Sound Art 131  -   Assignments (in progress -09/19)

Assignments and due dates will change based on class needs and changes in schedule:

Assignment 1 for Mon. Sept 28:

Readings (distributed in class)

•  On Historical Perspective:

1. Attali Jacques: Noise - chapter 1

2. Russolo, Luigi: The Art of Noises (optional)

•  On Describing Sound:          

1. Chion, Michel: The three listening Modes

2. Hess, Felix: Three ways of listening

3. Schafer,R. Muray: Features of the Soundscape

4. Sonami, Laetitia: Seizing a Sound

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Assignment 2 for Wed. Sept.30:

Present 5 different sounds you found on the internet (check resources for sites) - Use Wiretap-pro to save them as mp3 or AIFF. These sounds can follow the categories discussed in class or follow your own categories. You may mix them, process them.. in Amadeus.

How to proceed?

You can start with a speech (great resources @ the library of congress American Memory @ http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/linguistics/subject.html, or some sounds from my sound effects resources site or from the Acoustic Ecology site, or from any search.. Do not try to make too much of it.. just find sounds that you enjoy.

Use Wiretap pro to record the sounds right from the computer, or download the sound into a sound folder which will be your private libary of sounds. Collect a variety of sounds...

If using Wiretap pro, you can do some basic editing in that software. Open them in Amadeus and do some more editing, processing...add tracks as you paste the various sounds as demonstrated in class. "Flatten" the file (I guess Amadeus's idea of mixing) into one file.

Assignment 3 for Oct.5

Readings

1. •  Snyder, Bob: Music and Memory (excerpts) optional reading but strongly recommended!!
2. •  Levitin, Daniel: Music and the Mind Machine

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Assignment 4 for October 12 "Sound Walk" Check out a microphone and recorder and record a sound walk: it could be a place, a building, your home... think of presence and distance.  Transfer the recording to the computer and using Amadeus, edit it into a 10 min. sound piece (what do you decide to take out? how "real" is it?)   Use multitracking if you wish.

Some notes distributed earlier through email re. this assignment:

Please check these sites for some references as to various approaches to sound walks. These all have sound excerpts.
You will hear that the excerpts range from personal / stream of consciousness soundwalks , to guiding/leading , to a more abstract, musical reinterpretation of the acoustic environment, to straight field recordings of some "exotic" places...

• http://www.cardiffmiller.com/artworks/walks/index.html
• http://www.scannerdot.com/mp3/scanners_mp3/Moscow.mp3
• http://www.davidddunn.com/~david/Index3.htm
• http://www.resoundings.org/
• http://earthear.com/eeradio.html
• http://www.sfu.ca/~westerka/compositions.html#installations
  

Some possible approaches:

The final presentation should not be longer than 10 min.

• Find a place you have never been to.
  Find a place you are very familiar with but never listened to.
  Walk for 10 min or longer.
  Let your EARS do the walking.
  Do not walk, find a spot and let the sounds come to you.
  Stand still and rotate your body slowly in one spot.
  Attach the recorder to your leg / to your head (if small enough ...not the head, the recorder!)
  Find a place that is not interesting, banale?
  A place that is very interesting.
  A very quiet place.
  A stranger you meet and decide to talk to.
  Blindfolded and moving through a (safe) place.
  Is it an emotional space / geographical / sociological / antrhopological....?
  Are you talking to yourself aloud and guiding the walk?
  Are you sharing sounds with the listener?
  Is there something you want the listener to get to?
  Is your body present or are you transparent in the recording? If you do appear what influence do you have on the sounds..

Editing:

• You can work in the mass: take out sounds from the main audio file, trim it down, and add tracks with some other sounds you recorded or leave it as is, as first recorded.
• OR, you can make a whole set of smaller files from the main files - keeping the the sounds / sections you liked and use these as raw material, paste and mix in a new file (hyper realism).
• OR, make a new file with all you discarded -- why did you discard these sounds? can something be done with them?
  

I am sure you will come up with other ideas, but here are a few. If you need help / feedback let me know.

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Assignment 5   for Oct. 21: Recordings from the Exploratorium, using 5.1 system - Please note: Due to time constraints this assignment has been cancelled to allow more time for Assignment 4- you may want to use the recordings from the Exploratorium for your Sound Walk assignment.

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Assignment(s) 6 for Nov.1: Searching Linkgs & Piezo presentation

1. Explore the links on Sound and Objects listed in the schedule: Find one particular artist and project you like and show it to the class.

2. Piezo Assignments:

Use the piezo pick up made in class, record some sounds in Soundtrack Pro, or Live (or if you prefer to work on this outside of class, record a bunch of these sounds on a recorder you checked out (plug the piezo in the mic input), and then transfer them to Soundtrack Pro or Live. Edit these sounds and explore various processes (filters, reverbs, delays...) . Multi track and Mix down into a short piece (less than 5 min).

How to present these sounds:

You can bring the object used in the piezo recordings to class (for instance some crank mechanisms, electric kitchen appliances...) and demonstrate how the "original" sounds were procured and play your sound mix trough the speaker. If these objects cannot be moved, that is fine, you do not need to bring them.

You can play the recordings back through the small piezo resonnator I showed in class, OR you can use the RolenStar (the heavy transducer I showed under the garabage can). If this is the case, you need to "play" the sounds through these transducers first, and find out which sounds work best.. some of your recordings may not sound good in certain objects. Each object has particular resonnant frequencies which might not match your recordings. You could use the EQ and try to optimize these sounds as they resonnate to the objects of your choice, or find different objects which may be more efficient.

Examples: If using the small piezo transducer: what sounds would work well in a cardboard box, metal sheet, saws, paper? If using the larger Rolen Star: dustpan, table, garbage can, pipe drains....? (bring some objects you think my resonnate well in class).

What to think about:

Not much at this point, it is mostly about exploration. We are on one hand trying to record sounds by using the piezos as contact mikes, listening to sounds as they propagate through material and then processing them to abstract them. Just looking for new sounds... But we are also going the other way by using objects as speakers and listening to how these objects modify the sounds.

Eventually, you may need to think of the relationship between object (whether the one that is displayed as a pick up, or the one that is displayed as resonator) and sound. Do the sounds "re-frame" the object, give it a dimension, a reading, a direction, a narrative? Does the "object" reframes the sounds?

At some point, once you are are ease with using these tools, you may want to use different sounds, try some of the sounds recorded at the Exploratorium, or on your soundwalk, or new sounds recorded with standard air mikes?

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Assignment 7 for Nov.9:

Reading:

1. •  Stelarc: Alternate, Intiate and Involuntary Experiences

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Assignment 8 for Nov.16:

Listen:

1. Music and Torture Conference (here)
2. If you have not done so yet, check the sites mentioned for Sound and Voice (Chris Mann, Robert Ashley..)

Check Final Project Schedule of Production

Future assignments to be discussed...