All sound is music and all music is sound.16/10/15

                As a continuation from the previous lecture, reading the image, the image isn’t always a picture. An image can be sound, and in this day and age there is so much going on we have as a population, forgotten how to listen. It seems there just so much hustle and bustle, no one actually takes the time to just stop and listen.

                 John Cage done an extraordinary yet very strange piece of music called “4:33” basically showing that all sound is music and music is all sound. I thought this was a really amazing way to show how even there was “silence” there was still sound, such as at every turn of the page it seemed everyone started coughing showing a break in the music, which wasn’t on purpose it was more a physiological thing. This piece of music is called an Avant Garde, meaning ahead of time, simply because this piece of music has only ever been performed about 4/5 times and no matter how old it is, it will still manage to surprise and freak people out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY7UK-6aaNA

                 Sound Theory- Sound Practice. 

The world of sound is an event world, whilst the world of sight is an object world. Sight. Sight is a point of view, hearing is never pure sound, think of it as more of a cultural signifier, just like the biker jacket we were shown in the previous lecture.

 What is sound?

All sound has 3 phases.

-Attack – e.g. Teacher speaking out

-Sustain- e.g. what we have heard

-Decay –e.g. Someone walking past in the corridor

Put all of these together and they are called the sound envelope and are all sound qualities.

Sound is one of those things that is immersive, and no matter what you will always hear it. It cannot be shut out, it contains depth and has no directionality. You can pause music but you can’t freeze sound.

          Sound as Materiality- The body and the mind are not easily dichotomised. Sound can also be physical, for example clubs that have the vibration of the music through the floor, making you feel every beat (which I can imagine to feel really uncomfortable).

Sound and perspectives.

The 3 perspectives which we learnt today in the lecture were-

Figure- the most important sound

Ground- The listener’s social world

Field- the physical world around the listener.

For instance in films, the conversation is the figure, whilst the visual is the field.

In addition, all sound interaction has forms of distance. Such as

Public- e.g. Politicians

Formal- E.g. A lecture

Informal-E.g. an open conversation

Personal- e.g. a close conversation

Intimate – e.g. closely connected.

Evidently the closer the distance of sound interaction the more personal the conversation gets.

Growing up in different areas, everyone culturally has their own favourite and most hated sounds which bring back memories of their past or even current situation. I love the sound of the wind and the peaceful countryside because I live in a quiet area and I can’t understand how people live in cities yet someone from a different culture will disagree.

Sound as art

Radio art is an example of sound art, it is where someone who is not a trained dj, producer or programmer but someone who uses sound to make art. It is outside the norm however it makes you question what is music and art? 

More art work using sound are sound sculpture, electracoustic music and soundscapes. Previously I mentioned about loving the sound of the countryside which is Soundscapes. Every where in the world sounds different, and this is all to do with the landscape the sound is in. 

In addition, Luigi Russolo, well known for The Art of Noises, figured out that all sounds in the world will fit into 1 of the 6 groups, e.g roaring, whistling, etc. This list at first seems a bit crazy but when you actually stop to think of them, all noises fit into atleast 1 of the 6 groups.