Journal 10

Journal 10 : Respond to/review/compare & contrast three student pieces presented in our final class meeting (12/10); one of these pieces may be yours, if you choose.

Keep in mind that to complete this assignment, you must access these projects online and listen to/watch the full pieces, not just the excerpts presented in class.

------------------------

[FIRST PIECE]

"Artificial Insurgents" - Ryan Little

I really enjoyed this piece, from beginning to end. I thought it was brilliant to use computerized, text to speech voices. It's a simple technique, but the script and how it was strung together made such a powerful, eerie, epic audio piece. By having so many voices, it creates the feeling that there is a whole army of rebellious pieces of technology. The conversations that the different technologies have with each other made the piece so much more real. I especially enjoyed the part where the stream was interrupted with a human coming into the room, hushing the technologies. The "restart" moment when things were played backwards and sped up was also a wonderful way to end and tie the piece together, creating this sense of urgency, or almost action to start the "tech rebellion". Such simple techniques, like text to speech, reverse, and minimal layers, but put together wonderfully and brilliantly, creating such an impactful and imaginative piece. 

[SECOND PIECE]

"Psychosis: I Hear Voices" - Michael Nguyen 

The fact that this was inspired (and I could clearly tell) by "Donnie Darko" made me already ready to like this piece. Once I heard it, I could clearly tell the influence by this film. The simplicity of the techniques and layers were minimal, yet it created such a strong, powerful narrative and sense of paranoia. The portrayal and representation of paranoia and anxiety was successfully executed through the clever use of several layers of voices playing at the same time. The added effect of these layered voices with lowered pitch and grainy quality really helped orient me in distinguishing between internal characters and external characters. The script was also created successfully in making me feel as anxious and nervous for the roommate character and the main character's well-being. 

[THIRD PIECE]

"Sine A Light (Chopped and Screwed)" - Azad Mukujian

I greatly appreciated the intent and motivation for this piece, not just because it was dedicated for a friend but also for the fact of making it known that a world-renowned band was problematic in their music because of cultural appropriation. I thought that the literal chopping and screwing of the pieces of the song was effective in reclaiming the song back from the Rolling Stones. The deterioration of the quality of the song was a successful way of protesting against such cultural appropriation, which is still a huge issue in today's music.

Journal 9

Journal 9: 
Revise your preliminary proposal (describing what you decided about the elements discussed in journal 8) and then relate your project #3 proposal idea to BOTH what you did in previous projects AND at least one of the pieces we listened to/watched/experienced in class
---

My idea for my final project completely changed the more I thought about how I wanted to spend my last assignment. Being a leader in the Filipino American community on campus, issues regarding my cultural identity and cultural history is a big part of my identity and is important to me. The idea that came to me was inspired by the St. Louis' World Fair where thousands of Filipinos were imprisoned as an exhibit. One popular one was of the Igorot tribe because it was "exotic" for their diet to consist of dogs. 

At the moment I am focusing on just the sounds, but I have not dismissed the idea of utilizing images into the piece as well. If I did images, I would probably have still images of different aspects of a fair such as a crowd of people, or still images relating to the story, such as bars of a carnival exhibit, or eyes of an Igorot person.

In terms of the sounds, I wanted this piece to be like a soundscape and audio walk combined (if i wasn't able to choose one or the other). Somehow, I want to bring my listener back in time to the 1900s when this event happened. This would be similar to the way I did my first project which was like an audio walk where I took the listener through a journey of a typical day of mine. However, I want minimal narration and more focus on the environment I create, almost like a soundscape, such as Lockwood's "Hudson River".

To achieve this, I plan to use pre-recorded found sounds of different things, such as ambient sounds of a murmuring crowd, footsteps, crying, barking, etc. I also plan to alter certain sounds to create a more impactful feeling, such as repeating words or phrases to get a jarring effect on the listener, such as the piece "I Am Sitting in a Room". Possibly with effects such as speeding up the repetition, or slowing them down, adding reverb as it goes on to create a dream-like effect. To create a fuller space, I would play with panning to get sounds from both left and right. 

Journal 8

Journal 8 : final project preliminary proposal DUE 11/24 by 9am

(in preparation for one-on-one consultations with me, times TBA)

Describe in detail: What sounds (and images) you will use, how you will get them, how you will alter and compose them, and with what effect in mind.  What do you want to express or explore in this project?

----

For my final project, I don't want to include images because I want to focus solely on the sounds I use. At the moment, I am thinking of combining both recorded sounds and ready-made sounds online to get a variety of sounds. To alter and compose them, I am interested in playing with each sound's unique beat, tone, pitch, etc. and play with the musique concrete idea. I don't feel like I really explored the possibilities of musique concrete last time, and I really enjoyed others' projects that really sounded like music and had a beat and rhythm to them. For now, I want to explore the unique sounds of objects to make a musique concrete piece. Possibly mixing lighter sounds like bells and chimes, with the drones of machines. For now, I'm not sure if I want to make that symbolize anything, or if I just want to purely explore their sound qualities. 

Test Pattern

TCS121: Intro to Sonic Arts

November 19, 2015

Blog 7

Ryoji Ikeda "Test Pattern"

Imagine your experience of these versions.  How is this piece different in each of the two venues? What is the same?  How is this "one" piece, or not?  What are the implications of this for sound art?

Ryoji Ikeda's "Test Pattern" piece was incredibly engaging and fascinating to me. I found that the venue inside (at certain camera angles) positioned people into the work. At certain angles, it made the people in that space appear to be placed in a digital broken realm. In the other version outside in New York, it was more of a spectator experience because the audience isn't physically interacting with the piece, but rather engrossed in the sound and watching the visuals quite separate and distant from them. What is the same for both, however, is the appreciation for the synchronistic experience of the sound and visuals, giving a satisfaction to the audience. Especially from the first version where the piece was located inside, I found it to be a campaign or message about people and technology. With the flashing lights visual and the static, tech music that matched, and the people interacting or placed on top of those visuals, seemed to be this message about how engrossed society is with technology and how the world seems to have gone "silent" with each other in this otherwise "noisy" buzzing tech-focused world.

Musicless Music

TCS121: Intro to Sonic Arts

November 7, 2015

Blog 6

Musicless Music Videos

Watch one of the music-less music videos along with the original. Compare what you see, hear and feel. How does the sound change the message of the music video?

        

         For the song Stay, by Rihanna, the musicless music video has a comedic mood as opposed to the original music video, which has a more serious, depressing mood. The musicless verision was just a snippet from the beginning of the original. The scenes for this version was Rihanna removing her clothes and moving in the water-filled tub. There are close ups of her sad face as well as her bare stomach. The only things I hear are the movements she makes in the water as well as her moans and the gurgling of her stomach. Basically, the sounds she makes as if this was the recording they made while filming the music video (but in the video description this was a parody). When they zoomed in on her stomach, you can her her stomach gurgling, and later you hear sounds that make you assume she farted in the water, adding to the humor of this parody. In the beginning it made me feel touched, to see the intimacy of this filming, thinking that this was the actual raw recording of the music video. However, I was confused when I thought she had farted, but thinking this was the real video of her. Later I read the description and comments, realizing the video was a parody with inserted audio, which I then thought made the whole experience funny and clever. This changed the original message of the music video, which was made to be a serious, emotional, moving and sad piece, to one of humor and awkwardness to see a well-known celebrity as Rihanna to fart and moan in a bathroom. 

Textuell and data.flex

TCS121: Intro to Sonic Arts

November 3, 2015

Blog 5

Reading: Caleb Kelly's Sound p. 80-86, 162-165

Audio: Oval's "Textuall" and Ikeda's "data.flex"

1. Describe the sounds you hear in "Textuell" and "data.flex."  Try to use more adjectives, and avoid describing the works in terms of genre or other music you've heard (which your reader may not know).  How are the sounds in these two pieces the same? Different?
1. The sounds I hear from both audio pieces are very "tech/electronic" sounding. Textuell has a constant beat and rhythm, with consistent sounds, such as a tiny ring every so often, as well as certain "instruments" that make the same sounds over and over. It sounds like it was created digitally, or at least it sounds like recordings that were then manipulated digitally to sound electronic. There isn't a huge shift or change in the piece. At certain moments there is a slight shift which transitions into a new tempo, but overall, the piece is rather constant. 
2. Ikeda's data.flex is similar in that it sounds like it was digitally created. However, it starts off with random static sounds that make it seem like the file is broken, then transitions into the actual piece. Like Textuell, it has a consistent beat and use of the same sound elements over and over again, such as a static ringing sound that pops in and out. It's different in that it does have elements and moments in the piece where it abruptly stops or shifts, whereas Textuell was more subtle in its shifts. 

1. Describe how the sounds make you 'feel' in all senses of the word.  Do you have a physical reaction? An emotional one? Describe.  Also write about how you listened to the works (in headphones? a noisy room? late at night while sleepy?).  Did the conditions of your listening contribute to your response to the pieces?
1. The sounds from both pieces made me feel at ease because the beats were in a constant tempo, with not huge surprises. It made me feel like I was in an electronic, futuristic, almost dystopian mood because I associate tech sounding audio with dystopian futuristic movies. The static elements of the pieces also made me think of the buzzing of electronics or the static and sounds of when they are broken. I listened to the pieces late at night in my room with one earphone, because my earphone set is broken. I feel the conditions of my listening helped me focus on the audio, because I did not have any other distractions. However, if I had both earphones functional, I would feel more immersed into that intended audio environment these artists had in mind. 

1. Analyze the pieces (and your response) in terms of time vs. duration as set out by Cox in his article (above).
1. The pieces were created to play within a certain time period, and only lasts for a certain amount of time. However, these pieces could be repeated for an unlimited duration because at the beginning and end of the pieces, there is enough breathing space to loop the songs without sounding like it was unintentional. 

Nonmusical Objects

TCS121: Intro to Sonic Arts

October 27, 2015

Blog 4

Reading: Caleb Kelly's Sound p. 28-40, 168-176, 181-185, 194-197

Several of these composers used non-musical objects to create music. To the masses, most people would view this not as music at all, but by John Cage, music does not even need intention to be produced. As long as there is a listener to receive it, we can call the piece music. I found it fascinating and eye-opening to learn that artists such as John Cage view what most people see as "non-musical objects", to be perfectly good instruments to produce a musical piece. Other artists, such as Alison Knowles, use objects to help create a sound, such as in Knowles' Nivea Cream Piece for Oscar Williams. Knowles utilized hand cream as a musical object in the sense that she wanted to create the sound of massaging hands. So objects used by composers don't necessarily have to produce a sound as is, such as running water, but objects could help create sound effects, such as cream being rubbed into numerous hands. 

Certain instructional pieces described by some of these sound artists are quite experimental and new to me, as I have not been immersed into sonic arts until taking this class. To read about performance pieces such as George Brecht's Incidental Music where there are 5 steps to interact with the piano, but not all those steps have you actually play a "traditional" piano musical piece, intrigued me and made me feel in awe. However, as I imagined myself watching this performance live, I would be confused as to what the message as, but also intrigued to hopefully learn what the artist's intent was, with these seemingly random acts that involve a piano, but not necessarily playing "traditional" music. 

I am definitely expanding my thoughts and perspective and what sound can do and what "sound" is, and am very much intrigued by what else we can do with experimenting with sound/different processes in creating sound. 

Freeing Sense of Hearing from Hibernation

TCS121: Intro to Sonic Arts

October 12, 2015

Blog 3

Thinking about my Project 1 assignment for TCS121. And I don't have a solid grasp on what I want to do yet. Just vague pieces of audio from different places I frequent come into mind. However, how do I want them all pieced together? Do I even want them all in one sound project? Do I want to create a story that defines my life at this moment? Do I want to create a messy collage of what makes up "Isabel"? Maybe none of it needs to make sense. Maybe sounds that remind me of moments in my life, fond beautiful lovely memories elicited from certain sounds. 

All these factors to consider make me realize that I am slowly understanding the vast amount of components sound artists have to think about. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. As a visual artist/designer, it's refreshing to put my sense of vision aside, and turn on my sense of hearing to "hyperaware", bringing it out of hibernation. 

After learning how to listen, I now have to learn how to create meaning from sounds I record myself and piece together. I have some experience from putting together images and recorded video together to create a certain mood and emotion, but stripping away visuals entirely and only relying on audio to elicit a mood or sensation is new to me. However, listening to Thomas Koner’s Novaya Zemlya, which was a beautiful and haunting experience and sensation, started to influence me on my hearing skills. By thinking about the sounds and remembering the emotions and feelings I felt as I listened to this piece, I have a better idea on how to dissect a soundscape as well as have a better grasp of how certain sounds can affect or alter the tone of a piece. 

Response: Sound Map of the Hudson River - Annea Lockwood

TCS121: Intro to Sonic Arts

October 4, 2015

Blog 2

While listening to Annea Lockwood's Sound Map of the Hudson River, I was brought back to my summer adventures with one of my best friends. 

***

I used my laptop to listen to this piece while I was in my bedroom. Besides listening, I was going back and forth between my room and the bathroom brushing my teeth for the first part of the sound map. Later on I was organizing myself and preparing for the week ahead by writing in my planner. In between all that, I was on social media on my phone and my laptop. Throughout the whole piece I did not stop the recording or stop listening because I wanted to hear it flow as it should be as one continuous piece. Because I was doing other things during most of the recording, my concentration was not solely focused on the piece, except for a few minutes at the end when I was just sitting and listening, trying to pick out the different elements that composed this sound map. 

While listening, I did feel a sense of nostalgia for the summer, especially for one memory when one of my best friends and I went to Garden of Eden in Santa Cruz to explore the hidden watering hole. The sounds of the water rushing in the soundmap instantly brought me back to this moment in time, which was a happy memory for me. I was able to feel the same sense of freedom, openness, and felt once again one with nature like I did back during the summer. 

This sound map is different from the ones we looked at online on Thursday because this does not have any voice over and it does not emphasize certain sounds within that space or seem like it is traveling through a space, like the audio walk example we heard. This sound map is different from that because it sounds as if the recorder was stationary, and recorded from the same fixed location near a river amongst nature and wild animals. 

It might be related to what we heard in class last Thursday to the sound map of the world. Those recordings were all snippets of soundscapes from a fixed point in that country's specific city. They did not attempt to make the listener interpret the sound differently or try to create a certain sensation or emotion. It was objectively there for listeners to hear what it sounds like in that particular region. 

Learning

TCS121: Intro to Sonic Arts

October 1, 2015

Blog 1

Audio.

Noise.

Sonics.

Silence.

Sound.

I never really focused on what I hear during my daily life. As a graphic designer and a cinephile, I have always been all about visuals. Anything else was secondary, almost nonexistent. However, as I got older, I have taken moments where I take time for myself. To take a breather, reflect, breathe. And in these moments, I do take notice of my environment with all my senses. I see the sunlight coming through the tree branches. I feel the leaves crunching underneath my feet. I smell the freshly cut grass along the path. I hear the birds chirping, leaves rustling in the wind, and the faded murmur of far off traffic. Then I return back to responsibilities and focus on other errands and tasks, putting my focus on my sense of hearing on the backburner.

Within just this first week of Introduction to Sonic Arts, I have already become an admirer for different sounds, and am fascinated by the components that make up a soundscape. I have paid attention, on a number of occasions, to my surroundings. However, I never attempted to really hone in on each individual sound component that made up that soundscape. Once I started to, wherever I went, I realized different sounds that are closer in distance are louder, while sounds farther away are softer or almost muffled. With several sounds together, creates a multilayered beautiful image of what that environment is like.

One of our exercises for class on Tuesday was going on a soundwalk. I have never done this, where my stroll was to focus only on the sounds I encountered. It was a delightful experience because I was able to take a break from sitting inside for several hours, and get some sunshine and just take in my surroundings. Because I was solely focused on hearing, it made me feel like I was in my own little world. My eyes were on the ground, watching what my feet would step on next, or go up and see the leaves rustling in the window, or right and left to hear the bikes that swooshed past me, or see what made that interesting sound just then. I was instructed to specifically listen through my feet and pay attention to rhythmic sounds. What I paid attention to then, was the different effects my feet created when I stepped on different textures. For instance, dried leaves crunching sounded much differently than on smooth stone paths or freshly cut grass. I also noticed rhythms such as when the wind would rustle through leaves, bike wheels squeaking to its own beat as one pedaled by, or the rhythms of a far off train’s whistle and whirring of air conditioners hanging out from the windows of buildings.

Silence is a fascinating concept. Some agree that silence is pure silence. Others believe that there is indeed, no such thing as silence. I myself am uncertain if there really is a pure silence. Some believe there is silence when all other sounds are silenced. Others believe silence does not actually exist, because within that “silence” there is a sound, such as a buzzing or some other subtle effect. Either way, “silence” can be an incredible effect. It allows one to focus and step back from a busy, chaotic moment.

In regards to “silence”, I am incredibly jealous of those who were able to experience anechoic chambers. I have never heard such a thing until last week, and when I heard what one can experience, I was instantly intrigued. The sounds are absorbed so well, that the decibels that are present in the air are negative. And one would be able to hear two sounds: their nervous system and the blood rushing through their veins. To be so quiet that one only is able to hear internal sounds is incredible to me. All other external sounds are literally stripped away and all you are able to focus on is yourself. To be able to do so sounds like an incredible experience.

Sound is finally taking a step forward in my life. It is slowly something that I am training myself to understand and analyze, since I have grown up to be a more visual person. However, it has been so far a new but engaging experience to focus more on the sounds of my surroundings. Who knows, maybe I’ll be better off describing certain events in my life by iconic sounds rather than key visuals.