TCS122 Journal 2

PROMPT:
Listen and compare Subotnik and Jarre.

• Morton Subotnik "Silver Apples of the Moon" (1967) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EelvKqhu1M4
• Jean Michel Jarre "Oxygène" (1976) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iq8BB5YOyCI&feature=youtu.be

RESPONSE:

Both Subotnik and Jarre's pieces have a similar, "futuristic", "space" mood because they are electronic music (which gets heavily associated with these ideas due to their "otherness", unique qualities that cannot be found in nature. They both seem to not have any breaks in the song, which is only feasible due to the use of technology to create the sounds, and not human power (it takes finite effort to blow a trumpet or a temporary sound that piano keys make).

In Subotnik's piece, there is a robot-like feeling I get from it, due to certain sound effects used. Other sound effects are reminiscent to old space films with the theremin like sounds.

In Jarre's piece, I can hear a human-like operatic voice, which was most likely replicated by a similar sounding piece of technology (such as a theremin). The way it was composed has a more haunting, ethereal feeling to it because the sounds flow together, whereas in Subotnik's piece the sound effects like a robot or machine having its buttons pressed, is more jumpy and chaotic, creating a sense of busy-ness.

TCS122 Journal 1

PROMPT:

What I asked was: 

What music do you listen to, its relation to electronic music?  Your relation to electronic music?  Your musical (and other relevant) contexts?  Your goals for this class?

You could also answer the following in addition/instead: 

1) general self-intro (Who are you?  Where are you from?  What are the important things I should know about you?)  2) musical/sonic experience (What do you listen to?  What do you play?  Informal and classroom experience with electronic and acoustic music?)  3)  musical/sonic future (Why are you taking this class?  What do you hope you will learn or be able to do by spring break?  Further in the future?)

RESPONSE:

I am Isabel, originally from the historically complex island of the Philippines, raised in the Bay Area, from the Departments of Design and TCS, and am greatly involved with the Pilipinx American community on campus. There are several important facets to me, but I'll just share the most relevant features related to this class of experimental and electronic music. With my limited to nonexistent experience with electronic music, I am more focused on exploring the potentials of what electronic music can do. I have never played with such electronic devices to create experimental music, so everything is somewhat overwhelming and daunting because I am diving into this class blind. A lot of doubts and hesitations on my capabilities in this class, but I know I need to let go of that and remember I'm here to learn on my own pace and just improve from my past self. I am extremely excited on what new profound experiences I will take from this class, but right now, I'm not sure of what is expected of me. Seeing examples has always been a huge help, so I suppose just seeing more performances or tutorials of what is expected would be great. 

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.

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[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
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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?

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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.