hocarpenter

Even in the 19th century, the human race had become so sensitized to the soundscape that members of London’s upper middle class felt it necessary to eradicate unnecessary street music from the busy London streets. So transfixed the world was with this phenomenon that Times even posted articles and complaints concerning these “organ nuisances”. Men such as Leech, Charles Dickens, Marcus Stone, William Powell Frith and Thomas Carlyle had taken issue with the unwanted cacophony of sound coming in from their open windows. Sound, especially if it was as loud as many Londoners of that time depicted, travels very far, so what makes Leech and other men like him powerful enough to dictate the sound that can and cannot be played within the specific sound radius they deem pleasant enough? How can we decide what sounds are public and what sounds are private if some of the sounds being discussed come from a more open area where everyone can be heard fairly easily? It is one thing to deem private sounds sounds made in the comfort of one’s own home, but what gives one the authority to deem sounds coming in from the outside (from a propped open window, no less!) more important than sounds coming from inside the house?

There can be private sounds, however. First Walkmans and now much smaller and more technologically advanced MP3-players and smartphones help keep sound private when headphones are plugged in. if your windows are closed, you might be able to hear a lot less of the streets hustle and bustle instead of having to seclude yourself in your very expensive, custom made noise-eradicating room/attic.

Sounds can be both public and private, but one must be very careful when labelling them or risk overstepping sound boundaries and losing more sound-based relationships.

“The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears.”

Frederick Douglass had a way with words, an amazing feat considering the fact that he was born an African American slave in the American colonies, people not traditionally taught to read and write. As a result, not only did Douglass have to buy his own freedom in order to achieve this but he also had to teach himself to read and write once that freedom was bought. Once he had bought his freedom and learned how to read and write, Douglass finally had the tools needed to eternalize the struggle so many slaves could not as the vast majority of them were, in fact, illiterate. Douglass could now put the “songs of the slave represent[ative] of his heart” onto paper for all to read, marking one of the first firsthand explanations of the true sorrows of a slave. Douglass spoke from experience when he said that a slave is relieved by his song “only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears”. This metaphor asserts that a slave only sings in order to let go of some of their pain and sorrow, not in what appears to be a showing of enthusiastic joy at having been chosen to complete one of the most revered jobs on the plantation. Douglass states that he didn’t understand the meaning of those songs when he was a slave because he could not comprehend his woes while in their throes, but couldn’t he, as well as other slaves, have seen that their treatment and lives were absolutely horrible? I feel as if I would have noted that the clothes given to me were more than less than sustainable for a whole year if I had been a slave. Were the slaves simply choosing to be ignorant in the face of their oppressors or did they really not notice how much better their life could be?

Taylor Swift is known for her peppy and uptempo songs, “Blank Space” being no exception. I Prevail, however, had a different idea when they decided to put their own spin on the hit in their cover of it for “Punk Goes Pop’s” sixth volume. I Prevail’s version of “Blank Space” is of a higher key, most likely due to the fact that Swift sings at a relatively low pitch compared to I Prevail’s lead singer Brian Burkheiser. Punk rock/metal music is also often of higher key, probably to give it a more sinister feel. The two songs have the same initial beat, but I Prevail soon deviates from Swift’s array of synthetic instruments, guitars and sleigh bells in favor of the electric guitar, drums and some piano here and there. The original lyrics weren’t really changed except for in a few spots such as “I can make the good guys bad for a weekend” being changed to “I can make the good girls bad for a weekend” and “you’re the king baby I’m your queen” being changed to “you’re the queen baby I’m your king” in the cover version. These are minuscule, almost unnoticeable changes and I didn’t even notice them until the third listen or so as the genre shift distracts from any lyric deviations at first. The original is significantly breathier and smoother than I Prevail’s short, jagged vocals, the emphasis on certain words different between the two songs although many of the vocal fluctuations remain the same. Vocal fluctuation is most noticeable when Burkheiser sings what is originally “oh my God, who is she” in Swift’s version but what becomes “oh my God, oh my God, who is she” with a new pause added after the first “oh my God”. The extreme emphasis on each of the words in “oh my God” before said pause makes the lyrics almost unrecognizable to someone familiar with the original and its lyrics. It is certainly weird to consider Swift’s lyrics in such a sinister, punky manner, but the music doesn’t completely throw the words off and instead makes one think of her song in a new light.

1A discusses the fact that no clear-cut formula for the perfect cover song exists. A cover can feel like a totally new song or like a new version of the original that highlights different characteristics than the first. I believe that how a cover is perceived has much to do with the band covering it as well as the audience listening to it. As someone who grew up with an appreciation for punk/metallic music, I believe that I Prevail’s spin on Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space” definitely works. How well it works, however, is up to personal opinion.

Crawford writes that “listening has not been given sufficient consideration as a significant practice of intimacy, connection, obligation and participation online; instead, it has often been considered as contributing little value to online communities, if not acting as an active drain on their growth”. This, in my experience as a social-media user, is very true. Whenever I see a particularly controversial tweet or post and feel compelled to take a glance at the comments, I am always surprised by what I see. People will comment their own various points of views on the matter suggested in the most personally attacking and demeaning way possible. Sometimes, these comments don’t even pertain to what the original post was about, almost as if the attackers just want to start a fight behind their screen of choice for no apparent reason other than kicks and giggles.

As a “budding sound student”, I wonder about the effects of debate through social media. When we engage others through our screens, we are effectively taking the voice, or sound altogether, completely out of the equation. My mother always warned me not to have serious conversations or send risky texts over the phone because of just how warped the recipients perception of the said message can become so quickly. Taking the voice out of a discussion makes it easier for the engaged to ignore the engager and instead focus solely on and push their own agenda no matter how unrelated it may seem to the original opinion.

Crawford’s views definitely hold up in 2018, maybe even more so as it has become alarming easier to hide behind a screen and ignore the other end as technology has only improved in the last nine years. Social media users need to re-evaluate how they perceive what they see and work on their listening skills. An absence of a voice has become the new voice, and if people of this new age need to adapt or communication as we know it will crumble.

https://beta.myvoice.lyrebird.ai/g/8m44y7y2qc

Lucier, Aristotle and Sterne all sought to understand, as Stefan G. Helmreich put it, “embodyment, the senses and how we understand those things scientifically, humanistically, culturally, philosophically” in the respective mediums we watched, listened and read. What was very interesting was how each respective medium understood the senses, more specifically sound. Aristotle was one of the first human beings to think of asking the question of why exactly sound happens and what exactly happens when we hear a sound. His understanding of sound was more philosophical than Sterne, who explained that the Sound Studies reader was written with “sound students” in mind. This scientific approach is even still different from Lucier’s understanding. Although he stated that he was, in fact, conducting a scientific experiment of sorts, his experiment focused on the overall experience, hence why it is a sound clip for us to listen to rather than a book for us to read like the Sound Studies Reader is.

Elements of both Aristotle and Sterne’s works are present in Lucier’s “I am Sitting in a Room”. I can imagine the sound waves of the playback recordings bouncing off of the assumedly smooth walls of the room Lucier is in and I can also agree with Sterne on the fact that the lack of a visual representation of Lucier’s experiment further immersed me in the audio experience. What Lucier’s audio seems to do is tie all three of these pieces together by taking the written assumptions and contextualizing them. Lucier gives both Aristotle and Sterne an outlet with which to test their theories or the average Joe an opportunity to grasp just what they were talking about, even if he didn’t originally intend to.

I was initially puzzled as I listened to Alvin Lucier’s “I Am Sitting in a Room”. Licier’s natural stutter is prominent in the initial recording and then accentuated every time he plays another recording back, this irregularity in his speech only seeming to be further emphasized as the recording progresses even though he states that he seeks to smooth them out. Why did Lucier choose to stop at forty five minutes and twenty four seconds? Why not thirty six minutes and four seconds or seventy two minutes and fifty nine seconds? Certainly there are multiple different degrees of reinforcement that the room’s resonant frequencies can show. When considering how the recording ended, I would argue that his speech wasn’t one hundred percent smoothed out. Could it ever be? I feel as if the playbacks emphasized Lucier’s speech imperfections, but not in a bad. Each new recording took on a more musical tone, the ending sounding as if it could be played in the part of a movie when the fatally-wounded heroin confusedly enters their society’s respective heaven and faced with the inevitable question of whether or not they want to die or be given a second chance at life and finish their quest. No heroes’ journey is ever perfect, much like Lucier’s journey to perfect his speech.

My father has always slept with a bedside fan for the sound it provides, a habit that has been passed on to both my younger brother and myself. I find that his lack of appreciation for total silence has also been unknowingly passed on to me as I cannot remember when, how or why I began sleeping with a bedside fan but it has been there for as long as I can remember. I find silence unnerving and can’t sleep without some type of background noise whether it be my own bedside fan or the Belk air conditioners’ fan control set on the “HI” setting. Music is another constant background noise I depend upon and is always playing from a speaker or headphones as vital background noise.