As our sound surroundings grow more crowded, we lose the ability to hear fine differences and subtle details. In a 'lo-fi' setting, so many redundant sounds pile up that each one carries little information, and the listener stops paying attention. In a 'hi-fi' setting, sounds stand out clearly, and the listener actively hears and learns from them.
Unwanted sound damages the shared environment just as toxic waste in air or water does, even though we notice it less. That makes it something communities can measure and regulate, and they have tried to for centuries with local rules against noise. Seeing sound as part of the environment brings into view a whole area of life that people usually neither notice nor value.
Campaigns against noise pollution tend to stay negative, listing only what to ban. A better approach treats the world's sounds as an endless musical composition. We are at once its audience, its performers and its composers, so we can deliberately shape it. The goal is to pick out the sounds that nourish us and build healthier places around them.
Improving the sound environment starts with learning to listen closely, analyze what we hear, and tell sounds apart. Without that skill, people cannot tell which sounds enrich their lives and which only add clutter.
Technology that records and transmits sound has cut sounds loose from the people and things that make them. A sound can now play anywhere, at any time, with no maker present. Some sounds still mean something because they belong to one place: a sound a community treats as uniquely its own, and values for that reason.