These questions are the first of three sets meant to be open and are subject to interpretations. Re-formulate the questions if necessary. Otherwise answer as much as you like, giving specific examples as appropriate. The second set of questions will appear on April 11th. If you like, you can introduce yourself in the SoundWok Electronic Guest Book towards the bottom of the page.
Experiences
1. What makes you listen/How do you listen/Why do you listen?
2. What are you listening to?
3. What do you hear?
4. How does your listening relate to the other senses and to consciousness (sight, smell, touch, taste and thought)
5. What do you hear when you read, when you write?
Respond by either
a) clicking on the "comment" button below or
b) email us at soundwok@yahoo.com
We would much prefer the former method of communication and sharing but either way is fine: just "give it to us!"
Thanks for your contributions and participations, the 2nd and 3rd sets of questions will follow in time, in response to answers contributed.
For terms of participation, check http://soundwok.blogspot.com/2008/03/if-you-are-southern-california-based-or.html
artistic impression of consciousness mapping snapshot
54 comments:
1. Everything - a thought, an idea, a touch, a smell, etc. - makes me listen /
It depends on the presentation and contents - I can listen with my eyes feeling the sound/vibration from actions/movements or with my whole body just openly absorbing /
I listen because I can and/or have no choice as we are constantly immersed in sounds
2. I am listening to Agricola chansons, and the sourness of their performances
3. I hear my own running-commentaries thoughts
4. I have no idea. They just do. Where are the boundaries between the 5 senses. Sucking on a lemon, I squirm, the sight turns bright white, smell of lemony sting that turns bitter and then sweet while the oily sticky lemon juice oozes and glides down my fingers while I heard this high-pitched quiet-scream hissing shot through my head thinking 'what-the-hell?!'
5. I hear the music I am working on constantly revising, tossing and turning its way out into this world, as I read/hear about Clinton-Obama, about the Iraqi war, about the stupidities of us all...
1. Sound/With my ears/It's my nature...
2. Sounds entrapped in my listening web...
3. Screams, pleadings and pre-mortem euphorias of the sounds entrapped
in my listening web...
4. I see the sounds struggle and die or escape/I smell the fear of
sounds entrapped/I feel the thump of their struggle against my ears
drums/I taste the sweat of struggling sound/I ponder my own struggling
ephemerality...
5. I hear the written recite itself/I feel the written dance itself...
Corrado Gong
imagoignota@aol.com
1. Noise makes me listen. There is sort of a soundscape we live in, and when there are shifts within the soundscape it makes me listen. That is more the unintentional listening. / Primarily with my ears, without much electronic modification. / Much of it is not by choice...the sound happens around me.
2. I am listening to what is offered on the radio without much filtering.
3. Variously structured sounds with social implications.
4. On first impulse I want to say I am a modernist, but I know the lending of the sensory input, I just haven't analyzed how that happens for me. I segregate the senses.
5. My thoughts forming into sentences.
1. That which catches my attention. It may be the loudest sound or the softest sound. / Sometimes I listen very attentively, noticing every nuance. Other times I barely notice that I am listening. / I listen because I have ears.
2. I am listening to the sounds of my environment...people's voices, coffee grinding, ice being scooped, cars driving by, music playing.
3. I hear all the sounds that enter my environment by various means.
4. I hear the wind blowing through the trees as I watch the leaves rustle...I hear the sound of the banana peel tearing as I pull it down...I hear the sound of the water trickling as it pours over my fingers...I hear the sound of the knife chopping the garlic, releasing its scent into the air...I hear the sound of my own voice as I write this blog.
5. When I read, I sometimes can imagine the voice of the writer talking to me. When I write, it is always my own voice that I hear.
1) Listening is a function of attention, of shifting one's perception to the transitory. Listening takes place in the mind, then in the whole being. It is a perception of energy in flux, of an impact on one's physical body, and on one's awareness. I listen because I can, and because I must.
2) I listen to small things, to subtle shifts. I listen to pauses, to voices, to the chatter of birds, to the reverberance of spaces. Sound comes and goes with such rapidity that we think it's transitory nature somehow devalues it. I think the opposite is true. It's transitory nature is what makes sound precious.
3) I hear many things that I'm not consciously aware of.
4) Sometimes, when I am listening attentively, my other senses seem to fade away, or diminish. I often close my eyes and, in my mind, light and color dance. Sound can be impactive on the body. The percussive force of a bass drum pushes air into the chest, a guitar can make the ears shiver. Listening can be meditative and, thus, a tool for expanding my consciousness.
5) Sometimes I hear my voice, and sometimes I simply see the words and understand them without an aural component, even an imagined one. When I write, my senses can become trivial, my thoughts, overwhelming my perceptions.
i am currently experiencing a buzzing in my ears. when it first occurred i walked through my house to find the source of that sound, only to realize that it is everywhere and constant. now i am suspicious that more of what i hear might be generated in my body of which i am not as of yet aware [the more that is, not my body].
the buzz filters every incoming sound as well so that i can no longer be sure what anything actually sounds like.
i am rather curious if the ears transform sound as individually as the eyes inform us about color.
1.) Like a door bell, tinnitus opens the listening doors.
It's not a matter of "how," but a matter of "because."
Like an ever-loopig gong tone, tinnitus sounds the listening alarm.
2.) I am listening to myself listening.
3.) I hear myself listening. However, the hearing of myself listening is more tactile than auditory. It's quite sensual actually. Call it "aural sex."
sound tells me
something is happening --
the unseen delivery: the sunday paper's damp and weighty thud,
the jingle of the metal hook of my neighbor's screen door,
the sound
of the wings
of a tiger-striped nocturnal moth
as it floats above
the night blooming jasmine.
i listen as a way of knowing where i am.
i listen as a way of learning who
i am.
i hear what tugs at my attention.
and what i hear tells me
where my focus is.
sometimes i can hear something other than what
you've said in words.
this morning's radio-borne screaming of a deadly dog
fight made my adrenaline pump and made me hurt
inside. i can call that memory and response up
again, instantly, even though i wasn't there and
never will be.
repetition can be soothing.
it is also maddening.
i love swimming in Steve Reich's drumming
and I am relieved when it's over.
my mind stores certain songs note for note,
perfectly, for later repetitious re-play in my inner
world -- silent to someone outside of my head, but
clear and insistent to me.
sound and touch are linked for me.
often, when something falls, i catch it before it
hits the ground. i catch it in a way that makes me
think it must be the sound i've responded to. my
eye was not quick enough to follow the object in its
descent.
i can hear when wood is dry,
i can hear when my cereal bowl has a crack.
when i read, i hear nothing.
when i write, i hear my own voice and the rhythm of
the words.
1. the fact i have ears, natural law, anatomy etc.
2. news
3. a male monotone reading from a prompter
4.listening provides a soundtrack
5. probably an internal version of what that male with the monotone hears when he reads from the prompter
Questions 1
1. Pitsu puit puittittsu uttititi ittitaan
piet piet pieteit tentei tuu uit
titi tinax troi troi toi to
Iti iti loi loioutiouto!
2. turulu tureli tur luititi
Gou-guiqu gouo-guiqu
Psuit psouit psui uitti It
Loitiioito!
3. Prrn prrn qurr nttpruin
tiou-tiou-iou Oui o"
Oui-oui lii lii lo"
Fsuiti tipsru!
4. Troi ti ti loinax
5.fmsbwtozau (in retrograde)
Question Set !
Experiences
1. What makes you listen/How do you listen/Why do you listen?
When I was in college, one off my professors wrote a well known book about John Cage. Using Cage's philosophy, he would encourage us to listen to our enviroment and be aware of the sounds around us. Around the same time, the writings of philosopher Babba Ramdas were popular which included the idea of "be here now". That is to say, to live in the present - not dwelling on the past or worrying about the future. When you combine the two philosophies, it's amazing what you'll hear.
2. What are you listening to?
Currently, ambient city noise including traffic and sirens.
3. What do you hear?
The 21st century
4. How does your listening relate to the other senses and to consciousness (sight, smell, touch, taste and thought)
Sight is a sense that intrudes upon the listening experience. When a television is turned on, suddenly all else is forgotten.
5. What do you hear when you read, when you write?
Generally, a favorite passage from whatever cd I was last listening to.
Question Set 1:
1. i listen because i have always felt the impulse and
desire to analyze my surrounding with my ears. i
remember very early on in my life having
hyper-sensitive hearing and enjoying all raw sound.
2. right now my ears are breaking down the music i am currently listening to (Boards of Canada) into sections of production. i tend to analyse and listen to how the music has been captured, recorded, effected, and mixed more that how it sounds musically.
3. somewhat answered above relating to recorded music. i tend to hear everything. appreciating it all for what it is. there are many who try and tune out the sounds around them. i tune them in 100%.
more soon...
Set 1
1. A concerted effort, a change in flow, differentiation from the background, a pattern, a juxtaposition. With my head tilted slightly to the left. I have no choice.
2. The noisy fans in my computer, Marianne clearing her throat and shuffling papers in the next room. Helmut Lachenmann and The Mexican Institute of Sound in my back yard.
3. Time passing.
4.It relates only to thought and then only passively.
5. My inner voice narrating.
1. What makes you listen?
That all depends. I listen if there are sounds to be heard....which I guess means that I am listening all the time.
How do you listen?
I listen in layers. What is the most obvious, and what is the least? The highest vs. lowest/ the loudest vs. softest/ the prettiest vs. the ugliest/ the closest vs. the farthest. This all happens in a matter of a split second....unless I am simply just listening for the sake of listening.
Why do you listen?
Does one have a choice? If there is sounds....doesn't one have to listen....unfortunately our ears (unlike our eyes) do not come with lids.
2. What are you listening to?
Everything.
3. What do you hear?
Right now?...the buzz of my light;the air conditioner; an electrical hum; the ticking of my clock; students practicing down the hall; the typing of my keys, my thoughts in my head, my heart beat and the blood running though my veins; my breathing
4. How does your listening relate to the other senses and to consciousness (sight, smell, touch, taste and thought)
I believe that all of my senses are linked. If I see something...I can generally hear it, feel it, and taste it. Sounds strange, but I cannot seem to differentiate between my senses...but I can say that with my eyes closed, sounds are much more pronounced.
5. What do you hear when you read, when you write?
When I read, I hear the words in my head being read by different voices and accents. This is in the case of a novel. However if I cam doing scholarly research, then the voice in my head is monotone.
When I write, I hear the keys of the computer or the pen on the paper...and sometimes MY voice in my head.
4. Hearing and feeling myself listening then affects my other sensory and thought responses. The way in which I see or think of the world is altered by what I hear.
5. The low monotone hum of myself focusing.
Question Set 1
1. What makes you listen/How do you listen/Why do you listen?
I listen because I’m fascinated with how our ears can support and/or subvert what our other senses tell us. I am generally uninterested in using my sense of hearing by itself; what interests me is how hearing interacts with taste, sight, touch, smell. Playing in an orchestra concert activates all five senses, but being in the audience for the identical program can be tedious, since the non-hearing senses are disregarded in favor of the purity of the sonic experience. That purity exhausts me, and I often slip into daydreams when only one sense at a time is engaged. I think that my interest in hearing in congress with other senses is why I am drawn to working in the theatre; the theatre uses both visual and auditory cues to tell the story. Neither the sound nor the visualizations exist in a vacuum.
2. What are you listening to?
I listen to the purpose of the sound as much as I do the content. Every sound is created for a reason, and the reasons behind the sounds are often more important than the sound itself. By investigating the identity and purpose of the creator of the sound, we get a much deeper understanding of the sound and its role in our world.
3. What do you hear?
I hear not only from my perspective but from the perspective of the intended listener. The creator of the sound does not always create the sound for my ears. I may be part of the audience, but my hearing the sound may be inconsequential to the intention of the creator. I hear more deeply when I consider not only the identity and intent of the creator but the identity and intent of the creator’s intended audience.
4. How does your listening relate to the other senses and to consciousness (sight, smell, touch, taste and thought)
Deeply, deeply. Any sensory element is most effective when used in congress with another sense. Sound by itself exists in a sensory vacuum, but sound with image (or smell, or taste, or touch) conveys a deeper level of content, much deeper than any sense would if used by itself. As to thought, it is the brain’s unique challenge to take the different sensations that our body receives and analyze them, comparing and contrasting the sensory elements to learn more about how they exist in our world.
5. What do you hear when you read, when you write?
My brain is constantly looking for distraction, and when I read and write, those distractions are often related to sound. I may read a passage of text that reminds me of a song, or I may notice that the pattern of text on the page looks like waveforms turned on their side. When writing, my text may turn into lyrics in my head, and a song might start to form. Sometimes, if I am stuck on a difficult passage of text, I will daydream, incorporating the sounds of my environment into my imagination. For this reason, as a practical consideration, I try to limit the amount of extraneous noise around me when I read or write. By way of example, while writing this short response (six sentences), my mind wandered off no less than 12 times, all of which were sound-related.
Set #2
1.) I start by futzing around. I then wait for something to rise out of the primordial tinker.
2.) In my studio where my futz buddies, the tinker toys are.
3.) The desire to ornament the constant high pitched monotone and ginging, not gonging which on mysound palette is pitched low, in my ears. The drive to write a concerto for tinnitus and
sound ensemblage.
Set #1 ...a riff on mis-posted #2
Oops! I by accident posted the second set of answers here. I need to make them relevant. Can I be creative at 6:00 AM? It is AM therefore I AM? Let find out.
1.} My ears futz around the environment, dicing and slicing soundscapes. I throw everything into a big drum and begin tossing, hoping that the creative juices will provide a proper dressing. That's one way of listening.
2.) The sound garden in my studio where the ingredients grow.
3.) I listen with ornamented ears, adorned with ear rings molded from a precious metal, tinnitanium.
Question Set One:
1. What makes you listen/How do you listen/Why do you listen?
Instinct/Most of the time passively (I’m not sure what my subconscious would say about that) and sometimes actively
2. What are you listening to?
The environment around me.
3. What do you hear?
Jets, planes, helicopters, doors slamming, kids playing, lawns being meowed, my stomach growling, clocks ticking, cars driving, footsteps, the ringing in my ears, the refrigerator, a tiny high pitched whine coming from the laptop hard drive (oh no), dogs barking, birds, the house settling, the neighbors AC, the freeway a mile away, wind in the trees, Spanish speaking, English speaking……
4. How does your listening relate to the other senses and to consciousness
Hearing and sight
Example: If I look at a picture, play a sound (or music) suddenly a very new experience is created. If I removing the picture (close my eyes), leave the music (or sound) I’m treated to less of an experience than the combination of the two. In reference to what someone has already stated, if a TV is turned on, all bets are off.
A great meal with interesting friends (or a date) would give us the perfect cocktail for the senses (no pun intended)
Food – sound of prep, smell of prep, texture, presentation, taste
Friend(s) – conversation, presentation, If it’s a date you might get some touch/taste and there might be some perfume involved (and the sounds might get a little out of hand later that night).
Our consciousness makes all of this possible.
5. What do you hear when you read, when you write?
I listen to a lot of books on tape.
I had an interesting experience when comparing a read with a listen.
As I read The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, by Haruki Murakami, I heard a smart, somewhat cool, Japanese man as the main character. Later I listened to the books on tape. I was sure that the reader had not read the book. He was voicing the character all-wrong (kind of over the top and goofy). As he progressed he became calmer and cooler. I don’t know if he had read the book, or if it was recorded order, but I sensed as he read he eventually became more and more the character I imagined.
When I write (which I seldom do) I hear the words or letter I’m typing, which I’m reiterating in my head.
I also hear “thank god for spell check” every few minutes.
1. when something is presented/presents itself with conviction, i'm at least initially all ears.
2. bobby callender.
3. some people playing music.
4. i think listening comes first, at least the way i function. i have be listening to something when i'm doing anything. silence discomforts me.
5. i hear myself reading it aloud to people, but in my mind. i can't have music too distracting playing when i'm writing. it's rude when someone's talking.
Q1 Experiences
1. What makes you listen/How do you listen/Why do you listen?
I guess I just listen because I'm built to listen among other things. For me listening is not about hearing sounds but about feeling sensations that want to sound out.
2. What are you listening to?
My gut.
3. What do you hear?
I feel-hear the urge to create. To make something that sounds like what I'm feeling. People make home made porn so they can hold on to that urge and feeling once the feeling and urge are released.
4. How does your listening relate to the other senses and to consciousness (sight, smell, touch, taste and thought)
Look above for answers.
5. What do you hear when you read, when you write?
I feel my or somebody else's words touching me...my imagination...in sometimes beautiful or sometimes inappropriate ways.
Question Set 1
1.Awareness is the only thing that allows us to listen with the assumption that we have the proper tools to hear. I listen because it is one of the privileged stimulus sensors that I'm born too, the rest of reality we dream through imagined predictions. Though sound waves hit our eardrums, tympanic membrane, follow fluid to the brain and vibrate so that the synapses in our temporal lobes can decipher this script of stimulus to something coherent, if our attention is not given enough to that incoming information, it is not comprehended. I listen because I can, to survive, out of curiosity, to decipher reality. I listen to inspire myself with any given emotion through music, the way a placebo drug could inspire you to feel better; it is embedded in my DNA to listen. I listen to what I am presented when my attention is focusing on listening. When I do not listen, sometimes I think of what I do not hear, I feel that whatever could possibly be heard is still there even though I cannot hear it. Thinking this way makes me wonder what other stimulus is out there that we do not have the sensory systems to perceive... Are there things that we cannot hear even though we listen? I listen with what I am aware can be heard and appreciate that, but hope that there is more that can be heard.
2. I am listening to music from a movie and listening to what I imagine (my own thoughts).
3. The sound of cars driving by outside, the sound of my girlfriend typing, the sound of my turtles bouncing off of the glass tank they are swimming in, the ringing in my ears, myself snorting which I hear from inside and out of my own head.
4 My listening relates to the other senses in that it, like my other senses, sends the stimulus that is given to the sensory system to the brain where it is interpreted.
5. I hear sounds that I think, perhaps they are not physical sound waves but in my own head they exist to me in the same way that imagination makes things appear, the imagination here mimics those sound waves I suppose.
Q Set 1 (These are collaborative responses posted by one member. Responses by individual MLuM members have appeared or will appear throughout this blog. Collaborative responses to the same questions by other individual members may also appear.)
1. What makes you listen?
We listen with each other's ears which in turn helps us to use, with greater integrity, our own ears. The longing for beauty and/or truth like a muse sonar sounds forth and that echo, antiphon or response which sounds back forces us to listen, thereby helping us to target that for which we long and that which we have wished to capture all along.
1 a. How do you listen?
Each other's perceived perceptions of that which we think will inspire the others according to the particular manner in which they listen, as well as the manner in which we wish to have our preceptions perceived with regard to the manner in which we listen, dictates to some extent how we listen.
1 b.Why do you listen?
We listen because as artists, or least as a group who cultivates poetic perception, we choose to do so.
Questions Set 1
1. Listening is a choice.
Listening allows my mind to wander. Putting myself in a "listening" mode means putting myself in more of a lucid state (and that just means I attempt to be more aware in a broad sense).
2. the hum of my computer fan, my cat snoring, a lawn mower / leaf blower, the thump of bass from a vehicle.
3. it's a layered space. mostly separate and discrete.
4. for me, right now, listening is associative. It could relate to desire or memory.
I relate sounds to past experiences. I also visualize who and what is making the sound based on experience (or even stereotype).
I like to play the game "guess what is making that sound". and I'm only right on the mark if I've heard the sound before - but that's part of the game.
5. well, reading and writing is more language oriented and I do hear the voice. My voice if I'm writing. Heck, my voice too when I'm reading. I'm a narcissist. I admit it. My voice can do impersonations, so it's totally fun.
Q Set 1 (These are collaborative responses posted by one member. Responses by individual MLuM members have appeared or will appear throughout this blog. Collaborative responses to the same questions by other individual members may also appear.)
2. What are you listening to?
We listen to the aesthetic and/or experiential prompters that move our auditory experience from the realm of hearing into an interactive and/or reactive process. Listening is inspired hearing. When we listen, we hear inspiration's ecstatic drone.
Regarding what mlum said...
2.
I start listening when I can't stand hearing anymore and maybe the other way around...
Set 1
1. What makes you listen/How do you listen/Why do you listen?
Sound is so immediate and visceral, that it's a delight to relax, focus on listening, and embody that connection to the world.
2. What are you listening to?
Ignatz, Lichens, Thuja, Pelt, David Thomas Broughton.
3. What do you hear?
Crazy Wisconsin thunderstorm, birds (like cardinals and robins) I'm not used to hearing in So Cal, remembering the seemingly infinite variety of sounds of snow and ice under foot.
4. How does your listening relate to the other senses and to consciousness (sight, smell, touch, taste and thought)?
Listening is so central to what I do that I think about it all the time and don't think about it at all.
5. What do you hear when you read, when you write?
I'm always hearing the sound of words, how they sound out and collide. My own poetry is entirely dependent upon the ear. Reading Cormac McCarthy's "Suttree" right now, and his language is operatic in its musicality. Translated perfectly, by the way, in the Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men. Wow. The sound in that film is fantastic.
1. Use keyboards
2. in my bed room
3. some times try to come up, some times just come up in my head out of nowhere and I just put into recording so that other people can hear
4. I was about 6 years old and wrote short piano music while I'm playing around with the piano
5. I think everything has been done by now pretty much
1. type of music is my cup of tea, or good looking artist, or just like by hearing coincidentally
2. Eric Martin
3. good writing and great voice
4. sight
5. rock music
set 1 number 2
i hear you, the researcher, asking that question. i hear your imagined voice. i imagine your inflection. i imagine your face. i imagine where you came up with that question. i wonder why you came up with the question. i hear myself asking you "how did you come up with that question?" i hear myself asking you "why are asking me that question?" i hear you answer me in non-words. your non-words are inflections that answer my questions. yet, i don't know what those answers are but i feel satisfied the way an epiphyte might feel after drinking in the imagined rain shower.
set 2 number 4
my desire is the unborn sound. i hope to achieve, capture the unborn sound. but when i do, its stillborn. then i try again only to succeed in failing. my creative life has been a series of miscarriages. if only i could revert to the womb and gurgle an unborn song. to be an unborn orpheus....
response: anonymous
Sound artists sound like aborted poets.
Response to the above--both to number 4 of 2:
Each one of us is like an aborted Orpheus. Orpheus who was at one point an underground artist, literally. The unborn sound is our Euridice, sound lost which we hope to bring back. When we listen to it, while retrieving it, and obey its call, we betray by obeying, only to lose it once and for all. By losing the unborn sound, we abort ourselves.
re: anon, carl and san responses
we're all unborn sounds on the verge. we're also sounds in the midst of being born and at the cusps of being, dying and unbeing.
Regarding what soundman said concerning Question #4 of Set 2...
...at the cusps of being, dying and unbeing sound as we are all the shrapnel of a big bang.
1. What makes you listen/How do you listen/Why do you listen?
A sudden burst of quiet makes me listen.
I listen quietly.
I listen to generate quiet.
2. What are you listening to?
I am listening for the potential burst of quiet.
3. What do you hear?
Potentialities.
4. How does your listening relate to the other senses and to consciousness (sight, smell, touch, taste and thought)
Listening focuses my other senses. They all listen along.
5. What do you hear when you read, when you write?
An interruption.
1. What/How/Why?
My desire to create makes me listen/I listen with the intent of coverting what I hear into an extension of my talent, art/I listen because I have talent that I don't want to neglect or waste.
2. What?
I listen to those things that have the potential of being morphed by my gifts.
3. What?
I never hear; I am always on the look out for material, therefore I listen.
4. Relate?
Listening is my consciousness. My other senses help me to navigate through the world as I search for sound.
5. Read and Write?
I hear nothing except the listening I do while reading, writing, in other words: multi-tasking
Experiences
1. What makes you listen/How do you listen/Why do you listen?
Instinct/instinctively/information
2. What are you listening to?
Vibrations.
3. What do you hear?
Only what I think I need or want.
4. How does your listening relate to the other senses and to
consciousness (sight, smell, touch, taste and thought)
On a cognitive level.
5. What do you hear when you read, when you write?
Words. What I perceive are images.
Question set 1
Experiences
1. What makes you listen/How do you listen/Why do you listen?
I listen to sounds with character, usually machines. The sounds that usually attract my attention are the underlying sounds of daily life. For instance there is a boiler at work, an ice machine in a hi-desert snack bar or the sounds of underground parking garages.
2. What are you listening to?
I am listening to a cooling fan in my computer, my dog barking and jets warming up at the airport. There are also crickets.
3. What do you hear?
I am not focusing on any one of the items mentioned in question #2. I would class the items mentioned in Question #2 as the sounds of Costa Mesa.
4. How does your listening relate to the other senses and to consciousness (sight, smell, touch, taste and thought)
Sense of place for me is largely sound and sight based. I am working on a piece to highlight the dissonance that occurs when sight and sound are mismatched.
In terms of touch, texture is something that I feel can be communicated well with sound.
5. What do you hear when you read, when you write?
When I read I imagine a voice for the character, if it is a narrative. If what I am reading is information that is detail oriented (i.e. manuals, contracts, professional co-respondence) I revert to what I would call the ascii text of voices. It is probably the true voice in my head.
The ascii text voice it what I hear when I write. I am hearing it now.
Question Set 2
Creation
1. How do you create?
Brute Force is not a term that sounds very creative or artfull. However brute force is the best way to describe my process. I record alot of material, field recordings, performances and from this bulk of material I will load it into a DAW and begin to edit till a shape begins to emerge. When I feel it is necessary I will use a particular instrument to create a part by improvising over the existing tracks repeatedly and then creating a composit track out of the aggregate of the various improvisations. I don't honor the sound quality of a file and I will feel free to time stretch or granulate entire tracks or mixes.
2. Where do you create?
In Costa Mesa, on a DAW in my home. Or in a larger sense where ever I am performing or collecting field recordings.
3. What motivates and inspires you?
Brute force comes into play regarding inspiration. If I have the opportunity to record and start the process I feel that is all the inspiration I need. The working process will accomplish more than waiting for a "muse" to strike. I have a working process. I know the drill. If I can put some time into the work I consider that all the inspiration I need.
I should mention that fuck-ups, gaffs, errors and system failures may indeed be my muse. You can't have experimental music if you don't do the experiments. Most experiments are failures. Some failures lead to unforeseen results that become wildly successful. The more I can remove my ego from the working process and allow the working process to drive the creation the better it works.
4. Do you remember the first moment(s)?
No, I don't
5. Can you imagine the unborn sound?
Yes, I hear it as a thin high frequency sound of nerves with a loud midrange of blood moving and the heart beating in a bass 5/4 meter.
Question Set #3
Cognition
1. What is your understanding of “style” and “idea,” and what does the term “underground” mean to you (character, aspect, practice, metaphors etc.)
Style is an interesting thing. Noise artists are working in a "style" just as are polka musicians or Mariachi's. There are conventions of form that are just as structured for "underground" musicians as they are for musicians in pit bands for broadway musicals.
All styles were "new music" once. The benefits of working in an underground form are that you have time to sort out your "schtick." If by some miracle of luck and hard work you manage to become successful at your given endeavor. All your hard earned underground credibility will be gone in a heartbeat. You can just erase all your cool friends from your speed dial and don't ever plan to return to the "underground."
2. Is there such a thing as aesthetic fundamentalism? If so, describe it.
Absoulutely! The concept that experimental music is a this and not a that is logically flawed. It is an experiment! Because it is an experiment it should be judge as a success or failure. Not by whether it conforms to what the current experimental flavor of the week is. Further, it might be well to add the scientific standard that other parties must be able to duplicate the results of the experiment. If it can't be duplicated by third parties then it may be one of the flukes of charisma, timing and luck that so often masquerade as ideas.
3.Is recognition important in the "underground," and, if so, how is it different from mainstream recognition?
Mainstream recognition is based on separating children from their allowance money. Live Nation, Hanna Montana etc. etc. etc. Corporations live and die by their ability to control the lives of tweens.
Underground recognition is based on enough press and name retention to be asked to play at festivals or to get gigs in far flung cities where the dozen or so people that are interested in your spin on "noise" might show up.
4. Describe your sound, your aesthetic?
I use trumpet, field recordings, synthesis and chance to produce the music I make. I am untroubled by distortion and enjoy the husky bulk that it adds to a sound. Sort of oat bran for your ears. I consider live performance and completely different experience from recordings. I don't care if something is completely unachievable live. If it works as a recording that is fine.
5. What is your understanding of music and/or sound art as well as music-making and/or sonification?
I am involved in music on a number of levels. I play trumpet in a wind ensemble, I occasionally play bass in pit bands for musicals and I DJ for parties.
I think I have a working understanding of what is expected of me in those formal settings. I use "noise" to un-learn all that and get to the "machine language" of expression.
6. In your social context(s), what role(s) do you think music and/or sound art and music-maker and/or sonifier perform?
I think that would be judged by what the individual takes away from the experience. In that situation it would be judged on a case by case basis.
It is a clubhouse for circuit bent disenfranchised youth of all ages. A science fair where you can bring your own bottle. A place to be for do-it-yourself musical stylists.
It is the element of surprise that keeps me coming to "noise" events. You just don't know what will happen. In most cases neither do the performers. Yet they are willing to walk the plank that is performance and see if they can improvise up some magic. This is a tall order, but it happens more often in the context of noise events than it does in traditional musical venues (i.e. bars or concert halls) Magic and spontaneity seem to be the currency of the noise scene. It is vibrant and inclusive. I plan to enjoy it while it is happening.
7. In an ideal world, what would you do/ would be doing in the future (goals/plans/dreams etc.)?
I would like to bring the phog masheeen experience to cultures other than my own. To test whether I can communicate to other cultures with my brute force working process. It could be fun!
1. What makes you listen = nothing its just a constant activity
/How do you listen = fully active or passive for ambient pleasure pop listening
/Why do you listen = my personality prevents me from not listening
2. What are you listening to? = Charlie Poole With The North Carolina Ramblers
3. What do you hear? = my keyboard clicking over music I'd rather be listening too actively rather than under my work and emails
4. How does your listening relate to the other senses and to consciousness (sight, smell, touch, taste and thought)
It enhances everything. Certain foods go well with noise and commotion, while rich full course candle lit meals go better with soft chamber sounds.
Cinema just like everyday sight is completely reliant on listening in order to completely experience what you are viewing. Listening is an important
part of cognitive thinking.
5. What do you hear when you read, when you write?
If I'm writing papers or formal documents I hear nothing.
If I'm brainstorming or writing an intimate letter I hear everything.
Question Set 1
These questions are the first of three sets meant to be open and are subject to interpretations. Re-formulate the questions if necessary. Otherwise answer as much as you like, giving specific examples as appropriate.
Experiences
1. What makes you listen/How do you listen/Why do you listen?
God/ carefully/if/ for pleasure
2. What are you listening to?
music
3. What do you hear?
music
4. How does your listening relate to the other senses and to consciousness (sight, smell, touch, taste and thought)
listening have some priority
5. What do you hear when you read, when you write?
ambience
Set 1:
1.
some fuzzy mechanism, inadvertant——animal.
2.
bright impulses caught in cochleal rows of hair
3.
wind and whales. no: the shapes dead things make in the air.
4.
it clouds them; it is clouded. As if.
5.
quiet, interlocking parts. muted ceramic blocks spooning.
Set 2:
1. by trying or not trying
2. in the large one.
3. phenomena
4. I can't remember
5. I can imagine my own biases.
Set 3:
1. "underground" is a marketing term. "style" is convention, "idea" is a pat on the back.
2. there are dogmas, sure.
3. ewww..
4. sincere. insincere
5. no understanding, ideally. a gesture to understanding
6. extra-linguistic exploration.
7. living, then dying.
Question Set 1
Experiences
1. What makes you listen/How do you listen/Why do you listen?
reflexes make me listen. sound happens or the anticipation of sound happening followed by listening.
2. What are you listening to?
another artists work on streaming radio
3. What do you hear?
sound waves intermingled with waves of envy
4. How does your listening relate to the other senses and to consciousness (sight, smell, touch, taste and thought)
right now my listening is relating to those emotions tapped by my ambition and desire for recognition and validation. i want the world to hear my bomb explode. i want to drop a bomb on top the bombs of the others.
5. What do you hear when you read, when you write?
i hear myself say, "how can i work this information to my advantage."
Set 1:
1. My ears and all the anatomy connected to them are what makes me listen...I listen because they exist and all the parts of the ear work as they have evolved to.
2. My sons playing in the pool.
3. Sometimes too much - I find it hard to concentrate with too much extraneous noise on the edge of my hearing.
4. If there isn't too much extra noise, what I hear is very much a part of how I experience with my other senses, and acts to accentuate it. Again, with too many competing sounds, I end up shutting down/become irritated.
5. If I'm truly concentrating, and the noise level isn't too high, I don't think I hear anything when I'm reading or writing.
Experiences
1. What makes you listen/How do you listen/Why do you listen?
a wise man once growled "if you've got ears, you gotta listen". this is our collective predicament, but it's not a tragic one. there is no sound without bodies or ears, the same way that we're happy because we smile (and not the other way).
2. What are you listening to?
just in general? porgy and bess, the original cast recording. a calypso singer called lord executor. am i taking these questions too literally?
3. What do you hear?
the ocean-like lull of the 2 freeway.
4. How does your listening relate to the other senses and to consciousness (sight, smell, touch, taste and thought)
i am not sure. for me it doesn't really relate to smell or taste at all. i always try and imagine what the source of whatever i'm listening to looked like - the way bessie smith looked standing in front of the mic in the studio, the expression on the face of the motorcyclist outside my window, et cet. or maybe i don't try to do this, it just happens.
5. What do you hear when you read, when you write?
i hear only the sounds of the words i'm writing or reading. and maybe the song that is in my head (there always is one). i hear the voices of speakers and of storytellers. if i'm writing, i hear my body with its many wants!
Question Set 1
1. the arrival or interruption of silence; it is easiest to listen with eyes closed or slightly unfocused.
2. right now, an old air conditioning unit. in the car, a lot of npr. at night, the coyotes and during the summer my window fan.
3. sometimes things i read become things i have heard.
4. each sense competes for attention and seems most acute when the mind is paying direct attention to it. when they work in concert they seem strongest. if i look at the person i am listening to i am more likely to hear what they are saying.
5. i hear my own voice in my head when i read. i often speak softly to myself when i write. when i hear my own voice as i read or write words, the meaning of the words often becomes clearer.
Experiences
1. listen: indulge
2. hear: personal
3. . senses: classified
4. consciousness profaned
5. read: thundercloud
write: land-fall
correction: s wants to be known instead as "propulsion-blah"
Experiences
1. What makes you listen/How do you listen/Why do you listen? For strength, courage, wisdom, patience and peace
2. What are you listening to? Anything I can put to my ears. Most recently, the water, wind and breathing.
3. What do you hear? Interconnectedness
4. How does your listening relate to the other senses and to consciousness (sight, smell, touch, taste and thought) A single sense can not be taken out of the equation. All the senses play an equally important role. If one sense is not present, the other senses will heighten their capability and adjust to this situation. Basically, I fell that a person should use all of their available senses in order to access and create a personally holistic interpretation of the music that they are addressing.
5. What do you hear when you read, when you write? Different things at different times; rhythms, timbres, melodies, chords, forms?
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