jokane

When listening to David Byrne’s “Playing the Building”, we can hear sounds that are from the specific building that Byrne’s is in. He makes the sounds unique because of if he were to redo everything he did inside another building, different sounds would be made. It changes because of the different infrastructure inside the building. When looking at Rath, we can see a difference between Byrne and Rath, Rath believes that soundscapes are made depending on culture and religion. Rath gave an example of the European Church, and how the chancel was constructed specifically to make the priest face away from the congregation. Rath said that because of this the priest’s “voice never carried directly to the listeners in the nave. It began its trip toward them as an echo.”(131) Rath also gave an example of the Chesapeake Anglicans, and their Jamestown Chapel, the structure of the church is different compared to the European Church because “where one [person] was seated was an indicator of social standing. Those in the front heard more of the direct signal. Those in the back heard less of it, and thus more reverberation” (135). Raths theory of how there is a connection between sounds and religion and these ideas can connect to Blesser and Salter’s idea of earcons. Blesser and Salter wrote about how the Mayans had excellent “auditory spatial awareness.”(189) People have heard howling and whistling from the wind when they were at the Mayan ruins. This means that every structure has a deliberate purpose when it comes to the sound it makes.

At the beginning of the course, the sound was just a word that was debated by theorists. The theorists all sounded similar until we read Stoever, and she intertwined race and sound. She talks about all of the issues between race and sound; she writes about sounds aren’t always sounds. Stoever calls this rift between races in America, The Sonic Color Line, and she says that “the sonic color line connects sound with race in American culture, showing how listening operates as an organ of racial discernment, categorization, and resistance in the shadow of vision’s alleged cultural dominance.”(Stoever 4) Stoever says that the sonic color line is supposed to maintain the rift and tensions between the races in America. This is one of the many issues that Stoever brought up in the introduction of her book. Even though the topics of Stoever were brought up in class, there are still many questions that still need to be answered, in my personal opinion. The first question that comes to mind is, if there is an issue of racial tension through sound, then what is the solution to the issue? The reason I ask this is that throughout the paper this issue is brought up, but there is no clear solution to this issue.

One of the best songs (in my opinion) can be seen as “The Chain” by Fleetwood Mac. It was a classic from 1979 that would later be covered by Harry Styles in 2017. When listening to the covered version of the song, it isn’t easy to hear any differences when compared to the original. The cover was trying to show how good the original was by copying it to the exact second. The first thing that people would notice about the two different versions of the songs are the singers. That is really the key difference in the versions. The cover went above and beyond by adding in back up singers just like the original had, and the beats to the songs were very similar. The original song, however, did have a more instrumental beat than the cover, which is creating a beat by clapping unlike the original. The original version also felt more enthusiastic to me than the cover did. There could be a number of reasons behind this, however, for example, I have listened to the original so many times that I have become accustomed to hearing the general enthusiastic tone from the singers. The feeling of nostalgia that is left behind after listening to the original is also not produced by the cover. This is most likely because it is someone who is trying to replicate a masterpiece, and that can’t be done without a few errors. All in all, the cover by Harry Styles is not a good comparison to Fleetwood Mac’s original version of “The Chain.”

 

 

In “Following You: Disciplines of Listening in Social Media,” Crawford talks about how people on Twitter interact with one another.  Crawford talks about how listening isn’t usually associated with social media, but instead, the voice is associated with social media instead. She talks about her idea of  “speaking up” and how it has “become the dominant metaphor for participation in online spaces.”(80) Crawford talks about how there are mainly three types of listeners that use social media. The three groups are individuals, politicians, and corporations. When looking at how social media is used today, we can see how Crawford was right about these groups being the main users of media sites. Crawford talks about how corporations main use of social media platforms is to get a closer bond with the customers. The corporations are listening to the customer’s wants and needs, so they know how to adjust their products accordingly. In the present, we see ads being displayed to us everywhere we go on social media. Politicians are said to use social media to gain access to millions of potential voters information. Crawford also explained how Obama used social media “to send updates about the location and content of speeches and rallies before his election in 2008.”(84) Crawford talks about individuals as people who rarely listen on social media sites, and they are people who like to voice their opinions. The individuals who do not follow this norm and like just to watch are called “lurkers.” Even though the paper was made nine years ago, we can still see as a society how people are still not listening on social media. 

https://beta.myvoice.lyrebird.ai/g/fi0qsxf9tv

While I was listening to Scott read the texts of Blert, I followed along with him. The main point of interest that I noticed is how when I read the copy of Blert; I understood what Scott was trying to tell us. When I listened to Scott’s performance of the book, I became confused because his stutter made the text seem flawed. Listening to Scott made me think of a child trying to learn how to speak. It seemed strange to think of a child when reading all of the sophisticated words that Scott wrote for his books. Throughout the video, it seemed like everything Scott tried to say was said by someone who is trying so hard to get their words out. It makes the whole reading different when you know it was written by someone who can’t read their own text fluently. To Barthes, this non-fluent speaking would not bother him because he cares about “the encounter between a language and a voice.” (p 505) This to him is known as “the grain,” or as he calls it “the grain of the voice when [a voice] is in a dual posture… of language and of music.”(p 505) So, according to Barthes, Scott’s “grain” can be seen as the reason as to why reading and listening to Blert fascinates people.

When I was a little boy, I went to my grandparents’ house down in Alabama. My grandfather had a pool table that I would always use when I visited. I never understood why I was drawn to the pool table, but I guess it had to do with the sounds from the game. When I first broke the balls, the noise of the balls hitting each other and bouncing off the side of the table felt so soothing. Hitting the balls into the pockets creates an effect that’s like a swoosh noise. At the end of the game, nothing is more unique than the sound of the elusive eight ball going into the pocket. 

While I listened to Lucier’s “I Am Sitting in A Room” I noticed the obvious fact that he played a recording of what he just said to the point that one can’t understand what he is saying. I believe this has to do with the fact that he has a stutter. He is trying to make people understand what it is like to live with a speech impediment. He succeeds by not even sounding like a human being in the end. The way that people hear Lucier may differ, but I believe his goal is to make people realize what life in his shoes is like.