Areas	Sounds
Parking lot area	Listen to the lookout (1.01MB)
Knife-Edge
Conservatory	Listen to the conservatory (1.54MB)
Sunken Garden	Listen to the sunken garden (1.92MB)
Creek	Listen to the creek (2.07MB)
Quarry Garden

Queen Elizabeth Park, situated close to where Hildegard Westerkamp lives in Vancouver, is a place that she has visited frequently. It is a landmark of the area, described in tourist brochures as "Vancouver's oasis," containing the city's only tropical garden under the triodetic dome of the Bloedel Conservatory at the highest point of the park (also the highest point in the city), which provides a beautiful view of the urban area and surrounding mountains.

Queen Elizabeth Park is visually extremely attractive. It is a post-card park which captures the eye with such immediacy that the other senses are easily neglected. On this walk however, do not neglect your ears. Listen to the "soundtrack" of the park, and explore how much it harmonizes with your visual impression. (Westerkamp 1974: 21)

I had thought about Queen Elizabeth Park many times, as I read Westerkamp's description of her soundwalk there in 1974. I remembered visiting the park when I was a teenager, and being astounded by its profusion of flowers. My soundwalk with Westerkamp in 1997 was my first visit to the park since becoming acquainted with her article.

As we moved through the park on that soundwalk, we were connected by our ears. Westerkamp carried a portable DAT recorder and stereo microphone, while I had two still cameras: a good 35 mm., and a lower quality automatic, for surprise moments. I wanted to keep a visual and aural record of our walk, so that I could reflect on it later and make a multimedia presentation (now the "Soundwalk in the Park" section from the main menu) as part of the CD ROM on Westerkamp.

Being connected by our ears was intensely intimate: we were sharing a private, amplified perspective on the park. Occasionally, I would disconnect my headphones in order to take a photograph, instantly changing the relation. At that point, I no longer shared the auditory connection, and in the process of framing Westerkamp, separated myself from her perspective momentarily before returning. When Westerkamp was doing close-up recording, I took photos without disconnecting. In these cases, I was restricted by the length of the headphone cord just a few feet. I remember this being particularly obvious when we investigated the area around a creek that ran through the park. As I leaned backward to take a photograph, and Westerkamp leaned forward to close-mike the creek, we teetered just on the edge of balance, almost falling more than once, and laughing in our precarious choreography. Somehow, these three positions of listening connection, photographic framing, and framing while listening seem like my relationships to Westerkamp as a composer, a musicological researcher, and as a friend. At times, I am listening with her, at times reflecting on her work to comment on it or frame it from the perspectives of various critical theories, always attempting to balance these perspectives, at times teetering on slippery ground, seeking balance through the choreography of friendly dialogue and laughter.

Our walk took about ninety minutes, generally following the path that Westerkamp had mapped in 1974, through different areas of the park. It was a warm, sunny summer Sunday evening, and there were many visitors enjoying the evening there.

The most exposed area of the park is the parking lot ... Walk towards the fountains and continue to listen to the city sounds until they disappear behind the sounds of water. (Westerkamp 1974: 21)

We began our walk by the parking lot area, where we immediately noticed a difference from Westerkamp's initial walk there in 1974: the fountains that she described in this entrance area were no longer functioning. There was nothing to mask the city sounds, so they were omnipresent. For a park which was originally designed around water sounds, this was a significant absence.

At the beginning of the soundwalk, Westerkamp identified the place, date and time of recording. She believes that it is important to recognize that places sound different from time to time, and of course the results of the soundwalk differ depending on who is doing the recording.

Close to the fountains you will find a metal sculpture ("Knife Edge" by Henry Moore). Explore it visually as well as acoustically...Produce a wide variety of sounds...Put your ear against the surface and listen to the inside (Westerkamp 1974: 21)

A group of students were passing, and Westerkamp invited them to play the sculpture, which they did quite enthusiastically and loudly. As she circled the sculpture, I could hear the character of the sounds change according to the players' motions, and our shifting perspective. Afterwards, the players were curious about what we were doing there, why we were recording. We talked for a few minutes, then went on.

As we walked over from the sculpture towards the Conservatory, an airplane passed overhead, with its characteristic falling glissando. Westerkamp guided the microphone towards the building vents of the Conservatory, timing her motion so that the sound of the airplane seemed to be swallowed by the rising amplitude of the broadband vent sound, in one continuous gesture.

When you walk into the conservatory, you are entering an artificially created, tropical environment ... Does it look and smell and feel tropical? Does it sound tropical? (Westerkamp 1974: 21)

The Bloedel Conservatory is a miniature tropical rainforest, constructed by BC's largest lumber company, an exotic gem perched in an urban centre, no chainsaws in earshot. Once again, Westerkamp noticed a difference from her earlier walk. The waterwheel in the conservatory was not working properly; its characteristic sound was muted and uneven. The conservatory was filled with tropical plants, fish and birds, including some very vocal and hilarious green parrots who were mimicking children's greetings and screams.

...a section of the park which is acoustically of special interest. Can you hear the sounds of the city disappear while you walk down into the garden? Observe its formations and explore how much these influence its acoustics. (Westerkamp 1974: 23)

The Sunken Garden is built in an old quarry, and the high stone walls of this area block outside sounds. I heard the sound of traffic almost disappear, with the exception of the occasional siren, providing an experience with more acoustic clarity, the quality that Westerkamp identifies with wilderness. Next to the path, which wound down to the lower level, some Sunday drummers were playing, reminding me of High Park in Toronto, and Mount Royal Park in Montreal. Their drumming accompanied us as we walked down towards the waterfall, and by chance intensified as we approached the water, seeming to mimic the intensity of the water from our perspective. In the flower beds of the sunken garden is a large, prickly plant like a giant rhubarb, several feet tall. Westerkamp says that it disappears entirely in the winter. We stopped and recorded our fingers touching the underside of the leaves. Again, a passerby approached to ask what we were doing, and we talked for a while. Here we altered Westerkamp's original route slightly, and went towards the creek.

Sit down and let the sounds of the flowing water soothe you. The water winds its way through channels and gaps between rocks and murmurs in new voices, which you have not heard yet. And if you were to listen to more water there would be more new voices, an endless variety of them.... (Westerkamp 1974: 23)

We spent more time at the creek than anywhere else. Westerkamp is fascinated by the endless variety of water voices, and her approach to close-up recording articulates them well. She shifted from one stepping-stone to another, moving the stereo microphone to highlight how the water found its way through crevices, over boulders, around branches in its path, illustrating the architecture of the creek bed, and the dance of the water through its sculptural forms. I was fascinated by the timbral diversity of the different water sounds, and the sense of flow in the recording, created by the dance between the creek waters and Westerkamp's movements around them.

When we reached the pasture at the end of the creek, we noted a loud motor sound like a leaf-blower or something of that kind. It was partly masking the quiet, high-pitched trickling of the water, but we couldn't locate the source.

We walked up the hill towards the quarry garden, which was cut into the mountain below the Conservatory.

The main acoustic feature of the Quarry Garden is its echo. Discover it and find out where and how it is produced. (Westerkamp 1974: 23)

We could hear the echo quite clearly off the side walls of the garden. We could also hear the motor sound, even louder here. It diminished as we moved to one side of the quarry and climbed the steps to the top. It was only later, as I worked with the recording to excerpt sections for the website, that I located the source of the motor sound: the building vents in the Conservatory. The quarry, cut into the mountain, acted to funnel the building vent sound down to the creek.

At the top of the quarry garden, the steps led out to the lookout area, crowded with sunset- viewers. We listened for a moment, then ended the soundwalk.

We walked again through the park this April, when I visited Westerkamp to hear her in performance and talk about the CD ROM. It was earlier in the day, earlier in the year. The park was in full spring bloom, and the waters were lower. Shouldn't they have been higher in spring? But of course, the parks department controls water levels, not the seasons, and without the amplification of the recording equipment, we had to lean closer to hear the water voices whispering.

This experience of doing a soundwalk with Westerkamp, and listening to how she records the sound, was a very interesting one. I was amazed by how the final sound document, over an hour long, was practically seamless. Each moment flowed into the next. Even though, in order to describe the structure of the park, we spoke of it as having different areas, in the recording there are segues or border regions (walking down into the quarry of the Sunken Garden, for instance, the acoustics would subtly change over time) rather than the rigid boundaries that appear on a map.

I was taken by moments of synchronicity, like the intensification of water sound juxtaposed with the intensification of the drumming, and how Westerkamp immediately responded to these opportunities. I also enjoyed how people would ask what we were doing. I am used to recording with smaller microphones, and the large, shock-mounted microphone that Westerkamp used on this day seemed to make people curious and invite them to approach us, leading to conversations with other park visitors in the middle of the soundwalk. Other than these conversations, we said little. Westerkamp would announce each area on the tape, and make short comments about what we saw. Mostly, we listened in silence. As I listened to the tape months later, I had visceral memories of events and sensations in the park.

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