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WRI-101: Voice, Noise, Sound, Sense.

A section of Davidson College's Writing Program, exploring the intersections of sound-studies and writing instruction.

Soundscapes

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Film as a Sonic Art

By James Shakow

Because the importance of sound in my life up until this class has been a rather colloquial thing, I think it is best to start off with a story. When I was a kid I was a listener. I listened more than I ever talked. I would generally speak in whispers, and would always get flak from my grandparents when talking to them on the phone because of it. However, my days of being a quiet kid quickly ended in middle school when I was able to find a voice in theater. Up on stage I grew to enjoy the funny sounds that people can make and learned how to control and use my voice. There was something so strange about the way people talked when they spoke in front of an audience. I’d even change myself, something deeper and stronger, but nothing quite natural. I wanted to be able to act in a real voice, to make sounds without straining so I moved into film. I learned to direct, and found myself in charge of my first movie by the end of high school. As someone who loves sound, I felt that it would be essential to the movie. Not just the characters speaking, but the music itself, the wind and the birds, the sounds of a car, a typewriter. I borrowed a microphone from a friend and a camera from the library to set out to record a movie and all the sounds I needed. On that first day my hatred for noise began.

Brigitte Wilson with her makeshift microphone at the Georgetown beach

It was a bright day, a little after noon, two actors and a co-director helping me out on a small beach beside the Potomac river. We’d gone over lines, set up the camera, taped the mic onto the end of a long stick and a cardboard tube, and set out to shoot our scene. About 20 seconds into the take a plane flew by overhead. It was understandable, Georgetown is right next to an airport, so we decided to reset the shoot and try again. For the first few times it was funny. It took all day to get the shots we needed. By the time we were able to get enough takes without aviatory interruption the sunlight had changed so much that we already knew the shadows had changed completely. The next morning we got up early to check the audio and video we had recorded. The wind had ruined every single shot. The good ones and the bad ones. We hadn’t used the right air filter. Unwanted noise had come in and ruined every shot, in one way or another.

Aligning microphone dialogue with camera audio in ‘Rules to Live by’

I have since learned the difference between sound and noise, and in a film, that difference is vitally important. First and foremost, the most important sound in a movie is typically the dialogue. The words the characters are speaking. Schafer would define that kind of sound as a ‘signal’ sound, or a “foreground sound”. A sound that “must be listened to” in order to advance the plot (Schafer, 101). In amateur filmmakinng, achieving this alone can be hard enough. Getting a clear audio recording on a windy day, or trying to record a whisper on a crowded street can be near impossible, so that is the first hurdle I sought to overcome. Michel Chion believes that the very presence of a human voice in a film “structures the sonic space around it”, that everything we think about in a film comes in context of the voice (5). I would argue the opposite. As important as speech is, the other sound in the soundscape affects the way we understand these signals. Though the plot of a movie is understood through signals like dialogue, the underlying ‘keynote’ sounds are more important to the telling of a story.

The Diner scene in ‘Perspective’ required half of the restaurant to shut down for a shoot

Schafer’s subconscious keynote sounds tell us more about the story than words ever could.  These are sounds that have “imprinted themselves so deeply on the people hearing them that life without them would be sensed as a distinct impoverishment”. They define landscapes, affect behavior of societies, and have a “deep and persuasive influence on our behaviors and moods”(Schafer, 101). If a scene is set on a beach, it is essential to hear the waves. If we are driving down a highway, the scene would feel strange without the sounds of passing cars. While these sounds are not as pertinent to the plot of the film, they create an environment for us to feel. Even in the first few movies I made, I realized that these keynotes would be essential to the process. I tried my best to fully capture the important pieces. The sounds of birds for instance could convey freedom, the sounds of a diner could make a scene feel homely. They rarely went farther than that, but I knew that they were essential to the character and plot of the film. Creating non-diegetic (not coming from on screen) soundscapes can make us recall certain emotions even without a direct connection to plot. These sounds behind the signals can tell us more about the way a character thinks than the words they are able to say.

When a film is near completion, sound files can become messy. Each blue box is a separate audio file.

Going into this class, I did not know I wanted to be a filmmaker. Taking ‘Voice, Noise, Sound and Sense’ alongside my film classes has given me a way to articulate my desires for sound in film. It has given me a language to speak in and a broader context to consider sound in film. For every sound scholar and listening activity, I could find a way to connect them with my life and film. In my first writing project (The Invisible Grain) I talked about how Jordan Scott’s poetic book ‘blert’ was intentionally unclear in order to send a particular message to an audience. It made me question if my storytelling methods were as unique in sound as they were visually. The concept of Ideophones, that some words and noises are universally understood across the barrier of language, piqued my curiosity for the second project (Universality in Language). I concluded that words inherently have more meaning associated behind them than you can find in a dictionary. The closest corollary is the music that I have put in my films. Specifically composed, it was made entirely to give off a certain feeling without any words. My third and final writing project (Noise Extremes; the Soundscapes of a Davidson Saturday Night) concluded that noise can be beautiful, and no matter how universally hated it can be, there is still reason for its existence. In film, every noise has a specific purpose to it. The soundscape is so carefully curated that nothing is wasted, every sound is there for a reason.

An actor in ‘Galveston’ attempts some creative mic placement in order to capture the sound of his voice

While my movies have only now begun to make sense, that is only the first step on the journey. I’m still not fully confident in getting a good recording. It’s still tough to set up the mics and do everything right, but someday I won’t have to worry about any of that. Through the painstaking reality of recording audio, my love for sound has faded. I have raged against drumming fingers and low summer breezes, passing cars and airplanes, I have sought to control the uncontrollable soundscapes that surround me. Sooner or later, I will realize how to do it right, how to embrace the little sounds in recordings and notice them in everyday life. At some point I want to focus on the sound more than anything else. I want be be able to create new sounds and eventually whole soundscapes to express my thought in film. When people think of a director’s style, they often consider it visually. It is easy to focus on Wes Anderson’s unique camera movement, or the way Tarantino makes his cuts, but even more unique to me now is the sound. The role sound plays in film is often greatly overshadowed by the visual. It seems counterintuitive, but one must go to great lengths to make a film sound natural. While the plot and genre of a movie can be expressed in words, greatness in film comes from sound.

Bibliography:

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Noise Extremes; the Soundscapes of a Davidson Saturday Night

On a weekend night, only one sound can be heard communally throughout Davidson’s large college campus: the sound of Armfield. Colloquially named ‘F’, on a Saturday night, the apartment complex is home to the biggest party on campus. From the outskirts on Main Street to the Cross country trails out in the woods, the sounds of Music and raucous college students can be heard. This essay is an exploration and soundscape of the final minute of a Davidson Saturday night. Recordings of the same minute from different places around campus (The Well, Hobart Park, Cannon Hall, The Golf Course, and the top of F itself) will give a comprehensive study of how sound changes over distance and acoustic location. I will contextualize my work to that of sound scholars like Schafer, Gross, Guzy, Chion, and Cage. I seek to show how physical locations alter the perception of sound, to emphasize the value of noise in quiet places, and to help contextualize sound studies into the real world here at Davidson.

The Armfield apartments at F could best be described as the opposite of silence. Not only one enormous speaker is blasting music, but one in each of six different apartments playing six different songs that can be heard from the top of the hill and beyond. I have never been to a place that sounds quite like Armfield. In the heart of it, the spot I have labeled ‘The Epicenter’ on the campus map, all of the noise from all of the different houses blends together into a deafening cacophony, the mass of humanity, the shouting and talking and singing, everything becomes one unintelligible sound that is itself as unique as its surroundings. On any given Friday or Saturday night, the strange sounds coming from the bottom of the hill can be heard all around campus. Sound scholars like R. Murray Schafer categorize noises into distinct groups. On a base level, Schafer describes a keynote sound as the “anchor or fundamental tone” of the soundscape, or even the “behavior or life style of a society”(Schafer, 100). The sounds of F are quintessential to the life style of college and the behavior of the people that patronize it. The party culture of F is so ingrained in Davidson culture that it would be amiss to hear it in complete silence on a Saturday night. Because it is so important socially and behaviorally in life here, the Keynote sound of a Weekend night at Davidson would be the sound that comes from F.

Recording from the top of F

At the top of the apartment complex, there is a small island in the middle of the road where two cops always stand posted waiting for trouble. This spot is also equidistant from all of the fraternity houses and their speakers. Every song being played will converge at that location. While it is possible for the ear to pick up on an odd track or two, the sound and sense of each song cease to be recognizable and instead are interpreted as pure noise. The enjoyment of F becomes the enjoyment of noise, and despite its lack of sense, the noise at F holds a strange captivation. Nothing can be heard over it. Nothing can be understood. In the true center of F, the swell of noise is so intense that my ears forget to listen. An odd signal, or a conciously listened to foreground sound, might pop out and draw me out of my trance, but otherwise I could easily forget that I was so enveloped in the noise.(Schafer, 101) At the little island where the cops stand at night,  F can be heard loud and clear. However, when standing there the noise of the people walking nearby trumps the music coming from the bottom. It is possible to make out specific people as they go past the microphone, but they quickly get lost into the dull roar of the apartments. The music is the backdrop upon which the entire soundscape rests. Every once in a while a part of a different song sticks out and is recognizable, but then seems to be swallowed up again. Sound here is not something desirable but without it F would be an entirely different place.

Recording from Cannon Hall

The area in between Sentelle and Cannon is one of my favorite acoustic environments on campus. Compared to the noise of F, this place produces an entirely different sound. The two buildings are so closely aligned that they trap the sound coming up the hill and bounce it back across the gap. Walking home late, the only sounds that stick out are the echos of ‘Soulja Boy’ and the occasional slamming door. The sounds here are more muted, nowhere near as dense, but interesting in their own right. On this particular Saturday, one song is recognizable as it winds its way up from Armfield. Because it is more of an isolated location, it is easier to pick out one song over the noise. It is still possible to hear the quiet roar coming from down the hill, with a few shouts cresting over top. Even though they are recorded at the same minute, the environment and surroundings create two completely different soundscapes.

Recording from the golf course

Though the golf course is geographically farther away from most of the other points, its unique landscape amplifies certain sounds of the night. At 11:59, I stood and recorded the world from the middle of nowhere. Compared to the other locations, it can seem less intense. Screams can be heard faintly popping out in the distance carrying far across the open grass. The music occasionally rolls in with the wind, but more often than not, the golf course is silent and peaceful. The noise coming from the apartments is hardly noticeable, almost a ghostly faint sound. It is only there when you desire to hear it. If it is not wanted, than it does not need to exist. The golf course is a happy medium where noise is present but not overwhelming. When Shafer describes the ear’s ability to “filter out undesirable sound in order to concentrate on what is desirable”, he believes that silence is the ultimate want of the ear (Schafer, 103). Out on the golf course that night, my biggest desire was to hear more of the weird contoured sound coming from F. Silence is not always the only longing of the ear.


Recording of Hobart park

As the locations get farther and farther away from F, the sounds of the wind and rustling leaves become more prevalent than the noise coming from Armfield. On a clearer night at the well or at Hobart park, the music can still be heard in the distance, however in these recordings there is hardly a hint of it. On that Saturday at Hobart park you could still hear the music with a naked ear. Yet through the recording everything is lost but the soft jingle of someone walking by and the knocking of wood on wood. At the Well, even though it was the same minute, the world was reportedly completely silent. Only the sounds of  leaves scraping on the ground and the grain of iphone audio can be heard on the recording. The opposite of F, nothing could be heard because there was nothing to be heard. So far away from all of the lively dorms, even on the loudest nights it is expected to hear nothing but silence there. The silence never fails to impress me as I walk away from the apartments. No matter how noisy one particular minute at F is, at the same moment there is still peace and quiet found near the well.

Recording from the well

In an article pondering the marketing potential of Finland’s natural noiselessness, Daniel Gross proposes that “In a loud world, Silence sells” (Gross). In an increasingly noisy world, silence is perceived as more of a boon than a burden. As much as I believe in the importance of silence Davidson would not be the same without its noisy Saturday nights. Out in North Carolina, silence is worth less to me than it was in a city like Washington. We are lucky to live in a place where finding silence is as easy as walking out 10 minutes into the woods, or even on a lucky night, walking out to the Davidson well. Noise is too often understood as something unwanted. Beauty can come from the ugly mass of noise that is F. Hearing the echoes bounce back and forth in between Cannon and Sentelle, the windy noise flowing out onto the golf course, the quiet murmur audible at Hobart park, something so massive can become so very small and easily manageable. The same noise at any given place on campus has the ability to be heard as something good. Enjoying dissonance is not something entirely confined to the Davidson environment. Marinna Guzy created a soundscape called Utopia that is based on “The beauty that arises from conflict”. The piece contrasted a soundscape’s both “micro and macro levels” that were both needed to “paint a picture of the diverse makeup of a community” (Guzy). While the location of the recording may contribute to a micro feature of the soundscape, the macro feature throughout all of Davidson Saturday night is the noise of F. While the sounds of F are nearly ubiquitous on campus, each chosen location presents them in their own unique ways.

With all of these noises from all of these different places, it is important to develop an understanding of the way to listen to them. Michel Chion breaks listening down into three basic listening modes. The most nuanced of the three is a concept of ‘reduced listening’. The concept, originally coined by R. Murray Schafer, is taken one step further, to define noise as something to be observed in and of itself, rather than simply a vehicle for something else. It is something incredibly hard to do, to perceive noise without regard to “any cause, meaning, or effect” (Chion, 50). Yet in an “omnidirectionally” noisy location such as F, the ambiguous nature of noise is able to come out (Chion, 53). At all of the other locations of campus, the sound is recognized and immediately understood as coming from F. Yet at the place itself, in the chaos of sound, all cause, intent, purpose, and meaning is stripped from sound, and people are able to enjoy a unique case of pure noise. Another sound philosopher, John Cage says in an interview on silence, “I don’t need sound to talk to me”. He “loves sounds just as they are” (Cage, 2:41). While all of those locations have their merits, at 11:59 on a Saturday night, there is no more unique a soundscape as the one that comes from Armfield.

Bibliography:

Schafer, R. Murray. "The Soundscape." In The Sound Studies Reader. Edited by Jonathan Sterne, New York, Routledge, 2012

Chion, Michel. "The Three Listening Modes."  In The Sound Studies Reader.  Edited by Jonathan Sterne, New York, Routledge, 2012.

Gross, Daniel A. "This Is Your Brain on Silence." Pocket,
getpocket.com/explore/item/this-is-your-brain-on-silence.
Accessed 8 Apr. 2019. 

Guzy, Marinna. "The Sound of Life: What Is a Soundscape?" Folklife,
4 May 2017, folklife.si.edu/talkstory/the-sound-of-life-what-is-a-soundscape.
Accessed 8 Apr. 2019. 

"John Cage about silence." Youtube.com, uploaded by Jdavidm, 
14 July 2007, www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcHnL7aS64Y. Accessed 8 Apr. 2019.   

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Universality in Language

By James Shakow

People don’t talk about Ideophones because they can’t fully comprehend them. It can be scary to hear a word and feel something innate without knowing why. With all the connotations associated with language, people, especially English speakers have a hard time seeing a word for anything but the sense that we have ascribed to it. Most of the words in any language, and almost all the words in the English language, are not ideophones but instead simply arbitrary sounds that do not have any inherent meaning other than their defined sense. In his journal Armoskaite explores other languages, especially non-romantic languages such as Ewe from Ghana, Navajo from the American west, Japanese and Basque, that have evolved in a way more ideophonic and less abstract than the English language. Ideophones are words that carry objective significance to any given listener regardless of language, cultural background, or personal experience. Similar to onomatopoeic words, gestures, and some universal human noises, (i.e. crying or laughter), ideophonic words are comprehensible across language barriers. Ideophones push the limits of human communication by incorporating sound sensory into language; they enforce Stearns notion that words have more meaning behind them than their simple definitions.

Ideophones are inherently subconscious. Because each one is relatable on a visceral primordial level, they can be understood regardless of what language they’re spoken in. As Armoskaite describes it, “ideophones lead speakers to unconsciously endow particular sounds with specific sensory meanings”. In the way that a ‘K’ or ‘T’ sound could feel inherently sharp, the heaviness of a ‘G’ or a ‘B’ is palpable to the ear. He claims that ideophones “play a central role in very large theoretical questions about the parallels between verbal and nominal domains”. The line between verbal communication and non-lingual conversation is blurred. Ideophones carry an intuitive meaning that does not need to be auditory to be understood. While they do carry specific meanings in the language they are native to, a non-speaker could still comprehend the objective sense of an ideophone. Robson uses the Japanese examples of “wakuwaku” as an evocation of excitement, “nunurunu” as sliminess, and “gorogoro” as heaviness. Because of the different vowel and consonant sounds present in these words, on a subconscious level, we automatically comprehend them as something more ‘exciting’ or ‘slimy’ or ‘heavy’ rather than ‘dull’, ‘dry’ or ‘light’. The way we perceive the sounds in these words tricks our brain into giving them specific descriptive characteristics because of their ideophonic properties.

The easiest way to comprehend ideophones is to look at them in the context of another language. If we ignore the preconceived notions we have about English we are able to look at language in a solely vocal lens and gain more from the concept of the ideophone. The Basque language has more than 4,000 ideophones that follow the same vocal principals that Robson examines in his article. Similar vocal sounds connote similar meanings in Japanese and Basque, Ewe and English alike. This is not due to change. In his topical essay, Iraide Ibarretxe-antuñano claims that “recent research on this topic has shown that these elements are pervasive in all languages and that they might share some linguistic characteristics across languages.” Ideophones are universal communicators, and the English language doesn’t take as much advantage of them as many others do.

Ideophones can communicate feelings across languages, but famously they have been able to convey feeling through invented words. In Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky, he juxtaposes his own fantasy words with a story in English. Even though these words have never appeared anywhere else and we have no prior connotations with them, we are able to ascribe meaning to them through ideophonic notions.

Having never heard of a “Jabberwock”, we can assume from the hard ‘R’ and ‘K’ sounds it is something dangerous. To describe something as “mimsy” the light ‘I’ and ‘Y’ front vowel sounds would persuade us to think that it is a light, silly word. These words out of context continue to communicate their meaning through their ideophonic properties. The unfamiliarity of the words forces the audience to read them out loud in their minds and prescribe their own meaning to each one. They may draw some small features from context, but like a child learning a language for the first time, Robeson’s concept of “sound symbolism” can help an unfamiliar audience comprehend what is being said. From the Caimbridge University Journal, Lupyan and Casasanto explain that in the context of ideophones, “nonsense words function indistinguishably from conventional words” when considering their sound symbolism.

Though ideophones are primarily interpreted vocally, they are often developed into multi-sense scenes. Take the Ewe word for duck, “ɖaboɖabo” for example. Another word for duck in Ewe, “kpakpa” onomatopoetically imitates the sound of a quack, while “ɖaboɖabo” evokes a sensory scene to define duck by its waddling. In the speaking of the word a visible imitation of a duck’s waddle is essential to its communication (Westermann). Ideophones do not have to be imitations of sounds, but they can imitate entire “sensory scenes” as well (Robeson). While gestures have always been able to aid communication on some level, they are only considered to be ideophonic when they are paired with an existing ideophone. In Ndebele, a Zimbabwean language, “gesture almost always accompanies an ideophone”, and in many other languages around the world, pronounced ideophones are often related to visual or tactile gestures (Dingemanse).

One step beyond foreign language ideophones, performative ideophones  are words that are designed and used to make you feel a specific way. Performative ideophones can also be paired with iconic gestures. Jordan Scott notably uses idiophones in his live performance of blert, Stanley Kubrick and Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange coins almost an entire language of ideophones to portray a dystopian dialect, but Eddie Izzard’s ‘learning French’ comedy routine ties together gesture and language perfectly. (The applicable clip ranges from 1:45-2:42) (Warning, said clip may include profanity)

While Izzard addresses an English-speaking audience, the entire comedy of the routine is in French. By pairing an unfamiliar language with recognizable gestures, Izzard confirms the direct translation of his words are not essential to his comedy. There exists an innate comedy of noise and gestures and timing that is something universal. Like ideophones, his act transcends language barriers, and proves that words can have innate connotations regardless of their defined sense.

Research from Marcus Perlman’s experiment shows that ideophones are the connection between vocal sense and emotion. In his 2018 study, he concluded that the use of ideophonic ‘nonsense words’ could “enable interlocutors (subjects) to establish understanding in the absence of conventions.” Essentially, in an experiment where subjects created nonsense words to describe a simple emotion, action, or object, they were able to use ideophonic norms to effectively communicate their messages. A random chance rate for a subject to pick the right definition for the nonsense word was 5.6%. Perlman found that correct guesses were “highest for emotions (~60%), next for actions (~40%), and lowest for objects (~10%).” His research not only proves the existence of ideophones but introduces the notion that ideophonic words are more apt at conveying emotion than other forms of words. This remains true even if they are not part of any language at all. This is demonstrated aptly in the Four Horsemen’s “Emotional Poetry”. The concept that nonsensical words can convey deep feelings is essential to their work.

The guttural “ei ei ei” words add a sense of urgency, the rolled ‘r’s and deep throaty ‘ack’s in the evoke a sense of fear. While these made up noises do not communicate specific meanings, they are definitely able to conjure up certain emotions. Robeson claims that ‘ideophonic language is embodied’, something more physical and sensory than intelligent. The human physicality of “Emotional Poetry” is vibrantly visible. Robeson’s concept of “sensory scenes” has no better example of vocal and visual absurdity than this group of men standing around screaming into their microphones.

Ideophones are central to the idea that the words we speak have some greater meaning. That meaning may be artistic, it could be used intentionally by an author or vocal artist to make us feel in a certain way. The meaning may be practical, allowing basic human conversation to exist without a shared language. No matter what they are used for, Ideophones speak to us in ways that we cannot understand. They are one step above onomatopoeia or simple mimery, their innate meanings have “an effect on our brains even when we don’t fully understand their lexical or syntactic significance” and some scholars tend to shy away from addressing them because they are too hard to define (Lamb, McCormick – 54:15). In a modern context, when most words are arbitrary sounds that do not have inherent meanings, there is something comforting about the certainty of an ideophone. Though they are not perfect, they are the form of communication most instinctual and primordial to the human race. While one might not guess that “errinozeronte” means ‘Rhinoceros’ in Basque, they might catch on that it is heavy and dangerous and know to avoid it. Lovers of words should remember every once in a while to drop the conventions of their language, bypass their prior knowledge, and appreciate something as simple and idiosyncratic as an ideophone.

Bibliography:

Armoskaite, Solveiga. “Structuring sensory imagery: ideophones across languages and cultures.”Canadian Journal of Linguistics, vol. 62, no. 2, 6 Mar. 2017, pp. 149-53.

Robson, David. “Words as Feelings.” Edited by Sally Davies. Aeon.co, aeon.co/essays/in-the-beginning-was-the-word-and-the-word-was-embodied.

Ibarretxe-antuñano, Iraide. “Basque ideophones from a typological perspective.” The Canadien Journal of Linguistics, June 2017, pp. 196-220.

“Jabberwocky By Lewis Carroll – Read by Benedict Cumberbatch.” Youtube.com, 7 July 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_Um3787fSY&t=14s. Accessed 22 Mar. 2019.

Lupyan, Gary, and Daniel Casasanto. “Meaningless words promote meaningful categorization.”Language and Cognition, vol. 7, no. 2, 13 June 2014.

“Two classic papers on ideophones and iconicity by Westermann.” The Ideophone, 8 July 2017, ideophone.org/two-classic-papers-on-ideophones-and-iconicity-by-westermann-pdf/. Accessed 22 Mar. 2019.

Dingemanse, Mark. (2013). Ideophones and gesture in everyday speech. Gesture. 13. 10.1075/gest.13.2.02din.

“Eddie Izzard – Learning French.” Youtube, 12 Apr. 2006, www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1sQkEfAdfY. Accessed 22 Mar. 2019.

Lupyn, Gary, and Daniel Casasanto. People Can Create Iconic Vocalizations to Communicate Various Meanings to Naïve Listeners. 8 Feb. 2018.

“”The Four Horsemen’s” emotional poetry.” Youtube.com, 21 Nov. 2009, www.youtube.com/watch?v=843O0bTVKHQ. Accessed 22 Mar. 2019.

Lamb, Robert, and Joe McCormick, producers. “Ideophones: How does this word feel?” Stuff to Blow Your Mind, 19 Feb. 2019, www.iheart.com/podcast/stuff-to-blow-your-mind-21123915/episode/ideophones-how-does-this-word-feel-30583496/. Accessed 22 Mar. 2019.

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