How Cunning the Ear is to Deceive Us

This last week I was baffled by the Stuart Dempster piece in the cistern. I honestly could have lost a huge bet on what was actually sounding. Baffled. But after hearing some really loud notes hit later in the piece- I think even without the answer given to us, I could have placed the sound.

I still find it funny that two things can emulate each other so well. Or how one thing emulates another, really. It really startled me when I heard the answer too. I felt like I should have known better being that I have played trombone for the greater portion of my life. It also shows how well it worked as an example for what we talked about afterwards.

Room. Make some room in your music for room. It could be its own genre. "Room Music." It's perfect. No. Let's not go there.

In reality, what makes a room "good"? Is there an 'all purpose room'? Or is it really just to fit the situation accordingly in each individual instance? Probably the latter mentioned. I have a friend that owns a studio, and the sound of the room is one of the biggest influences on every sound. From drums, to guitar, to bass, to vocals, to keyboards... Each really needs its own different space to be captured in their own 'perfect' ways, or at least for the aesthetic they are looking for.

Thinking in this way poses a slight problem- I could be on a wrong path of thought, but- if each instrument requires a different size room to perhaps "create the most beautiful sound" of its own- why does it work out when all the instruments are put together live? Take for instance a big drum kit with a booming bass drum and wicked loud cymbals- you need a pretty hefty room to accommodate just the size of the drums let alone the sound produced. It is a big stretch when comparing it to the small sound-proofed isolation booth needed for vocals to be crisp and 'in your face'.

I understand that there are entire institutions devoted to bringing these physical limitations into our grasp, but what about the amateur musician striving to make their trumpet sound better? I have no idea what I just meant by that, but I'm sure I was going somewhere with it so I will keep it. I guess my question would be: how would someone without prior knowledge learn these precise things without analysis of music to a very fine ...lack of word... state. There we go. To a very fine state of understanding.

I guess my whole post was, in a way, without fully understanding what was meant by the post below, to bring to light some of the intricacies that are needed to create even the most simple music. Whether or not the music is created with an intrinsic knowledge of all of the complexities music has to offer- there has to be some intuition of these to make a musical decision that produces, well, good music.

Most people have it- they can recognize good music and can tell exactly what they like about it. They don't have to use very technical details- but their explanation could be worded in various ways- including anything from a lush personal story of enlightenment and experience, but also one could use mathematical formulas and theoretical statements to accurately describe the same musical situation. It really comes down to individual personality. I would go as far to purport that this is not just my opinion, but a pretty rational explanation of some differences in taste.

I don't really know how to close out this post. I guess I feel like the semester is already over- a bad feeling to have- often letting homework slip through my fingers and relinquishing that pleasant grade for a less pleasant grade. Maybe a few Redbulls later I will change my mind. But anyways.

The post I am trying to close out... If anything- it is better to know that there are other methods of understanding how music makes us feel good, then not to know of them. Bleh! I'm rambling. Time for sleep.

Differing Tones

The experiment of differing tones and how we perceive sound changing by way of nodes was a simple, yet interesting experience. It would be especially nice to see how Lucier's actual set up for an installation / art gallery was done and how people reacted to the shifting sounds. Going to many concerts, I definitely know how where one stands in regards to the speakers can affect the music experience of live bands. Very often I find I am near the very front but off the the far left or right of center stage with one ear a few feet away from the speakers and the other facing away towards the crowd. The idea of Lucier's installation done in a revolving circular room, possibly with the speakers revolving in the opposite direction, was something I had wondered about in class. As well as changing other factors of two different tones, such as them having different pitch or some effects being used on them such as filtering or reverb. The other big thing I thought to myself was actual differences in sound and how the brain might possibly "hear" things different to how they actually are. One such case would be my alarm clock, which has a typical annoying repeating sound. I find that sometimes, on days when I don't even want to get up to turn it off, that if I listen to the sound of the alarm noise in a certain way the rhythmn actually changes. It sounds less like a repeating noise and more like two slightly different sounds set to a different, almost faster beat. Just by changing the way I am hearing and thinking about these two seperate alarm clock noises I can focus really hard and switch the way I hear them and alternate the differing sounds to hear, in my head, a type of dancey melody. It's hard to explain really, but I think it is an apt example of how we actually hear sounds and what we think we hear and then the whole idea of the sound of sound.

I Am Sitting In A Room & Listening to a Gong

I had first heard "I Am Sitting In A Room" by Alvin Lucier a few years ago from a message board post without much of any explanation as to what it was I was hearing. Beyond the explanation that was given within the piece's text, I knew nothing about any of the factors that were at play in the making of it. With the information I had learned on the first course meeting, the ideas and physics of the process that went into were made much clearer, though the actual production of our own version was way more complex than I would have guessed it to be. Keeping the sounds from becoming too quiet, too loud, or too high pitched seemed very dificult, but in the end it was definitely a success. The idea that a recurring melody appeared regardless of whose speaking voice was used still amazes me, and it would have been nice to play around more with how the process would affect a singing voice or with shouting, and then also different sizes or shapes of rooms. Also, the example of bands or singers music being played back and recorded in a bathroom to get a more warmer sound intrigued me. Somehow the straight up recording being too sterile and using a somewhat artificial approach to make it sound more "real" and how the actual music should sound live was something that made me think about how so often music fans like it when stuff sounds more "raw" and often complain when a band with a previously more lo-fi sound makes something that, to them, sounds too clean or crisp. I found a link where a guy tried to recreate Lucier's experiment using a computerized voice and a simulation of the effects a real room would have here. I do not think it comes even close to capturing the feel of the original or anything produced using the regular method. By not picking up the subtleties of a real setting that can really affect the changes in the piece over time, it just doesn't develop into anything nearly as interesting, even though the same effects are at play.

With the banging of the gong last week, I was mainly astounded by the total variety in sounds that could be produced by different areas on the gong or methods in hitting it. The anticipation in the 4.5 minute build-up made me think that the second half would be far less interesting, but what I found was that I payed much more attention to the multiple sounds at work on the way down versus the first half. I did not hear the constantly-changing R2D2-ish sounds at all, but there was a point where some particular part echoed off the walls near the door of the room and I was curious as to what made that happen at only that point. There was also a part that, to me, sounded like an ambulance in the distance and at first tricked me into thinking maybe there actually was one outside of the building. This type of thought leads me to question how much the individual and their brain influence how they personally hear and interpret sound both biologically and based on their experiences in life.

-Aaron