ReMix

In our readings this week one of the parts that really stood out to me was the DJ Spooky Article. As we have spoken in class as how sound art is able to change the realms of time and how there are no limits on how the song or music is constructed. The DJ Spooky article touches on a few ways that the mix works, "The mix speaks to you of the bricolage of a place where the "self" exists as a deployed network of personae, music created out of a particular scene or social grouping: and it shows the inexplicable mutability of sound as different people share the memories brought about by the same songs. It demonstrates the uncanny power to metamorphosize, through audi alchemy, the passage of sound into a kind of unspoken story, that like its predecessor, the oral tradition, can pass on "tales" of songs." One of my favorite mashups or mixes, Im no music but so Im assuming it could be both, is the Notorious BIG song mixed with a Miley Cyrus song, is able to do all the things that is quoted in the DJ Spooky article and is able to negate time constraints. Because Notorious BIG is no longer living I feel like the use of his song in a modern song is a way of skewing the constraints of time. With modern technology you are able to take the voice of a man who is no longer living and create a new song with his music, without even using him. Another aspect that allows this mix to metamorphosize into different peoples memories brought about by the same song. I think that by combining the genres of rap and hip hop with kiddy pop music is a morphing of genres that allows the experiences of each song change. With the combination of the two the emotions that the song might evoke for the listener are drastically different. I think after discussing this in class and reading about the art of the  mix, one can really appreciate the experience of listening to a mix audio track as well as recognize the abilities to transform time boundaries and experiences that a mixed song has the potential to do.

(download)

Spooky Sound

I was able to read the article by Whittington and thought it very appropriate to the time of the year with Halloween and its festivities! While the article discusses the differences in J Horror and Hollywood Horror one of the differences was the use of ghosts and spirits in J Horror and how in H Horror it is more real life characters. Among other differences and borrowed pieces of each discussed in the article, this one stood out to me when I went to Knott's Scary Farm. Knott's is not necessarily a H Horror film, but it shows some of the traditional traits of H Horror that are discussed in the piece.What I noticed in the park was a lack of ghosts. I have never been to the theme park during the Halloween theme, but there are no ghosts that are out to attack the people, instead they are bloody and gory real life looking people, more themes of dolls or scare crows, pumpkins, all generally real life characters just with a bloody Halloween twist. Another interesting part of the park and its horror tactics was the  use of sound. It was very loud ambient music. In each haunted house there were different themes, thus the type of sounds and people's voices were different, but I began to notice a pattern in the haunted houses as I walked through the various ones. As you entered the house the music was overwhelmingly loud, not music just people talking, as you got into the maze you were met by more musical sound the built up at every corner where someone was hiding or as you got the scariest parts of the house the music was the loudest and a little less as you walked through the better lit more open areas. It kind of parallels the music used in H Horror films and the build up used. Similar to Jaws or other well known American suspense of horror films the music trails you through and builds you up to the climax of the film, differing from J Horror. I guess after reading this article and being sufficiently scared from Knott's Scary Farm my next Halloween needs to be spent at a Japanese horror experience, just to be fair.

Branding and Music

In our readings this week many of them touched on retail and its unique and growing relationship to music. With my generation of smart phones, social networks like facebook and myspace. The outlets for advertising and avenues that brands, retailers and manufaturers can find you are endless. I would agree with the Heartbeats article that music coupled with a brand and social media could be a very profitable combination for all involved. Yet, I think that recent popular music has evolved into more advertising than art which I think is kind of a selling out of artists and music. I hear the use of clothing, alcohol and even referencves to other famous people who in their own way are brands as well. In an article published earlier this year they talked about an agency that represented many famous artists and how they pitched to artists if they could include certain brand names in their uopcoming songs. I think its terribly cheesy and hope that artists are better than this. But I am guilty of enjoying the songs that so obviously include the brands that are pushing to get their name in the songs. The killing or genuine art in music is the sad part of the popular combination of music and advertisement, but the songs that they create are pretty catchy. Ive attached one of my favorites, it quite obvisously a combination of ads and music, but it does the job of getting it stuck in your head.

Plugging in

Reading No dead Air definetly makes a valid claim regarding the privatization of representational space. I thought it especailly interesting when he talks about sound consuming culture, I at first looking at the heading thought of consumer culture in relation to stores and their use of music to aid in getting the consumers to purchase their goods. In every store you walk into or any comercial, you are met with noise not only the natural noises of people, but with music that they feel will get you to buy their product. Music just like in this article fro people is now usued to create a brand or create an ideal for a brand culture. Like upbeat music for adias or nike or the songs or jingles uysed for cars. Noteably, I took my little cousin to the mall and she wanted to go and look around Abercrombie and Fitch. I am more removed from those stores and was taken a back at the noisy music they were playing in the store. It was pop and techno music that I heard while I was in there but the idea that Im sure they think they will sell more clothes with the music. Interestingly it  applies to the readings because we no longer have any quiet space. I wouldnt imagine shopping to be a quiet space, but shopping is usually a causual activity that you dont have to think much for, yet it become something like driving in traffic and listeing to music instead of being in the present and listening to the natural soundscapes, we insert our own personal playlists to fill the space of the things that we dotn feel like listeing to. We plug in to our own sounds and  plug out of the natural unwated sounds.

sonic autobiography

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. 

Soundscapes

After reading for the week I tried to better understand the role of the ear witness and so I naturally googles ear witness. I found an article that correlates to what we have been discussing in class. As we rely so heavily on our vision as opposed to our hearing and the LA times article wrote an interesting article regarding the "ear witness."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/science/23angi.html

In reading about soundscape, I went to Samoa this past summer with my family to see some relatives and we went a hike to the upper jungles above where my uncle lives. We heard this really unique sound that I have certainly never heard before and he explained to me that they were fruit bats that were undergoing some hard times because they are a source of food during famine, but have recently been considered a delicacy in different regions of the world, their habitat has declined. He expressed to us how it was a usual sound to hear the bats at night, but has declined significantly with the changes in habitat. I have attached a sound of the bats, its a really erie sound, but it is a unique sound to he region and soundscape like we discussed from the readings and is something that I certainly never heard before and have not heard in any other place i have been. 

 

 

wAll of sound

thought this was interesting and pertaining to this class, so im sure people have seen this but thought I would share...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrP8DknY2DU

 

its clip from the cove, a documentary about a multi billion dollar dolphin industry and the capturing of dolphins.

Not only do they speak about how they confuse and capture the dolphins by stressing them and confusing them w sound. They also speak about how dolphins use breath and had an interesting clip about how a dolphin can consciously stop breathing and commit suicide, by choosing not to breath anymore, which pertains to former readings as well.

its a very interesting and compelling movie and would recommend this to anyone who hasn't seen it yet...

 

Musicophilia

In reading Musicophilia it made me think of a experience i had this weekend. I was able to travel with my water polo team, the mens water polo team and the mens tennis team to washington DC and meet the president for winning NCAA this past season. In reading aboiut music and our imagery of it or how music can almost put us in past experiences or conjure up emotions or feelings from listening to a song, it really was relevant to me this weekend. I rely on music when I travel or before big games to get excited. So this weekend I went through some of my old playlists that I had during NCAA and during last season and was put right back into the memories that I had with these songs. We were on the bus going to the white house and one of the girls on the team recalled a song that we coined our team song by Journey called "Livin on a Prayer" and got everyone singing it, and it was able to conjure up memeories of when we won. I cant say that this is exactly what they are talking about, but the links that yoru brain can make to songs and events in time make music so much more meaningful.

I would have posted a video of our team singing our song, but the clip was too big, so this should do...

 

 

Without Breath

Today after class I was thinking about the readings that were discussed. They all spoke briefly about the breath and its relation to life, soul and meaning and I was thinking of a simpel example of this that is used in Hawaiian culture that has found its way into more popular mainstream culture. In various media potrayals of hawaii ro surf culture they refer to caucasion people are haoles, to express them not belonging to the local culture. But what is interesting is the meaning of haole. "ha" means the breath or soul of a person. This is expressed in many other cultures and languages as well in different forms. But the Hawaiian belief in the breath siginfying life. the last part "ole" means with out or not/no. So, the literal translation of haole is without breath or without life. Which I found interestign because I always heard the term thrown around in a joking sense, but in relation to these pieces they express what it is that aristotle is talking about.

1st blog post of the semester

Hello Fellow Audio Bloggers,

This will serve as my first and experimental post.
Following class this afternoon I had an interesting audio experience. After talking about different aspects of audio vs visual and what would constitute as noise and the significance of listening I felt like i was more aware of the noises and sounds when I left class. I ate lunch w a friend outside after class and was kind of preoccupied with the noises she was making chewing and drinking and the noises around us of the people passing by and am guilty of some eves dropping too..

But what stood out to me after our first class are the sounds that you don't distinctively listen for. You want to hear the words that someone is telling you and you turn on your ipod or the radio to listen to music, but you don't (or at least i don't) ride my bike to class to hear cars, traffic, people talking around you, the sounds of your bike wheels moving across the street and all the other background sounds of doing everyday stuff. Just thought I would share and test this thing out!!