Read the following articles on sound: Delehanty, Ferrington, Hill, Peterson, Russolo, Toop, and Westerkamp. Links to the articles here.
Pick one, and write a three-paragraph statement answering the following three questions (one paragraph per question), as a comment to this post.
1. Identify the article you have selected and why you chose it.
2. What are the main points of the essay?
3. How are the ideas or arguments in this article relevant to your own practice as a media artist?
The deadline is Monday, February 18, 3 PM.
55 comments:
1. Hill, S. Arden. "Listening to Myself Listening."
I choose this article for it’s in depth look at the world of sound around us, and how little attention is often put into listening (versus hearing). This may be because there is a lack of interest in such details, or simply because said person is oblivious to the world around them and is focused on only themselves (more or less).
2. Our ears are always hearing the vibrations in a given space, but actual listening provides an insight into our sonic environment that displays our culture in ways we might have never noticed. Hill explains the idea of sonic environment in a way that breaks us out of our preconceived notions of only sounds in the foreground are worth focus. Background elements are just as important. This speaks to our perception of our sonic environment, with inclusion of both obvious and subtle sounds creating the overall sonic environment. This can include unusual aspects such as refrigerators and toasters.
3. For me, listening to details provides an opportunity to absorb myself in my surroundings and find sonic events that might inspire the synthetic creation of new sounds in an electronic composition, or to just simple be aware of my surroundings.
1. I picked the article "The Art of Noise" by David Toop because I wanted to try and gain an understanding of Sound as art. If someone would have asked me what I thought sound as an artform is, I would have said music. In Toops article he elaborates on the history of this artform and has hope for its resurgence (at least it seemed that way to me).
2. It seems to me that Toop's main point is to examine the differences between music and noise. He talks about what is popular, what people recognize/appreciate, and which has been more succesful. He talks about the impact sound has on usphysically and emotionally. He talks about the complexity of sound, and how we munipulate it to do what we want. He also discusses a period of the 20 century when visual art and sound art shared a remarkabley close relationship.
3. They share nothing with what I do as a photographer. I am actually very skeptical of noise as an artform. The only way I would clasify it as an artform is if their was some sort of composition. Since I am a Urban Landscape photographer, I could see some ambient city noise adding a feel to the environment of an installation of my work. That really seems to be the only way I would use this media with my work.
1) The article i chose to write on was Gary Ferrington's "On a clear day I can hear forever." I chose this one because i really like how the author is just talking about different sounds they experience throughout different times of the day. I also like the ambiguity of not knowing which exact city the author is writing from, because that may detract from the message. I also like the ending, it's kind of cheesy but it works.
2) I would have to say that the main points of the essay are just about the relationship between a person and the sounds they hear. I mean every paragraph in the entire essay is about another sound Gary hears and goes on to elaborates on. It doesn't seem like he ever gets sick of the new sounds, the whole feel of the essay seems to be one of enjoying the different sounds and learning to recognize them.
3) The ideas of this essay are relevant to me as a media artist because i always have to be aware of new and exciting things to use as a an artist. If i can find new sounds or learn to recognize sounds I've never paid attention to before i have many more outlets to use in my art. This article is just useful because it discusses all the interesting things someone can hear if they're actually listening.
Q1
This time around I'm deciding to discuss Luigi Russolo's writings, "The Art of Noises." I found his claims on the evolution of music and our ears intriguing. As i read through the section where he explains how the Greeks understood
music mathematically, i immediately thought of "Donald in Mathmagic
Land."
http://tinyurl.com/3yqjdt
Russolo also has an interesting perspective on why society widely accepts nosies now-a-days and not really at any other point in time. In a sense we've have been conditioned, especially our newer generations of children. However, this idea isn't relatively new. The moment machinery began to take form in the 1800s, the once simple lives of early folk became more complex and in turn was reflected in the sounds that still resonate till this day.
In any case, his most profound teaching that i read from this article, is that even before the age of machinery, there have always been harmonies orchestrated in both orderly and chaotic rhythms. It is up to the artist, observer or composer to interpret and organize the noise in such a way, where one instills emotion into the emotionless.
Q2
One of the main points of this essay that I'm not sure if i can agree with is Russolo's claim that since people live in a noise polluted environment, we need that much more complicated music as so we don't find ourselves dozing off. On one hand i agree because society today does believe it needs to stay busy and so in that i can see how he is reaching this conclusion. However, for this exact reason would be my argument that peaceful or pure sounds possess now more than ever a value only a person from our hectic world truly appreciate.
"The rhythmic movements of a noise are infinite: just as with tone there is always predominant rhythm, but around this numerous other secondary rhythms can be felt."
Russolo purposes noise and sounds are to be one and the same. By studying similar and contrasting tones, one will be able to understand that a sound was at one point noise at the beginning of time and that such beautiful tones can be heard in even today's industrial world.
Q3
I'm beginning to learn that everything in this world holds artistic value. But now i've come to realize that before the value is seen, one has to understand why you value it to begin with. Take film in example. In order for myself to truly appreciate moving pictures, i learned the aesthetic value of the still image. Within the still image composition, framing, content, angles, lighting and focus all play critically when reading the photograph. But when reading film it becomes much more complicated. Actually! perhaps even the same theory Russolo has on the evolution of noise and sound can be applied to photography and film. Hmm, very interesting... i welcome discussion.
Oh by the way, heres a link to some samples of music by the great Futurist composer,
Francesco Balilla Pratella.
http://tinyurl.com/3afsob
and on that note, I leave you until next time, dear readers.
#1. The article I chose was S. Arden Hill’s “Listening to Myself Listening.” Honestly, I chose this article at random, but I decided to continue after reading a few excerpts of the article. It was not long before I became intrigued with this notion of listening vs. hearing. It was interesting because listening/hearing is such an automatic process for just about everyone and most people don’t think about it twice, but Hill as well as his sources spent so much time on this topic.
#2. Hill starts his article out his article by stating that “sound is produced by nearly every action, detail, tool, or device.” The statement sets the tone for the relevance of his topic, which is listening. He moves on to differentiate listening from hearing, which he believes are two, separate acts. Hill states that you hear sounds everyday, as it is an “involuntary act” but you don’t necessarily interpret them. On the contrary, he believes listening is “noticing and interpreting what is heard.” He goes on to point out that the focal point of our listening differs from person to person. There are many variables in this such as degree of interest, physical ability, or cultural differences. In particular, I found the cultural differences to be fascinating. I mean, it’s amazing how people from different areas divert their listening attention to different sounds and it’s such an obvious statement, but I think it’s an interesting aspect of who we are as human beings. Hill states that his thesis is, “How do we choose the focus of our listening experience, and can that process be described?” He reiterates an idea from scholar R. Murray Schafer, that there are “acoustic warning devices.” These certain “devices” or sounds gain our attention over other sounds because they have been “programmed into our repertoire of listening focal points.” Many sounds in your brain have been programmed for certain environments and when something is irregular to that environment, it gains our focus. In conclusion, I think Hill just wants the reader to look at their listening environments differently and listen for things that they may overlook in their surroundings.
#3. I believe the article is personally very relevant as a media artist. I think it is great to look over a piece of art, whether it’s a painting or a song, and find something in it, that you didn’t see or hear at first. Many details are overlooked in our world and it’s always surprising to me when you find these details, even after you have heard a certain song a thousand times or looked at a drawing a thousand times. The section on the variables in listening attention got me thinking about my music. As a musician, it always seems to fascinate me that people hear certain songs or instruments and interpret them differently, and I seemed to correlate this idea with the distinction between the way people listen to certain sounds.
I chose the article “The Art of Noise” by David Toop because I like the way he looks at sound art compared to visual art. According to Toop, “Visual work has boundaries; a position that is fixed, if only from moment to moment; a capacity to express specific ideas. Sound, on the other hand, may come and go; be perceived at all points in a space, even behind the listener's head or out of sight; be resistant to verbal interpretation, or attachment to any kind of meaning other than the way it alters an environment” (3rd paragraph.) I like the idea that sound doesn’t have a fixed capacity in which it affects its audience. I like that it is the creation of an atmosphere or an environment for the audience member to exist in, rather than one fleeting image for the audience to react to. The creation of environment through sound leaves a lasting impact. While an image might remain in the audience members head, sound can envelop the audience member and has boundless potential to alter their view of the world.
The main points of Toop’s essay involve the function of sound as an expression of time and atmosphere, and also a brief history on experiments with sound as art. Toop also explains the conflict in a society that is predominantly visual. He argues that sound can work for or against “popular logic.” He explains that sound is easily discarded as noise if it is not organized in to music or speech. He goes on to explore what makes music (as a subjective term for organized sound) something identifiable as music. By giving some background history (like the works of Marcel Duchamp) and touching on ideas of Minimalist sound, Toop asks the reader to stretch their preconceived ideas of the relation of sound as music and noise as music. By the end of the article, Toop asks the reader to consider these relationships with a new perspective of sound—one that makes sound art as important and effective as visual arts (although not necessarily by the same means.)
Sound is key for a media artist. Creation of atmosphere and environment in a project are vital for the audience member to fully envelop themselves in the world the artist creates. Thinking of sound as a primary, rather than supplementary way to influence an audience opens up many more avenues of creation to explore when creating a project. Using Toop’s argument that sound is not impaired by the same fixed boundaries that visual art is held by, media artists can expand their range of possibility and creativity for projects. The biggest benefit is having art that an audience member can exist in, rather than react to. While reacting to art still elicits emotional response from the audience member, I feel that I’d rather create a space for the audience member to exist in and change their world view in. To me, this seems far more effective. With this new perspective on sound that Toop discusses, it brings me, the artist, more ways to create projects that the audience can immerse themselves in.
I chose Hill, S Arden’s “Listening to Myself” initially because the title of the article seemed perplexing, but also because of the author frequently quoted John Cage whose theories I already respect. The article seemed very relevant to a lot of my recent film and philosophy classes. In my other classes we analyzed the ideas of subjective experiences of the viewers of a film, music, or any form of sound and visuals. The fact that no two people see anything in exactly the same way is as complex as the process of listening I have learned I especially enjoyed how article points out how dynamic our environments are in distracting us into a possibly more interesting acoustical environment.
Hill first points out the idea of sonic environments, that is specific environments that a person would be led to focus in on a certain type of sound. In a theatre we usually focus on the sounds of the film from the speakers, in a lecture hall we listen to the speaker. Even in the sounds of a movie or voice, there are aspects of the sounds we can focus on like the ambient background music, or phonetic and textural qualities of a voice. Furthermore there are always distractions that can turn a person’s interest depending completely on the person. Hill goes on to talk about actual sound environments like the busy street corner or café in which we observe or ignore certain sounds with cultural or societal meaning. He believes the noise can describe the state of society, the type of people in it, and where the society is heading. He also differentiated artificial sound environments like soundtracks, radio stations, music festivals. These sound environments also differentiate in themselves from the constructed environment that people hear and the actual intentional sounds that the artist created or recorded. Because we hear both, we are actively focusing our attention to various elements of the sound. The main point of the article is that we change our sonic environments by actively choosing what we are listening for. We can expand our understanding of sound and its meaning, or change how we want to perceive and thus react or enjoy our environment.
I think this article helps me understand the implications of sounds in media. The most obvious point is that we should try to shape constructed artificial environments for experiencing media, because it is just as important as the media itself. Another interesting point I found useful is that we can use the most ordinary distracting sounds in any way we want. These sounds could enhance an environment or the sounds themselves could entrance, haunt, or otherwise focus the viewer on into something new. Like amplifying the extraneous noise of a violent pianist to enhance the atmosphere of the music, you can enhance anything with sound. Visuals represent of the dimensions of film, through sound you can create acoustical landscapes that shape the meaning of your film as much or more than visuals simply can. Most artists want people to experience something the way they experience it, and although that experience can never be exactly replicated, by understanding how one experiences it is how they can at least attempt to guide people through the process of there experiences.
1) The article that I chose was “Listening to myself listen” by Arden S. Hill the and the reason that I chose this article was because I felt I could relate to it more. I felt that this article was more relative to me because I completed my first drift and there were some things that Hill said that got me on a personal level. For example, when Hill started talking about sonic environments he said that “environments like the street sound signals such as the acoustic warning devices draw our immediate attention or focus, e.g., sirens, cries, and familiar voices.” This happened to me a lot last night on my drift. My attention was drawn to the loud fans of the parking garage, or the shoveling of the snow.
2) Hill had three main points that his article that he covered. The first was defining hearing and listening. Hill defined hearing as "an involuntary act that happens through our primary sense organ, most people can hear”. This definition was kind of vague, but in his definition of listening he says that “Listening is noticing and directing attention and interpreting what is heard” and that it is a process of observing, distinguishing and then classifying sound”. Hill ends up defining hearing in the definition of listening. The second point was talking about sonic environments. How sonic environments play the role of distinguishing hearing and listening. This main point also covers what I felt on a personal note about the sonic environment being fun and should be adventurous. The last point that construction environments such as in the home or in the car are the focuses of listening.
3) This article relates to my practice as a media artist in the sense of being aware of everything around me during my drifts. If I want my drifts to be successful I have to include elements from a sonic environment, construction environment, and daily environment. This article has also given me this new sense of listening and hearing. Last night when I had my headphones on I tried to hear what was going on around me, when I edit my sounds on the tape, I will listen for something specific.
Jon Elliott
group 1
1. The article I chose was "The Art of Noise" by David Toop. I chose this article because I was very interested in the idea that sound can create memories. Whenever I hear a certain song, I can think back to that particular event. I find it interesting that the sounds that we take for granted or even find annoying can still create a memory pathway in our minds. I also liked the discussion of the relationship between art sound and music. If someone asked me what art sound was I'd say it was just noise, but this article talks about how it is more than just noise; it is music that is based on space instead of on the audience's taste.
2. David Toop discusses the relationship between music/noise and art and sound and sound art. First he talks generally about sound and how it is unpredictable and unstoppable. He then talks about the impact sound has on human beings. Most of the time, we take sound for granted and can think it is nothing but an annoying disturbance. Other times, sounds can be harmful and can bring up bad memories. Toop then addresses the key argument of what is the difference between art and sound and sound art. He claims that the difference lies in the ultimate aim. Sound artists are interested in the ways in which sound behaves erratically in space, or in our thoughts, and the degree to which this behavior can form something solid out of something invisible and untouchable, in so changing our sense of the world. So in the end, this is a form of music. In essence, there really is not big difference because even if you play 3 or 4 noises in a performance, you are making music. The small difference is that sound art is based on the accessibility of space whereas music is based on the attention span of the audience. Also, like visual art, sound has lots to communicate, you just have to look more closely to find it.
3. It taught me that you can create your own soundtrack just by using a confined space. You don't need to pay copyrights to have some fancy musician create your own soundtrack. I like the idea of creating my own sound to match my own images and the fact that it can be done with just normal outside sounds makes it even more satisfying. I also want my sounds to create a memory in the audience's mind that way if they hear a certain sound in the world, hopefully they'll think back to my work.
1. I chose the article "Sounds of the Seasons" by Ivars Peterson, because it interested me the most out of all the other articles. It interested me so because it talked about all of the sounds that people miss out on and I can say that I agree with that.
2. The main points in this article really deal with people missing out on noise. We listen to music or sounds that we enjoy, but we tune out the noises that we don't want to hear. For example, Peterson states that some communities want to ban leaf blowers due to the noise. But he says that that noise can compare to a lawn mower or a truck. I personally don't like the sounds of these three things but I tune them out rather than listen to them. Peterson also states that people search or silence to control noise. To me this goes to far because we need noise in our lives.
3. Listening is very important to me as an artist when I am editing a film or when I am trying to get the right noise levels through my microphones. I don't always want the background noises like a truck or lawn mower but if I was to record those sounds it would be very important to my work that it was around and available to me.
I chose "The Art Of Noises", by Russolo, for my second response. I chose this article because of my interest in the Futurists as well as their influence on later musicians and composers. The movement is very under-represented in music history, and especially in an academic setting. I used this opportunity to read this primary text by one of the movements pioneers.
Russolo beings the essay with somewhat of a definition of noise, as well as contrasting it with sound and presenting a (somewhat creative) history of noise. He follows with a history of music, and makes the claim that music has been continuously evolving towards what he calls "noise-sounds". He credits the invention of machines with producing the first noises. One of the most interesting, and poignant, points of the essay is when Russolo insists on a system for classifying and organizing noises. This is still pertinent, and an on-going issue in music and sound art.
The issues in this article are very important to all modern musicians, whether they agree with the points made or not. The influence of the Futurists is everywhere, and not just in avant-garde and experimental music. I enjoyed reading this manifesto straight from the source.
The sound article I have selected is was written by Gary Ferrington. From the articles opening I had a relationship with what sounds he heard during a quiet morning. I couldn't help but think of my late or early cigarettes outside my apartment building. At first I would just look back and forth down the street, the flashing traffic lights, no cars or people. After a few nights (early mornings) I realized I had quite the infatuation with this time of day, it wasn't due to the lack of society, but the leftover sounds. It is so quiet, it makes me want to assemble one of those montages you see with an animal decaying, from full bodied to remains, only use only the sounds from the peak of the day to this time of night. These nights are not dead, however, but, as Gary refers to his mornings," a momentary period of quietude."
I cannot say there are main points to this article. Ferrington builds his normal day of sounds in honest collections of what you would hear, leading to a conclusion that heightens the importance of quiet and it's strange overwhelming power on the ears. By comparison, Gary conjures up the image and sounds of garbage trucks, trains and apartment clutter and chatter that is present every day so much that he knows whether the train is carrying freight or passengers. He does not discredit the soundscape of the city, he appreciates it, although not as much as in the winter season. Of all the sounds he mentions, it is the winter time that,"impresses" Ferrington. The absence of the clutter at night when he can "hear forever." I think he sees this as the closest he'll come to hearing what the world would be like without technology, the sounds of the land like the river on it's way to the ocean he mentions. Ferrington would rather stare at the remains of the dog, I understand that.
Gary's sentimental and naturalistic attraction to the 'quietude' of the city is such an honest reflection that I remembered the phrase 'peace and quiet'. It's important in that it is asking for quiet and not silence, something is taking from the quiet that makes the situation peaceful. As I would stand smoking my cigarette outside, I often wished it were warmer so I could enjoy the sounds more. Interpreting the quiet into art is a task, like writing a stream of consciousness onto paper. To some the soundscape of winter would be dismal or boring, but to the author and myself it is much more rich than the what the daily hustle has to offer. As I forgot about the idea of 'peace and quiet' I'm sure many have forgot what early morning sounds like. The display of those sounds, although it's really just one sound, the culmination of inactivity is worth the action of listening.
1). I chose "the art of noise" by Davis Toop. the main thing that striked me is when Top when on saying that people disconnect noise to music, and forget that without the sense of noise music would have never been created. It reminded me of this project my music teacher had us do in high school; he asked us to write a list of all the sounds we had heard that day, than we were to take some of those noises and make a song out of it. The point was to make us look at music ina diffrent light, and not think music is made out of drums and guitars, but music can be made with keys, cars, opening and closing of doors and so on.I think that is what Toop is trying to get at, to remind his readers that music is noise, and without noise our lifes would be diffrent.
2). I beleive Toops main purpose was to open his readers eyes to the art of sound, and have them realize even the sounds that annoy you are beatiful in their own way, and as humans we take these noies for granted. He wants us to realize that even a baby crying is music that we take for granted, and if we couldnt hear our lifes would be missing something extermly important: the chance to hear.
3). This idea is important to our drifts because we are taking the time to listen to things we naturaly cut out. For example, as I went on my walk, I decided to walk to 30 bus route for my drift, and I was walking down farewell collecting all these great sounds and expriences, and I thought to myself, I totally cut all of this out, this whole artistic experience, and being able to capture sound and pictures, is all cut out, becaue instead of walking and listening, i take the bus and daydream. Toop main example is too not cut out and listen, and to make art out of what you hear. This project is exactly that, to walk and listen and make a music with the sound of water dropping.
The fact that this article starts describing natural sounds in a city by saying that at 3Am and later is “Safe time” and wraps up by describing that, “It is a time when I think I can hear forever,” is just wonderfully written. This article hooked me in because I’ve always said that saying up late is great because the world is seemingly asleep yet there is still much going on the earth. Also the descriptive words used to write this article are especially detailed. I can easily picture living in the apartment he lives in.
Ferrington seemingly examines a day’s worth of sound in his life. The way he writes this article is great because it starts out at 3am. Quiet nothingness. Then hours pass and he discusses birds, and although he doesn’t have the education of the species of the birds, it hardly matters because he is recognizing something more important, the unity of the birds chirping together by saying that “I've never made the time to identify each species, but I never-the-less enjoy their collective voices.”
To be so passionate and attentive of sounds, most people miss or are unappreciative of, shows much promise to discoveries these precious quiet sounds could possess if studied by the appreciative earth walkers. I could definitely see these sounds as ones which I could incorporate to better influence viewers of my films. The Lord of the Rings makes you want to be there, and be a hobbit or a wizard. Paying close attention to the most minuet sounds, implementing every sound that could possibly be in a scene, can make the atmosphere feel so much more real to the viewer. I think that is what Gary Ferrington is trying to say here.
Michael Curtis
1) I chose on “On a Clear Day I Can Hear Forever” by Gary Ferrington because it read like a story and consisted of descriptive details intense enough for me to actually hear the noises he spoke of in my mind. “With a screaming assist from the truck's engine all of the collective waste crashes into the truck's gaping hold,” Gary explains in the essay at one point in describing a garbage truck going through its route. It is moments like these in the piece where I actually envision the scene he describes and hear the action that accompanies it. I read the article three times before I began writing this response and each time it was more and more entertaining and enjoyable. He painted the picture of the urban landscape with sounds that actually encompass an entire city within his brief essay. By personifying wind and animals and speaking the sounds of just about every city noise one could think, Gary Ferrington’s article had a calm, artistic theme and was completely relative to everything we are setting out to accomplish on our drifts.
2) It’s never noted the exact city that Gary resides in, but I think he does this purposely in order to get his point across of not putting labels on places or sounds and simply enjoying them for their existence. At one point when explaining the noises the birds make in the summer Ferrington even explains, “I've never made the time to identify each species, but I never-the-less enjoy their collective voices.” Overall although no main points are truly exemplified in the article, I think Ferringer is trying to get the reader to make note of the fact to not take for granted the noises we hear on a daily basis. Gary is trying to tell the reader to listen closely all the time because there are beautiful sounds coming from all around.
3) The ideas of this article are extremely relevant to me being an aspiring filmmaker because it shows me that paying close attention to detail in your work always makes it more exciting for the patron. Ferringer’s descriptions of the sounds reiterated to me how the setting of a story can be told in a variety of ways including sound. His storytelling was so picturesque that I saw it as a movie in my head. Each sound and action duo played throughout my mind like that of scenes in a movie, showing me that sometimes dialogue isn’t even necessary to get the point you wish to make across.
Zachary Rudd
I chose the article “On a clear day I can hear forever,” because it seemed to focus on the unheard of every day life. I read the first paragraph and it reminded me a lot of my city so I wanted to hear about their view on city sounds there. To be honest, I read a lot of things based on the title. The title of this piece drew my attention over the others because it sounded more like an interesting story than just a bunch of information.
In this article, Gary Ferrington begins with the wee morning hours of a day in the city he lives in. The sounds, as he explains, begin very simply in the morning with the sweet songs of birds or trains passing in the distance. The peace is then abruptly broken by the garbage truck. Every sound that he explains after that is just an every day noise like cars, church bells, and people talking on the street. However, Ferrington seems to pick out these noises and make them sound beautiful. He can hear the difference between a long train and a short train and an old and new church bell. It seems that since there isn’t that much time for quiet in the city, he takes the sounds and makes them into something bearable, amusing, and maybe even enjoyable at times.
It was very interesting to test walk with my microphones through campus. It’s amazing how much you can hear when you are purposefully listening to what’s around you. I think the purpose of this assignment is to record and hear things we wouldn’t normally hear especially in places that we wouldn’t normally go to hear them. In Gary Ferrington’s article, he is doing almost the same thing. He is listening to the things around him that he hears every day, but doesn’t think about.
1. I chose Hill S. Arden's "Listening to Myself" after reading the first paragraph mentioning the well-known, respectable theories of John Cage. I found the essay to be very interesting, especially the contrasting of hearing and listening in any given environment. Many of the topics Hill describes were things that I have noticed in my everyday life, but never took the time to analyze-hearing vs. listening.
2. Hill starts off with examples of sound that almost everyone can relate to or has heard at some point in day-to-day life. He differentiates hearing from listening - "Hearing is an involuntary act that happens through our primary sense organ. Listening is noticing and directing attention and interpreting what is heard." He goes on to describe how listening "draws on knowledge" and can be pinpointed through memories and/or repetition. Hill also describes how some sounds can distract one from what they are listening to. He tells about an experience at a movie theatre where a man was tapping his foot quietly during the movie, which caught his attention and sidetracked him from the film. He states: "Because the tapping entered a sound environment where listening focus normally has little interruption, its presence was so overt and magnified too such a degree that the disturbance regardless of how hard I tried couldn't be ignored."
I feel that the main topic of this essay is tuning ourselves to distinguish the difference between hearing and listening in our sonic environment.
3. I was especially conscious of Hill's theories and ideas while recording my Drift. He made me think about what I was recording as opposed to just recording random sounds. I was listening to things, not just hearing them. I became more conscious or my environments and listened for the "actual" not the "artificial."
1. Identify the article you have selected and why you chose it.
The article I selected is Gary Ferrington’s, “On a Clear Day I can hear forever.” I chose this article mainly because of Ferrington’s writing style. He goes in depth of the sounds of everyday life that is usually missed by many, and the emphasis of these everyday sounds really helps put me imagine what he is actually describing. The use of his details of the sounds he hears from his window to walking outside puts me automatically in his shoes. Thus, I chose Ferrington’s article because I feel I can relate to him more.
2. What are the main points of the essay?
The main points of Ferrington’s essay were to pinpoint all the sounds that surround us in our life. He describes carefully the everyday noises that are part of his life day to day that are usually overlooked by many. From the little details to the general look at the sounds that make up our lives, whether it is in the city or the suburbs, these sounds shouldn’t be taken for granted and overlooked. There is laughter, church bells, the “gruff arrival of the garbage truck,” and all these sounds that make up our life and are a big part of our life. Ferrington takes his time to write down every detail that makes up his usual day and this helps remind readers that these sounds exist if we take the time to listen.
3. How are the ideas or arguments in this article relevant to your own practice as a media artist?
Ferrington’s ideas in this article are relevant to my own practice as a media artist because his ideas are what I want to focus on for my project for this class. By reading his article, it helped guide me to taking closer attention the sounds that surround me wherever it may be that I was recording. The sounds that may be considered minor and easily overlooked could be significant if listened closely. Ferrington’s article helped open my ears in recording and my mind in looking for the right places.
I chose David Toop's article, The Art of Noise, for this blog posting. I enjoyed reading about how sound can be physical and internal. It can be seen, if payed attention too, everyday with how the noises of our environment stimulate internal sounds and memories. In this way, some artists try and orientate a discourse in visual and sound continuity to present a different feeling altogether.
2. This article deals with noise in its location. One example was the radioed voice at the railway station. The voice is as monotone as your surroundings, you get anxious every time the box speaks; trying to listen to every listing while waiting for the sought sound. As soon as a person hears what they where searching for, I find, every sound is obsolete. This is one of the actions associated with that location and how its sound creates my internal actions/thoughts.
This article also focuses on the use of silence as sound art. It references minimalist are forms using only 3 or 4 sounds in a performance, and Cage's 4'33 piece; as did some of the other articles.
3. In reference to being a media artist, this article helped me examine the effect of noise on our physical sense. The use of specific noises to enact a specific location and the senses/emotions that go along with that location. On the contrary, the article explores the opposite of our rich sonic environment, with both natural and created noise, when exploring silence and minimalism.
David Orawiec
1. Westerkamp, Hildegard "Soundwalking." I chose to write about this article because Westerkamp's article has been the most influential on how I went about Drift 1. It discusses the
subconscious feelings that we develop towards the sounds in our environments, and how soundwalking can reinvent our ways of hearing.
2. Listening to the sounds that you make is a good way to start exploring the world of sounds and discovering the acoustic responses that are a result of your interaction within your world. Our ears are often desensitized to the surrounding sounds because we attempt to shut unwanted noises from being mentally processed, and through going on soundwalks we are able to focus on listening rather than focusing on immediate interpretation.
3. How are the ideas or arguments in this article relevant to your own practice as a media artist?
I think that this article was the most relevant to the introductory steps to my practice as a media artist because it starts with developing the sense of sounds in your environment with an open mind, and ears. It provides good reasoning into viewing the sounds of the world with their own rhythms and thinking of the collaborative noises as a musical piece, each sound as its own instrument. The walks have the ability to allow for connecting back to nature, and the comprehension of your position within these sounds.
--Nick Reindl, LAB 3
The article I chose to reflect on for my sound research is Future of Music:Credo by John Cage. I choose this piece to reflect on because I found it to be prophetic of the music that would dominate pop culture in the 70 years to come. Also if this is the same John Cage who produced The Stooges self-titled debut album, then I’m a fan of his work.
The main point of this essay is to point out where music could go in the late 1930’s. Cage talks of being able to arrange music out of the entire field of sound, and how contradictory it is of musical conventions up until that point. He talks about how music can be so completely different from what it had been. Interestingly enough, he was exactly correct. He basically describes the essentials to music forms such as Hip-Hop and Techno/Electronica.
What he says in the article is relevant to me because I’ve made beats and because of the work I have had to do for this class. It also is inspiring to read something so level headed while also being very forward thinking for the time and perceived limitations of time in which Cage wrote it.
Clay Miller Lab 3
1. Identify the article you have selected and why you chose it.
I read the piece by Suzanne Delehanty. I chose this article because of the link on the assignments page of the course site. There really wasn’t much to this process, it was just convenient. I’m glad I read it though.
2. What are the main points of the essay?
Throughout the whole reading I couldn’t stop thinking about sonar and how it makes “visuals” with sound. After that, I couldn’t help but think of Ben Affleck in his greatest movie, Daredevil (*being sarcastic of course*). In that movie they created a vision of what a blind man would see with images created due to sound. There was a lot of information, that at times made me feel lost as to what this writer was really trying to say. That facts and connections that were made throughout this piece were astonishing. The part with the Pythagorean guy was different as far as a mathematician throwing in his “two cents”. What would incline someone to study the relationship between music and math as far as arithmetical ratios? What possessed this man to inquire further into the makeup of sound? I guess I never really considered all the visual aspects of audio. Pretty much all this material was new to me and I guess I really don’t need to regurgitate that information on this post, considering that you have already read this article, so, I guess what I took away from this article was a broader knowledge of sound and how it has been affecting people throughout time. I was curious as to how Beethoven wasn’t mentioned in this article. I thought that he would have been an interesting considering he was deaf and made music. That would be like a blind man being the director of a film or the director of photography.
3. How are the ideas or arguments in this article relevant to your own practice as a media artist?
I’m not sure that this article is specifically relevant to my own work, but as far as audio goes, I previously knew nothing. I was very excited when I found out that this course would be dealing with sound. As far as my work goes, it is very important to me as an artist that I am proficient in all aspects of film. Audio was a department that I have not yet dealt in. In the article it shows how people have developed ways of working with sound or presenting it. The ground breaking ideas of a few have inspired many to challenge the realm of sound, now to include myself.
Dusty Vollmer
I chose the article, “Sound of the Seasons” by Ivars Peterson; initially, because the title intrigued me, but later I found interest in what sound ecologists do. I find the ideas they discuss about sonic environmental planning intriguing: The thought of manipulating the makeup of a city in hopes of being sensitive to the habitant’s ears would be difficult, but is nevertheless fascinating. Furthermore, I found this article the most insightful and I was captured by the rather poetic introduction.
Peterson begins his article discussing everyday tasks with a soothing tone. He makes the point that most people take their “acoustic environment” for granted, which is what the article is essentially about. Peterson then talks about a Canadian composer named R. Murray Schafer and his ambitious effort to link ear-minded people together. It was called the World Soundscape Project, which was meant to study the relationship between people and the acoustic environment in which they live. Peterson then sheds light on what acoustic ecologists do, paying close attention to many tools and appliances, and the way acoustic ecologists tamper with the noises many of these objects omit. He makes the point that contrary to what people initially believe silence in many household appliances is not the most favorable choice. He ends discussing “acoustic communication, which are sounds being used as an informative exchange. This ranges from car beeps to swishing water, and often can help one identify where they are.
Although this article did not offer me a lot of new insight, mostly because I have already been introduced to the majority of these ideas through class, I do think it helped to reinforce much of what I have learned. This includes: listening to every sound not just hearing it, using sounds as a narrative, and the connection between sounds I hear and the environments I am in. With the current project I am creating, it is important to construct a narrative out of the sounds I gather. I believe the connection of sound and place may be very fruitful in creating my narrative.
1.The article I chose was "Soundwalking" by Hildegarde Westerkamp. The reason I chose this article was to learn how to properly do a sound walk. After reading it i had a different view on how to properly listen to your surroundings to hear everything that is taking place around you and to pin point the small subtle sounds that one does not catch everyday.
2. To stop and hear what is actually going on around you is key. It the sound that is underneath the everyday hustle and bustle that is important. And when you really listen, everything has a different sound. As stated in the article about the tree; no species of trees sounds the same. Maples sound different that a Pine, Junipers sound different than Ash. Everything has there own specific nuance.
3.The points and opinions in this article are very important to my practices as an artist. Sound is one of the most impotant aspect in film, and to have bad or inaccurate sound is more unpleasant than bad picture. The details truly absorb on into the enviroment. One can learn alot from closing their eyes and opening their ears.
Reflective Response 2
1. Identify the article you have selected and why you chose it.
I have selected On A Clear Day I Can Hear Forever written by Gary Ferrington. At the first glance of the article I noticed the introductory paragraph, “I live in a city. Not a big city but one large enough to have an array of traffic and human and sounds that can irritate one if allowed.” When I went out on my drift those were the two sounds that I had a hard time getting away from. I was starting to feel like traffic and footsteps were all I could hear. As I read on in the article I noticed that he was able to filter the every day traffic noise to gain knowledge about the city he lived. In a sense that’s what we are doing for this first drift we are experiencing the community around us, and the sounds it has to offer.
2. What are the main points of the essay?
What I got from this article by Ferrington I found his main point of the article could be summed up by one sentence. About one third of the way through the article Ferrington states, “In many ways the sound generated by cars on wet streets, or human voices from the side walk ten floors below provides a connection between myself and the active world.” This is the main point of the article as Farrington’s article begins his article by pointing out if one lets them selves the loud bustling noises of traffic and emergency sirens could make someone a little stressed. As the article progresses it become clearer that the author does not feel like city sounds are bothersome but rather by distinguishing certain sounds the city sounds connect him to the active world. Diving deeper in to this idea Ferrington goes on to display by knowing what to listen for being the locomotive, airport, or the city church bells knowledge can be gained by listening to the environment.
3. How are the ideas or arguments in this article relevant to your own practice as a media artist?
I found this article very helpful in my practice as a media artist especially for my first drift. When I first attempted the project I found I had a hard time finding anything besides the common sounds that Ferrington writes about especially the traffic but after reading this I was able to apply some of his ideas to my own drift one in particular would going up to a different elevation the traffic noise diminishes and you can hear something different.
Max Bouril
Identify the article you have selected and why you chose it.
“On the Aesthetics of Urban Walking and Writing” by Phillip Lopate is a piece that details the methods and motivations behind many “urbanists” or “connoisseurs of the sidewalk”. I chose it to respond to because it gives some good examples of people who have really dedicated themselves to being aware of their urban environment, and in fact seek out inspiration for their work through their treks.
What are the main points of the essay?
The goal of this essay is to give the reader first and understanding of why someone might want to go on these urban walks, and then secondly Lopate wants to give advice from his own experience as well as from other writers’ experiences of what works, what to avoid, what to expect and even methods for these urban walks.
How are the ideas or arguments in this article relevant to your own practice as a media artist?
The thing I found most compelling about the essay is the idea of letting experiences and inspiration play themselves out with minimal if any pre planning on the artist’s part. In this method the artist doesn’t decide the characters he wants, doesn’t decide the plot, or the story, and, if done right, doesn’t really choose the setting either. All of these things just happen naturally. So often I find myself looking within for ideas and inspiration and the notion of letting a natural occurrence dictate a story, or song or painting, or whatever the form of expression may be, is a new perspective that I welcome in my own path as an artist.
I chose to write on Gary Ferrington's "On A Clear Day I Can Hear Forever." I chose this article because I really enjoy how it was written. It was light and warmly reflective, which I can relate to and wholly enjoy. I feel that I can identify with the author. The article was more like a sweet ,short story than a tiresome monologue, pounding out the fact that no one appreciates the whisper of a breeze anymore. I know, and understand that the science behind it is important , but capturing my interest the way great, simple writing can, is just as important to me.
The main point seems to be, "You don't know it's there till it's gone." The article starts out with an image of the general, daily cacophony of the city streets and the sounds of standard day noise. Then it goes on to reflect on the, almost unnatural, feel of a day with some of those sounds missing. It then captures the magic of the disappearance of the loudest noises, so that you can finally hear all the little sounds that have always been there, but have been overshadowed.
As a media artist, it is important to try to understand the full reality of the situation including all of the nuances. Attention to detail makes all the difference, like the differences between the movies "Toxic Avenger" and "The Departed."
Kelly Pelot
Lab 2
I chose to read the article by Hildegard Westerkamp titled “Soundwalking.” I initially thought that I would be interested in reading this because I feel that I am an acute listener, music drives my life and sound make me feel connected to the world. What this article made me realize though is that the type of connection that I have through sound to the world around me, is very secondary in nature. I never really split the sounds of the world between natural and man-made, but realized that I am much less in-tune with sounds that come from the natural world than I once thought. The sounds that I am adept to hear, as they are the ones that are most familiar in the urban environment, can be seen in a way as “polluting” the sounds of the natural world.
In this article, Westerkamp’s main discussion centers on what is called soundwalking. Soundwalking is basically, as I described above, taking walks through nature that specifically make you exercise your ears to hear the not only the natural sounds of the world, but the silence that can surround you at moments as well as help you to distinguish between those and the man-made sounds that we are usually consumed with. Westerkamp posits that after each individual sound has been relished and digested that we then begin to listen to each sound as a melody that surrounds us, a musical piece, in the same way that we would listen to a song in our car.
The ideas in this article are extremely relevant to my practice as a media artist because I think what this article mainly made me realize is that each sound that we encounter is unique and can provide different insights into the surrounding world. Discriminatory listening, only choosing to hear what interests us, does not allow us to open our minds to the possibility of what sound can provide in compliment to the visual image.
1. Identify the article you have selected and why you chose it.
**I choose "The Art of Noise" by David Toop because I believe that noise is an art and should be treated as one. It's not the question of can you hear it but can you sense it, can you understand it? Noise is one the hardest things to understand and sometimes even experience since our brains constantly tune out noises we aren't looking for. What we hear can also be so manipulated by what we see or by what we want to hear. Noise is vast, strange, and makes so much of our lives it hard to believe it's so bypassed.**
2. What are the main points of the essay?
**The article mainly talked about how noise has been perceived and is now coming into a new understanding. It is so multi functional and noise goes beyond what music does becoming its own art. Toop named a number of different artists who have made waves among the noise art scene such as Janet Cardiff, John Cage, and Bruce Nauman. Each using sound in a different way and creating their own art with noise. Toop makes it clear noise and music are not the same because while music has definitions and limitations, noise can follow whatever path you choose for it.**
3. How are the ideas or arguments in this article relevant to your own practice as a media artist?
**The idea of noise being an art makes it much more useful. There could be a black screen with nothing on it but if the sound related to the black screen will capture the audience it is art. Noises can be used to manipulate people into perceiving things how you want them to understand it. It creates moments, feelings, memories intangible creations. Because noise is so powerful an artist must be mindful how they use it and how they wield such power.**
1. Identify the article you have selected and why you chose it.
I chose David Toops article entitled The Art of Noise for the reason that I found it engaging, interesting, and appropriate discussion matter for this day and age. It endeavors to explore sounds range and our interpretation of sound.
2. What are the main points of the essay?
The article itself employs all of sounds aspects; including but not limited to environment, atmosphere, and sensory perception. The article describes sounds relationship with time and explains the ways in which sound can be measured or chaotic. Music and sound engulf a massive spectrum, that can be pleasing, or hideous.
3. How are the ideas or arguments in this article relevant to your own practice as a media artist?
The arguments made by this article are imperative in my study as an artist. Taking in all aspects of sound helps to expand my creative horizon. The different artists and composers add to my overall knowledge on the subject. The argument in this article is not only convincing and decisive, but it is a topic that needs to be explored further and in more depth, making it a new frontier. Sound and music are long overdue as subject matters in popular discourse and dialogue.
Jonathan Lindenberg's Reflective Response #2
1.) I chose to respond to the article "The Art of Noise", by Luigi Russolo due to its discussion of the difference between sound, music, and noise and how they influence each other and can be used apart in conjunction to create an intersting auditory experience beyond what is traditionally accepted as pleasing to the ear.
2.) Russolo begins his article by looking at what was traditionally considered pleasing to the ear in the ninteenth century in terms of music and then how the encroachment of noise would forever alter how we use and percieve sound. He distinguishes noise as audibly recognizable qualities from natural events (i.e. the wind blowing or the eruptions of a volcanoe) and then goes on to discuss the effect that man-made machinery has had on sound. With machines came an enormous array of different sounds and eventually ways to detect, record, and manipulate these sounds and use them to create a sort of music or soundtrack that will not rely on the traditional theories and instrumentation of music. He encourages the reader to explore and experiment with different types of noises and to even use that as a jumping off point for a project.
3.) This article will benefit me as a media artist because it encouraged me to think outside of the box of what is typically accepted as pleasing or enjoyable sounds and to then use these as a starting point to develop a project. The importance that Russolo puts upon the noises of the world that are often taken for granted inspires me to try to experiment with ideas and methods that would not typically be considered appropriate, and it opens my eyes to the amount of possibilites there are out there to try new things and to see what interesting results can come just from experimentation.
1)The article that I chose was Hill, S. Arden "Listening to Myself Listening." To be completely honest I chose this article at random but soon found that it rather intrigued me. The idea of Hill that shows the difference between hearing and listening caught me as a completely new thought. It never occurred to me that every day I’m not really listening to the world around me but rather I was only hearing it as a whole mix of sounds.
2)One of Hill’s main points in the article is that everything in this world makes some form of sound. Whether it be a dropped book, a fridge humming, or even a page being turned in a book everything makes a noise. He states that we simply hear these things but if we focused closer we could actually listen to them in depth. We could focus on hear a dropped book in a noisy class or we could listen to the drastic thud and the echo it achieves even in an unrestrained group of people’s chatter.
3)I feel the best thing that I could get out of this article is to rather listen to my environments more then just hear things that are happening in it. For example instead of hearing traffic wiz by I could focus more on the low hum of the tires as they zoom by or perhaps the increasing roar of the engine as the driver speeds up to get though the yellow light.
1. I chose the article by S. Arden Hill entitled " Listening to Myself Listening". The article makes some interesting observations about how we decide to listen to what we do out of all the sounds that surround us. The sounds that we actually pay attention to in our environment may be determined by what we are doing, what we are expecting to hear, and what the sounds mean to us.
2. The author explains that the sounds that prevail to us in our sonic environments could be different form one person to the next. There are common sounds that everyone will listen to over other sounds. Warning signals or cell phones ringing alert us to take an action or mean that there is danger or some other situation that is important for us to pay attention to. Depending on what you are doing you may be listening for certain sounds and trying to exclude others from your awareness. What we may not notice sometimes is tht all of the ssounds surrounding us merge to create the background music for the sounds we are listening to in the forefront. The collage of sounds makes up our entire sonic environment and even the subtle sounds play a role in what we are focusing on or what we are not.
3. These ideas and a small exerpot from the article about how djs listen to sound relates to me as a music prducer and mixer. The exerpt exlains how a dj listens for levels and balances in sounds from different tracks, and picks out some of the subtle and some of the main sounds from the tracks to mix with each other. These ideas also play a role in how the dj picks which tracks to mix and which sound in each track to adjust or omit to create a harmonicallly balanced sonic environment for the listeners.
After reading through a few of the sound articles, I chose Gary Ferrington's 'On a Clear Day I Can Hear Forever' for multiple reasons. One is it's poetic nature. There isn't any technical aspect nor are there any definitions or explanations. Just a man writing about the sounds he hears and how he reacts to them. I used to live in New York City so many of the things he writes about like 'an array of traffic and human made sounds can irritate one if allowed' definately spoke true to me because when I lived there, there was so much going on and you would walk past so many people, hear so much. One of the things I like to say is that New Yorker's like to keep to themselves, so you can walk past so many people and not be annoyed, but other days when you don't want to feel lonely you just go outside and everyone's there. That is like him and the sounds he's describing. If that makes sense.
While reading I felt that the author was trying to get that point across. We can ignore all the sounds around us and feel alone, or we can just listen and suddenly there's a world out there. Whether it be the Southern Pacific or the sound of the wind which can change with each second.
The idea of this article can help not just with art media's dealing with sound, but any media, because you can take his ideas of paying attention to the detail and "listening" beyond the obvious. In a more literal way, pertaining to film which is what I am interested in, it definately helps me appreciate and work on sound for a film. Instead of just caring about what is SEEN on screen.
Eric Wescott
Group 1
1. Identify the article you have selected and why you chose it.
Listening to Myself Listen - by S. Arden Hill
Hill focuses on the psychological reasons for why we listen the way we do. I find this level of thinking to be very interesting, informative, and sometimes baffling.
2. What are the main points of the essay?
Hill attempts to discover why some people seem to prefer the extremely loud or the extremely quiet. He mentions in his example about the loud cafe that he actually felt uncomfortable in the loud cafe because it was difficult to maintain his conversation.
No matter how interesting louder sounds can be sometimes you just become distracted by the quiet ones. His example of being engaged in the movie suddenly pulled away by the tapping of another persons foot in the theater.
We are trained (by nature and society) to give certain sounds a higher priority. When you're out on the street you will immediately respond to the honking of a car horn or the screeching of breaks.
3. How are the ideas or arguments in this article relevant to your own practice as a media artist?
From a commercial standpoint asking these types of questions is imperative to the success of your film. Keeping the audience engaged with your sound mix as well as your choices in music could be the difference between the audience tolerating your film and falling in love with it.
On a personal level I very much enjoy exploring the aspects of ourselves that tells us why we do what we do. Why does one person prefer A over B and nature vs nurture.
1. I chose to comment on S. Arden Hill's article entitled "Listening to Myself Listening". This was a fairly in-depth look in to something that was hard for me to distinguish before, the act of listening compared to the act of hearing. Before studying this article I, and I'm sure many others, could not really make a clear contrast between these two ideas.
2. As i said the article focuses deeply on what the difference between simply hearing, and actually listening to sounds is. Hill talks about how we hear all sorts of sounds in our daily lives, but how many of them do we hear without actually stopping to specifically listen to? The author goes on to describe listening as being triggered by a sort of sign or interruption of some sort. Say you are walking through a busy mall. You are hearing tons of different noises, but, for the most part you are just ignoring most of them. Suddenly you hear the sound of shattering glass. At this point you will most likely stop, and really tune in on where the sound came from so that you can look to see what is going on. For those first few seconds you are truly listening in-depth to find out what has happened in this unexpected, or abnormal event.
3. This article is very relevant at least to this class, if not to anyone who would be interested in looking at these differences. On our Drifts, we were supposed to listen for interesting sounds and record a variety of them to analyze later. We were supposed to go beyond the normal sounds that we are used to hearing and find a new respect for the places and sounds around us. This article really made me think about how to distinguish between listening and just hearing.
1. I chose the article "On a Clear Day I can Hear Forever" by Gary Ferrington. I thought this article took a theme that we have been coming across a lot in our readings but included a lot of beautiful detail. He writes about his observations during the night when the city is winding down. He describes the sounds he hears ut more importantly the instances when the sounds cease.
2. Gary describes his home in the city where he can often find a vast selection of traffic noises outside his window. He writes about a time around 3 am in the morning when the sounds around him wind down and a quiet environment surrounds him. The sounds he recollects change from season to season. The chilly winds of winter affect how the sound enters the ears. Gary continues to describe a time when he thinks he can "hear forever". This happens when he hears the "Willamette River". This distant sound is able to make it to his ears without having to compete with the sounds of traffic.
3. This article makes me want to strive to listen at diffferent times during the day. I rarely, if ever, am up at 3 in the morning just listening to what is going on outside. I would probably be surprised at what I hear or don't hear. I'd like to investigate as to what time my street becomes silent and at what time it starts to buzz with traffic and commotion.
The article I chose is Gary Ferrington’s On A Clear Day I Can Hear Forever. The reason why I am interested in the content Ferrington discusses is because in the past years before I came to America, I was living in one of the biggest city around the world, especially akin to what he describes about the sounds that belong to a harbor city. Agree to what he mentions in the first paragraph, a symbolic volume of a city is traffic and manmade sound. I feel like I was too familiar to have awareness of these two sounds around me and to elaborate each of them, and I have found some senses of awareness since read this article.
The article is mainly about all kinds of various sounds he can hear in the city and in different times/seasons, even includes the sound of silence. I noted down the sounded objects he mentions while I was reading: birds, crows, garbage truck’s engine, siren, locomotive, plane, carillon, wind…also the different human sound such as children playing and people chatting in café. The author not only mentions them, but also applies his own affection towards them. Nonetheless I am also impressed by how he identifies the silence of the city. In terms of a city, even the quietest moment has a sense of sound in it. Ferrington stresses that the silent city when it only heard singularity sounds instead of mixed sounds.
Ferrington’s idea about sound enlighten me two things. One is to reacquaint the city I came from (Hong Kong) through seeking the sound of the city. In other words, I want to reacquaint a familiar place by using hearing as the first sense, and vision comes after that. The other idea is how stillness can be portrayed in an auditory manner, particularly in terms of the stillness of a city.
I read S. Arden Hill's article, "Listening to Myself Listen". I was interested in writing about it because i am equally interested in our ability to direct our hearing when there are a lot of sounds and miss sounds entirely when we aren't listening for them. I never really gave a whole lot of thought to the difference between hearing sounds and listening to them either. With the drift 1 assignment, picking sounds and actually listening to them instead of merely hearing them is a huge difference.
In Hill's essay, he makes several key points that really stuck out to me. The first one being the difference between listening and hearing. This point deals mainly with how people in certain situations are hearing lots of noises, but only listening to the key sounds like oncoming traffic or sirens. Like that situation, there are many others where the sirens and traffic are the sounds that are not listened to and something else, like a friends voice is. He points out that when this is the case and you are somewhere, like a cafe, there are sonic sounds all around that you are to hear, but not listen to in order to listen to your friend.
As a media artist, i value the art of hearing a sonic environment and being able to separate and listen to specific sounds in order to fully appreciate it's beauty. In a city with so many vehicles roaring by and neighborhoods that stand silently, it's nice to be able to find sounds that appeal to me and be able to listen to them and not be overwhelmed by other noises.
1.Gary Ferrington"On A Clear Day I Can Hear Forever." I choose this article because it reminded me of how I felt when I moved to the city. All the deferent sounds I had never lived with before. This has happened to me before, I was born in a small town in Iowa I lived across the street from a corn field and a field were sheep grazed. Then when I was 14 I moved to Fond du Lac WI there I lived in town and experianced a whole new sound scape.
2. What I took away from reading this is that . Just like forest there are sounds in a city cars, traffic people, airplanes, that are a natural sound to that city. And that just as a bird watcher can identify a bird by its call a person who is used to the city can identify the man made sounds heard in the city.
3. This article is about sound and how sound in this case city sounds are a natural element to any place and that is why this article is important to film making sound can act as an anchor to place.
Andrew Page
1. David Toop, The Art of Noise, is the article I choose to write about, because I can play a couple instruments and while reading this I began to realize that when I write songs I do not look for discoveries, I look for creations. However, when I am working with sound outside of the conventional songwriting, I look more for discoveries than creations, instead of becoming the creator I become the explorer. This article brings focus to these differences.
2. This article examines the differences between sound-art and art and sound; as well as the difference between music and noise. It deals with how sound-art is something that isn't created for the soul purpose of the audiences enjoyment. Instead it is an exploration of sound which is not limited to the conventional notion of what is music.
3. This article is relevant to my practices as a media artist in the form of creating rhythmic art through editing. When editing our drifts the tendency of creating rhythm and tempo with short pieces of sound might be taken to an extreme to sound more like conventional music. Although this may be acceptable the richness and depth of my recorded audio could be sacrificed. Instead of creating art through exploration, I would be creating art through manipulation. In any case there will always be a degree of manipulation but the process of exploration would be lost.
I chose the article “Soundings” by Delehanty. Sound is a large aspect of filmmaking and should be greatly considered to better production. Drift 1 proves to be a task that I have not dealt with in the past in regards to sound recording. The recording of natural sounds is a task that is not easy, but can be fun. We watched a video a couple classes ago about sound recording and ambient music. The artist was partially deaf and used a different was of “listening.” She proved that sounds not only are captured with our ears, but our bodies as well. Sounds reverberate in our bones, skin, hair and throughout our body. This is an effective tool when creating both cinematic and audible projects.
The article goes in depth of the importance and correspondence between audio and the visual arts. Many different artists all over the world have dabbled with sound and visual arts dating back hundreds of years. In the most recent of centuries, technology has risen and made the recording of audio easily accessible and more prevalent. In one of the excerpts, the Futurist painter and musician Luigi Russolo states “Ancient life was all silence. In the nineteenth century, with the invention of the machine, Noise was born. Today, Noise triumphs and reigns supreme over the sensibility of men.” The 20th century proved its audible supremacy with popular music (vastly in America and Europe) and all of its entities. Music fused with movies, and the “plastic arts” became a large portion of cinema. I feel in my own projects, sound should be considered just as much as the visual portions. Both media correspond with each other greatly and play with the emotions vastly.
1.I chose the article "listening to myself listen" by Arden Hill. I picked this article because of his take on sounds, and their nature as a part of an overall whole, an experience, and not an individualistic entity. Sounds create variations on the ideologies of sound environments, or sonic environments, based upon personal recognition or experiences.
2.The article examines the practises of hearing versus listening. Hearing is described as an involuntary reaction to a sonic environment. Listening is direction of attention to or a focusing of specifics within a said environment and follows personal interpretation which is distinguished by individual experience. How we focus follows many variables including personal interests, skills, physical ability, and cultural standing.
Hill claims that Sonic Environments when taken in as a whole, act as an indicator of overall social condition and has the ability to connect to the listener to an environments culture. Focus within a sonic environment generally follows one of two sound variants; "acoustic warning devices" (signal sounds)which are the familiar pre-programmed sounds for which we presume and expect to hear in a given environment, and "non-signaling distractions" which are backround noises that are outside of the familiar allowing them to push to the forefront of concentration. By playin these types of sounds off the overall environment we have the ability to appreciate connections between the two. We are granted a greater appreciation of the whole when we realize that listening is choice....Choice is not static.
3. When applied as an artist this technique allows us to study an environment through sound. By examining pieces in regards to a whole it allows for the artist in his/her work to paint a more detailed picture. When one allows themselves to open up to the whole and its relationships to all its parts it grants greater understanding. This understanding can then be passed unto an audience.
I chose the article "On A Clear Day I Can Hear Forever" by Gary Ferrington. I chose this article because I could relate to it entirely. Living on the corner of Brady and Prospect, I am almost constantly hearing noises day and night. Sometimes, however, like the author, there are moments of absolute silence and they are quite beautiful.
The article is basically about this dude who lives in a high rise apartment in a busy city and he talks about all the noises he hears all day long, like people, traffic, planes, birds, and so on. I thought it was interesting how he had picked up on airline flight schedules.
This articles relates to me as a media artist because in our first assignment we are going to be recordig sounds, and this is all about te sounds a man hears during his time in his apartment. It also relates to me personally because I hear the same sorts of sounds in my apartment and sometimes they can be inspirational. One day when I heard a very tough cold wind blowing, it encouraged me to go out and make a short horror film with my younger brothers.
1. I chose "The Art of Noises" by Luigi Russolo because I personally enjoy orchestrations and conjunction of sound intoambient soundscapes. Russolo seems to share this belief and feels that basic pieces with traditional instruments have become boring and predictable. Music is constantly evolving and reaching out to either new peaks or tapping into influence which has always been there yet it remained overlooked.
2. What are the main points of the essay?
This essay focuses attempts to convince the reader that modern musical orchestrations have become boring and outdated, and those who appreciate growth now look to pieces arranged from common sounds. Russolo explains that as music evolved notes were followed by chords. Musicians played chords looking for a pure and beautiful sound, but still music has not stopped evolving. Musicians bend sounds from their instrument to continuously challenge themselves and the listeners. Instruments have reached their peaks, however, and now it is time to look to common sound.
3. Sound artists are not merely required to capture common sounds as they occur, rather it is their job to challenge themselves and their listeners to hear things which they have not heard before or visualize them in a different light. As mentioned earlier, I enjoy ambient pieces made from common or electronically generated sounds. The challenge is never to be redundant and always be original.
Apologize for tardiness !
-Joe Gilliland-Lloyd
1. I selected David Toop’s article titled “The Art Of Noise” because it took on the important differences of sound art, art with sound and music including how they all should be related. Even though the article was interesting to read it still seemed to be ambiguous as to what Toop was actually saying until the end, which essentially influenced my selection. He seemed to be saying that there are indeed similarities amongst the three and there is diversity but it’s important that we stop recognizing these and enjoy the mediums for what they are.
2. Not to reiterate the last question but Toop was trying to say that are with sound, sound art and music are all different yet belong to the same form—that of sound—and should be converged into the same stratosphere—that of sound. By converging these people would come to appreciate the work put into each piece and not be hung up on whether “it’s not music” or it’s just “a bunch of random noises.” Once everyone could respect all works in their own right, they would be able to further appreciate the world of expression that sound has to offer, beyond the mainstream appeal.
3. This article is extremely relative to own practice because I’ve always considered myself as a formula-based person who doesn’t open up to abstractness of art. I view myself as a musician, web designer, graphic designer, or video editor but never fully delve into the realm of symbolism or expression, instead favoring the aspects of appealing to my audience. That is not to say, however, that I do not put heart and soul into my work but that on a consistent basis I stick to playing it safe instead of exploring. So, to answer the question simply, this article pertains to journey and constant struggle of digging deeper into a world that I’m just beginning to understand.
I really enjoyed the article by Gary Ferrington called, "On a Clear Day I Can Hear Forever." His discriptive words really made me hear the sounds of which he was describing. It made me listen more closely to the sounds I hear around my own apartment. Like Ferrington can tell what kind of train is going by I can tell who is entering our apartment building by how they walk up the stairs (my apartment building only has 8 tenenents including me.) I can even picture my cat knocking down the garbage can when I hear it fall.
I went on my first drift this weekend and I think I found more interesting sounds in my own house then I found outside. I wish I could have used my apartment to record sounds.
I chose Delehanty's article because of it's interpretation of what sound is. This appealed to me as being a new way for me to look at sound and better understand it. The article shows how sound is different than speech as it exudes emotion and speech is all about human thoughts. Music as a sound is a primary way of revealing things that we cannot explain but can still understand. The article also points out how sound can be used as a medium just like art or literature by means of the radio, telephone and recording industry. In the twentieth century sound became a way of realization through duration as it was experienced. The listener could not deny that what he or she was experiencing through the medium was effecting them over a given period of time of the experience. This gave artists a new way to generate different responses to their work. The article covers the realm of all sound: ambient, noise, music and silence. All of these, through art, show how the human existence in its own way is a work of art.
I believe that this article is going to help me greatly in the future when considering sounds to incorporate in my creative works. Also, in my drift it will give me a new way to consider which sounds I use and perhaps consider ones that I otherwise would not.
1. I chose Gary Ferrington's "On A Clear Day I Can Hear Forever". I chose this article because I have recently moved to Riverwest from a suburb in Oak Creek. As one might guess, the differences in enviroment and noise traffic is dramatic. When I read this article, Ferrington's point on noise of the city and the disappearance at certain times was something I could identify with because Riverwest becomes quite peaceful and quiet at 3 in the morning.
2. Ferrington's first point in the article is that he identifies the chaotic array of sounds or noise that one can hear during a busy day in the city. Ferrington identifies many of the noises that I hear in my neighborhood. However, Ferrington points out that at certain times at night or morning, one can hear the sounds of the city that one is unable to hear during the busy hours.
3. Ferrington's argument about the rare quietness of the city relates to my work as a media artist because during my walks recording sound, I find myself cursing the sounds of cars for disturbing really amazing sounds that I wanted to record. I found myself playing with the idea of going out at 3 in the morning or at some similar time, when no one is out, to record these sounds that are usually drown out by the business of city life.
I chose the Delehanty article, "Soundings". Exclusively for the quote, "Sound announced that human experience, ever changing in time and space-the substance of life itself-had become both the subject and object of art." It is hard to imagine when sound and art, the multi- media experience had to go through an evolutionary process. It seems as though sound and the visual is and was a marriage even in preconception. And not only was there an experimental and evolutionary process there was a point in which artists and "musicians" were at odds with the idea of a symbiosis. As the article states.
The article itself is journey through the duality that sound and "art" had throughout history. Where the ideas of visual art, "the factual description of objective reality to a new and third realm that mediated between the outer world of phenomena and the inner world of the spirit", did not allow sound or song into this mantra. Only until true experimentation and acceptance of the true form of sound did harmony ensue. This is not to say that sound and visual harmony was not predicted, the real argument was how to categorize sound in the ethos of of the representational. Can sound represent or portray in the same way as visual art? And through the descriptions of experimentation and tedium that quite a few artists accomplished we can honestly say "no". It is of a higher concept. "The composer reveals the essence of the world and pronounces the most profound wisdom in the language that his reason cannot understand; he is like a mesmerized somnambulist who reveals secrets about things that he knows nothing about when he is awake." And me for one can wax philosophical about sound concepts and perception for days, but it is not my point to reiterate myself.
I appreciate this study for a number of reasons. I have been a noise musician for many a number of years. And in this culture a good cross section of performers truly believe that there is a sense of modern day composition that holds to the beliefs of a noise renaissance. The idea is to experiment completely. For good or bad, you are not the musician, but are merely along for the ride. Only when one is finished can you observe what you have done, with the clear mind of not remembering even being there for the recording. Furthermore, experiencing the process many times, and fresh and new each time. And that is why there are more creators of experimental and noise then there are buyers or listeners. The idea here being "In this realm, compounded in the artist's mind of physical and metaphysical reality, the once discrete, static relation among artist, art object, and viewer began to quiver and resound. The artist, once merely a craftsman, became a creator. The onlooker, once solely a passive observer, became the artist's collaborator. The work of art, once silent, permanent, and timeless, became a hybrid object that began to resonate in a third realm beyond the worlds of illusion and reality."
I chose Gary Ferrington’s “On A Clear Day I Can Hear Forever” because I was intrigued by the title and was interested in reading something written with a story like quality as compared to a scholarly article.
In this piece Ferrington goes in depth to describe the rich soundscape that he perceives from his apartment window. He talks about the morning hours as being a “safe”, quiet time where one can open the window and blend the outside and inside noises. Ferrington describes the human noises as they start with the garbage truck and progress through the day with airplanes, church bells, and people talking as they have coffee. He is thankful for how high up his window is because it makes it reachable by many distant sounds. After describing the bustling sounds around him, Ferrington says the sound that impresses him the most is in winter when snow falls and the traffic stops and it is totally quiet.
This article is an example of how beautiful the world around you is if you actually look at it. Ferrington is describing sounds he hears from his apartment window, sounds that he has paid the utmost attention to and it has rewarded him with an awesome view/understanding of the sonic world around him. As an artist it should be my goal to try and find beautiful things that are right in front of me, just like Ferrington.
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