Soundscape Ideas July 8, 2008
While recording in different placesI was mostly attracted by musicians or sounds that characterize places. For example, many kids yelling and running are often characteristics of a playground. Some other sounds I found interesting where the animal sounds and “breaking objects” sounds. The initial ideal for my soundscape is luck, more specifically bad luck. I want to do a contrast on how a man/woman/animal can change the habitual days of people.
Hollywood Sound July 8, 2008
• How does music seduce the audience and change the meaning of a film?
Music in film helps forcing attention, setting a tone/mood, and evoking particular feelings such as suspense or happiness towards a specific scene. It also helps to enforce the themes and helps to portray a better image in the viewer’s head.
• What role does sound play in remembering a picture? Give an example from the film or from your own memory.
Unique sounds help to identify a picture, a scene, etc. Sounds that are heard in a movie and only in that movie, makes the audience reference immediately every time that particular sound is played. A good example is the whistle of Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah) from the movie Kill Bill vol 1 and 2, whenever that sound is played scenes such as her attempted murder of The Bride (Uma Thurman) pops out in whoever saw that movie.
• What material were composers given in order to compose the score? How did this process take place?
Composers were given several things in order to create what directors where looking for. They got specific scenes in which they have to create certain feelings, they also got orchestra musicians, a time indicator for the film, etc.
• How did the Music Editor “spot” the picture? What is the difference between a ’streamer’ and a ‘punch’ and how did they help the conductor to create the musical score?
The music editor “spotted” the picture by punching a hole on the film and then marking it with a white X. The punches are used when a new key has to begin with a scene, and the streamer is used to make sure the tempo of the piece in the film is synchronized.
John Cage, Silence July 3, 2008
1. How have poetry, dada, and zen influenced the work of John Cage?
His work is influenced by them in that Cage wants his work to have the characterisics that poetry, dada, and zen have, of being impalpables, versatile, and energizing.
2. How does Cage view and define “the future of music” and the role of the composer? Why was this so groundbreaking and still relatively so?
He says that modern times bring new sounds that have a technological quality, and in order for them to be pleasant and harmonic a composer must be involved to organize the sounds.
3. What commentary does Cage make regarding the invention of electrical musical instruments?
He says that electrical musical instruments are created to imitate eighteenth and nineteenth century instruments rather than evolve, however, they do make music processes more simplistic and convenient for composers and musicians.
4. How does Cage perceive silence?
Cage perceives silence as an opportunity in music which allows other sounds in the surroundings to emerge, such as the sounds of modern sculpture and architecture. He says that sounds that are not notated are called silences, but that there is no such thing as an empty space or time in music and that in those moments in which sounds are not notated there is always something else to listen to.
5. What does Cage consider the five determinants of sound to be?
The determinants of sounds are frequency or pitch, amplitude or loudness, overtone structure or timbre, duration, and morphology.
6. How does Cage feel we should change our musical habits (from more mathematical to more natural)?
He thinks that people have musical habits that are too rational and rigid. He believes that in order for music to be fully enjoyed people should let go and rejoice music more freely.
Jem Cohen’s Lost Book Found. July 1, 2008
Jem Cohen’s film evokes loneliness and melancholy that make the viewer feel overwhelmed and consumed by the city’s movement and infinite activities. The people he depicted seemed to live in solitude and apart from “reality” but always keeping an intimacy with the essence of the city. Often the shots make allusions of something that is lost or missing.
Jem Cohen’s uses repetition, camera movement and juxtaposition of the same places from different angles in order to emphasize how in New York the same places have different effects on people, their personalities and the way they experience life.
The fact that the film portrays many aspect of the everyday life of new yorkers, made me think of a very old film called Berlin, Symphony of a Big City by Walter Ruttmann . This movie shows in extreme detail from early in the morning to late night, the rhythm of Berlin, daily activities, routines, and how people is affected by this.
