Transcribing Vale do Ave into sound: ‘seeing’ space through ‘listening’

Abstract

Transcription of 'Ave’s Valley in sound' is generated through the intersection of territory
representation with sound representation, as an operative tool for interpretation of two samples of
Ave’s Valley — the centre of Guimarães and 'between Brito and Silvares' —, through creating
ambivalent graphical notations, which represent both the space and the sound. In this paper, we present
the reasoning of the transcription process crafted, which has as generating question: how to transcribe
the urban space in sound? Recognizing that both the sound and the space are susceptible of graphic
representations, the outlined process generates a language of intersection between the ‘real’ space, of
the selected samples, and the corresponding sound composition. What is the sound of each place’s
spaces? How to find a common language? Developed experiments were carried out in order to address
these issues, making research progress on the intersection between the representation of the
composition of the territory and the sound composition, through the transcription methodology
constructed, based on operative strategies. These strategies, came not only from understanding the
linkages 'between' space and sound, systematized in a language, explored through the grammar and
the created alphabet, but also by unfolding the transcription method applied to the selected samples,
which resulted in original sound compositions consequent to the investigated space.