This initial blog will be talking about the content from a few lessons we’ve had so far and about the group theme that I believe we decided on.
The lesson we had on ‘The Voice’ was one that greatly interested me as I am something of a singer myself. Within my sound art, I’ve always struggled to incorporate my voice and I feel like a big reason for that is the notion that understanding and meaning are derived from language and without it, the human voice isn’t being used to its full potential. While it wasn’t something we are formally taught in the lesson, what left a lasting impression on me was the active reluctance to use normal language in the examples we were shown as well as the case studies that are on moodle, and how that helps in conveying emotion and meaning.
Speech deprived of words means that one doesn’t have to decipher what they are hearing in terms of language as they cannot even attempt to understand that aspect. I feel like this is useful in sound art especially because it’s one of the more niche arts and sometimes the barrier to entry can be high; however, by taking out the intellectual part of the voice, all that is left is to feel what the piece is trying to stay instead of just listening.
Something I’ve been thinking about for a long time is tone and how one’s tone can completely change the meaning of what one says, and this lesson helped me link that to the voice in general instead of just language, putting in perspective the power of the voice before anything is technically said.
Another thing that stood out to me was how listeners can contribute to a sound piece. It’s not a new concept to me as everyone has heard of John Cage’s ‘4’33″’; however, the ways in which that can be applied are more numerous than I thought, from things like directly manipulating the sound created to the sound causing a physiological reaction in the listener that changes the way they hear it.
The group theme is ‘Change’, at least it was last time I checked. Honestly, I have no ideas upon hearing about this topic, not because there aren’t things to say or things I could talk about, it’s just there’s nothing I want to say or at least nothing that should be said in a project for university, unfortunately.
I’m quite stumped in the meaning behind my work so instead, I’m planning to focus more on the process. What I mean by this is making the piece interesting through how it’s made and not necessary what trying to say.
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