Research of Mount Huangshan Historical Soundscape from Late Ming to Early Qing Dynasties

Xu Xiaoqing, Zhou Hongjun

Soundscape is a word proposed by R.Murray Schafer. Based on his theory, the soundscape is not only a sound environment,but a thing as a significant, aesthetic and meaningful phenomenon. The appreciation of landscape beauty not only comes from the visual sense, but also comes from other senses, such as hearing, smell, touching and taste. Hence, the sounds and its related soundscape appreciation are considered as important aesthetic components in Chinese national parks. The historical sound was the sound which happen in the history of national parks and recorded in serial documents. The historical soundscape should not only be considered as soundmark which deserved to be conserved in national park because of its history values, but also should be recognized as its aesthetic and dynamic values in national park too. In fact, it is a common sense in Chinese landscape history that considering historical soundscape as an aesthetic component. For example, the West Lake in Hangzhou is well known for its ten famous spots. There are four famous spots named by soundscape. "Orioles Singing in the Willow" is one of them. The Orioles Singing is considered as a soundmark and the most important landscape appreciation element in this spot. Hence, the research with focus on the soundscape issue especially the historical soundscape and its aesthetic values will be an important contribution to the body of knowledge of Chinese national parks. Even though some research had talked about the historical soundscape, there is still a research gap in the historical soundscape in protected area. By taking Mount Huangshan as an example to reveal the historical soundscape,this research will fill this gap. Besides, form case study, this research will provide a perspective to soundscape identification of other Chinese national parks.

1 Research Methods

In this research, 23 pieces of travel notes and 287 pomes written by scholars from Late Ming to Early Qing Dynasties which were collected in the Mount Huangshan Monography and poem collections were selected as an analysis foundation. The grounded theory and coding methods were applied in this research. The research tried to code the core and related words of sound in all travel notes. Hedfors & Berg (2003) claimed soundscape descriptive characterizations both of what is heard of the sounds, and of the sources that generate them. They recommend using:

1) Words that express emotions and atmospheres;

2) Onomatopoeia whenever is possible;

3) Words that are technical or neutral;

4) Judgments about whether the sonic conditions are suitable or not to the specific site. In other word, people's perception and satisfaction toward soundscape.

In the opening coding process, the coding words were different categories of sounds,such as bird song, waterfall sound, rain,thunder etc.. Besides, researchers also coded the location of sound, such as sound from Pine Tree Valley, sound from Xiangfu Temple.In the axial coding process, onomatopoeia words and words that are technical or neutral were coded here. The onomatopoeia words were described as murmur, hunming, gurgle,loud, gentle, and smooth, etc.. Words that are technical or neutral were described as "water and stones were hashed during the middle night". In the selective coding,judgments about whether the sonic conditions are suitable or not to the specific site were coded. It means the words and phrases which represent scholars' enjoyment and satisfaction were coded. In the analysis session, the sound sources and the domain sound source were counted and described. In the meantime,sound types word frequency was counted too. The results of this analysis were the frequency ranking based on different sound types. Besides, the sound location, people's perception and satisfaction of soundscape,and the relationship between soundscape and landscape were also analyzed.

2 Results and Findings

2.1 Historical sound source

First, from the 23 pieces of travel notes'coding and related poems, 18 types of sounds were recorded in Mount Huangshan.They were water sounds, mix natural sounds,tree sound, rain sound, wind sound, thunder sound, birds songs, ape shouting, and serials of anthropogenic sound, such as people's talking and shouting, instruments playing,footstep sound and singing a song, etc..Second, from the frequency accounting,the natural sounds were more frequently mentioned than the anthropogenic sounds.In this 23 pieces of travel notes, the natural sounds were mentioned 59 times while the anthropogenic sounds were only mentioned 15 times which was just 25% of natural sounds. Hence, the natural sound was the dominant soundscape of Mount Huangshan.It also implied that the water sound was the most important soundscape feature and the water sound perception was also the most remarkable tourist perception of Mount Huangshan from Late Ming to Early Qing Dynasties. Besides the water, the bird songs and rain sounds also got very high ranking.There are seven different types of water sounds were recorded in Mount Huangshan travel notes. They are pound sound, deep pool sound, fountain sound, mixed sound,drop water sound, stream sound, waterfall sound and interactions sound between water and stones.

2.2 Soundscape source and sound environment

From word coding and analysis,some conclusions can be summed up as following. Certain landscape characteristics are associated with particular sounds,many of which have an inherent acoustic dimension. Such as the waterfall, deep pools,brooks, each of them has its own visual and acoustic signature. Japanese garden and the soundscape in heritage value assessment already proved it. The landscape parameters will decide a soundscape form. For example,between the height of waterfall whose drop is 4 meters rather than 15 meters will effectively produce an audible difference in sound as the placement of pound shape and other landforms with the acoustic areas. In Liu Dakui's travel note, he described waterfall sounds he heard in the Pine Tree Valley. The waterfall which came from various mountain peaks with different dropping heights had different soundscape. It was very diverse and enormous for listeners. The other example is the landscape pattern can also shape the soundscape. In Huang Ruheng's travel note,the wind sound was shaped and amplified by the narrow cliff. He described "the third heaven gate, it was very narrow which just could hold one person, and the wind came though it shaped as a SuSu (肅肅) sound".

Beside the height and format, the landscape texture will also affect the soundscape form, such as the shape of stones, the velocity of water flow, water temperature, the underlying of brook or the water deep pool etc.. For example, the rocks in Tang pound are with non-porous qualities produce a reflective condition such as water comes from the waterfalls will be amplified through the rocks in the pound. So the scholar Tang Yinbin used the word LuLu (轆轆) to describe the sound. For the shape of stones will make diversified soundscape, the other example is string fountain. The sound of string fountain was made from the hollow stones and dropping fountain. The landscape structure was a stone which horizontally laying in the cliff. It extended almost 30 meters long which is like a long lying zither. Almost 80% of the other stone around the lying stone were empty which will enlarge the crashing sound.

2.3 Soundscape perceptions

Most of these sounds brought enjoyment to tourists, especially the sound fountain and stream brought enjoyment to tourist like listening a music. Scholars used the words such as gurgling (汩汩), Murmur (潺潺) to describe the fountain, which also represented the sound of fountain like playing an instrument. In Wang Jichun's Mount Huangshan travel note, he said: in the string fountain, some of the water spread out on the lying stone, the outlying sound heard like playing harps. Beside the fountain, the sound of stream also described as music. In Wu Tingjian's Mount Huangshan travel note,he wrote: "sound of stream like a reeds of a panpipe." Besides the enjoyment, the water sound also brought the diverse emotional feeling, such as shock, bleak feeling,frightening, to the tourists. The anthropogenic sound which related to Buddhism and instrument playing added the aesthetic atmosphere to historical Mount Huangshan(More details).

2.4 Historical and current soundscape comparison

From the comparative analysis of Mount Huangshan soundscape between the past and the current, researchers also implied that the water soundscape was described and the anthropogenic sound was increased.Some water feature soundscape tourist routes even disappeared in the recent decades.This finding provided a glimpse into potential modifications to tourist routes designation and soundscape conservation of Mount Huangshan.