Category: 22/23 Introduction to Sound Arts

Sound is the media that different from other arts form which is not based of the visual (films, fine art, etc). Through music and sound, audiences can be in the places of their imagination and this more ambiguous way to present our own idea. I am not good at present myself thpouhgt language, therefore I started to write music and Folk, Blues and rock music seems to talk to me most when I started to learn music. For music, Syd Barrett, Nick Drake and John Lennon inspired me a lot. By listen to their work, the idea of minimalism is interested me most where it gives more space for the audience to wander around the pieces. My works always reflecting the things around me and the alternative lifestyle seems to the topic that at the top of my mind in recent years. Think the alternative way to live rather just stick in the city and forget the fundamental element of living where in the urban lifestyle, those element are being transfer to money. By doing that, field recording is the tools that I found can be present this idea where it can capture the soundscape of city and the nature. Therefore, field recording is the area that I start to dive in and hopefully there will be more field recording related composition in my future works.

The first sound that I recorded is the train approaching the platform in the tube station. It have the low pitch drone sounds with high pitch sound from the rail and when stop, it have the really high pitch squeezing sound. It can be cut and stretch the sound and become a drone or cut the high pitch breaking sound.

The sound sound I recorded is the sound of the cooking stove. It has the texture of wind like sound which technically is. It is the while noise and have more low frequency. It can be use as the back ground noise and with modulation, it can be the sound effect in sic-fi movie flying ship.

The last sound I got is the bowling water. The sound of water are satisfying, therefore, I recorded some sound of the wave when we were doing the field recording trip. But this time with the bowling water, it has more bubbling sound. It also have the burning sound when the water are vapoured by the hot edges of the pot.

Hearing is the practice that we all doing every single moment. Unlike other senses, our ears can not be closed and we don’t have ears lid. Even we cover up our ears or even we have the headphones on which blocked most of the sound around us, we still can hearing thing or we will hear the high pitch drone. Therefore, hearing is our ability to receive vibration of the air and we may react to the sound that we heard. For example, when we walk across the road and we can hear the horn or the engine sounds of cars approaching us, and we may stop when we hearing it.

The difference between listening and hearing is that when we listen, we put more effort to analyse what we heard. We listen others conversation or listen to the music, and thought listen, we will think about the information that the sound contain. And for more sound art related area, we can trace and force on the sound that we want to listen because most of the time, there have more than one sound sources. Therefore, the difference between listening and hearing is that listening require more focus while hearing is just the default mode of how our ears receive sound.

According to Dr Murray Schafer, there are three different types of soundscape which is sound signal, keynote sounds and soundmark.

Sound signal is the sounds that have message and function: in the listening practice, the sound signal that I found are the gate in the entrance of LCC and the card registration machine in the entrance of every classroom

Keynote is the sound that being heard constantly or frequently which stand out from the background sound: the keynote that I found in LCC are the fire alarm panel in the cafe and water pipe in the bottom floor of media block.

The last sound is soundmark which refer to the unique and iconic sounds within the curtain community: the sound that I found are the gate in the entrain (also a signal) and other sound that come up in the discussion in class is the transition from outside to inside the quite zone in the library.

This is the work that interested me in week 5 outing in Tate Morden. This work used 16 speaker hung on the ceiling in three rooms with painted scores on the side and orchestral map in the middle of the wall. In the time when I went into the rooms, I can hear the bird songs but I didn’t realise the hanging objects is the speaker which confuses me at first. Also the hunting speaker were playing birds songs which according to the description of the work, it is two thousand birdsongs from all around the world.

The space is quite wide compare to other work in Tate Morden, however, volume of the speaker is rather tiny and also all the speaker is quite low. As a result, audience need to go under the speaker if you want to hear the clear sounds. Also they plays quite separately which recreate the atmosphere of the forest (most of the time can hear the bird from distance but can’t really find them). That is the intention of the work, hear the tiny and forgotten surround us.

If I gonna do this sound sculpture myself, I probably will rearrange the speaker positions rather hanging on the ceiling evenly. The vertical hanging speaker limited the travel of the sounds. Also sonic wise, it can have more variation of the birdsongs rather the dry sounds. For example, add different effect or filter to create different sense of space and distance.

‘Recording from around the world, sound walks and listening exercises, radio broadcasts and pedagogical project, feature as approaches toward developing a flexible and intuitive strategy for marking out the parameters, delineations, and categories of acoustic experience and its material operations.’ (LaBelle, 2006)

Paraphrase:
Different sonic practice, such as field recording, sound walk, listening exercise, and even radio broadcasts and educational project, have to consider the development of different strategy for acoustic experience. For example, categories or divide different approaches in different situation and practice. (LaBelle, 2006)

Bibliography:
LaBelle, B. (2006) Background Noise, Perspectives on Sound Art. New York: Continuum.

I am Sitting in a Room is created by Alvin Lucier. Lucier was trained as classical composer but he started to experiment different way to work with sounds as he lost interested in contemporary music. He try to use the scientific method to work with sound-piece. The first sound work he did was called Music for Solo Performer in 1965 which he amplified the brain wave and send it to the durms. In 1969, he created the I am Sitting in a Room which he called it as ‘preliminary’. Afterwards, he recorded different versions of this piece. The ‘preliminary’ last about 15 minutes and 40 minutes long in 1980’s version which has 32 repetition. He recored his voice, which is the description of the piece, and recored the playback from a loudspeaker. As he kept repeating this process, ‘the acrostic property of the room become a filter’ and it amplified and dim the curtain frequency. As a result, it became the abstract patten of sound.

One of the reason why I choose this piece is because the minimalist element where it is so simple but powerful. The actual process is simple, record the looping of voice over, but it created the infinity mirror like effect which reflect sound and time rather light. The piece can literally keep going endlessly. Also the piece created the interesting phenomenon which is reversing the relationship between languages and sounds. We usually add meaning to a sounds piece by using language to explain it, such as your intention or idea behind it. However, in I am Sitting in a Room, it is begin with the clear voice description of the works, in which, for me, it is revering the process of interrupt the piece. After all, it is inspirational for me.

Bibliography:
^{_{Vandsoe, A. (2012) “I am Recoding the Sound of My Speaking Voice. Enunciation in Alvin Lucier’s I’m Sitting in a Room”, SoundEffects – An Interdisciplinary Journal of Sound and Sound Experience, 2(1), pp. 96–112. doi: 10.7146/se.v2i1.5175.}}

• Expression
  It is the key of making any types of arts. Every works of the artists are the medium to express their feeling and ideas which may happen intentionally or unconsciously. Although the audience may not feel or think in the same way as the creator, it contains message that the artists had or have and the process of expressing and receiving is the key of any type of art works.
  
• Reflection
  Any works that I did are reflecting my life. No matter it is about my relationship, my state of mind or the topics that are stuck in my head, such as politics, environment, stories and philosophical questions. For me, art works are reflecting artist life and both things are completely connected.
  
• Surrounding
  Compare to the keywords above, it is more personal feeling that I got. The surrounding area are affecting me a lot when I am creating my works. The change of season or the places that I am living in; the inspiration I got from places to places or the changing of the stage of life.

The reason why I want to study sound art is because I want to explore more sonic and sound that can add into my music. Learning the way to listen to the environment and create sound are always interested me. When I was a kid, I always very sensitive to surround sound and music. Therefore, I went to the art high school to study music and that is the chances to explore different type of music but also sound design for theatre. When I was studying music there, I always think of one question – what is music. Does it have to follow the tonal scale and note or it is just the sound that created by people which have meaning in it? If it is the case, then every intentional sound making can be music as well. Then is smashing a glass are music? Is applause after the show are music? Those moment people are intentionally making sound and it has its meaning. Then, I discover the term sound art which for me at the moment, is asking or thinking what is music and how can use sound to create meaningful piece rather than just follow the musical theory or genre that existed before.