Noise Mapp.

2019; 6:94–102

Research Article

Heow Pueh Lee, Kian Meng Lim, and Saurabh Garg*

A case study of recording soundwalk of Fushimi

Inari shrine in Kyoto, Japan using smartphone
https://doi.org/10.1515/noise-2019-0008 tening, observing, and occasionally recording the sound-
Received May 01, 2019; accepted Nov 04, 2019 scape of a place. McCartney [1] suggested that soundwalk-
ing should be done at a normal walking pace. Soundwalk
Abstract: We present soundwalk of Fushimi Inari Shrine
not only helps us to connect with our surrounding sound-
in Kyoto, Japan from the main gate facing the Inari railway
scape but can also be used a tool by city planners to reduce
station to the summit. The soundwalk was captured from
effects of the noise pollution by masking it with waterfalls
Samsung Galaxy S8 running NoiseExplorer: an app we
and trees.
have developed for Android and iOS. Fushimi Inari Shrine
Fushimi Inari Taisha or Fushimi Inari Shrine is the
is the main shrine of the god Inari and sits at the base of
head or the main shrine of the god Inari, located in Fushimi
a mountain also named Inari which is 233 meters above
Ward in Kyoto, Japan. The shrine sits at the base of a moun-
sea level. It also includes trails up the mountain to many
tain also named Inari which is 233 m (764 ft) above sea
smaller shrines which span 4 kilometers and takes approx-
level and includes trails up the mountain to many smaller
imately two hours to walk up. This shrine is ranked as the
shrines which span four km (2.5 mi). It takes approximately
number one most popular sightseeing destination among
two hours to walk up. Inari is the god of rice, but merchants
tourists visiting Japan. A salient feature of the shrine is the
and manufacturers have traditionally worshiped Inari as
rows of nearly 10,000 torii gates in striking orange color,
the patron of business. This popular shrine is said to have
which is known as the Senbon torii. The soundscape at
as many as 32,000 sub-shrines (bunsha) throughout Japan.
the main gate and the main shrine was found to be dom-
The shrine became the object of imperial patronage dur-
inated by the sound of cicadas. However, midway along
ing the early Heian period. From 1871 to 1946, Fushimi
the torii gates along the path towards the summit, cicada
Inari Taisha was officially designated as one of the Kanpei-
sound subsides, and the soundscape is more representa-
taisha (first of the government supported shrines). The lay-
tive of typical footpath on mountain paths. The Leq noise
out of the Fushima Inari Shrine is shown in Figure 1. Partly
level of 59.6 dBA is well below the typical noise level of
because it was used as a setting for the movie Memoirs of
other Japanese tourist attractions.
a Geisha, this shrine has been ranked as the number one
Keywords: Soundwalk, Noise mapping, Fushimi Inari most popular sightseeing destination among tourists visit-
shrine, Soundscape ing Japan.
The highlight of the shrine is the rows of torii gates
called Senbon torii. The custom to donate a torii started
to spread since the Edo period (1603-1868) to get a wish to
1 Introduction
become true or to thank for a wish that became true. Along
the main path there are around 10,000 torii gates painted
Soundscape forms an important part of experiencing any
in bright orange color. A typical section is shown in Fig-
place, whether it is a nature park, historical place, or a
ure 2 with striking orange color painted on the torii gates.
tourist attraction. A soundscape is not just an auditory ex-
The approach to appreciating and managing the nat-
perience but a combination of both auditory and visual ex-
ural sound-world is possibly unique to Japan. And trav-
perience as well as how a person interacts with the immedi-
elers to that country will often be surprised by unusual
ate environment. Soundwalk is the process of mindful lis-
and carefully ‘placed’ soundscapes evident in everyday
life. The idea of wa (harmony) is an important element of
the Japanese aesthetic and this extends to the sonic envi-
*Corresponding Author: Saurabh Garg: Department of Mechani-
ronment as well. Nagahata et al. [3] reported that Japanese
cal Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore; Email:
[email protected] had been losing their own inherited sound culture. On the
Heow Pueh Lee, Kian Meng Lim: Department of Mechanical Engi-
neering, National University of Singapore, Singapore

Open Access. © 2019 H. Pueh Lee et al., published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution
4.0 License
 A case study of recording soundwalk of Fushimi Inari shrine in Kyoto, Japan using smartphone | 95

Figure 2: A section of the torii gates along the path towards the
summit

Figure 1: The layout of Fushimi Inari Shrine [2] ation in soundscape which appeared to be different from
the soundscape of other shrines in Japan.
In this paper, we present the soundscape of Fushimi
contrary, the soundscapes of shrines and temples had not Inari Shrine recorded from Samsung Galaxy S8 smart-
been affected by historical changes. phone. Smartphone was used instead of scientific equip-
Some studies have discussed the soundscape of reli- ment such as sound level meter (SLM) because smart-
gious sites such as Buddhist temples and cathedrals [3, 4]. phones are cheaper and lighter compared to bulky and ex-
Zhang et al. [4] concluded that although there was in- pensive SLMs. Unlike SLMs Smartphones have an inbuilt
creased awareness about the protection of historic build- GPS receiver which is essential for generating noise maps.
ings including temples and shrines, the protection of the Additionally, with the help of citizen scientists [7–9] it is
soundscape or the sound environment, which was deemed possible to easily capture a much more detailed sound-
to be an integral part of the overall environment of historic scape than is possible with small research teams. This pa-
buildings or sites, was often ignored. There is a reported per illustrates that it is feasible to use a smartphone to
soundwalk of historical sites in Japan and even a report record soundscape.
on the 100 soundscapes of Japan covering Japan’s great- We found that Fushimi Inari Taisha has a unique
est natural, cultural, and industrial sounds [5]. Recently, soundscape. The shrine was originally setup for worship-
the soundscape and analysis of the frequency spectrum of ing the god of rice. The Chinese saying is that when the
Miyajima and Itsukushima shrine in Japan was presented cicadas begin to sing, it is time for the paddy rice to show
in [6]. However, there is no reported systematic study of the awns [7]. An interesting finding is that the soundscape at
soundscape or analysis of the spectrum of Fushimi Inari the main gate and the main shrine is still dominated by the
Shrine. The present study is motivated by the spectacu- sound of cicadas and midway along the torii gates along
lar visual impact of the shrine as well as by the rich vari- the path towards the summit, the cicada sound subsides,
96 | H. Pueh Lee et al.

Figure 3: Soundscape of the Fushimi Inari shrine

and the soundscape becomes more representative of typi-

cal footpath on mountain trails.

2 Methodology
The soundwalk for Fushimi Inari Shrine was recorded from
Samsung Galaxy S8 with the help of NoiseExplorer: an app
we have developed for Android and iOS. NoiseExplorer can
simultaneously record audio as WAV files and location in-
formation along with SPL in log files. WAV files are used
to generate average spectrums and spectrograms while log
files are used to generate noise maps. NoiseExplorer is dis-
cussed in more detail in [6]. The microphone in the Sam-
Figure 4: The main entrance to the Fushimi Inari shrine opposite the
sung Galaxy S8 was calibrated against a type 1 reference
train station
microphone using the technique described in [8]. The cali-
bration technique uses a set of simultaneous environmen-
tal recordings from a smartphone and a type 1 reference mi- body and walking at a normal pace with a group of people.
crophone to calibrate the smartphone microphone. It was 29 recordings (47 minutes long) were made over a period of
shown that the technique achieved an accuracy of 0.7 dB 1 hour and 25 minutes on the morning of July 13, 2018. All
for 99.7% of measurements over a 9 hour of environmental 29 recordings captured during soundwalk were used and
noise. we did not perform any kind of audio processing on them.
The soundwalk was recorded while holding smart- Recording do not span the total duration of walk to keep
phone in hand at a comfortable distance away from the in mind the social dynamics, etiquette’s, and safety.
 A case study of recording soundwalk of Fushimi Inari shrine in Kyoto, Japan using smartphone | 97

Figure 5: Soundscape from the main entrance opposite the train station to the starting of the path lined with thousands of torii

Figure 6: The spectrogram of the Soundscape from the main entrance opposite the train station to the starting of the path lined with thou-
sands of torii
98 | H. Pueh Lee et al.

Figure 7: The starting point of the torii gates Figure 8: The drain next to the path

3.2 Soundwalk from the starting of the torii

3 Results and discussion gates to Kumatakasha
The overall soundscape for the soundwalk is shown in Fig- The starting point of the torii gates towards the summit
ure 3. The soundwalk was conducted in the morning of 13 of the mountain is shown in Figure 7. The beginning part
July 2018. It was a sunny day with moderate number of vis- of the soundscape for this part was still dominated by
itors, especially at the beginning of the soundwalk. the sound of cicadas. The cicada sound subsided after a
turning near the Kumatakasha. Few minutes after cicada
sound subsided, there is water stream sound for part of the
3.1 Soundwalk from the main entrance journey to Kumatakasha due to the drain flowing next to
opposite the train station to the starting it (Figure 8). The soundscape and the associated spectro-
of the path lined with thousands of torii gram are shown in Figures 9 and 10, respectively.

The start of the soundwalk is the main gate of the Fushimi

Inari Taisha (Figure 4). The soundscape and the associated 3.3 Soundwalk of round trip from
spectrogram are shown in Figures 5 and 6, respectively. Kumatakasha to the summit
A striking feature of the soundscape for this part of the
soundwalk is the sound caused by cicadas. This can be The soundscape and the associated spectrogram are
deemed as a special feature for the Fushimi Inari Taisha shown in Figures 11 and 12, respectively. The overall noise
which was originally setup for honoring the God of Rice. level is in general lower than the noise level of typical
shrines in Kyoto, especially along the path towards the
summit. The Leq noise level is 56.9 dBA dominated by
the cicada sound compared to the Leq of 64.1 dBA at the
Miyajima and Itsukushima Shrine in Kyoto [6]. The main
 A case study of recording soundwalk of Fushimi Inari shrine in Kyoto, Japan using smartphone | 99

Figure 9: Soundscape from the starting of the torii gates to Kumatakasha

Figure 10: Spectrogram of the soundscape from starting of the torii gates to Kumatakasha
100 | H. Pueh Lee et al.

Figure 11: Soundscape of round trip from Kumatakasha to the summit

Figure 12: Spectrogram of the soundscape for round trip from Kumatakasha to the summit
 A case study of recording soundwalk of Fushimi Inari shrine in Kyoto, Japan using smartphone | 101

(Figure 14) is mainly dominated by human voice due to the

popularity of the shrine for the tourists to Kyoto.

4 Conclusions
In this study, we have presented soundscape of Fushimi
Inari Shrine to illustrate that smartphone can be used as
a relatively inexpensive and convenient alternative to ex-
pensive and bulky scientific equipment for recording the
soundscape of a place. With the help of crowd-sourcing
it is possible to build a rich and realistic soundscape of a
place easily. The present study is an example towards this
ultimate goal. The soundscape was found to be dominated
by cicada sound near the main shrine and sound from the
nature for path to the summit. The noise level was found
to be below 77.8 dBA for most part of the soundwalk. The
Leq sound level is 59.6 dBA for the entire path.

Acknowledgement: The authors would like to acknowl-

edge the financial support by the Ministry of Education
under the Tier 1 Academic Research Grant (R-265-000-639-
114).

Figure 13: The footpath made by concrete blocks and stones

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