cclarke1-blog1

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5am in Providence

https://soundcloud.com/corduroy25/sketch-4-diary-echos/s-Uvih3

My sketch this week is a diary documenting myself. In it, I attempt to capture the sounds of my early mornings when I get up to go to work at 5am. One will hear my alarm clock, my music, the washing machine I use at work, the card swiper, and of course my breakfast ( Pretzels). I went out of my way to chew as obnoxiously as possible for the recording but slightly embarrassed myself in the process. This is when a man came up to swipe at the desk and I couldn’t respond because I had a mouth full of pretzels. To demonstrate this embarrassment and the fact that after that moment I was really was caught up in my own head space, I utilized reverb. I use minimal effects in this project just a little reverb and a low pass filter on the washing machine that plays back and forth with the original laundry machine recording. With this sketch, I simply attempted to tell the story of my morning through sound without intruding on the privacy of our morning customers. 

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Oh Rats!

In this week’s readings and listening, I was particularly drawn to the listening’s focusing on Urban areas. Especially since they were on the two main yet opposing metropolitan areas in the US. New York City and Los Angeles. I found Rat Radio particularly fun because I felt I could almost relate to it a degree. Growing up on the west coast you hear and see how New York City is depicted in pop culture and one of the staples of this imagery other than Tims, Time Square and Chopped Cheese is rats. In seeing something about New York growing up such as a show or a movie it almost always featured a rat in the streets or the sound of a rat in the New York subway system even if you couldn’t see one. When I went to New York City for the first time last semester visiting Time Square, Central Park, and the Brooklyn Nets were all on my to-do list. But to be honest so was riding the NY Subway system and seeing, or hearing one of these infamous NY rats. By the time I left, I was yet to see or hear a rat so I considered my NY experience incomplete as there’s no way I could have the true New Yorker experience without this key component. In listening to rat radio I liked how they not only recorded the sounds but adjusted the audio to make it sound almost human-like. In hearing it and the manner it sounded more like disgruntled or possessed people than any type of rodent. I also found interesting the fact that rats “primarily speak above the (20khz) the threshold of human hearing” which makes me realize, I was probably a lot closer to those rats than I realize. Would my trip have been different I had been able to translate their speech? Like Brian House has done, cause with his work I feel like he’s not really telling a story but rather serving as a translator between me and these invisible yet abundant rat species. I found that very interesting. I also found interesting the recordings in LA, particularly the ones in Boyle Heights. As that is a place on the east side of Los Angeles that I have been before when I have gone to Dodger games as it is not far from the stadium. It’s amazing the distinct difference in sounds and how it can be used to represent a place. Obviously, LA has rats as well (one ran across my foot over winter break in Chinatown) but it is not included in the “LA” imagery or soundscape. But rather sounds such as the music of mariachis are seen as more attributable to the population even though rodents are easily more prevalent. How important are the sounds that are attributed to the reputation of the place or city? Can the sounds that are ingrained in the city’s image ever be changed? And if so how?

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Live and in Color

https://soundcloud.com/corduroy25/live-and-in-color/s-4kxqv

For my project, I did a recording of one of my favorite shows

For my project, I did a recording of one of my favorite shows. An anime called Naruto that is entirely in Japanese. I essentially broke down the recording to paint the picture of how I feel when watching it and how I interpret the images on the screen. I first define how I feel in color. I find the idea of defining things in color very interesting as I truly believe certain colors promote certain emotions and certain emotions create certain colors in our minds. However these description are different for each individual and only provide a vague idea of what I am seeing on the screen and feeling. In watching anime that is entirely in Japanese I rely on the subtitles in order to understand what is actually going on. The second part of the recording focuses on the direct translation. I think this mindset is something almost all anime viewers who do not speak the language can agree on. The tone of voice and visuals on a screen make you feel a type of way (or color) but it’s the captions on the screen that enable you translate and comprehend exactly what you are seeing. Once one has established their initial reactions, understood the dialogue and plot, they can begin to establish their own opinions, interpretations, and perspective towards the scenes at hand. This is what I do during the third part of the recording in which I then share the raw thoughts that occur in my head once I have my initial reactions and an actual understanding of what is being said or done. This three part process happens seemingly simultaneously in my head, but for my sketch this week I wanted to break it all down. To understand the anime I and others rely so heavily on the visuals for the action and captions. In transcribing this visually focused art form to pure audio, I wanted to see if the picture, understanding, and connections can still be made.

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To Dark to Be Seen

In listening, but especially in reading the interview by Damali Ayo it made me reflect and think about my own childhood particularly kindergarten.  In the interview, Damali talks about her idea of wanting to make paint to match her skin, a seemingly simple idea/request the turns out to be reflective of deeper issues such as race and racism, and this stood as the conceptual foundation of her work. In reading, I was immediately able to connect particularly when she spoke of wanting to have a paint to match her skin, and that she grew up in a primarily white town so wanted to see herself represented. The kindergarten I attended was primarily white and in a new surrounding for me, and the one thing I distinctly remember about that time was arts and crafts. I liked to draw like most other kids, and often times our assignments would revolve around drawing people such as our families. That was something I always found difficult and caused me to pose a lot of questions. Growing up and always being referred to as “black” it was a concept I never understood. I would look at my skin and see that it was not black but rather brown. It was something that bothered me, and I tried to fight and question, but would always be resolved with the answer “that is just what they call us” and “ hat is how it is”. So in an attempt to draw myself and family members, at first I would attempt to use a black crayon. However every time I used black, I couldn’t see any of the important and distinctive details I had created to differentiate each person from one another. When I used black the black took over. And all you could see was black. No details, no individuality, just black characters of different height. This bothered me so naturally, I attempted to color skin using brown, as I found it to be a truer representation of myself anyways. But alas I would get the same results. Too dark to acknowledge the details. Meanwhile, all my classmates would use the “skin” colors such as apricot and peach colored crayons allowing them to create their own masterful pictures in a manner they felt was truly representative to them, without having to worry about their color taking over the picture. Rather they were able to let their own individualistic details shine, and color simply added to it, as it should. This also made me think about Minji Kiwon’s reading about being in the “Wrong Place”. Cause at that time I truly felt I was in the wrong place. I felt my art looked substantially worse than those around me. And did not believe it was because they were a better artist than me, but simply because they weren’t carrying the extra baggage of darker skin color. I’m starting to ramble, but long story short I simply started coloring in my people with “skin” colors of apricot and peach as I was tired of my work being looked at as the second tier. Even though it wasn’t representative of me, it was repressive of the environment I was in and I did not see another way to thrive, other than to adapt.  At the time I would not have considered this place “the wrong place” and even now I do not regret it, as I made many friends and memories there exposing me to another side of life that helped me become the person I am today. However, I would how different things could have been if I had something to match my skin color. Or if I had been more aware of things such as race and racism, would I have been so quick to conform? Should I have done something different? Should someone more representative of myself have stepped in for something as small as kindergarten arts and crafts? Questions that’ll never be answered but will be forever left to ponder.

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Recess

https://soundcloud.com/corduroy25/recess/s-a63oO

My original plan for my sketch was to do a field recording down at Fox Point Elementary School, a place a volunteer with my teammates. It is a place I’m forever curious to learn more about, not for the place itself, but more for the children that are within it. Understanding how their perspective/opinions on the world and how factors such as the environment they are in will affect those things overtime. However I was sick a lot of last week and wasn’t able to make it down to the elementary school, so I was not able to do that recording. Also on further reflection found it not to be the best idea to record kids at recess. However I wanted to do something fun, which led me to the idea of Dave n Busters. Dave n Busters is a restaurant/play place/arcade that everybody knows to be “fun” so it is easily associated with the word. It only takes a few seconds inside to look around and realize the fun activities at one’s disposal and the seemingly endless games available to them. However, in doing a recording of Dave n Busters one is not able to see all the things that makes Dave n Busters clearly a “fun” place. This is why I wanted to record it to look at it through a different lens, hearing, and answer the question, would one still associate Dave n Busters with “fun” if they could only view it through audio? I named the piece recess as that is essentially what Dave n Busters is, a playground for children and adults of all ages to be free and solely focus on one thing, which is their own personal entertainment.

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Voice Identity

In David Novak’s Keywords of sound Weidman’s chapter talked about the idea and concept of voice. One of the ideas of voice it touched on is “the idea of voice as guarantor of truth and self-presence” and I feel this concept of voice self-presence ties in well with the readings and field recordings we did last week for our sketches. As voice is not only reserved for the aspect of a human voice, but the voice of any object or thing, whether we can understand it or not. What we can understand is the self-presence one’s voice gives us telling the world “I am me” enabling us to identify whatever it may be without relying on vision. In our sketches like week we read Pissarro’s “10 framing considerations of the field” and of those 10 ones of the ones we were able to focus on was the considering of “where”. This is the one I chose to focus on (even though I followed the instruction incorrectly) but in doing it illuminated the aspect of voice. I along with many others in the class chose to focus on “where” and when listening to the pieces I was able to notice the importance of voice as the sounds from whatever you were listening to, whether they were a person or not, told a story and generated images in your head. Even though some sounds weren’t as clear, like the one recording I could’ve sworn was a printer but it wasn’t, each told their own story. I am also interested in how one would connect the concept of “voice” to “Phonography”. Phonography which was talked about in last week’s reading involves “voice writing” but can voices be written? Or are some sounds simply meant to never touch a page? Do practices such as Phonography do voices a justice or a disservice? Lastly in we touched on equalization this past week in lab which I find to be a very powerful and useful tool, especially when it comes to voice. It gives one the ability to hand pick their preferably frequencies, opening up the freedom to determine what works best to create the picture they desire. When it comes to the world of records, other than a microphone or computer itself, is EQ our most valuable tool?

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https://soundcloud.com/corduroy25/framing-six/s-D58SI

For my 5 recordings, I chose to focus on the aspect of when the recording was made. So I spent my Superbowl Sunday recording and taking in the sounds one would only hear during the Super Bowl. Especially because the Super Bowl featured and was won by the New England Patriots. One will see when listening to the recordings how passion is conveyed in the yells and screams throughout the night. In addition, this passion led to chaos that took place throughout Brown’s campus featuring wild intoxicated students destroying property, one another, and themselves. As well as pure riots, parties, and fires that happened locally such as the giant bonfire started at the University of Rhode Island which led to an eventual full-scale riot. I attempted to be incognito with my recordings simply taking out the recorder and recording the sounds around me while carrying right along with the festivities. I was able to capture a lot of raw and powerful sounds that truly highlight the makings of the night. My struggle at times was trying to get clean recordings that were long enough in the midst of all the chaos and drunken confusion. I realized the importance of controlling the sensitivity of the microphone, especially cause I can always raise the volume later in Reaper. 

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hearing vs HEARING

The ability to hear is a nearly universal trait in our society, one that has been around since the beginning of mankind, yet it is one we still do not completely understand. It is subconscious skill, one that most put minimal effort in towards training or perfecting yet we expect perfect results. When one takes the time to train their ear it is amazing the abilities that can be unlocked. Ear training is commonly used in reference to working on gaining the ability to recognize things musically such as keys, scales, and pitches. However, when one truly works on their ability to hear, they open themselves up to anything and everything enabling them to take note of many things they would have thought little of prior. One’s hearing serves as a gateway to create a picture in one’s mind. Just as eyes are utilized to see a picture or words are utilized to “paint a picture” sounds possess the ability to do the same thing. Unlike with sight or speech this image may seem less clear and require more focus to manifest, but when done one is able to obtain the same results. In class last Wednesday we were able to open our hearing and take time out of our hectic, up-tempo, life schedules to simply relax and listen to the sounds played for us. In doing so we were able to breakdown and analyze the picture the sounds were painting for us. When doing an activity such as this, one is able to think of a deeper meaning for the sounds around us rather than feel forced to rush in applying meaning towards them in order to respond, which is synonymous with our daily life. Time to sit back, relax, and truly hear the sounds is tough to come by. But when given the chance one is able to open and enter the gateway of a new world, without ever leaving the place they’re already in.