Sounds are all around us, and are apart of our everyday lives whether we realize it or not. In fact, many sounds we do notice and embody into our lives, such as a car’s horn honking or a bell dismissing students out of class or the most obvious sound of people communicating with each other. However, our interpretations and incorporation of these sounds into our lives is a concept many people do not often think about. Yet after this semester’s course, my interactions with the sounds around me has changed.
To illustrate, as I walk to class I hear the sounds of birds chirping, footsteps of someone walking behind me, ice clinking against my Hydroflask as the water inside sways back and forth, and the ringing of the bell tower telling me it is exactly 8am. Every Thursday I hear these same sounds on my way to class but throughout the semester the way I listen and depict them has significantly changed. Because of the exposure to sound-study scholars and other interesting sound-related concepts, I have began to be more aware of the various sounds around me and appreciate them not individually but also the result of all sounds working together in one soundscape.
While these sounds are typically always present on my walk to class, I initially was not fully aware of the many different sounds. At first, the sound of footsteps walking behind me would be been reflected as someone walking a certain distance away and eventually leading to me focusing on that noise and thinking about why the person was walking so close or why they were dragging their feet so much. Which, as Chion defines the three modes of listening he defines casual listening as, “listening to a sound in order to gather information about its cause” (Chion 48). According to his ideas, my initial listening process and interpretation was very similar to casual listening. Later on, because of the knowledge I gained from class, specifically including (which I later mention) Stoever’s explanation of listening through multiple senses, I am able to recognize these sounds more easily and I found myself absorbing them more. In other words, I interact with the sounds I hear and began to incorporate them into my life. Thus, changing my listening process towards Chion’s reducing listening mode and allowing me to appreciate them for the simple sound they are rather than judging them. Chion states reduced listening “focuses on the traits of the sound itself, independent of its cause and its meaning” (Chion 50). In the third writing project I explained how it was difficult to hear sounds and try to describe the traits without correlating it with a meaning or cause. While listening to the soundscape of commons I wrote,
“I found that while listening to the noises this way it was not only very difficult to describe but also after I did it still lead to the source of the sound. The “sound of two solid materials clinking, probably metal” was initially listened to in a way to understand the traits of the sound but it eventually lead to labeling the source of it as metal utensils.”
Not only has my way of listening to sounds changed but also what I interpret out of the sounds changed. In other words, hearing the sounds solely for their traits has led me to ignore the significance and just hear the sound as is, thus appreciating the true nature of it. Like Paul Miller, I am essentially changing the same sounds into a new meaning simply by my specific, natural approach to identify and depict them.
Furthermore, I noticed how sounds work together. Focusing on music, I realized the actual song and it’s meaning is represented from the beat and musical accompaniment of the song working with the lyrics. For example, articles and reviews on Huffington Post provided me with a perspective of understanding how the artist’s voice and musical accompaniment, individually or collectively, impacts the song’s interpretation. Which, in a previous assignment I described Taylor Swift’s cover song in relation to how she uses the same lyrics but completely changes the meaning, mood, and to most even changes the quality of the song, in relation to the article.
“In the reviews and responses on Huffington Post of Taylor Swift’s cover of the song “September” people say things like, ‘Swift lacks the passion, the liveliness, the rhythm and, frankly, the soul to properly honor the song’ and ‘No one who loves that song takes a classic and makes it sound like unseasoned chicken.’ Similarly, in class, we mentioned the way Taylor Swift removed the exciting beat and used acoustics to make the song much calmer but also changing the entire feel and meaning of the song. Furthermore, SPIN illustrates how the original song by Earth, Wind, and Fire was designed to be a purely joyful song, in fact Allee Willis says he learned the lesson to “‘never let the lyric get in the way of the groove.’” SPIN also writes, “September” is iconic has little to do with its lyrics—as White would tell you—but instead its majesty and intricate musicality.’”
Not only does this article emphasize appreciation for sounds individually but it illustrates how every aspect of the song works together. Typically, my immediate thoughts of a song came from the sound of the musical accompaniment or the lyrics. That being said, when a song has what I consider as poorly written lyrics I usually consider the entire song as a bad song. In these reviews, Taylor Swift’s version of this song in this context is considered a bad cover of a good song. However the audience of this article considers the original song as good but because Swift changed the musical accompaniment with the same lyrics, she essentially ruined the overall meaning and effectiveness of the song making it a bad song. This article illustrates how people have split apart the lyrics from the other sounds that the original song incorporates and interpret them each separately, identifying the lyrics as less significant and praising the flow of the accompaniment. Then, it describes the way Taylor’s change of sounds completely shifts the meaning of the song. Reading their analysis of the two songs opened up a new perspective to me and allowed me to further understand the creation of sounds, and the impact sounds have.
In addition to Huffington Post and similar to noticing sounds more easily, Stoever explains how another sound writer incorporates sounds and beats into listening, “Steph Ceraso, for example, urges us to think of listening as ‘multimodal,’ vibrations experienced by the entire body and interpreted in conjunction with other senses” (Stoever 15). Identifying that there are more ways to absorb sounds rather than simply through the ears opens up an additional listening opportunity thus creating a different or altered representation. I also previously responded to this quote by writing,
“It is important to understand the relationship between the different layers of music, meaning the lyrics, the musical accompaniment, and even other sounds such as ad libs… One of many examples to represent this may be how a fast tempo and beat can make the lyrics less noticeable and more something that requires focused listening.”
I very slightly touched on an example of how beat changes the way that music heard and presented in a similar way that I mentioned in my response to Taylor Swift’s cover song. However, I was able to explain it a little deeper shortly after, in which I wrote,
“The “harsh” musical accompaniment emphasizes the harshness of the police brutality, and the racial injustice of the situations and perspectives that not only the song centers around, but also the entire genre of hip-hop.”
This proves I began to take the combination of sounds and classify them into one meaning. The third writing project also gives a good explanation to this concept because the prompt asked students to write about an entire soundscape. The various sounds within the soundscape has its own significance but all together it can define the setting as an entirety and even reveal information to listeners. Paul Miller, or “DJ Spooky,” helped me make these connections most effectively, beginning with the initial response to the physical form of the book and the content. In this response, I wrote the following:
“Every bright green page highlights an important quote or concept of the book with following pages explaining it in more depth. Throughout the entire book he continues this same ‘flow’ of organization in his writing… he uses images which are commonly known to mean one thing but within the context it clearly does not mean the same thing. However, it is unclear why those specific images (to me). Furthermore this adds to the complexity of his text. Maybe looking deeper into it and truly analyzing these things will help better understand them in the same way that analyzing sounds and his text will help the understand of his ideas.”
This can be easily applied to sounds and music as how we analyze and explore the complexity of sounds determines what it tells us and how we react or interpret it for ourselves. Similar to how I noticed the flow of a song or the flow of a bunch of birds singing has defined a sound to me, the flow of his book created a structure which helped me understand the book more.
In regards to the soundscape on my way to class, the realization of how sounds work together is illustrated by the ringing of the bell interrupting the chirping of the birds. I often hear the bell ring, as it does do it every hour of every day for an entire sixty seconds. However, it never bothers me like it did when I was listening to the birds singing. I connected the birds with a relaxed feeling and purely appreciated the high pitch sound they created. Which, for me, considering the birds singing as calming was somewhat unusual because there was very many birds, much more than usual, but because I listened through a reduced listening mode I heard the true depth of the sounds rather than the constant and overwhelming chirping. Then, the loud bell ringing over and over it altered my interpretation of the sound of birds because my way of listening (similar to reduced listening) corresponded the deep, low pitched clang of the bell as disruptive. The soundscape during this moment changed from relaxing to loud and uncomfortable, illustrating the impact sounds have when they are combined.
