Sound hunting in postwar Japan

Recording Technology, Aurality, Mobility, and Consumerism

Bibliographic Data

ID4926490
AuthorsMartyn David Smith (0000-0002-3782-1465, University of Sheffield, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume7
Issue1
Pages64-82
Publication date2021-01-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSound Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2055-1940 • E-ISSN: 2055-1959
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/20551940.2020.1857620
OpenAlexW3112080657
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited24

Throughout the 1970s, the hobby of sound hunting boomed in Japan. A magazine and numerous guidebooks urged young people to get out and about recording the soundscape and hunting for “real sound”. The mobility inherent in the technological transformations of the previous decades fed into a media discourse which drew together theories and practices taken from the protests and sub-cultures of the 1960s that celebrated creativity, openness, and individuated lifestyles, whilst challenging notions of authority and expertise. Sound hunting and amateur recording was a mediatised pastime that sought new ways of incorporating technological change, as well as professional experimentation in music and sound recording, into everyday life. Sound as an object – to be understood, controlled, and manipulated – was incorporated into consumer society through a media discourse that emphasised the individualism, mobility, experimentation, and spending at the heart of youth lifestyles in the 1970s. Capturing sound required detailed research, an individual, creative approach and an amateur spirit. The sound hunting boom in Japan highlights the importance of technology, consumerism and the media to sound studies by shedding light on the wider social, cultural and media contexts within which portable sound-recording technology and new practices of listening became increasingly commodified

Acoustics · Active listening · Aesthetics · Amateur · Art · Commodification · Consumerism · Everyday life · Media studies · Political science · Sociology · Soundscape · Visual arts · Asian Culture and Media Studies · Communication · Japanese History and Culture · Law · Music History and Culture

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