In combination with the scientific exploration of ecoacoustics, artistic ecoacoustics can be traced back to the 1960s and 1970s through a coalescing of different artists that created what is now called "eco-art" (Bianchi, Manzo, and Gilmurray, 28). Joseph Beuys, Agnes Denes, Hans Haacke, and Helen and Newton Harrison. Simply put, their work focuses on conservation through creation⁴. Today the list of eco-artists continues to grow, indicating an awareness of the necessity to protect local and global environments. This movement of art grew contemporaneously with acoustic ecology, a response to noticing changes in the soundscape of environments. While being largely focused on noise pollution, however, sound artists and musical artists began transforming these concepts into a more experiential and environmentalist practice, which eventually became known as "ecoacoustic" sound art (ibid).

Figure 11: Tree Mountain, Agnes Denes, CC-BY Strata Suomi

More importantly, ecoacoustic sound art may not always function to be strictly environmentalist. At its core, ecoacoustic sound art's goal is to enhance and reconnect the existing connections humans have had with our environments, through reattuning to the sounds of our surroundings. Therefore, at the core of this kind of art is the requirement of a listener, and also a willingness to let the listener interpret it as they wish. Ecoacoustic music in contemporary music is just one branch of this ideology, but the roots they share hope to develop a redevelopment of listening to our surroundings in a more conscious, focused way as an act of appreciation and understanding of our world (ibid, 20). 

Possibly though, ecoacoustic music can have a more lasting impact on audiences and issues. Ecoacoustic music may allow scientific discoveries and information to make their way into concert halls or allow music to enter the scientific field, alternatively⁸. By combining these two spheres, musicians and scientists are now capable of sharing information regarding the environment through the same medium: music. 

Unlike popular musical activism, ecoacoustic music tends to focus more on the scientific explanation and processes of an environment, rather than appealing to a more emotional perspective. Two songs such as Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land", or Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are a-Changin'" demonstrate a certain kind of pathos. These songs have a social significance in popular culture, meaning listeners psychologically respond to them from name recognition and from memories associated with them. Comparatively, compositions such as Monacchi's "Fragments of Extinction", or Hildegard Westerkamp's "Kits Beach Soundwalk" focus on an exploration of sound as a way to appeal to an audience. Westerkamp's piece highlights a juxtaposition of city soundscapes and a beach's soundscape, where many small voices are being silenced. The piece functions as a way for her to mediate this imbalance, granting the listener an opportunity to hear these voices - barnacles - and also to challenge how we listen⁹.

Likewise, as we will explore further, Monacchi's "Fragments of Extinction" takes another approach by immersing listeners in a physical soundscape of certain environments, demonstrating both the separation of varying sounds based on frequency and filling in the spaces with musical additions performed live. This project aims to preserve and highlight the natural soundscapes that have existed for millennia, and which are being destroyed by human involvement ¹⁰.

As one of the composers examined in my methodology, Burtner's music focuses similarly to Westerkamp and Monacchi's work but approaches from a more traditional compositional perspective than through field recordings. One large difference is the inclusion of live performers in his music, something which many ecoacoustic sound artists do not include. This makes Burtner's work somewhat unique, as it highlights in performances a human-nature relationship,  through a performer using natural materials or through their performance itself being the demonstration of this relationship. He has also created multiple operas and works which include theatrical elements, highlighting the impact indigenous nations have had on both Burtner and their close relationships with the environments they co-exist with that are threatened. ¹¹

Figure 12: Burtner 2004, "Winter Raven" (Ukiuq Tulugaq)

There does appear to be a middle ground between the folk songs of activists like Dana Lyons and the ecoacoustic music of Matthew Burtner in attempting to share information and knowledge with audiences. As a classically trained musician, the performance opportunities afforded by ecoacoustic music could be explored through other pieces in the form of contextualizing them in original ways, and also taking liberty towards developing programs that direct listeners to the qualities of sound being created over pure entertainment value. This can combine both the ideology of musical ecoacoustics and the more direct approach activist folk music has. 

Dana Lyons' music is often performed behind or ahead of a tour being made by a project that he intends to oppose. For example, his Great Coal Train Tour made stops where a proposed coal export train would be built, from Wyoming to Washington, for exporting to China (“The Great Coal Train Tour”). In this context, his musical messaging which utilizes clear and direct messaging about the effects that a train will have on the towns it will be built through makes sense to easily help people understand without needing more information; the song he wrote for this tour "Sometimes", is clearly intended to oppose the construction of the train, and warn people of the effects it will have on both the citizen's that will live by it and the environmental complications it will create. 

According to Matthew Burtner, a prominent musical artist in the ecoacoustic field, musical ecoacoustics applies concepts from ecoacoustic science and develops a process of learning and exploration through sonification and art-making, rather than scientific discovery (Burtner, 2004, "Ecoacoustics"). Likewise, Jennifer Publicover in her article Music as a tool for environmental education and advocacy: artistic perspectives from musicians of the Playlist for the Planet⁵,  describes music as a tool to help audiences connect in a different way to environmentalism - through emotion, motivation, and values, from which scientific explanations may be more removed. More importantly, she expresses that music is capable of creating community.⁶ This concept of developing community is what makes artists like Dana Lyons or Woody Guthrie such influential figures in their communities, due to the shared experiences they verbalize and document for audiences, allowing for change or prevention of unwanted change to occur. 

In contrast, Burtner himself expresses that the performance of ecoacoustic music is most often intended for a concert hall with a "dedicated listening public."⁷ Another example he gives is of a scientific presentation or panel with a musical performance within it, which assumes then the audience is informed on the inspiration of the piece. While these two options demonstrate the flexibility of ecoacoustic music as an art form, the dissemination of information may be lacking in other contexts, such as a protest environment, an open public concert, or other locations in which the audience may not be able to have more context given surrounding the piece. 

This is not to say ecoacoustic music is confined to the concert hall, however. Many of Burtner's explorations in ecoacoustics have involved him being in icefields, glaciers, forests, or deserts and recording the environment, playing with the landscape, or performing live at these locations. 

From a performance perspective, there is an added difficulty in creating an emotional connection with strictly ecoacoustic music, which many of the examples and artists interviewed for Publicover's paper could create more easily with many of the songs being originals, or using lyrics to connect a topic with audiences. 

For example, Dana Lyons, a musician who writes topical folk songs on environmental issues, can express the topics directly with lyrics pointing them out, making the listener's job less involved than with ecoacoustic music.   In his song, "Our State is A Dumpsite", he combines humor with realistic messaging, and it is clear to see how this kind of music is well suited for touring and incorporating into protest-like events.

"We don’t just make the power, we also build the bombs

The dollars never stop from Washington to Washington
The other states all love us cause we rarely take a stand
They send us little presents and put money in our hands

Our State is a Dumpsite, Plutonium 239
Our State is a Dumpsite, just set it over there, that’s fine
Our State is a Dumpsite, we’ll take whatever you send
Our State is a Dumpsite, where the hot times never end." - Dana Lyons,  "Our State Is A Dumpsite"

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