Sonic Dominance
In Henriques' writing about sonic bodies, one of the concepts I found most compelling was of sonic dominance. As I was reading his descriptions of the examples of sonic dominance, I could almost feel it myself. I felt that I have been in so many situations where I have experienced sonic dominance but never had the word for it. It was also extremely interesting to see it from the point of view of Dancehall.
The first thing that came to mind for me was of an experience I had in Cuba during a dancehall session. I remember actually being able to feel the vibrations throughout my body; actually moving through me and making me dance to the frequencies. This was something I had never experienced before and made me feel things through sound that I didn't really know were possible. It was an unreal experience that lived on with me and one that I often go back to as such an immersive experience. The song that was playing during this particular moment was called "Gyal You A Party Animal", as linked below. When I came back from that trip I still really loved that song because it held a special and immersive experience. The song ended up becoming popular globally as well and would play in clubs around here. However, the experience was totally different. Anytime I would hear the song play here, it would bring back good memories, but it did not bring back the same experience. There was not the same sense of sonic dominance that I had felt during the dancehall session. It was ultimately an extremely different feeling that stresses Henriques point about the dancehall session and its experience of sonic domination. In that open air session, you feel the music enter your body and completely take over your sense; you let go and let the vibrations take you away. The experience involves the loud volumes and low bass frequencies that overcome your sensorium as the elements of the session work together to create this kind of experience. With clubs around here, yes, you have loud volumes but not so much the low bass frequencies. You don't get to feel the ground shake beneath you and move the surface of the skin. What you get is simply loud music, that often hurts your ears especially when you're too close to the speakers. As Henriques points out, the dancehall session is a place of shared sonic experience. For clubs in Waterloo, the experience feels shared only amongst those you are dancing with, rather than a collective feeling of sonic dominance and sound takeover. You can often feel like you're in a bubble of sound with you group that does not really go beyond.
Discussion Questions
1. What has your experience been with sonic domination in Waterloo clubs? Have you felt an experience where the sound created an immersive experience?
2. What were your thoughts on the terms sonic domination and sonic bodies after reading Henriques work? Did you ever consider yourself as a sonic body or of having the experience of sonic domination? How did the introduction of these terms influence the way you currently experience sound, if any influence at all?
Great post Anisha! I really loved your personal example from your trip to Cuba and I agree, I think that many of us have experienced sonic dominance or at least shared collective experience, especially on nights out, but haven’t known of a term to describe the experience or feeling till now.
ReplyDeleteWhen you talked about how since this experience in Cuba, whenever you hear the song “Gyal You A Party Animal” play it brings you back to this place and invokes good positive feelings, it reminds me of our class discussions on nostalgia and the readings from a couple weeks ago by Susan Douglas and Brandon Labelle who explored how certain songs and music can be imprinted on a memory and a particular feeling to the extent that now whenever you hear that song, you’re reminded of that particular experience and those particular memories. What I found interesting though was that when you hear the song now, even though it creates those similar feelings, you mentioned that the experience still isn’t the same which makes me question the extent of impact sonic dominance can have on an experience and a memory and how possible it may be to recreate it?
To answer your second question, after I read Henriques work I saw connections and ties to the Jasen reading regarding that of sonic bodies and sonic dominance and I think that these two factors work coincidingly with one another to create an all-encompassing sonic experience for the listener. I had never previously considered myself as a sonic body as it was not a term I was familiar with or something I had considered much. However, when looking back at my own personal experiences I can now see myself as a sonic body as I have definitely experienced the feelings of sonic dominance. I think the introduction of these terms have opened my eyes more to how I experience and engage in sound and music to the point where I no longer let music wash over me but I’m more of an analytical and active listener and pay more attention to how the music impacts me physically and emotionally.
Hey Anisha! I really loved your post. I laughed when you mentioned the music experience in Waterloo clubs has been quite lacklustre compared to your dancehall session experience. As you and the rest of our classmates know, I bartend at The Drink Uptown and couldn't agree more with your comment about the music at Waterloo nightclubs just seeming loud and painful to the ears rather than being a full sonic body experience with low frequency and bass. Although I love our DJ's at The Drink (and I hope they never find this comment somehow haha), I think that some of them miss the skills and techniques that Henriques mentions with the dancehall sound crews. Henriques mentions that the sound crew is one of the most important aspects of creating the sonic body experience through dancehall and that they are sonic bodies themselves within that session. In this regard, as a bartender witnessing the DJ performances every night, there is a clear distinction between some of our more professional and accomplished DJs versus the amateurs. The professionals know how to read the crowd, play with the bass and frequencies, and hype the crowd on the microphone to create a holistic sonic body experience. Not to mention, you can visibly see how this affects our guests with how they dance, sing to the songs, interact with their friends, and how long they choose to stay at the bar.
ReplyDeleteTo answer your second question, I am similar to you in that I've always known I have had sonic domination experiences but just didn't have the terminology to put the feeling into words. I am extremely passionate about music; I play the piano, I used to sing in musical theatre, I love going to concerts, I'm a vinyl geek, and I take my Spotify playlists very seriously in curating the perfect mixes for whatever mood I'm in. Henriques work on sonic dominance and sonic bodies perfectly describes the feeling of music being a part of you, rather than being something external and passive, outside of our bodies. Thank you for sharing your experiences with this concept as well!
I really enjoyed reading this Anisha!
ReplyDeleteTo answer your first question, I attended a 'Caribbean' party in the Scarborough area within the first 2 weeks of me landing in Canada. I was extremely excited to go and that lead to my extreme disappointment. The people attending the event seemed to be children of Caribbean natives and not Caribbean people themselves (which is really a whole other topic). This event was held indoors and even though there was someone seeming to be an MC and a DJ, seeming to be a selector (unlike most events back home), they simply cannot compare to the MCs and selectors in Jamaica, in terms of skill, energy and vibes. Their musical knowledge was also lacking, only playing songs that would have been relevant up to 2018 maybe. All of these factors contributed to the lack of sonic experience and sonic dominance for me. I say for me because other people were thoroughly enjoying themselves but I found it hard to do so because of how extremely different it was compared to events in the actual Caribbean.
Building off that to answer your second question, I have been attending all types of events in Jamaica and all over Jamaica since the age of 13. Most relevant to our readings would be stageshows and street dance sessions and it has never occurred to me before this course, that what I was experiencing was a shared sonic experience and that all of us patrons were experiencing sonic dominance. As I mentioned in class, these experiences are a way of life for us (excluding the upper class Jamaican) and standing up in front of a sound box, while the weedman walks around selling his propoganda, the dancers in the middle doing their routines, the girls on the sound boxes on their 'headtop', the smell of rum and weed, dancing and showing your 'gun finga' to the hottest songs, it was all just a regular night for us, not an experience to be studied. I remember being at a stage show when I was in my early teens, Reggae Sumfest, and you would be trying to make calls and you literally could not hear the person on the phone no matter how far away you went from the massive sound boxes (the event was held on a large field). The sound literally surrounded us and we never once considered it noise, looking back those were the happiest memories of my teenage years. I now cannot listen to my dancehall, reggae nor soca music unless it is blasting through my apartment. It simply is not the same if you don't have the literal bass frequencies flowing through your veins.
Hi Anisha,
ReplyDeleteI think you did a great job of putting Henriques term of sonic dominance into play here. How you related to your experience in CUBA really allowed me to paint a picture of what sonic dominance can really do to the body. Feeling immersed to sound is a feeling which is hard to describe. I think of my experience with hockey and playing in front of a larger crowd. You not only hear the atmosphere but you feel it run throwout your body, which is one of the reasons I feel that athletes elevate their play in situations like that. I think of the annual World Junior Hockey team every Christmas and the sonic dominance those young hockey players feel knowing that they representing their country in front of 18,000 screaming fans. One can only dream of that experience.
In regards to your first question, I think that all clubs did that pre-covid and individuals can feed off each other which Darcy touched upon in one of her blog post relating it to the Stirling reading and how sound can influenced through affect. Though I now think that is lost in the club scene due to Covid restrictions. It's unfortunate but dancing and interacting with others simply just isn't the same anymore. Those bass frequencies follow but when you're sitting a table or hanging out in a corner of a bar and not interacting with anyone outside your circle... it's tough to feel that sonic dominance in my opinion as Henriques alludes to.
Hi Anisha,
ReplyDeleteI think I relate so much to your post and your questions. Personally, I haven't been to any of the Waterloo clubs, but as Hanna's comments express, I would feel totally different since my experience with music and some sounds is different. However, I feel concerts have made me feel more 'immersed' in music than nightclubs. Somehow, every time I'm in a live concert, I get chills, and I think that can talk about the power and the level of 'sonic dominance' of certain music situations.
In regards to your second question, I never thought about being a 'sonic body,' but as we saw with Henriques, I think most of us can recall memories in which sound has taken place in ourselves that felt very different from other experiences. Somehow I think that can also be attributed to the triangulation that Henriques articulates in his book. It's not only about the ways in which we relate to the music and our cultural closeness to certain types of music. But also about the materiality of the music (waveband), and the corporeal waveband. In other words, sonic dominance can also be explored from the expertise or not of the people involved in the act or show and the relationships we personally have with the music and the experience with it.