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The Tokyo that Roland Barthes called the "Empire of Signs"
might just as well be termed the "Empire of Sounds". Tokyo
is a city of intense media bombardment reflected strongly in
the soundscape. Like the buildings of the city's
neighborhoods, familiar sounds can disappear seemingly
overnight, replaced by entirely new ones as the metropolis
goes through phenomenally rapid change. Amplification is
everywhere - take away the loudspeaker and it seems that
the entire soundscape might collapse.
For the foreigner who beholds the Tokyo soundscape for the first time, without language comprehension the impression can only be one of fascination and bewilderment. We are assaulted by sound images everywhere we turn. The sweet- potato peddler, the elevator girls, the sounds of the Tsukiji fish market, the train-stations, the politicians who lecture from trucks, the abacus lessons on the radio, the television commercials all hypnotize. Perhaps the experience is that like a first-born infant, fresh into the world, amazed by sounds without any comprehension beyond childlike intuition as to their nature. Obviously, native Japanese will experience these sounds completely differently because of the cultural and linguistic familiarity. To a Japanese, when an "elevator girl" says "This is the third floor" they do not think anything more. But I am transfixed by the quality of voice, of sound, of the abstract semantic. So the experience has always been primarily musical for me |