Tumua Anae
10/5/10
Sonic Auto Biography
In our meditation class we learned to refine our senses in order to better listen to our breath and look inward. To the same beat I want to express my sonic autobiography through those more tapered senses of listening. I tried to decide the over arching theme of all the sounds that I had chosen, and have since realized that these sounds, songs and clips don't necessarily have anything to do with each other. The only similarity is that they are a sonic expression of my college experience thus far. They all represent something that has had an impact on me the past four years or has been significant to who I have become in the last four years. I have organized my sonic autobiography as a story of sound that I will explain as it goes and hope you enjoy it!
I am a water baby. There are all sorts of environments that people are raised in geographically, and I have been lucky enough to call Hawai’i and Southern California home. The sounds that have been significant to these areas are notably the sounds of the ocean. Both Hawai’i and Southern California, more specifically Newport Beach, are beach areas that attract thousands of visitors each year because of their beaches and warm oceans (sometimes in California). As a avid beach goer, beach lifeguard and lover of the ocean, it is necessary to have a sound of the ocean to express one of the most natural sounds in the world as well as one of the most natural habitats and experiences to me. The water would have to be the keynote sound to my sonic autobiography. As expressed in the Schafer readings the key note sound, “is the note that identifies the key or tonality of a particular composition. It is the anchor or fundamental tone and although the material may modulate around it, often obscuring its importance, it is in reference to this point that everything else takes on its special meaning (Schafer, 1977).” I feel that sometimes the city geography of LA obscures the ocean and my home geography, but the ocean is where I am rooted. To introduce my sonic autobiography, I introduce my key note, the sound of the ocean and water.
I entered USC as a freshman and was not really sure what I wanted my college experience to be. I was recruited to USC as a water polo player and was not really sure what I wanted out of water polo, or if I was going to play for four years. A long four years later I can say that playing water polo at USC was the best fit for me. I would be remised if I did not include a few water polo clips because it has shaped so much of my college experience. The first relation to water polo and sound that I have included is the power relationship between coach and player. Here at USC, the women's and mens water polo coach is a man know for his brash, expressive and extremely loud coaching style. As we have discussed in class as well in various readings, noise can be an indication of status, wealth, location and various other general descriptions of a person based on the type and amount of noise that they are exposed to everyday. As Keizer put it noise can be powerful and “to make a big sound is to overpower other sounds (Keizer, 2010).” I would have to describe this sound to a relation to power, because noise in the sense that I have understood it in water polo is the louder you are, the more power you have. The relationship that Jovan has when he coaches our team is that he is the loudest voice on the pool deck and as such, is the most powerful man on the pool deck. It is safe to say that if Keizer was to listen to our practices or games, he would be able to point out who has the most power based on which voice or sound overpowers the others.
Just as I have played water polo for the past four years, I am a student-athlete. Many times I have found myself spending more time in a day at practice than in class, but I find class to be my outlet from work-outs. We have talked significantly about silence it can be an outlet for me to intellectually think and study. I have included a clip from the library because it is one of the most quite academic areas and is in representation of class. I would liken my student life to the reading of Prochnik, “In Pursuit of Silence.” While the character in the story is escaping New York to find silence in a monastery, I can relate to his desire for a detox of sound. College life in general is an intense exposure to sound. You are constantly talking to people, listening to music, living in a noisy environment, eating with the masses of people and various other activities that include multiple people. I find class to be a soothing experience for me. It is a block of time in which being present in class is my only responsibility and I can focus on two people, the professor and myself. Class to me over the last few years has been my monastery and escape from the sometimes over-exposure to sound in college.
I have only one sibling and I was lucky enough to attend USC with her for two years. She is two years older than me and because it is only the two of us we are very close and have shared almost every experience with each other, including much of our college experience. She has since graduated and gotten married and recently had a baby boy, making me a proud aunt. I would have to include this experience in my sonic biography because it has changed my whole family dynamic. As a new Aunt, I get pictures and video clips of my nephew doing pretty mundane activities. Yet, what is the most exciting is when he makes noise. Just as expressed in De Anima what sets people apart is their use of the windpipe. Aristotle links the voice to air and breath. Yet, while air produces the breath, he specifies that the windpipe is where the air and breath can produce voice. He goes on to explain the ‘voice’ gives these sounds their meaning. “Not every sound, as we said, made by an animal is voice;what produces the impact must have soul in it and must be accompanied by an act of imagination, for voice is a sound with meaning (Aristotle, 2010).” The clip that I have tied to Aristotle is a clip of my nephew crying. It has been interesting and entertaining to see and hear my nephew experiment with his windpipe to create different sounds. My nephew’s experimentation with his noise will soon be matured and he will eventually express his voice in words and phrases and will bring even more meaning to his voice.
After becoming an aunt, one of the most memorable experiences for me in college was fulfilling a goal that has haunted me for the last few years. As I previously talked about water polo in relation to my coach, another important stand point is that of my team. We have been in the NCAA finals for the past two years and lost in the championship game consecutively both years. It is has been a struggle each year to cope with those loses, but we set a goal of wining NCAA’s this last year and finally fulfilled our goal. I have been one to set goals for myself personally, academically and athletically. This to me was the most fulfilling goal I have accomplished thus far in my college life. What stood out to me in relation to wining NCAA’s is one of our readings, “Teachings of Silence,” by Shankar. In the reading it states that, “Celebration is the nature of the spirit. Any celebration has to be spiritual. A celebration without spirituality does not have any depth. And silence gives the depth to celebration...Spirituality is a harmonious blend of outer silence and inner celebration; and also inner silence and other celebration (Shankar, 2010)!” I felt that I could relate to this because wining was a very emotional and spiritual experience. I don't think I will ever forget when the buzzer went off after the last few seconds. I went under water and was so happy that I didn't know what to do. It was underwater, when it was completely silent that I was able to take it all in. As Shankar says celebration needs spirituality. As I was under water I was experiencing the outer silence and inner celebration and as I emerged I could hear the screams of my team and felt inner silence because we had finally achieved a goal that we had set for the past three years. It was a once in a lifetime experience of celebration that I felt was a overwhelming spiritual experience similar to Shankar’s description of celebration in relation to inner and outer silence.
To end my sonic autobiography I chose to end with a few songs that are significant to me. The first is a song that my grandparents loved and that my family sings at all our big family gatherings, and the second is just a song that I listen to every night that I enjoy falling a sleep to. The first is my musicphillia link. The song, Love at Home, is a church hymn that my grand parents loved. My grand parents moved from Samoa to North Hollywood and wanted my mom and her brothers to integrate themselves into american culture. So the first thing that they did was join a church and practiced church hymns at home to help with their english. Listening to the song links my brain to the memories that I have of my family and this has been a huge aspect of not only my college experience but also my life. The other song that I have included is the Rodrigo y Gabriela rendition of Stairway to Heaven, that I just really enjoy. My father is very musical and he plays the cello, bass, ukulele and guitar. He can always be heard tinkering on all of his instruments when he is home and so it to serves to remind me of home.I felt it ended my track nicely and I just enjoy listening to it.
My sonic auto biography includes the most important sounds and songs in my life for the past few years. I have listened to the lull of the ocean and the sound of water in a pool. I have listened to the yells of my coach. I have been in the library to experience its silence. I have heard my nephew cry. I have celebrated wining NCAA’s with my team. I have sang Love at Home and have heard Rodrigo y Gabriel in concert. I am certainly not a sound enthusiast as Schafer is, but in expressing myself through these sounds that are important and meaningful to me, I have found that I am an ear witness of my life wether I’m listening in search or in readiness, either way I am listening.
Works Cited
Aristotle. De Anima. Print.
Keizer, Garret. The Unwanted Sound of Everything We Want: a Book about Noise. New York: PublicAffairs, 2010. Print.
Prochnik, George. In Pursuit of Silence: Listening for Meaning in a World of Noise. New York: Doubleday, 2010. Print.
Schafer, Murray R. The Soundscape. Rochester: Murray R. Schafer, 1977. Print.
Shankar, Sri Sri Ravi. "Teachings on Silence." Print.