Reading Responses

Similar to the article Defining Sound from Week 1, this week’s article on Defining Sound Art attempts to once again produce a definition for sound art that can be both accepted and understood universally. Rather than generating a single definition to classify sound art, Laura Maes and Marc Leman identify thirteen criteria points that together create the general categorical definition of sound art. The thirteen criteria points include concept, perception, space, site-specificity, open form, interaction, production of sound, performer, narrativity, implementation of techniques and technologies, visual component, endurance and place of presentation. (35)  Within each criteria point is a small spectrum of conditions from which the sound art itself can fall and still be considered as sound art. For example, the criteria of sound production (which consists of the concept that sound art is generated by way other than a performer) has four distinct conditions: sound is created electronically, acoustically, electro-acoustically or simply from the sounds of the environment itself and the audience. (32) In tune with the Week 1 article on defining sound, the authors emphasize that there is difficulty in generating a singular definition to qualify sound art. While the thirteen criteria points highlighted in Defining Sound offer assistance in identifying the general structure of sound art in an environment, the criteria markers themselves are at a state in which they will still continue to be developed and refined as more critiques and discussions persist.

Douglas Kahn’s article on Noises of the Avant-Garde provides historical context that falls in line with the article on deep listening from Week 1. The latter article highlights the differentiation between hearing and listening, in that “to hear is the physical means that enables perception, but to listen is to give attention to what is perceived both acoustically and psychologically.” (2) In this sense, listening requires a more conscious approach that in turn allows for the individualization of perception of the sound among the audience. In Noises of the Avant-Garde, Douglas argues that within national anthems, the “lack of a need to listen invited the eradication of the specifics of any one song [...] those who sing certain anthems collapse themselves into the body of a head of state [...] to their own disappearance.” (434, 435) By removing the quality of conscious listening, whether it be to a song or distinct sound, one removes the individual perception of it, as well as the personal characterizations that they place upon the sound and that the sound places upon them. In relation to the example of the national anthem, the unconscious repetition removes the process of conscious listening, and in turn eradicates the individual perceptions and characterizations that would otherwise exist. 

In Noises of the Avant-Garde, the mention of the creation of Hugo Balls’ sound poems with an intent to “break down the segregation” of language-based audiences provides historical context for the argument made in Deep Listening, in that “there is no sound pressure-variation that will always lead to one and only one perception.” Unlike visual artwork, sound allows for varying perceptions based on differing experiences and environments, yet everyone is able to participate. This idea can be seen as being integrated in the historical production of sound, in that in Hugo Balls’ example it is sound poems, rather than language-based songs, that allows for people of varying experiences and environments (language and nationalities) to come together and have their own experience and perception with the sound art.

Audio in Media defines the sound wave from a scientific perspective, and highlights the core aspects of sound waves and the process of hearing that accompanies it. Since definitions have been at the core of nearly all of the weekly readings, it is important to emphasize the definition given by Stanley Alten. Alten defines a sound wave as a “vibrational disturbance that involves mechanical motion of molecules transmitting energy from one place to another,” and asserts that the main components include frequency, amplitude, velocity, wavelength, phase and timbre. (17) While all aspects of sound waves are important to recognize, I would argue based on Alten’s definitions that frequency and amplitude are two critical components to understanding the baseline of all sound. The limits of frequencies (whether it be high or low) determine whether humans can even hear a sound to begin with. (2) In addition, it is the amplitude of the sound wave that determines the subjective impression of how loud or soft a given sound is. (4) 

Alten continues his article by underlining the influence of sound waves in its electrical form, a key discussion in the article Pioneers of Power. He highlights two production properties critical to the electrical form of sound, one being the equal loudness principle (depending on the loudness humans do not hear high and low frequencies as well as middle frequencies) and masking (using frequencies to either hide or emphasize sounds when presented together). (11, 13) As mentioned in Pioneers of Power, understanding the properties of sound that allow for the production of masking is what allowed for the “carefully staged mix of” electric instruments to become more prominent beginning in the 1950s, as the “neat acoustic balance” that had previously taken hold was declining. (16) Many individuals criticized the development of electronic music, believing that its authenticity was in danger with the new ability of technology to change aspects of its form to the desired structure of the composer. However, it is by understanding the basic components of sound as described in Audio in Media, with the combination of improved technology, that allowed composers to not change the authenticity of sounds, but rather rearrange characteristics of it to expand its authenticity and magnify the “emotional interior of exterior sounds.” (16) By understanding the principles of sound and having the technology to manipulate them, composers were able to take what would have been an ordinary sound and create a richer product to invigorate the human senses and add a new layer of depth to acoustics.

By developing a deeper understanding of what makes a sound wave itself through its complex properties, I have the ability to create arrangements that take sound from its most basic form to something that leads to an entirely new meaning of a given perception of sound. The technology today is much more advanced than that of the 1950s, meaning I have the opportunity to create the visions that composers back then had, and go even further in the process of stripping sounds to their bare form to rearrange them into something that energizes the senses and highlights its core form.

Schafer’s article The Soundscape provides an overview of what a soundscape is and its many elements in order to look at the relationship between man and the sounds of the environment. More specifically, Schafer intends to increase our understanding of soundscapes through the study of psychoacoustics, society and the arts while looking at both historical and present ideas of soundscapes. In addition, he provides arguments to decipher whether the soundscape of the world is out of our control or if we are responsible for giving it “form and beauty.” (5)

In terms of understanding soundscapes through the lenses of society and the arts, Schafer mentions that the acoustic environment present in a given space can indicate the social conditions that exist and the evolution of the given society. (7) While Schafer doesn’t provide specific examples for this argument, there are various experiences of mine that fit within this context and allow me to find truth in what he is saying. For example, a soundscape that comes to mind from a personal experience that fits this context would be the noise of traffic in New York City. The acoustic environment present in this situation indicates a society that has evolved into quite an industrial and developed one. In a similar way, the acoustic environment of a different society could indicate a less developed (or differently evolved) society if it does not match the context of what we would consider an evolved society through soundscapes (such as no apparent noises caused by traffic). The brief article by Barry Truax touches upon this idea of contextual importance when understanding soundscapes by emphasizing that in the process of meaning-making, the listener not only needs to identify the sources of sound, but also needs to be aware of the socially constructed meanings that derive from and are attached to their aural experienced due to prior contextual knowledge. (1) In addition, Schafer argues that music plays a similar role to the acoustic environment, in the sense that it too is useful as an indicator of social events and the governmental structure of a given society. (7)

One of the concerns that Schafer highlights in The Soundscape article is that the vast number and complexity of sounds in our environments has essentially led to the point of noise pollution in which there is a “universal deafness” at play. (3) This idea of being surrounded by so many sounds to the point of being unable to distinguish one critical soundscape from another reminded me of the Deep Listening article that distinguished between the act of hearing and listening. With the presence of noise pollution, it becomes a common practice to hear surrounding soundscapes on its surface level, but makes it increasingly difficult to consciously listen to the sounds and understand how the individuality of perception personalizes the experiences. Instead, the soundscapes all become similar as one for everyone listening, thereby increasing the difficulty of partaking in the process of active listening that is critical for the interpretation of a soundscape.

Brandon Labelle’s chapter Finding Oneself: Alvin Lucier and the Phenomenal Voice reflects on the piece ‘I am sitting in a room’ to emphasize the influence of space on sound and aural intake. One of the main points made by Labelle is that sound is as much of a physical phenomenon relating to context as it is an aural one. In this sense, hearing of a given sound and location activate and elevate one another. Lucier’s piece begins with him sitting in an isolated room and saying a few brief sentences into a recorder. From here, the recorder is played back over and over again, ultimately creating a sound in which the spoken and decipherable words meld into one undecipherable noise. What is emphasized through this recording is the role that the physical environment, in this case the room, had on the processing of the sound and subsequent aural experience that the listener has. It is because of the reverberations in the given environment that led to the ultimate distortion of the voice, which resulted in a unique sound heard by the listener. Labelle highlights this exact concept when he writes that sound and its source diffuse into an interaction where the voice “makes apparent the surrounding architecture through its disembodied reproduction,” where the disembodiment and disappearance of a detectable voice is made through the architecture of the room. (126) Overall, Labelle affirms the idea that architectural space is equally as important as the source of sound, since it functions as both an amplifier and a transformer of the voice.

Labelle not only writes on the importance of the physical context in relation to sound, but also the importance of recognizing that the source of sound is more than a sound object but an identity shaped into form within an acoustic space. (126) Even though Lucier’s voice transformed into an unrecognizable sound by the end of the ‘I am sitting in a room’ recording, there is still an identity attached to the source. The sound, while distorted, still encompasses an identity unique to itself. This same idea of uniqueness is mentioned by Cavarero in her chapter Multiple Voices, in which she points to Hannah Arendt classifying the human condition of sound as the uniqueness that makes everyone a being that is different from others. (522). It is not simply the sound of the human voice that is unique from one another, but the body that underlies it. This body exudes a unique sound which is then transformed by the architecture of the environment. The speech of the interior vibrates beyond the body to involve the external context and those who hear the sound.

Both of these articles help shape my perspective of sound while approaching the Voice project. Labelle and Cavarero effectively shape my growing understanding of how sound is formed and experienced, in this case through the context of the environment and the recognition of the uniqueness of voice. These readings will help guide me through this next project and aid me in reaching my desired goal for the listener’s experience by forcing me to recognize and utilize the uniqueness of voices through manipulation of different physical contexts.