the music of sound

multiple exposure photograph by tracy yarkoni odell, 1998

Sound - inescapable and un-mutable. Even in an anechoic chamber (a completely silent room), you will still be haunted by the beating of your own heart, the rush of air through your nose, your throat, your lungs, perhaps also rumblings in your gut, and should you be lacking such a room: any number of other sounds you forgot to pay attention to, but were there all along filling in your life like so much painted scenery on a stage - the rough, indelicate demi-definition of environment hanging in the background of your consciousness.

Ever-present, yet ever taken-for-granted, perhaps - at least, in an analytical, purposefully attentive sense.

I've played piano since I was a wee lass of five years. I've been wooshed around a wooden dance floor, balanced upon my fathers feet to the beat of a waltz belted out on a saxophone wielded by my grandfather. I've shouted out tunes in my car until my throat was sore. I've been slammed around mosh pits of the raucous 80's punk scene, giving as good as I got. And a lifetime later, I rocked my own children to sleep humming a sweet lullaby, possibly a little off key - the particular favourites being "High Hopes" ala Frank Sinatra and "My Favorite Things" from Sound of Music.

Sound, and music, have been no stranger to me for a lifetime, but when it comes to composing - re-working and molding - shaping and caressing - the reigning in and setting free of tone and pitch and pulse, I didn't even know where to begin.

Which is why, of course, I signed up for the Digital Sound class at the University of Washington, in their very special program DXARTS (Digital Experimental Media and Art.)

Nothing like throwing myself out of my comfort zone to feel like I'm living, you know?

Every DXARTS class is a melding of science/technology with the arts. Specifically in the Digital Sound Capstone class, we learned all the science of sound (from how audio waves behave, to how the human ear physically perceives sound, to the relatively new science of psychoacoustics) as well as the history of electronic sound and sound art - and then were guided to combining this knowledge into our own workings of sound.

Our first assignment:  Listening.

Seems pretty obvious, right?

You may be surprised by what you find, I certainly was... and you may even find yourself annoyed at how pervasive sound becomes in your life once you've started down this hyper-aware path to sound. But no need to frighten you before we've even begun...

Here's the assignment:

{These listening exercises where taken from 'A Sound Education: 100 exercises in listening and sound making,' by R. Murray Schafer}

• CHOOSE a place and a time for your listening experience.
• WRITE DOWN ALL THE SOUNDS YOU HEAR. Take 5-10 min to do this. (It 's a good idea to try these in a few different, contrasting environments, to train your ears, but you only need to write it all down once for this assignment).
• DIVIDING YOUR LISTS Now, divide your lists in a few different ways: - Start by assigning the letters N, H, T to each sound, depending on if it is a natural, human or a technological (machine) sound. - Then, place an X beside each sound you produced yourself. - Some sounds may have been continuous, not stopping throughout the listening period. Note those with a C. Others may have been repetitive (R) and others heard just once (U for unique).
• CATEGORIZING YOUR LISTS - Arrange the sounds you heard from loud to soft; top of the page is loud, bottom is soft. - Now, do the same but rating and listing your sounds according to how pleasant / unpleasant they were. - Now, make a graph, with a medium sized circle in the center. Place inside the circle all the sounds you made. Arrange all other sounds according to the distance and direction from which they came to you.


Here's what I turned in:

“I hear, therefor I’m here.”

7.19.12 roughly 7:00pm, PST, on my balcony, in the front of my house, 2nd floor, Seattle, WA, USA, Planet Earth, This Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy, This Universe, in this {possibly} Multiverse, Stardate: -310451.3064157054 (according to http://www.hillschmidt.de/gbr/sternenzeit.htm)


5 mins listening:

(C/U/R, X, N/H) I hear, again, these words that I am writing in my head, overlaying:
(U, T) An airplane (small) to my right
(U, T) Another airplane (large) to my left
(U/R, N/H) The thump of my child’s feet
(C, T) Cars rumbling – traffic – on the highway
(U, T) A helicopter thumping it’s blades through the air
(R, N) Birds chirping
(C, X, H) Pencil lead scratching on paper
(C/R X H) Metal table legs thumping ground in unison w/ my writing movements
(U, X, H) My finger swiping the page
(U, T) A door of a neighbor’s house creaking
(U, T) A deep rumbling of an engine
(C/R, N) Birds chirping
(C/U/R, X, N/H) My inner voice “where’s a new sound…”
(U, N) Dog panting
(U/R, N) Creaking wood w/ dogs steps
(C/U/R, X, N/H) “I want to {(U, N) bug buzzing} do this on transparencies – overlaid – visual…”
(R/U, N) Bird chirping in semi-unison w/ another bird
(U, N) Rustling leaves
(U, T) Plastic bag rustling
(U, T) Dishes in distant house clanging
(U, N) Different bird – squawking
(U, X, T/H) Timer beeping! {a delayed me noise?}


Thoughts on categorizing: 

H/N was tricksy, it seems that all H can be N, unless it involves T, in which case it becomes H/T if done with intention/conscious choice; and I had to not assume that a ‘human’ necessarily flew the plane, drove the cars, closed the door, etc. – because I had not seen it with my eyes – coulda been a bunch of escaped monkeys for all I know, and I’d need a whole new category… But why should causality define its category?

I set the timer, the timer made a noise at the time I designated, the noise did not come from my person specifically – and yet it was only because of me that the noise came into the world…. Argh. Circular arguments…

I’m going to take the philosophical route and conclude that all sounds are/can/would/could be arguably all and/or none of these categories. The butterfly effect would be a useful argument for this I think – so actually, I’ll conclude that they’re all “B” for butterfly.


All H could arguably be N.
(all humans are of nature)

All T could arguably be H.
(all technology comes from humans)

Since H could be N and is the origin of T,
(since humans are arguably nature and also are the origin of technology)

And there may have been a B that caused all of H in the first place…
(that fortuitous butterfly that may have been the initial cause all of human existence)

All is therefore N/B.
(nature/butterfly)

{Just think – the next time you text ‘brb’, you may be saying “butterfly, repeat, butterfly”}



From Loud {To Soft}

Timer beeping!
Different bird – squawking
I hear, again, these words that I am writing in my head, overlaying:
My voice “where’s a new sound…”
“I want to {bug buzzing} do this on transparencies – overlaid – visual…”
A helicopter thumping it’s blades through the air
Birds chirping
Bird chirping in semi-unison w/ another bird
An airplane (small) to my right
Another airplane (large) to my left
Click of dogs toenails on a wooden deck
A deep rumbling of an engine
Pencil lead scratching on paper
Creaking wood w/ dogs steps
My finger swiping the page
Dishes in distant house clanging
Metal table legs thumping ground in unison w/ my writing movements
Plastic bag rustling
Dog panting
Rustling leaves
The thump of my child’s feet
A door of a neighbor’s house creaking
Cars rumbling – traffic – on the highway

{Soft}



From Pleasant {to Unpleasant}

The thump of my child’s feet
Pencil lead scratching on paper
Creaking wood w/ dogs steps
Birds chirping
Bird chirping in semi-unison w/ another bird
Click of dogs toenails on a wooden deck
My finger swiping the page
A deep rumbling of an engine
A door of a neighbor’s house creaking
Rustling leaves
I hear, again, these words that I am writing in my head, overlaying:
My voice “where’s a new sound…”
“I want to {bug buzzing} do this on transparencies – overlaid – visual…”
An airplane (small) to my right
Another airplane (large) to my left
Cars rumbling – traffic – on the highway
Dog panting
A helicopter thumping it’s blades through the air
Metal table legs thumping ground in unison w/ my writing movements
Dishes in distant house clanging
Plastic bag rustling
Different bird – squawking
Timer beeping!

{Unpleasant}



{Determining pleasant/unpleasant seems much akin to asking someone what their favorite colour is – I find this question mind-boggingly difficult to answer – how could anyone have any one favorite colour??!! I don’t get it… I may be jarred by a sound, and like it too. Is that pleasant, or unpleasant? It’s a bit meaningless w/o context…}


Last little bit… 

“What about sounds I hear with my eyes? The clear ring of a crisply white painted door, or the low sultry hum of a blood red door. Or that I hear with my taste buds? The ‘tang’ and ‘ting’ of a bitter lemon. Or that I hear with a touch? The squeal of sudden death as I just accidentally squished a bug out of existence with my pinky finger (see image below, this really happened as I was thinking ‘what do I hear with touch?’) And a final example – in hearing all these things, in all these ways, is also to hear the past, via symbolic representation and/or association…”