Fall/Spring01/02
5001
seminar
the
classLeif
Brush info Sonification challenge: The C5 Landscape Projects



(In 1975, five European villages were visited by a group of Canadian soundscape researchers and members of the R. Murray Schafer World Soundscape Project. The villages were in France, Sweden, Scotland, Germany, and Italy.)

Environmental Studies majors: This seminar provides the opportunity for you to present insights from your ongoing assignments and research. The seminars are held on Tuesday and Thursday at 2:00 pm, in Room ABAH 345, Art Department (unless otherwise stated on the web page, handout and in class)

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September ![]() |
Tues, Sept. 5
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Thurs, Sept. 7 MEET in ABAH 345 |
Tues, Sept 12 noise tapes/feedback/help video: Ganges riverboat Andra McCartney's soundwalk |
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Thurs, Sept 14 MEET in Bagley
Nature Center
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1st CLASS LED DISCUSSION (The individual total time
is devided by the number of participants) Include references to at least three of the handouts I've given you through September 26th, and summarize areas in these which generally interest you and eventually may be incorporated into your final project. Be specific and use references which are based on key words mentioned in the xeroxes. You may also use and refer to resources from the UMD Library or Internet search engines such as Google, Yahoo, etc. Presentation content: |
Tues. Sept 19 Review and hand in Assignment 1 playbacks: video/soundwalk,
soundbed |
Thurs, Sept 21 rcont. 1st assignment playback Intro assignment 2 give handouts Workshop: begin transfering audiotapes & digital editing. MEET in ABAH 345 |
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Tues, Sept 26 Up to that time let me have, via
Email or in class, the URLs and any UMD Library references you
are looking at in your research so that I can post these As you become familiar with the recording equipment, please continue on with the assignments and work at your own pace, transfering each to your Zip disk digital editing cont. |
Thurs, Sept 28
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Tues, October 3 Lina Castilla, Lucas Deyoung, Debra Flipovich, Bryan Karl, Stephanie Tuinstra digital editing cont. |
Thurs, Oct 5 Amy Benson, Nathan Blasing, Jacob Koenen, Angela Moeller, Kimberly Voss, David Nickel, Jacob Voit & Willow, Michelle Kamben digital editing cont. |
Tues. Oct 10 Chris Braaten, David Braun, Shelia Wokson, Anne Woods, Melissa Moening digital editing cont. |
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Thurs, Oct 12 Mary Eggebraaten, Jennifer Erickson, Nicholas Hansen, Shaun Johnson, Nathan Reinbold, Angela Schmidt, Roderick McLean digital editing cont. |
Tues Oct 17 I will be meeting with each of you |
Thurs,
Oct 19 work in
class on assignments or continue your recordingsdigital editing
cont. |
Tues, Oct 24 I will be meeting with each of you |
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Thurs, Oct 26 I will be meeting with each of you |
2nd CLASS LED DISCUSSION Work again from an outline or notes to further clarify and refine your approach to acoustic ecology based upon the previous class discussions and your experience in your recordings. Cite the library resources you've used, URLs you've visited, and summarize key points of your interest you're pursuing which may be incorporated into your final essay and project. Continue to focus on key words to assist in your research. Consider in your upcoming presentation content: a. How has your perceptual approach to listening changed since the beginning of the course? How has this influenced the structure and content of your 5 minute audible construct? b. In the context of acoustic ecology, what has emerged as the important aspects you are listening to as you do your walk in the soundscape? Does this experience have any structure models that you can use in constructing your audible construct? c. Share the current thoughts or insights you've had as a result of your research, and/or recording, and/or information from fellow students. Essay Outline suggestions |
Tues, Oct 31 Lina Castilla, Lucas Deyoung, Jennifer Erickson, Nicholas Hansen, Bryan Karl, David Nickel |
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| November |
Thurs, Nov 2 Chris Braaten, Jacob Koenen, Angela Moeller, Stephanie Tuinstra, Jacob Voit, Michelle Kamben, Nathan Blasing Workshop: CD? |
Tues. Nov 7 David Braun, Shaun Johnson, Kimberly Voss, Shelia Wokson, Anne Woods digital editing cont |
Thurs, Nov 9 Amy Benson, Mary Eggebraaten, Debra Flipovich, Roderick Mclean, Melissa Moening, Nathan Reinbold, Angela Schmidt digital editing cont |
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Tues, Nov 14 Listen to tapes CDs. (bring any recordings not heard in class and those in progress) digital editing cont |
Thurs, Nov 16 Class work session - continue
digital
editing cont |
Tues,
Nov 21 Workshop: digital editing contCD? |
Thurs, Nov 23 No Class |
Tues, Nov
28 Class work
session - continue digital
editing cont draw fortune cookies for
final presentation |
Thurs,
Nov 30 Class work
session - continue digital
editing cont |
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| December | Tues, Dec,
5 Class work
session - continuedigital
editing cont |
Thurs, Dec 7 Class
work session - continue digital
editing cont |
Tues, Dec
12 Project
presentations |
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Project presentations Thurs, Dec 14 |
Tues, Dec
19 Project
presentations FINAL
CLASS |
Tues, Dec
21 Project
presentations FINAL
CLASS |

Quick review of Assignments
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1 collect sounds to use and edit during the
term: 1a (an alternative: sound self portrait)
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2 focus
& select a collection of indoor & outdoor sounds
Find, focus and
record enough 1 minute indoor/outdoor sounds of environmental
interest to you which to are different, but related enough that
you may digitally edit them into a cohesive audible construct
of at least 5 minutes in length. Examples of possibilities: DUE: Tues. Oct 19 |
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3 Outdoor
environmental soundwalk recordings (Bagley Nature Center // BWCA
// your neighborhood // Again, use the hand clap or WWV
method to make recordings at the same time on two different days.
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4create a 5 minute soundwork based on noise/sound
which you
feel deeply about, either positively or negatively. You may use
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5sound as metaphor, a five minute soundwork Create a five minute soundwork
with the following in mind: SOUNDSCAPE: Pollution as a point of view
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6 five page essay on some aspect of acoustic ecology DUE: on date of your presentation |
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7 your focused final project DUE: on the date which you've selected |






Handouts
& Recommended
Reference Books (may
be ordered from Amazon.com)
1. Noise, Acoustic Ecology, Study of Sound
2. From The
Tuning of The World,
by R. Murray Schafer, Alfred A. Knoph, New York, 1977 3."A Tourist in the Soundscape", 4."Outdoor
versus Indoor Sounds," 5."Exploring the New Soundscape,
Rhythm and Tempo in the Soundscape"
6. new sounding intruments
7. sound in Indian film
8."Early Humans go through the speech Barrier," Aleksey A. Leontyev
9. "Sounds of sound sculpture"
10. Psychoanalysis of Sound," Peter Ostwald
11. "Tuning in to the Past," 13."On insect 'wings of song',"R. Murray Schafer
12."COMMENTS ON SOME LADSCAPE REPERTOIRE," Ferran Cuadras
13. September 21 ES5001 essay guidelines
xx.. "... /From dawn to dusk...," Georg Jappe; "Body music #: the language of the genes," Liesl Ujvary; "Germ-code," Rainer Gottemeier;" Friction # 6," Robert Spour; "Rondo for double bass and short-wave receiver," Johannes Stockler; "Flotsam and jetsam," Christine Ulm; Marilyn Collins; "Lighthouse," Richardas Norvila; "Can you read me," Peter Battisti; "Applause," Rupert Huber ((With CD examples to be played in class before 2nd class presentation))
xx. Do Trees have Rights (due in)
Attali, Jacques
Noise: The Political Economy
of Music (University of
Minnesota Press, 1985)
Noise & Politics
Noise & Politics
Our science has always desired to monitor,
measure, abstract, and castrate meaning,
forgetting that life is full of noise and that death alone is
silent... Noise bought, sold
or prohibited... Nothing essential happens in the absence of noise.
Among sounds, music as an autonomous production
is a recent invention.
Ambiguous and fragile, ostensibly secondary and of minor importance,
it has
invaded our world and daily life. Today it is unavoidable, as
if, in a world now
devoid of meaning, a background noise were increasingly necessary
to give people a
sense of security.
Music heralds, for it is prophetic. It obliges
us to invent categories and new dynamics
to regenerate social theory, which has become entrapped. Music
makes mutations
audible. It has always been in its essence a herald of times to
come...if it is true that
the political organisation of the 20th Century is rooted in the
political thought of the
19th, the latter is almost entirely present in embryonic form
in the music of the 18th
Century.
More than colours and forms, it is sounds and
their arrangements that fashion
societies. With noise is born disorder and its opposite: the world.
With music is born
power and its opposite: subversion. In noise we can read the codes
of life, the
relations among people. Clamour, Melody, Dissonance, Harmony.
It is at the heart of
aesthetics, and it is a refuge for a residual irrationality; it
is a means of power and a
form of enterainment.
Any theory of power today must include a theory
of the localisation of noise and its
endowment with form. Equivalent to the articulation of a space,
it indicates the
limits of a territory and the way to make oneself heard within
it, how to survive by
drawing one's sustenance from it. And since noise is the source
of power, power has
always listened to it with fascination.
Eavesdropping, censorship, recording and surveillance
are weapons of power. The
technology of listening in on, ordering, transmitting and recording
noise is at the
heart of the apparatus. To listen, to memorise - this is the ability
to interpret and
control history, to manipulate the culture of a people, to control
its violence and
hopes.
The theorists of totalitarianism have all explained,
indistinctly, that it is necessary to
ban subversive noise because it betokens demands for cultural
autonomy, support
for differences or marginality: a concern for maintaining tonalism,
the primacy of
melody, a distrust of new languages, codes or instruments, a refusal
of the
abnormal - these characteristics are common to all totalitarian
regimes. They are
direct translations of the political importance of cultural repression
and noise
control...to make music tranquil, reassuring and calm.
Everywhere we look, the monopolisation of the
broadcast of messages, control of
noise, and the institutionalisation of the silence of others assures
the durability of
power.
Musical distribution techniques are today contributing
to the establishment of a
system of eavesdropping and social surveillance - channels for
the circulation of
orders. The monologue of standardised, stereotyped music accompanies
and hems in
a daily life in which no one has the right to speak any more.
The distinction between musician and non-musician
undoubtedly represents one of
the very first divisions of labour, one of the very first social
differentiations in
history, even predating the hierarchy of class.
What is called music today is all too often
only a disguise for the monologue of
power. Music now seems hardly more than a somewhat clumsy excuse
for the
self-glorification of musicians and the growth of a new industrial
sector, the
channelisation of desire into commodities to such an extreme as
to become a
caricature.
But a subversive strain of music has always
managed to survive, subterranean and
pursued, the inverse image of noise control: popular music, an
instrument of the
ecstatic cult, an outburst of uncensored violence. Here music
is a locus of subversion,
a transcendence of the body. At odds with the official religions
and centres of power,
these gatherings of marginals have at turns been tolerated, offered
integration into
official culture and brutally repressed. Music, the quintessential
mass activity, like
the crowd, is simultaneously a threat and a necessary source of
legitimacy: trying to
channel it is a risk that every system of power must run.
We are condemned to silence - unless we create
our own relation with the world and
try to tie other people into the meaning we thus create. That
is what composing is.
Doing solely for the sake of doing. Inventing new codes, inventing
the message at the
same time as the language. Playing for one's own pleasure which
alone can create
the conditions for new communication. A concept such as this relates
to the
emergence of the free act, self-transcedence, pleasure in being
instead of having.
Composition thus appears as a negation of the
division of roles and labour as
constructed by the old codes. To listen to music in the network
of composition is to
rewrite it. The listener is the operator.
Composition beyond the realm of music calls
into question the distinction between
worker and consumer, between doing and destroying; its beginning
can be seen
today, incoherent and fragile, subversive and threatened, in techno's
anxious
questioning of repitition, in its foreshadowing of the death of
the specialist.
Bernstein, Leonard
The Joy of Music
(London, Weidenfield and Nicolson, 1954)
Bernstein's passion and enthusiasm for music
jumps out of the page in this remarkable
work.
Cage, John
Silence (Connecticut,
Wesleyan University Press, 1961)
Chanan, Michael
Musica Practica (London,
Verso Press, 1994) A discussion of the social
practice of western music from Gregorian
chant to postmodernism.
Chion, Michel
David Lynch
(Trans. Julian, Robert, London, BFI Publishing,
1995) Analysis of Lynch's work. Contains
surprisingly little on sound.
La musique électroacoustique
(Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 1982)
Thoughtful study of electro-acoustic music.
Jacques Tati (Paris, Cahiers du
Cinéma, 1987) Criticism and interpretation of
Tati's films.
Cooke, Deryck
The Language of Music
(London, Oxford University Press, 1959/r1989)
Deconstructs music's affective power through
a study of intervals, harmony and rhythm
etc.
Kelly, Owen
Digital Creativity (London,
Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 1996) The
book looks at how digital creativity has
evolved. It examines the tools available, gives
examples of a range of artistic works and
questions the implications of such digital
creativity.
Lander, Dan & (eds.) Lexier, Micah
Sound by Artists (Art
Metropole, Toronto, Walter Phillips Gallery,
Banff. 1990)
Meyer, Leonard B.
Emotion and Meaning in
Music
(Chicago University Press, 1956) Still as
provocative as when it was first published.
Murch, Walter
In the Blink of An Eye (Los
Angeles, Silman-James Press, 1995) A
thought-provoking essay on film editing. The
reader is taken on a journey through the
aesthetics and practical issues of cutting film.
Negroponte, Nicholas
Being Digital (London, Hodder
and Stoughton, 1995) One of the world's
foremost experts on multimedia explores the
impact of digital technology in our lives.
Rodley, Chris
Lynch on Lynch
(London, Faber and Faber, 1997) A survey of
Lynch's career combined with his own
insights into film-making and art.
Storr, Anthony
Music and the Mind (London,
Harper Collins, 1992) A remarkable journey
through music psychology. This is a must
read.
Tarkovsky, Andrey
Sculpting in Time: Reflections
on the Cinema
(London, Faber, 1989) Contains a brief section
on sound but Tarkovsky's ideas on directing
and film in general are fascinating regardless
of your discipline.
Toop, David
Ocean of Sound (London,
Serpent's Tail, 1995) Discusses ambient sound,
contains interview with Brian Eno.
Wishart, Trevor
On Sonic Art (York,
Imagineering Press, 1985) Seminal work on
aesthetics of electro-acoustic music.
Wollen, Peter
Signs and Meaning in the
Cinema
(London, British Film Institute, 1970/ repr.
1992) Singin' in the Rain
(London, British Film Institute, 1992)


RENEE KNOEBER / Duluth News Tribune









by Andra McCartney and other sites
Heikki
Uimonen
Text:
Heikki Photo: Jacob Remin
HannuTechnique-- use either timing method to make recordings at the same time on two different days.
Listen for any simultaneous and interrelated sounds through a conscious effort on your part when you begin your walking experience. Evaluate your test recordings before doing two recording sessions. 1st recording: Respond to any focusing from your previous recordings as you walk through the Bagley Nature Center and then into UMD's soundscape. Check your playback and feedback to decide if this is a keeper. What were the essential sounds heard as you moved in time? What about the overall recording session, as you moved through changing sound contexts (through differing ambiences). If you decide this is the recording you'll keep, are you be primarily listening for a literal meaning to each sound? What? Does your self awareness approach only the emotional response? 2nd recording: select a different route than from Bagley Nature Center, across St. Marie Street onto the UMD campus so as to further concentrate on the specific aspects you learned from your 1st recording. Save both.


"The important point of Soundscape idea is that it starts from LISTENING.
The western music culture after Renaissance has been started from generating and emitting sound rather than listening. So there have been a lot of the invention and development of musical technique including the improvements of the musical instruments or orchestral techniques.
But the aspect of listening has been rather ignored or not well developed than making sound.So I like to stress the meaning of Listening among the themes in the soundscape issues.Of course Soundscape's importance may be firstly as a search for new possibilities of acoustic culture; new sound design, making a quiet society, developing new art field like sound art.
But in the same time, it is,I think, search for new style of culture too. For example Psychotherapist Carl Rodgers's idea of counseling is based on listening from people, not asserting oneself and Cage's music too. We can find the same kind of culture arising in many fields, i.e. film, theater, literature.
If we listen carefully to the world outside. We will find so manyinteresting things as well as sounds. That is the opposite direction of the attitude of music culture used to be . It is new attitude happened after John Cage's 4' 33". Listening is accepting and understanding and communication outside oneself not extending oneself toward the world like the conquest of the Earth which has been used to be a great theme of the mankind.
It means in stead of making things out of the world, we should find something important from the world and our inner self.And finally I hope we will reach to the new style of culture with the less aggressive and with equal society."
Yu Wakao-composer, soundscaper, professor of Hiroshima University

THE CULTURE SPECIFIC
USE OF SOUND IN INDIA CINEMA Shoma A. Chatterji, Film Critic,
India
" Musical Instruments used as Visuals: Indian cinema, mainly
of the mainstream kind, is flush with visuals of musical instruments
used within the scene of the film. Within the Indian ambience
of cinema, the piano suggests affluence, The flute, on the other
hand, is a direct descendant of Lord Krishna, whose famous flute
is both the sign and the signifier of his visual or aural presence.
Ironically however, neither the piano nor the flute is common
in India's everyday cultural ethos. The piano has become a nonentity
because of dwindling spaces in urban apartments. The flute is
neatly sidetracked because it is not considered 'hep.' Yet, Indian
cinema thrives on its visual and aural use. This representation,
tied to tangible musical instruments, is not really in keeping
with contemporary Indian reality. Granted, that the question of
culture?specificity of cinema in any nation is today fraught with
the fear of the great Hollywood invasion. The crisis of culture
in an era of economic globalisation has itself evolved into a
significant issue of discussion and debate. India is no exception.
Yet, India is an exception. Because, in its cinema, simply by
virtue of the massive size of numbers of films released every
year, the threat of the Hollywood influx is dissipated. It is
not possible for the cinematic influences of a foreign culture
to uproot the cultural roots of a nation dotted with a largely
illiterate mass population nurtured on a steady and generous diet
of mythology, folklore, theatre, folk arts, music, all of which
have success fully found themselves reflected, represented, interpreted,
distorted and even questioned in and by its cinema, both of the
mainstream and of the arthouse variety.
The Politics of Silence as a Metaphor of the Oppressed : "Only in a sound film, can a director use silence for dramatic effect' wrote VY Perkins. Music director Bliaskar Chandavarkar says "if you cannot express things through music, you can use silence which is likely to reveal more than what music or dialogue could have revealed. Silence does not exist in an absolute sense. Bresson once said, "on the obvious level, silence in music relates to space indirectly. In the cinema, on the other hand, it relates to space in movement." Though mainstream cinema m India does not accept 'silence' as a part of the sound design of the film, Along with its sophisticated cousin, off? mainstrearn or arthouse cinema), it has, almost unwittingly, defined the role of silence with reference to particular characters in some films. This silence, or 'muteness' inthe characters is voluntary and not physiological or genetic. It therefore, is also culture? specific to Indian films, never mind the generic label. It would be right to define it as a political statement on the oppressed, the marginalised, the poor and the outcasts, which includes women. Silence in this sense, is an explosive expression of resistance, revolt, suppressed anger, rebellion, which finds eloquence because of its juxtaposition against all the sounds that characterise the normal sound film also because it is self?imposed, Therefore, its dramatic impact is more coincidental to the director's total design for the entire film than intentionally imposed from without.
1. Silence in Indian cinema is invested with the questionable 'quality' of ambivalence
2.Silence is associated with characters in a film, not with the narrative or the cinematic
3. Silence is rarely used to intensify the quality of sound in a film.
4.Character centric silence is not associated
with the spatial element of the film though
the time element is often confirmed through flashbacks and interior
monologue.
5.The characters such silence is linked to
are always found to belong to 'social
outgroups' such as tribals (Aakrosh), low caste untouchables (Damul)
women (Sholay,
Andhi Galli), minority communities, working class people (Main
Zinda Hoon).
6. Character centric silence is both ambivalent
and ambiguous. It could mean rebellion in
one character, it could mean submission in another. It could be
read as 'protest' in yet
another. Or an expression of appeasement in a fourth one.


Africa
Canada
natural
radio Stephen
P. McGreevy,@
<earshot> exploration,
navigation and composition of sound on the web So earshot is the result of an
experiment into cultural splicing: part toy, part tool, part musical
instrument and partly an on-going resistance against the increasing
Disneyfication of the Internet.
Rainforest
Soundwalks: Ambiences
of Bosavi, Papua New Guinea-- Steven Feld.
Soundscape
Exhibitions "The History Of Noise," Amsterdam


Ken Seehus with
his dog on Westgate Boulevard Near I-35 CHARLES KURTIS / Duluth News Tribune



Essay Contents
Outlining your points
will help you see key words easier 1, it will also let you update
your most recent draft and it will allow your writing to flow
logically and naturally. You can write an outline in words and
phrases or in complete sentences.2
Tentative thesis statement & Topic Cohesion:
Write your thesis sentence. 3 When outlining main and supporting
points, make sure that all of them support the goal and purpose
of your essay .
Organizational Patterns:
Topical- this is when you have several ideas to present and one
idea seems naturally to preceed the other. This is one of the
most common types of patterns, and it is especially useful for
shareing researched information.
Chronological- this uses time sequence for a framework.
This pattern is useful for informative and persuasive writing,
both of which require background information in the form of footnotes,
endnotes, bibliography, etc.4
Spatial- this organizes your research and writing according
to a descriptive "physical space." You may create the
sense of an acoustic ecological spatial order in any format.
Professional Research Terms- puts things into an Acoustic Ecology/Soundscape context.5 You can use this pattern for accomplishing the purpose(s) in support of your thesis.
Problem/Solution- this is used mostly for persuasion. The first part could outline an acoustic ecological problem and the body of the second part suggests your solution.
Cause/Effect- can be used also for persuasion. The first part describes the cause of an acoustic ecological problem from your perspective and the second describes its effect.
Introduction of thesis and thesis Conclusion- reasons to use an introduction puts you on the record
and shows your topic's importance and presents your thesis possibly
as a forecast for your major ideas. What a conclusion should
do:
Inform and provide direction to your sources. Advocate a point
of view. Summarize your vital ideas. Leave the reader informed
and with useable ideas to remember .
1. Use these key words during your research
via UMD Library or Internet searches.
2. Use what ever outline format you are currently familiar.
3. I propose, or adovate, or will demonstrate the belief... to
offer two definitions of noise...
4. Use whatever endnote, reference, bibliograpic, reference, citations
and URL format you are currently useing.
5. e.g., Psychological effects of audio via soundscuplture, acoustic
architecture, soundwalking, etc.


"The TerraAura
series. Sounds that offer testament that our planet breathes."

Critique of Assignments
Digitizing for your CD-ROM