CS640K-Sound, Aurality, and Power: An Introduction to Sound Studies

  Silence, and its relationship to power.  The power silence holds is fascinating. Scholars such as Rath believe that democrats and dictators alike have attempted to use silence to maintain control and prolong their rule throughout history. Whereas dictatorships are often associated with silencing their population, democracies have been grossly guilty of the act.  Silence is enforced through tools that can ensure the unity of the process. One such tool until recently had been the mass press. In his book Unfreedom of the press, Mark Levin noted that the development of the mass press as an instrument of Mass Communication in its self inhibited the ability of a large number of the population to express its opinion. If we were to couple that with the intense concentration of media ownership worldwide, then we have an apparatus in place that silences a majority of the population.  For example, in 1790, then US president Adam passed the sedition law, which made it illegal ...

 I have a love for ambient music and I feel a lot of the time people undervalue the sounds they provide. There is something disappointing to me about all the 'study relaxation' playlists on YouTube that take away the context from albums that artists put out. To show this I'd like to focus on one of the Ambient Music greats, Brian Eno. A personal favorite of mine and one of the most influential musicians of the last 50 years (seriously look at everything he produced on his Wikipedia page it is insane), Eno's ambient work shows how your personal experience shapes the world. I'm going to focus on two of Eno's albums to show some of the aesthetical work they do. Firstly, Brian Eno's classic Ambient 1: Music for Airports. If you have yet to have ever listened to this album I beg you to put this on right now. Probably the best introduction to the genre as well as being a beautiful listen, Brian Eno created this masterpiece after being stuck in an airport for hours...

    During covid the ability to go to a live concert, sporting event and any large gathering in general was taken away from individuals. It generated a societal withdraw from the live event and forced individuals to experience sound of events through technological devices. Wether that's be listening to new music through smartphones, watching baseball games on television or attending "Zoom" concerts. It created a technological world which attempted to mimic the live event. Through the question was, did it succeed in doing so? I would argue that it didn't.     Recently for the first time last Friday I attended a Blue Jays game and even though it wasn't at full capacity as an avid sports fan it brought me into a realm of sound which i dearly missed. This past week our class read the "The Walkman Effect" by Hosokawa, it focused primarily o the sound experience one gets from listening to music through headphones. One of the main quotes from the reading...

 The chapter 'Gender and Early Telephone Culture' by Michele Martin was probably the most interesting chapter from Sterne's book that I've read so far. The first thing that comes to mind when reading this chapter was patriarchy, however moreso in the chapter written by John Durham Peters where he dives into women as telephone operators and the rules they had to work under. As expected, the telephone was created to serve the businessman. The use of the telephone then expanded to women gossipping and chatting. Martin also makes mention of the telephone being instrumental in reducing the 'getting ready' time for ladies. It is important to note that this use of the telephone is still very important for ladies. We set meet up times with our friends and family, discuss outfits and give time estimates all over the phone. In present day however, we now use video calls in some instances. Even though this new technology has been around for a while, women still mostly use ...

Within Bull’s writing, he explains how the iPod acts as a tool to aestheticize urban space and as a way to manage daily life. He states that it allows users to seamlessly create an environment of privatized sound that is specific to the individual without being isolated from its surroundings (Bull, 2012). I believe that both Bull and Hosowaka make similar points when speaking about technological devices, however, I would like to frame them through the lens of control. These devices can also be thought of as tools of autonomy for the user who now has the power to take back their soundscape and determine what sounds are to be heard. When we put our headphones in, we take control of what can be heard and what cannot. Many will immediately think of the role that music plays in this scenario, which is quite an evident one. Our carefully created playlists are something to be admired as we curate them to certain moods that have the ability to transport us to a new environment while walking ...

Schafer’s article speaks about soundscapes as a combination of acoustics, both natural and artificial, which create an immersive environment and experience for the listener (Schafer, 97). He writes: “a soundscape consists of events heard, not objects seen” (Schafer, 99). A world renowned, contemporary artist who uses soundscape in his creations is Dr. Lawrence Abu Hamdan, born in Amman, Jordan, currently based in Beirut, Lebanon. Hamdan’s work focuses on ‘the politics of listening’ by using audio-visual effects to spark meaningful discussion and action around human rights and law. He connects his sound art to practical and legal usage by emphasizing that “ear-witness testimony” can often be more effective and accurate in guiding a witness to their memory of an event as opposed to eyewitness testimony. In fact, Dr. Hamdan produced an “acoustic investigation” with Amnesty International and Forensic Architecture to examine leaked audio files from a government-controlled prison in Syria ...

Personal Music Bubbles: Isolation or Escape? By Sophie Johnston When reflecting on the readings and audio pieces presented during class this week there were a few concepts and ideas that really stuck out to me as I previously hadn’t noticed or paid much attention to them throughout my day-to-day life. Both readings by Hosokawa and Bull emphasize this idea that personal and privet listening devices, such as the Walkman and the iPod, transport the listener to their own unique music bubble which can alter not only the listeners mood but also their environment around them and how they view it. Everything Hosokawa and Bull talked about resonated with me as someone who enjoys having my headphones in, listening to music, and creating personal playlists that best fit my mood, transporting me to my own personal bubble. Image Retrieved from: https://www.indiatimes.com/health/healthyliving/health-benefits-of-listening-to-music-242298.html   However, it wasn’t until one of the audio pieces Dr....

I would like to share something about the first reading article this week,  R. Murray Schafer, “The Soundscape” In Sterne, The Sound Studies Reader (pgs. 95-103) In Music, the Soundscape and Social Welfare part,  he mentioned a theory of the relationship between music and the state from ancient China.   “Therefore the music of a well-ordered age is calm and cheerful, and so is its government. The music of a restive age is excited and fierce, and its government is perverted. The music of a decaying state is sentimental and sad, and its government is imperiled.” When I was reading this part, I realized what it is in Chinese immediately. This theory came up in a unique historical period. I would like to introduce the background to help you understand it better.   In 1058 BC, the Western Zhou Dynasty formulated the ritual and music system as the basic rule of the whole society. The ritual and music system divides the people of the upper class into many levels (such as em...

       I was reading Bull’s piece from this week, “The Audio-Visual iPod”, and I was thinking a lot about the “aesthetic playlists” that I make on Spotify. I’m hoping you’re all familiar with this as a trend because I'm definitely not original in doing it, but essentially I choose a really specific vibe or situation and I curate a playlist based around this. I’ll link my Spotify down below if anyone wants to check it out, but some examples I’ve done are “impromptu road trip in 35-degree heat” or “looking in the bathroom mirror when you’re drunk at a house party”.  The reason I was thinking about this in terms of the Bull article is that there was a lot of emphasis placed on the aestheticization of urban space using technology, specifically the iPod and by extension, music or privatized sound. Bull says that “iPod culture…concerns the seamless joining together of experience in a flow, unifying the complex, contradictory and contingent nature of the world…” (Ste...