The Tokyo that Roland Barthes called the "Empire of Signs" might just as well be termed the "Empire of Sounds".

Tokyo is a city of intense media bombardment, reflected strongly in the soundscape. Like the buildings of the city’s neighborhoods, familiar sounds can disappear seemingly overnight, replaced by entirely new ones as the metropolis goes through phenomenally rapid change.

Interesting artists and researchers have concentrated mainly, although certainly not exclusively, on the wonderful natural soundscapes of Japan. More than 24 years ago the Japanese Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] identified 100 different sites. Sounds such as the noise of drift ice on the Sea of Okhost and the rumblings of the Sea of Enshu were mentioned. There is no question that these are wonderful sounds in and of themselves, and to the extent that any of them might be in danger through climate change or other environmental degradation I strongly support their preservation, both in nature and through recorded documentation.

My interest however is in the ever-changing urban soundscape of Tokyo, which I have observed consistently since my first visit in 1984. While I would say that probably all or most of the great cities of the world are by their nature noisy, I was immediately struck by the fact that while in most cases it is unintended noise – traffic, construction and so on – that raises the urban decibel levels. But in Tokyo, most of the sounds that I heard, be they street peddlers, elevator girls, automated shop announcements, auctioneers, the warning of a train door closing and so on, were sounds INTENTIONALLY introduced, not collateral pollution.

In 1974 American composer, percussionist and sound artist Max Neuhaus, who died in 2009, published an infamous guest editorial in the New York Times that railed against the “silly bureaucrats” of New York City’s Department of Air Resources’ “dangerously misleading” noise ordinances, by stating the city’s “noise propaganda” only made “more noise.”

For the foreigner who beholds the Tokyo soundscape for the first time, without language comprehension, the impression can only be one of fascination and bewilderment.

We are assaulted by sound images everywhere we turn. Be it the roadside sweet potato vendor or the politician who lectures from trucks, the abacus lessons on the radio, the television commercials – they all hypnotize.

Perhaps the experience is that like a first-born infant, fresh into the world, amazed by sounds without any comprehension beyond childlike intuition as to their nature.

Obviously, native Japanese will experience these sounds completely differently because of the cultural and linguistic familiarity. To a Japanese person, when an 'elevator girl' says "This is the third floor" they do not think anything more. But I am transfixed by the quality of voice, of sound, of the abstract semantic. So the experience has always been primarily musical for me.

The Tokyo soundscape lured me back to Japan for a half-year residence starting in 1988. My mission in part was to capture as many interesting sounds as possible, perhaps for redeployment in a musical composition in the future. Like a tourist I roamed the streets, looking for interesting sounds not sights, and using a portable DAT recorder instead of a camera. I collected many hours of materials. Over time many of the best sounds, commonplace at the time, have entirely disappeared.

Before the invention of the automated wicket at train stations, the ticket of a passenger needed to be punched by an agent upon entry and again on exit. Small stations had one or two agents, but large stations like Tokyo, Ueno, Shinjuku might have ten or more lined up. To keep momentum for the throngs, the agents would habitually flex their punchers even in the absence of people exiting. The sound of these metallic punchers firing off rapidly and stochastically, as if a continuous waterfall-like stream, was glorious. But it is gone now forever, replaced by automated gates designed by Omron, just as the elevator girls have been replaced by dryly precise recorded announcements that offer nothing of value other than information, such as that the door is closing.

Noisy pachinko parlors, surely a hazard for regular customers not to mention anyone employed at one, may have the same decibel levels as before. In the Eighties, the background music piped in to energize the customers and keep them feeding the slots was all John Philip Sousa marches. Now it’s all hard techno and anime music.

I regret that I was not around in the Meji era [which finished in the early part of the 20th Century] before western apparel was widely adopted. I imagine the newly opened train station like Tokyo or Ueno, with their high ceilings, fully reflective surfaces and thousands teeming inside. Then I remember that all of the people would have been clopping around wearing geta, the wooden sandals worn with kimono and yukata. And I truly wish I could have been there to hear it.

– Carl Stone