio track is best
appreciated if listened to through headphones.
Notes
Helmholtz defines whistling of the wind, the splashing
of water, the rolling and rumbling of carriages as noises
(1954: 7).

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Blesser uses the term acoustic horizon to identify

the experiential boundary which marks the maximum
distance between a listener and source of sound where the
sonic event can still be heard (2007: 22).
2

For an overview of Schafers contribution to the field of

Acoustic Ecology see Wrightson (2000: 10).
3

On the first page of The New Soundscape, Schafer

references Cages definition of music: sounds around us,
whether were in or out of concert halls (1969: 1).
4

Helmholtz provides a table of measurements for his glass

resonators. It lists the diameter of the spheres and their
openings, and their corresponding tones (1954: 373). This
information was used as a guide for the production of new
resonators.
5

References
Blesser, Barry (2007) Spaces Speak, Are You Listening?:
Experiencing Aural Architecture, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT.
Dixon, Max (2009) ScapeShift, in A. Carlyle and I. Revell
(eds) Sound Escapes, London: Electra pp. 45.
Helmholtz, Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand (1954 [1863]) On
The Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis For the Theory of
Music, 2nd English edn, trans. A. J. Ellis, New York: Dover.
Schafer, Raymond Murray (1969) The New Soundscape: A
Handbook for the Modern Music Teacher, Don Mills, Ont.: BMI
Canada.
Schmidt, Leigh (2000) Hearing Things: Religion, Illusion, and
the American Enlightenment, Cambridge: Harvard University
Press.
Wrightson, Kendall (2000) An Introduction to Acoustic
Ecology, Soundscape 1(1): 1013.