Link: https://justin583622833.wordpress.com/2018/02/18/ssr-1/ Question 1:
Answer: The link I am providing dissects the importance of music as a cultural influence. This particular talk focuses on how music has been, and remains, important to the cognition and memory of people and cultures as a whole.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOM8Z2UQKR4
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Recording 1:
My alarm going off, I'm getting out of bed, you hear the water running signifying me brushing my teeth and other beauty regimes going on. Last thing that is heard is me saying goodbye to my dog and my boyfriend and the door slamming. Narration: "The date is...I wake up at 6:45 and get ready for the day, notice how we don't speak to each other until we are fully awake. My first words of the day are always goodbyes." Recording 2: You hear me getting into my car. The car door, the keys, etc. It's a few moments of just listening to the engine before I turn on the radio to some talk shows and songs. Narration: "I enter my car to drive to work for the day. I hope for no traffic as I switch through the radio stations." Recording 3: The car engine turning off and my keys being put away. You hear footsteps across a hard surface as you notice a door being opened. I say hello to someone as I walk in. Narration: "As I enter the building I say hello to a coworker and internally begin the countdown to the end of the day." Recording 4: It is me saying goodbye to the same coworker as you hear me packing up my things. You hear footsteps again walking out to my car. You hear the car door open and close. I sigh as I get in. Narration: "My day has ended, seemingly uneventful. Tomorrow I wake up and repeat." Adrianne Kraft Sonic Studies 02/14/2018 Summary/Synthesis Response #1 Summary: In The Auditory Culture Reader: Between the Blues and the Blues Dance: Some Soundscapes of the Black Atlantic (chapter 25) by Paul Gilroy it is stated that “That world of sound celebrated here was specified hesitantly but repeatedly in the same vernacular code as something like a ‘bass culture’. It was shaped by a fundamental awareness that as far as understanding the predicament of theses sufferers was concerned, vision was not the master sense and words alone could not be a stable or trustworthy medium of expression or communication” (328). Gilroy is bringing to light that even in suffering there can be a certain sound associated with blackness and that sound can almost be heard through the Steele-Perkins photograph. The idea introduced by Gilroy that sound can be a depicter of race and culture is a common theme among many of the readings. Synthesis: This point echoes that of a theme found in The Auditory Culture Reader: Making Sense of Race (chapter 7) by Mark M. Smith. It is stated that “[M]any whites worried that blackness was in danger of becoming whiteness. The number of visually ambiguous “black” people increased (the great age of “passing” was 1880-1925), and sight became ever less reliable as an authenticator of racial identity” (103). Smith was describing the notion that, to whites, blackness can be identified through other means like sound. Sounds such as music, language, and inflection are heavily discussed in being pertinent to deciding if someone is black or not. This point is also described in chapter 1 of the Sonic Color Line. Jennifer Lynn Stoever’s The Word, The Sound, and the Listening Ear denotes that slavery was very much the cause of the sonic color lines rigidness. Much like Smith suggests, the Deep South and their support of slavery was the water and soil that helped the seed of the sonic color line bloom into what it is today. Stoever proclaimed “The sound both defined and performed the tightening barrier whites drew between themselves and black people, expressing the racialized power dynamics and hierarchal relationships of chattel slavery through vocal tones, musical rhythms, and expressed listening practices marked by whites as “black” and therefore of lesser value…” (31). Stoever solidifies the idea that sound can depict race, even if those depictions stem from racism and prejudice. This point also directly relates to the point found in chapter 2 of The Sonic Color Line: Performing the Sonic Color Line in the Antebellum North by Jennifer Lynn Stoever. She declares “By criticizing Greenfield’s voice for betraying “blackness” or “whiteness,” nineteenth-century critics shored up the sonic color line by training readers’ ears to detect both” (79). Stoever is describing in action the new way of detecting blackness that Smith brought to the fore-front. She highlights two performing artists, Lind and Greenfield, who had tremendously different careers because of the color of their skin. Lind was white and “sounded” white so she embodied all that was good. Greenfield was black and sounded black so she did not. The situation described by Stoever is an undeniable depiction of the sonic color line. This idea also relates to the theme found throughout chapter 3 of The Sonic Color Line, as well. In Preserving “Quare Sounds,” Conserving the “Dark Past” Stoever explains “By allowing the invisible yet palpable timbre of the Jubilee Singers’ voices to precede the visible materiality of their bodies, Beecher echoed antebellum “racial surprise,” conditioning his audience to receive the group as sonic mediums for grief, nostalgia, and racial release” (133). This statement of Stoevers is extremely insidious. While Beecher was a liberal white who helped construct the notion of the “black voice” he still could not rise above the supposedly engrained color line. Black voices were now becoming more accepted but according to Beecher and other viewers the bodies that came with those voices were not up to par. The sonic color line was dissipating but the color line as a whole was not. Stoevers point directly correlates to chapter 25 of The Auditory Culture Reader as well as the other readings because while she is not directly stating that there is a prejudice against black voices she is stating that there is a disconnect between black voices and black bodies. The voices have become acceptable while the bodies are still not palpable. In this case the color line and sonic color line intertwine in an almost unfathomable way. Questions:
For checkpoint two of my project I have compiled the tools I'm going to use in order to capture the audio. I have downloaded an app on my Iphone called VoiceRecorder. It has a high quality of recording and since it is on my phone I will be able to more easily record the scenes outside of my home. First you simply record, then go into the settings of the app. It then gives you a link to place into your browser. Your recordings save onto that link and all you need to do is save them onto your computer. Once I have done that I will use the free audio editor for window 10 to cut and compile my recordings and narrations.
In regards to the timeline I plan on having my four core scenes recorded by checkpoint three. The weekend after checkpoint three is due I will spend a day recording the separate narration. I will then spend another day trying to find the best way to overlap my narration and recording so that it is clear and easily understood. I hope to have most of my project done by checkpoint four so that between checkpoint four and the due date I can just tweak any little issues I may be having. I hope to not have any major problems after checkpoint 5 passes. Links for tools being used: VoiceRecorder: app on iphone, no link to report Free Windows 10 Audio Editor: https://www.dvdvideosoft.com/products/dvd/Free-Audio-Editor.htm Model I wish to follow due to its simplicity and emphasis on the sounds telling the story: Homecoming (that we heard in class): https://www.gimletmedia.com/homecoming/ |
Individual Project Proposal-Listening Exercise Update
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