When I was in the fourth grade, I put in my headphones and I never took them out again. Since that day, I have been addicted to my private music. Whether I was going shopping with my mom, on a car ride to a friend’s house or I had five minutes between classes, there was one constant: I was listening to music. I valued this greatly, being able to tune out everything going on around me made the world easier to deal with: I do not like the public sounds, I often feel a sensory overload and become extremely anxious when I am surrounded by a lot of voices, or other noises. This environment, however, is different than the one I left at home, it is not as loud, not as overwhelming and, because I have been inspired by the conversations we have had in class, I have allowed myself to try to experience the world without my headphones. As someone who had eight to nine years separate from the world of public noises, I find that everything sounds new to me. While anyone who hears these sounds day by day would not be able to notice any particular details as they would become desensitized to the sounds they hear constantly–my experience is totally different. I can hear every detail, I can hear wind, I can hear bugs, I can hear birds–I can hear different types of birds–and it all sounds new to me. Surprisingly enough, I have found that I enjoy some of the world’s more organic sounds just as much as I enjoy my music–for example, I like the sound of the crunching of dead leaves so much that I now go out of my way to step on them. Even though I don’t see me separating myself from my music, it is nice to experience these organic sounds as well.
The Sonic Color Line
While reading the introduction of Jennifer Lynn Stoever’s The Sonic Color Line and the Listening ear, I was illuminated on the impact of race on music and vice versa, the impact of music on race and the relationship they have had with each other for the past several centuries. I really enjoyed how by writing about the racial contetations of music, she challenged the notion that’ race is a purely visual phenomenon. It is something auditory, as well, making that whole “I do not see color” argument completely moot. Stoever writes, “Reconsidering racialization as a sonic practice allows for a deeper understanding of why both race and racism persist,” meaning that seeing how race has impacted other elements of life, in this case the artistic practice of music, can show us why racism impacts our daily lives, so many decades since slavery and laws on segregation was a part of this country. Race isn’t just about looks it’s about culture, since culture impacts music, different music genres have different cultural connections and different connotations that go with it. My question revolves around what comes next, if this is happening now, is there anyway to live in a world without racism? Is there any way to not let these differences between races lead to separation and hatred?
I Will Always Love You
Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You is a timeless classic. It is recognized as one of the most beautiful love ballads of all time, fourteen weeks as number one on the Billboard Hot 100 List. While everyone knows the song, and most people know the movie that popularized it, very few people know that it is a cover. I Will Always Love You was a song written by Dolly Parton and released almost 20 years before Whitney Houston covered it for her film, The Body Guard. Dolly Parton’s version of the song is different. Her song is almost two minutes shorter, and it’s a country song, it is just barely slower and it is lighter on the instruments. Whitney Houston’s cover is over four minutes long, and there is more soul and R&B, and it adds amazing instruments, like the saxophone (who’s solo literally gives me shivers). It is remarkable feat, what Whitney Houston accomplished, cover songs usually pale in comparison to their originals. Whitney Houston’s version of I Will Always Love you, however, is objectively better than Dolly Parton’s version. Houston has a stronger voice and a wider vocal range and the message of the benefits from being told through the genres of soul and R&B. Houston’s version is not just a cover, but a total reimagining, something “Take Me On: The Art of the Cover Song,” recognizes as a way to make “a great cover song.” Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You, is arguably the music industry’s best cover song, proven by the fact that most people do not realize that it is a cover song.
Listening and Social Media
Kate Crawford, in “Following You: Disciplines of Listening In Social Media,” writes about social media, specifically Twitter, and how people interact on that website. She talks about how people, politicians and corporations use the site, in a way that is remarkably consistent with the way the site is used today, even though it has been nine years. She writes about how individuals write out their opinions and very rarely listen on this cite, people who do not participate in discussions, are looked down on, and called “lurkers.” This is true even now, most people value speaking, not listening, they hardly pay attention to what people say, and just react to volume. Crawford writes about how corporations use social media as a way to listen to their customers, this is like the other end of the spectrum, they actually do listen to people, and by listening to their customers, they are better able to adjust their products or change the way they conduct business into a way that better fits with their target demographic, therefore making them more money and keeping their customers satisfied. She then places politicians in a category entirely separate from the previous two, she writes about how Obama used twitter, not to listen to or interact with constituents, but to advertise dates and times of rallies, speeches and debates. She also writes about how there seemed to be more restrictions placed on him since he became president, it is shocking to see how different things are now, if only she could see how this president uses twitter. There is still not much listening going on, and it is a shame to think that we are stuck nine years ago.
Jordan Scott’s Performances
The way ‘voice’ plays into Jordan Scott’s performances of Blert, both solo and accompanied, is quite different than in most other spoken performances. Scott, like other poets, use their voice as an instrument through which they make art, that is, without a doubt, what he is doing here, however, there is an obstruction, he has a speech impediment that breaks up his performance, and in an art where timing is so critical, one might assume that a stutter would be detrimental. However, that doesn’t really seem to be the case, in the accompanied performance his stutter along with the music and the sound of the waves work together to manifest his performance into something you are no longer listening to, but into something you are now living with him. Meanwhile, in the unaccompanied performance, the entire thing seems less artistic, and less of a performance, the stutter seems more like a imperfection that one should try to ignore. It’s like how Aristotle placed so much value on human voice, because it was intentional and meaningful, looking at Scott’s performance through that lens takes away a lot from his performance, because a stutter is both unintentional and meaningless, but that is clearly not how Scott uses it, he uses it as a means to perform an art.
Sound Related Experience and I am Sitting in a Room
1) I’ve always adored music, I love every instrument and sound, and I can remember every moment of my life based on the music I was listening to at that time. Last year I had a major depressive episode, and I so badly wanted to give up, but instead I listened to music, I let sounds save my life. One artist in particular, Jason Mraz, has released hundreds of songs since 1999, and I am over whelmed by the peace I feel when I hear his voice. After going through that, I know I can get through anything, as long as I can listen to some tunes.
2) When listening to I am Sitting in a Room, I paid attention to every word said, and I concluded that the words said had to have been important to Lucier. I figured that it was important for him to note his position and location; I also assumed that each word had value to him. I though about how he said this only once, and let it play over and over again. I found that interesting because by only speaking once, and by letting his recording get recorded again, he was allowing his words to become distorted, over powered by the “resonance frequencies of the room.” I found this to be a great analogy for human life, we live, but we are overpowered by the greater world around us, leaving our lives distorted and obsolete.
