A Wonderful Idea

StoryCorps was a fantastic idea. It provided an outlet for people to express themselves and to take their relationships with loved ones to a previously unknown level by simply entering an environment the promoted comfort and candor. I was surprised that so many people were actually able to open up when a facilitator was present. The StoryCorps recording studio was oddly tranquil and it seemed to lower people's inhibitions when it came to their emotions and behavior.

There's something beautiful about a relative reaching out to you to have a very meaningful conversation. Just imagine the surprise or shock you'd feel after they've revealed something that they had locked away within themselves for decades. A beloved grandmother confessed that she had been molested by her uncle to her grandson and a man breaks down and cries in front of his wife for the first time in their fifty years of marriage.

StoryCorps gave the average person a voice. The "underdogs" could tell their stories and they'd be recorded and archived for future generations to hear. I was stunned by the story of Danny and Annie. Danny truly loved Annie and it was heartbreaking when he went in to do what he knew would be his last StoryCorps session and passed away shortly afterwards. He and Annie found an audience and when he died, an overwhelming amount of people sent their condolences to Annie.

I was touched by this story and very happy that StoryCorps exists.

Westin Womack

"Creating Powerful Radio"

I thought that "Creating Powerful Radio" was an interesting reference point for conducting radio interviews. In fact, I actually took a class my freshman year at UT about conducting interviews and I felt that this article reflected many of the same lessons from that class. In my opinion, the most important rule of interviewing I learned that year was reflected in this article: eliminating questions that can be answered in one word like yes or no. I can't even begin to count how many times I've forgotten to remove these questions and ended up having a break in an interview as a result. Being able to go through an article and take out any yes, no, maybe, etc. questions took practice and repetition, but eventually became more natural and helped improve the quality of my interviews greatly. Refining and maintaining this skill goes a long way towards strengthening the flow of an interview and keeping an interviewee talking comfortably. In my interviewing experiences, this has been one of the best ways I've known to keep an interview smooth and interesting to the listener. Helping interviews to become conversational both helps and hurts an interview. The exchange often sounds natural and entertaining, but also lends itself to tangents and it becomes easy for the interviewer to talk too much. The article emphasizes this and other techniques one may use to host a successful interview. I particularly liked the suggestions of how to coax information from interviewees, as I hadn't heard about those in my interview class, and I thought they were clever. In general, though, this article resonates many of the same key points as that class did, particularly regarding how to make interviews as interesting as possible while keeping objectives of information.

Listening as Love

David Isay's "Listening as an Act of Love" was very compelling and heartfelt. It is no wonder that the recording environment that he so passionately built after his own experience of losing the recordings of loved ones would attract participants ready to share openly about their lives. StoryCorps is important in that it documents the lives of those who otherwise might be lost to time. His essay made me realize how much context is preserved through hearing the voice of a storyteller first hand rather than reading their thoughts through writing. This is also made me realize how much context is lost in photography which is probably the most widespread source of self-documentation/family history. Through the sound of someones voice would are shown their temperament and emotions in a much more tangible way. Their intonation in speaking lends much more to an audience than simple text on paper. All of the stories described were inspiring and shed light on how if we just spent more time listening to one another from a place of love, than we would realize how much we all have in common and that no single person is more important/interesting than another.

"I exist! I exist!"

Listening Is An Act of Love caused me to think about what people I've encountered in my life who's stories I would want to share with generations to come. I began to think of my close friends, then past people of my life, my family, odd acquaintances I held for some time, and most foreign of all, brief encounters with people in conversations as impermanent as the time we spent together.

But, like most, I had a strong urge to have the people closest to me tell their stories. And, I'm assuming like most, I believe that the people I choose to surround myself with are the most interesting and inspiring people there are! And that's what I think is the key to StoryCorps. The people interviewed may not be Nobel Peace Prize Winners, or CEOs. Hell, not even professors of anything. But they are champions and warriors to a different audience. And their stories have the potential to open insight that an interview with a professor never could.

StoryCorps doesn't ask that the interviewee be accomplished in a certain field, or have a measured level of success, simply that they have a story to share. And if only one listener thinks that person's story is worth sharing, then that's the only audience member needed. The project focuses on individual relationships, and caters to the two people talking in the booth, instead of ratings or commercial value. They choose to turn their attention toward making sure the story these people in the relationship share is permanent, articulated, and recorded down in history. Because every story exists, and it's existence is worth preserving. 

Responding to Listening as an Act of Love

I want to be David Isay.  His approach to recording and capturing people's stories resonated profoundly strongly (double adverb? why not...) with me.  I'm majoring in RTF, and have never been inclined to make films. Because of this, I've been interested in documentary side of the program. I've always felt that there are so many stories in the lives of the people I meet every day, that there's no reason to make one up.  People will always write stories, but there seem to be less willing to tell the stories that we're all surrounded by. But, even then, lighting, focus, framing, and the like have seemed like unnecessary stress added to the process of recording and telling people's stories.  Why not just listen to their stories, the way they've always told them?  If I can tear up reading these stories on my laptop and a coffeeshop, and even more so listening to them, why would I worry about filming them?  Not to say that documentary film doesn't have it's place, but, personally, this kind of storytelling is the kind that I would like to be involved in.

What's interesting about Storycorps, though, is that they let the stories come to them.  They set up a booth and hope people show up.  And the fact that they do, and so frequently, is a testament to the fact these these "ordinary" people are all itching to tell their own stories of heartbreak, triumph, failure, and surprise.  History is what the people who write it tell us (look at american history curriculum) and with this form of documentation, there's no twisting.  Dates and names are important in these stories, but what makes them so important is each individuals' unique perspective on the place in time that they speak of.  There can be a wealthy upper-class doctor, a homeless veteran, and a single mother all talking about the way they were affected by war.  And by replacing an interviewer with a friend or loved one, the Storycorps format allows for (ideally) the most honest stories.

I may have just spent the last twenty minutes ranting about how much I love the idea of Storycorps, but I really do.  If I could join right now I would.  Man, I'm all excited and stuff.

The Art of Listening

 I’m glad that we had an article about interviews to read. Frankly, I find the whole interview process really intimidating, but the article had some really good points to make. It seems so simple to think about: listening. But, as others have mentioned before, it’s easy to get trapped in other thoughts during interviews (technical issues, your list of questions, etc) when really, all it’s about is actually listening to the person. Another thing I think is funny is that the techniques described for interviewing are basic communication technique you are taught in psychology, communication, and workshop facilitation classes. In the facilitation seminar I took my sophomore year, my instructor really emphasized the whole listening and summarizing. This is also a technique used in psychology courses, specifically where you are being taught how to communicate better with someone: it’s all about actually listening to someone (rather than simply waiting for your turn to speak) and summarizing what YOU heard back to them in order for them to clarify whether you are actually understanding what they meant to say to you. Since these techniques are usually taught as tools for tense situations like conflict resolution between partners or facilitating workshops on subjects such as queer issues, I was initially confused that these techniques were being described as good interviewing techniques. Although interviews are a two-way communication process, I did not previously think of them as something that needed facilitating: like a conflict or a social justice workshop. But I guess thinking about it more it makes sense because these are good skills to practice just to communicate, period. Even in daily life, these help a lot. I guess it’s pretty simple: to be a good interviewer you have to start by being a good communicator.

The second article was fantastic! I did not think I would be so intrigued by the topic. It further solidified my want to use a slam poet for my first project. There is so much to be said, learned, and captured from daily, non-fiction life. Although poetry is a performance and can be fictional, I think it is still a very personal account of a person (depending on the poem). Also, poems don’t have to be fictional and the slam poems I’ve seen/heard usually aren’t. Furthermore, the fact that a slam poem is a creation that came straight from an individual makes it that much more intimate in my opinion. I have always loved poetry and I think slam poetry is unique because it is not just about the words, but the perform as well. In other words – the sound of it truly matters. A regular poem that looks good on paper might not be a good slam poem and vice versa.

I think StoryCorps does a wonderful job of documenting important history of simple people. Someone previously mentioned that this article made them realize what their focus in the class is going to be and I feel the same way. I think sound is a great way to capture these small but fundamental bits of life that often go unnoticed. I may not necessarily stick to StoryCorps’s way of doing things but the basic idea of giving a voice to those who often don’t have the opportunity to be heard or are silenced is what I entered this class with and this article has solidified my goals even more. 

Listening

These two readings were really insightful. I appreciated the Creating Powerful Radio piece for how it can actually be applied to the work we will do in this class and hopefully further into the future. I have done a few documentary projects for classes over the years and this short article would have helped my interviewing process so much. Especially when dealing with nervous interviewees and subjects that aren't very clear in their answers. But one thing I especially took away from this article is the idea of letting the conversation of the interview flow naturally. More often than not I have conducted interviews with a list of questions in front of me and after each answer I would just move on. It wouldn't be until later in post that I would hear an answer and realize I had more questions based on that response. Listening is clearly the most powerful tool an interviewer possesses and I hope to remember that in future projects.

The second reading Listening is an Act of Love actually inspired what I believe will be my focus for this classes projects. The story of LeAlan interviewing his grandma left a powerful impression with me and I kept thinking about how little I know of my grandparents, and especially my grandpa. Over the last year I have been "digitizing" my grandpa's old 8mm films. Not in the fancy expensive ways, but I have merely been videoing them off a screen while projecting. A good number of his reels are just family videos with my mom and two aunts growing up over the years, but the majority of his 8mms are travel reels. He traveled all over the world. Early in his life he served in the military and traveled while in service but even after that he traveled every chance he could get. He has reels from Alaska, Peru, Prague Russia, and many more. But even though I have viewed these films I have never had a one-on-one conversation with my grandfather. I have loads of questions about his experiences abroad and why traveling intrigued him so much. My grandpa was the smartest man I knew and he had something to say about every topic of conversation one could think of, but a few years ago he had a stroke, and at 78 years old I fear he might not be with us much longer. I feel this class will be a great opportunity to capture his voice and his stories forever; in the same vein of StoryCorps. I will still submit three project 1 ideas but I am pretty sure this will be my focus for the rest of the class projects if that is possible.

Listening as an Act of Love Response

David Isay's reflections on the StoryCorps project illustrates the unique powers of sound as a medium. The intimacy of the recording space in the StoryCorps trailer simultaneously allows folks to connect with the person across from them and feel like their story is part of something much bigger. I think this is partially due to the performative nature of the liminal space created in the booth. Isay mentions that people would tell stories they had told a thousand times, but the interview companion and facilitator listened intently. The booth is a unique place, outside of the participants everyday lives, where they can simply tell their stor, even if it's been told a thousand times, and feel like it has meaning and purpose. 

 It's interesting to think about this recording project compared to something similar that might be executed on youtube or elsewhere on the internet. I am thinking about the "It gets better project" started by Dan Savage, where people shared their coming out stories through online videos. This project also created a space for stories of "regular" people. I think the difference between something video based that exists online and the StoryCorps project is that the radio project has a sense of intimacy and permanence that empowers the storyteller. StoryCorps is about sitting across from someone else and listening as much as it is about producing content. Secondly, it allows the participants to feel like they have contributed something that will last. The stories shared for "it gets better" will hopefully survive on the internet and in the minds of the teens who need to hear those stories, but the archiving involved with the StoryCorps project allowed the participants to feel like "they exist." 

After hearing the excitement of an interviewee, Isay Exclaims, "I realized as never before how many people among us feel completely invisible, believe their lives dont matter, and fear they'll someday be forgotten."A few years ago I did a podcast recording project with a group of ELL (English Language Learning) 3rd graders where they wrote, performed, and recorded their own stories. I often do projects where the writing is acted out in a final performance, but this was the first time I had ever set the end goal as a recorded vocal performance. The students struggled through the writing and were embarrassed about their English skills during the recording. I coached them through it, trying to help them find confidence in their speaking skills. In the end it wasn't perfect, but I mixed down the recordings and added some background effects and music. I played the recording for the class and when they heard their voices their entire faces lit up with delight. They had that same sense of "I exist" that David Isay talked about. The teacher later told me that they wanted to listen to the recording over and over again, day after day. 

Listening Is An Act of Therapy

     I have so many different reactions to this I don't know where to begin, so I guess I'll begin at the end, with Annie and Danny.
     I don't know if I've ever been so moved so quickly by a story. Just the little bit on Annie and Danny in these four-ish pages is enough to evoke an emotional response equal to or greater than my response to the opening scene of Up. The best part about this too is that it's real-it's not fictional. Annie and Danny make a real-life story that would put the Notebook to shame. And this is a perfect example of Story Corps achieving its goal. It has instantly proven to me how we don't need to make up stories to find amazing tales, but instead we only need to look next door.
     I had never heard of anything being done like this project before, but now that I know it exists, I only wonder why it isn't any bigger. I am happy that these recordings are making their way into the Library of Congress because I want it to be known that we are not a people completely consumed by celebrities and fabricated people--that we can find interest in the people all around us. I think that Story Corps does a very good job of showing the beauty of the everyday person. I don't really know how exactly to respond to this article because I am in such support of everything they're doing that I feel like I can only hash out cliched responses about what I just read. I just love everything about this.
     I especially love the title, "Listening Is An Act of Love." As I first started reading about what Story Corps is, it reminded me a lot of therapy more than of storytelling. Studies published by professors from our University talk about how simply writing down one's thoughts is perhaps one of the best forms of therapy available as it gets people to work through situations in their mind-it forces people to think about what they are writing about. This to me immediately struck me as an auditory version of writing therapy. Contrary to popular belief, therapy isn't just for those that suffer great mental distress. It is also for people in everyday life. It can help people deal with almost any situation better. This way of sitting down with someone and talking things through, for many people, seems to be therapy. I'm sure for many more its just a way to have a good time and share good stories. And I love that. But I also feel like they stumbled onto something more in conceiving this project. One of the stated goals of Story Corps is to help its participants and I believe they are doing that in ways that are even deeper than they could have envisioned when first beginning Story Corps.


P.S.: I was much more into this reading and this story than I thought I would be. This is amazing.

--Josh Hernandez

The Stories People Tell

This was such a deeply personal experience for me because my most cherished memories with my loved ones are usually stories they tell me. This is particularly true with my Granddad, whom I hope to record for the first project, because he may look like a "normal" old man but he has lived a wonderful life and relates it so beautifully. One of my favorite stories is, of course, about him and my Memaw. They have been married for over 50 years.

When they were first dating, my Granddad was away at a Marine camp. He kept a picture of her in his locker always and one day, one of his buddies noticed the picture. "What movie star is that?" My Memaw was so beautiful, she must have been in movies. There are 100 other stories that they could tell, but that one always stands out as a bright star to me about their relationship.

Dannie and Annie's story from Storycorps reminded me very much of them. Through storytelling, especially over time, you find out that people are not just stereotypes or demographics. They each have a thousand details that make them unique and make their relationships irreplaceable. That's what makes Storycorps so great: the ability to relate uniqueness, but also the sense of patriotism, humanity, and kindness that any person is capable of feeling.

Listening.

Listening. This is a topic that I've personally been learning about a lot lately. I knew what it was to listen to people. I've always loved hearing people's stories, absorbing friend's teary outbursts, and taking in conversations all around me. But recently, I was having a conversation with someone, reflecting on normal childhood things. They asked a simple question: "You've spoken about what happened, but how did you feel? What did you think about?" That one simple question made me realize the importance of listening and being listened to. I had seen other people enjoy speaking and I surely enjoyed listening. But that moment made me realize the authority you're given when someone wants to know your story. When someone asks you a question that you've never been asked before that you've been dying to talk about, you're given agency and validity. Your story is now important.

That's exactly why the part that struck me the most from these readings was the short selection from Carl Faber's book "On Listening." The sentiment expressed in this excerpt resonates so deeply with me. Not only is it true in my own life, this is what intrigues me about the documentary approach to storytelling. The poetry that comes out of everyday life is astonishing. Normal people have incredibly powerful stories. And we, as storytellers, can give that someone the chance to be listened to.

This is particularly true in the current era of technology. Everything's so accessible. The opportunities are available for anyone to share their story. This is clear in the other piece we read, "Listening is an Act of Love." Everyone has a story to tell if they're just given the opportunity. And with StoryCorps, they were. From the lavishly loving elderly couple to the entire Cantonese community of Chinatown. All it takes is someone to listen. These articles re-inspired my love for listening to people. Not merely hearing the words their saying, but actively absorbing their story. As Faber says: "This experience of freedom and communion helps us to feel that someone is for us. And it is this deep sensing of someone, somewhere being for us that breaks into the silent loneliness of our lives and encourages us in the struggle to be human."

Act of Love/Creating Powerful Radio

     I found this reading to be very uplifting and interesting as well.  The storycorps project appears to be a very effective tool in archiving the everyday people in modern day society.   The author's journey from a low-budget project to a popular past-time hosted in several different sites, is inspiring for people of all interests and passions.  The idea of someone wanting to start up a project like this one, is admirable.  But to get numbers of people from all over to realize the significance of their stories and come in to participate is truly remarkable.  I can relate to one particular story the author notes in the reading.  He tells of how one of the men from the flophouses in New York City celebrated when he found about his documented story.  The man dances around shouting, "I exist!"  That idea holds alot of meaning in my own love for audio recording.  I can remember a few years back when the music scene in my hometown was much more lively than it is now.  My band was the reason I got interested in audio and recording.  All the local bands in the area had a common idea of how to get their name out into the scene.  Everyone wanted people to remember the name of their band.  No matter what happened years from then, what was most important is that somewhere down the line, people would look back and be able to recall that your band was around and active once.  Most bands wanted to do this by performing as much as possible.  My idea of how to remain around is a bit different. I was less focused on performing and more interested in audio recordings.  If I could get my music onto audio files, they were more likely to be around longer than I was.  To record my songs would be to preserve them for years to come.  Years from now, people could find my music and know that our band once existed.  Our music could "exist" longer than we could.  The storycorps sounds like a great experience for anyone interested in preserving something they love.

Janet Cardiff and her dummy head microphone

And here is a terrific article from NYT this summer about her work. 

Janet Cardiff, George Bures Miller and the Power of Sound

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/29/magazine/janet-cardiff-george-bures-miller-and-the-power-of-sound.html

4'33"

         My most memorable and transformative experience with sound was in the Sound Art course I took during a pre-college summer program at SMFA Boston. I had no idea what to expect from the course, and had no knowledge of what "Sound Art" even was. One day we listened to John Cage's 4'33". Many people consider this piece four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence, but for me it was so much more than that. During the performance of this work musicians would sit with their instruments and would be instructed to sit and not play for the 4'33". It made me aware of all the sounds of my environment that I took for granted or payed no attention to. It also made me aware of the notion of "silence" that I previously held was misinformed. There is never true silence, even in a vacuum (without the sounds of our environment) our bodies still make sounds.  This awakening to the sound of my environment inspired me to keep a "sound journal". I keep a small recorder in my bag and record the different sounds of my changing environments when something gets my attention or interests me. Through this experience I feel that I have become much more aware of my enviornment and how much sound affects our daily lives.



Here are some links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcHnL7aS64Y&feature=related

http://www.rosewhitemusic.com/cage/texts/WhatSilenceTaughtCage.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUJagb7hL0E&feature=related

just for fun Nicolas Cage 4'33":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKdeNv3Rlv0&feature=youtu.be

The Sound of Flights

My most memorable experience with sound actually pertains to a shock I experienced when faced with an absence of a particular sound I was used to constantly hearing. Growing up in Flower Mound, Texas, I perpetually heard the sounds of planes entering and leaving DFW airport, which is located just south of the great town of Flower Mound. Night and day, great rushes of mobile machines moving through the sky rained down upon our ears. The sound was a daily affirmation of the never ceasing transportation taking place in the world above, a sound that I became used to and eventually stopped noticing.

How odd, though, to suddenly have that sound taken away. After the World Trade Center Attacks, the town became eerily quiet due to the lack of air transportation in the days that followed. It was strange how the consistency of the plane roars took on a role of comfort when I was faced to go about my day without them flooding my soundscape. Without the one-after-the-other rumbles coming from the sky, the calmness and silence was unnerving. Something was missing.

Soon enough, the planes began to take back off the runways, and to again pass above us while flying in from cities elsewhere. But the days when they were sedentary remained memorable for me. I think this took hold in my memory because I experienced how powerful of an impact the auditory world one exists in daily can have.

John Cage

A terrific piece on ATC today about what would have been John Cage's 100th birthday.  Totally worth a listen.

http://www.npr.org/2012/09/05/160618202/music-is-everywhere-john-cage-at-100

Sound and Language

     I think one of the most interesting ways in which sound occurs is in spoken language. I am bilingual. I speak both English and Spanish and I have to say that there is something about the different language sounds that makes each language have its own mood and poetry. It seems to me that much in the same way that different instruments, although producing the same note, have different colors and tambers, so too, do languages.
     I am taking a class called Cognitive Psychology of Music where we explore, basically, the physics of sound. At least so far, the class seems to have little to do with psychology itself. All we have done is explore how sound is created, what gives notes different colors, and acknowledge that music is a purely psychological experience of humans (and some other animals, like primates) that remains largely a mystery. Somehow, sound seems to be linked to our memories and helps us make meanings of the world and I think this is something that starts very early on. Example: language.
     Spanish is a completely different musical genre from music and you can do things with it that you cannot with English. You can feel things with it that you cannot with English. At least, this is how I experience it. I think it is linked to memory because a line from one of Cherrie Moraga's poems comes to mind; it describes the sounds of the word "tortilla" literally mimicking the making and rolling of tortillas in your tongue and by female relatives' hands gathered around a table, passing down their wisdom to the young ones.
     I think the way everyone experiences sound is incredibly intimate because it is one of the senses most strongly linked to memory. I think the fact that it is so critical to capture the notes of a language in young life in order to master the music of a language, it must mean something deep is happening with memory and meaning. That is what amazes me about sound. It's importance in early life for later life, and the psychological responses we have to them. For me, English and Spanish are two different musical genres and I feel blessed to have the privilege of knowing how to hear and dance to both. It makes me wonder what other types of music and feelings exist out there that I probably can't even imagine.

Projects With Sound

Over the summer, I took RTF318, probably my most extensive experience recording and editing sounds for movies. During this time, I was able to use a little DV camera and a boom with several microphones to take in all the sounds for my projects. While this was my best experience with sound and video recording, the semester before actually taught me a lot more about the difficulties of sound.

For the final project in my introductory Spanish class, we were put into groups and instructed to create a short, creative project meant to teach basic language skills. My group mates and I decided that we would do a short film project in Spanish, making fun of those awful videos they always use in language classes. This soon became an issue as I didn't have the access to video equipment afforded by 318 enrollment. Instead, we were forced to use the video option on a digital camera borrowed from a classmate. In addition to taking video with poor resolution, the camera barely captured sound at all, making the creation of an educational video quite difficult. After many, many takes I was still left with a portion of video that had terrible sound quality. Wind noise drowned out a great deal of the dialogue we shot outside, while the indoor shots were restricted by sounds like air conditioners and crowd chatter. When I took the video home to edit, It turned out that the format of this camera didn't work with my video editing software, forcing me to download and learn a new editing software to complete the project. Through all of the process, I came to despise parts of the editing process, especially managing the sound which was of such poor quality that I cut most of it for the sake of comprehension. However, through all of the frustrating sound issues, I managed to put a good project together which forced me to learn a great deal about sound. So, when the next semester came around, I felt extremely well prepared for editing and sound design in my 318 class. It just took one really crappy sound experience.

capturing sound

    My interest in audio can be traced back to my love of music.  Around the end of fifth grade, a growing appreciation for music was beginning to take over me. I always knew music was around, but it was only then that I began to want to hear music on a daily basis. Ending the elementary phase of my life and entering middle school, I was now starting to identify with music and and the words and sounds that came out of it. 
    Not long after beginning middle school, I decided I not only wanted to hear music, I wanted to make my own.  My love for music had grown too big for just appreciation and listening.  I had to write my own.  Naturally, as a growing, emotionally distraught adolescent, I started a metal band with school friends.
    As a couple of years went by and our band grew in popularity amongst the local music scene in our city, we all felt that it was the right time to get our music onto our first recording.  After searching for a short while we finally came across someone to record us.  Though his name slipped my mind then and still now, it was in that person's audio studio that I became deeply intrigued by the recording and editing process of sound. After arriving to his studio, we hauled our equipment inside.  I set whatever it was that I was carrying down on the ground and then looked around. I remember first seeing the glass between me and the computers and mixers in the other room. I was standing in the main sound booth, in which the drums were recorded.  Another smaller sound booth was used to record guitars and vocal tracks.  I can remember walking up a short set of stairs into the main room where all the recording equipment and computers were.  It was an impressive sight to see all this audio equipment set up and even more impressive to see it all work.
   I can remember watching the owner of the studio recording something we'd play and then playing it back and listening. He would change something and mess with things in his software, and then listen to it again.  He would then change it again and hear again. Though I was completely lost and unable to make sense of what exactly he was doing, it all looked so impressive. He had a whole studio of expensive equipment and he knew how to use it well.  It was impressive to watch this man capture the sounds that came out of our instruments and arrange them together into one piece. I think that it was then that a new interest started to grow.  I wanted to be able to do all those things he could, for myself and for others.  I wanted to be able to record our music ourselves rather than going to someone else.  I wanted to be able to record for those who couldn't. I just wanted to record.
   Now, after studying film and all, my interest in recording has grown into an interest in not only recording but also editing in both music and film.  Wherever I can end up, whether it be music or film, I will be happy as long as it is in audio.

More Experience Needed

I worked with blending audio and visuals in RTF 318-Intro to Image and Sound. I've recorded some of my own musical ideas and I intend to develop them even more as full, well recorded compositions. Obviously, I would like to gain more experience.

Memory of Sound

        My most memorable experience with sound was hearing the recorded voice of a deceased relative for the first time after their death. The emotional impact of this experience was even greater than viewing this person in a photograph. In hearing the seemingly living voice of someone who was no longer alive I realized that what Roland Barthes expresses about photography (it's deep relationship with memory and loss) is equally or more relevant to the medium of sound. In my experience, the memory of a person's physical appearance lasts much longer than the memory of their voice. I also feel there is something deeply unique and personal about sound due to its non-visual nature.

City Sounds

My first instinct when considering how to answer this prompt was to talk about music.   Being a musician, a deejay, and a avid fan of live music, it's hard not to incorporate music into most of my endeavors. However, the more I thought about it my most memorable sonic experience has nothing to do with music; live or recorded. 

As much as I enjoy a good concert, and as many significant moments in my life that have been soundtracked by some incredible songs, it was a lack of music that I found most impactful.

After moving to Austin, I quickly developed a love of urban cycling; it's slower than driving and allows you to see and listen to a city in much greater detail (and I'm not patient enough to walk). At the end of many nights, I would escape my dorm and bike down to the Long Center, right on the southern shore of Ladybird Lake.  I would start the ride with my headphones plugged in and my music turned up loud, and once I arrived at the Long Center,  I would sit and watch the city while listening to my favorite records. 

One night, though, I got a little sick of the constant noise blasting through my headphones, so I took them out and planned to sit in silence.  What I heard was nothing like what I expected. A city is anything but quiet.  The sound of Austin can be taken as one single wash of sound, but, as I sat there, I started to pick out the different pieces that were making up the dull roar I was hearing. I heard the cars first. Then I heard a muffled conversation down by the lack. Sirens would occasionally soar in and out of the scene.  Below of this, there was a sort of rumble that was coming from all of the buildings of the city themselves. I kept listening and kept hearing more new sounds; whether it was a bat flying overhead, the footsteps of a passerby, or my own breath.  I sat, fascinated at the fact that I'd never noticed how intricate a city's soundscape is.  

After this night, I've made a point to listen to all of the places I visit, and each one is completely unique.  New York's subway squeals, the chatter of all sorts of languages being spoken on the Charles Bridge in Prague, the way the Pacific waves almost echo off of the mountains that surround Vancouver, or the actual silence of West Texas at night.

The night at the Long Center taught me how to listen to and appreciate not only the physical qualities of different places, but their sonic landscapes as well.

My Sound Experience by Josh Hernandez

            Its tough to nail down the experience with sound that has most impacted me as I can immediately think of several instances where sound has had a profound effect on me—several times where I was overwhelmed and dumbfounded at what I was experiencing. There was the first time I entered the DJ booth and was engulfed in the sound and the voices of my friends and myself. There was the first time I remember hearing a truly remarkable story sitting around a campfire at one of a hundred campouts, or even just being able to listing to the outdoors all those nights after the campfires.

            However, I can recall one moment above the rest that will never leave my mind as long as I live. It pertains to a box of music I found a few years ago. I was searching through an old truck that was long past use when I came across a box of CDs. As I rummaged through them, some of them scratched, some of them dusty, all of them used and loved, I found pieces of a personality, pieces of a person past. The first CD was just a piece of 90’s history, Doubt by Jesus Jones—I never liked it very much. Another was the soundtrack to a movie I’d seen way too much of as a kid—Kill Bill. Tarintino movies always seem to have the best soundtracks. In a moment I was no longer playing CDs on a truck stereo, but instead, I was on a couch having a pickle eating contest with my father watching some movie that would keep me terrified until the next Saturday where we would repeat the process with a different cheesy terror. This week we chose to go with an action movie instead and watched Tarintino’s Kill Bill. So Uma Thurman kicked some ass, we ate some pickles, the movie ended, and I was back in the truck, flipping through the tracks to a CD that was so old, the yellow had faded to a tan. I found a couple of mariachi and Spanish pop CDs that my dad listened to even though he couldn’t understand a word of them. It was what he grew up with, even if he didn’t grow up with the language. On the way to work he would put on a mariachi CD and I’d ask, “what’re they saying?” My dad would respond with a, “how am I supposed to know?” And we’d both laugh and keep on driving and talking and joking about whatever was going on at the time. Each one of those CDs, and each one of those tracks, was more than just music, more than just notes strung together. Each song was a part of his personality to laugh about, and each song was a memory I had with my father. As I looked through that old box of CDs, each song affected me more and more. Every track brought back another wonderful memory. I was taken by every memory and overwhelmed with emotion.

            That one experience, that one hour or so of listening to different songs off different CDs, had a bigger impact on me than any other time listening to anything, that I can remember. My father had passed away a month or so earlier and I was just beginning to go through his things. One of the first items I found was that box of CDs in his truck. Most of them weren’t very good CDs thinking about it now, but as I was listening to them at that moment, I was taken to a different place. I could remember each site, sound, smell, and the feeling that accompanied each memory as vividly as if I was still there.  That single experience with sound was the most powerful I’ve had and one that will stick with me the rest of my life.

--Josh Hernandez

Fondest Listening Memory-Mary Beth

It may be somewhat cliche these days, but I am absolutely enamored (still) with Sigur Ros. Whenever I listen to a song, I imagine the visuals and/or story that would go with it; this is especially meaningful to me with instrumental-type songs that come from Sigur Ros. When I listened to their song, Ara Batur, I imagined the end of a post-apocalyptic film where two characters had to reach a boat to escape a city that is about to be destroyed.

Here is a link to the song if anyone wants to listen.

So that was my crazy picture to this orchestral beauty of a song. A few months ago, I looked up the English translation of the Icelandic lyrics out of curiosity. I discovered the song is actually about being on a boat!

How amazing is it that Jonsi and Sigur Ros are able to convey a sense of the ocean and sailing with only instruments and vocalic singing? The power of music and sound to convey emotions and images of all kinds is important to me.

1984 Sound Memory

My Freshmen year I was at UTSA in the CAP program in order to transfer to UT. My strategy was to make no friends in San Antonio. That way I wouldn't be attached to that school in any way once I left. So I mainly spent all my time with my roommates or alone. And while I was alone I started listening to audio books because at the time I was incapable of reading anything longer than a few paragraphs on the internet.

That year I learned the reason why all kids want their parents to do the voices of all the characters in the stories they read. The first book I listened to was George Orwell's 1984. The man who narrated the book was great. He had a low voice and brought so much excitement to every word. And he did the voices.

I have no doubt that if I had actually read 1984 I would have easily been lost in Orwell's story. I would have created a very detailed version of the characters and the world. I would imagine all the actions like a movie happening before my eyes. This sort of imagination is lost when one sees a movie. Because the characters have faces and the world is a film set and not very much is visually left up for the viewer's own interpretation.

But the experience of personally forming a mental representation of the world an author presents is not exclusive to actually reading the book. What I experienced that year was possibly the same thing I would have experienced if I had read the book. The only thing that is lost is the listeners version of what each character's voice sounds like. But the reader of 1984 did a good job at conveying personality differences in character's inflections which was just enough to really put me in the story. He captured the appropriate tone for different moments in the story and he enunciated the descriptions giving time for my imagination to paint the details he was describing. And just as Orwell intended when writing, my mind would fill in the blanks for what he did not describe in detail. This is the power of literary text that allows a reader to bring their own experiences and interpretations to the story.

I still listen to audiobooks three years later and I still think they are a powerful way to enter the stories that authors create for us. I can close my eyes and just let the text flow over me while I create the world of the story behind my eyelids. It's arguable that there are actually less distractions in experiencing a book this way than reading.

The story of 1984 had a big impact on me at that time in my life [teenage angst politics, similar to films like V for Vendetta]. My first year at UT I took a digital media class and for the audio assignment I made an audio piece using excerpts from the BBC film version of 1984, philip glass music, and a cover of Daniel Johnston's True Love will Find You in the End. That was my first audio assignment in a production course here at UT. I am excited for the opportunity to create more stand alone audio pieces in this class.

Sound Memory: This American Life's "Living Without"

Personally, I tend towards non-fiction work of all kinds. Whether it's in literature, film, photography, or radio, I love hearing and telling the stories of real, existing people. This American Life is a favorite documentary radio program of mine and my favorite show is one that I listened to last year. It's called "Living Without." Act one is the one that struck me the most and it became my example of explaining to non-listeners what TAL is all about. Act one is called "Do You Hear What I Hear?" and it's the story of a man who has tinnitus, a constant ringing noise in his ear. The show is produced with the constant ringing in the background, so the story is truly only tangible if you listen to it with headphones. There's no way to properly realize the annoyance of this noise visually. Hearing the sound, a d-flat in the right ear and a c in the left ear, while the story progresses puts you into the mind of this man. It's maddening. The story only draws you in more from there. A few minutes into the story, the man's daughter reveals that she has hearing loss. Hearing loss of the exact tone that the man hears all the time. Here's the selection from the transcript:

Abby Alexanian

I can't hear one of the tones that you ear.

Nubar Alexanian

So you didn't hear the tone in my right ear?

Abby Alexanian

No, I couldn't hear the high one, because I'm missing that. That's part of my hearing loss. I'm missing that particular frequency in both my ears.

Nubar Alexanian

So you can't hear the sound--

Abby Alexanian

I can't hear the sound that you hear all the time.

Nubar Alexanian

At all.

Abby Alexanian

At all.

Nubar Alexanian

That's incredible, though, don't you think?

Abby Alexanian

I don't know. It's too much of a coincidence.

All in all, the story's about more than hearing things and not hearing things. It's about being forced into a new life. Because of his loss of hearing, he has to stop working. He has to slow his life down. He has to be with his child as she's growing up. It's about acceptance and patience and the importance of family. 

This simple, seventeen-minute story blew my mind when I first heard it. The realization that a story about all these big, human emotions and conflicts can be realized in a story about such a simple thing: tinnitus. And that this particular story was perfectly realized with only sound. The audio was the most important aspect of this story, because it placed you in the mind of the protagonist in a way that visuals or words wouldn't be able to do. And, additionally, that the story was produced by the man himself, Nubar Alexanian, for transom.org, a website that enables the public and new storytellers to tell their stories for the radio. The comparably low cost of producing a piece for radio (rather than producing a short film or movie) allows for a wider range of people to tell their own stories. 

My Sound Memory - Noah

  I used to be a sound designer for a low budget DIY theatre company with some friends in Portland, Oregon. I was charged with sound designing John Lennon's Gargoyle, the company's first show outside of our garage. The play traces the misfortunes of a 30 something father through a gritty 1980's "graphic novel-esque" New York as he tries to recover his memory and rid himself of a gargoyle that grows in size with his troubles. The title references the play's use of interwoven Beatles lyrics, music, and folk lore.   

I spoke with the director about design ideas and we decided to challenge ourselves to produce an actor run sound design entirely on cassete tapes. We agreed that the scratchy canned sound quality matched the aesthetic of the show and the business of actors carrying the deck around stage would be an innovative way to suggest changes in location. For days on end, we scoured Portland's thrift stores for vintage tape decks and eventually found "tina" our tiny pink, blue, and white tape deck wonder machine. We soon discovered that while she was perfect for pumping Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan tunes into our bathroom during showers, that she wasn't loud enough for an audience to hear during a performance. We returned to the thrift jungle and after several more days of digging through Goodwill's  distribution center, found Tina's much louder metallic silver counter part, "Tammy". 

To make the sound design, I spent hours transferring recordings from tape to tape, cd to tape, and computer to tape to produce several color coded cassette tapes. The actors would retrieve these tapes from strategically planned locations and play them throughout the performance. The music on the tapes was meant to mix with sound effects and additional music that would play over the PA.   

Every night without fail something would go wrong in the sound design. A tape would stop playing, a tape was misplaced, volume levels weren't set correctly, or an actor couldn't get Tammy's buttons to work. Every night I had a new headache to deal with and grew increasingly frustrated with my design choice.  

Then, just as I was about to give up on the entire idea and replace all the tape cues for the rest of the run... it worked! 

The actor pressed play and the correct Rolling Stones song played. As he gestured as if he was getting out of the car, the storm sounds came over the PA and the tape deck faded. He pulled the correct cassete out of his jacket pocket and replaced the current tape to trigger the bar music. The storm sounds faded perfectly with the lights and the bartender turned up the volume on the tape deck as the lights came back up. For those 45 seconds, it was like everything in the universe fell into place, time stopped, and the planets aligned. Tammy finally shined. From back in the booth, I wanted to jump up and applaud a tape deck. 

They make sound design software that allows you to manage and cue several effects with live performance, but the joy and ephemeral nature of that 45 second transition could not be replaced by technology. It was the orchestration of several different sound sources coming together to make the elegant transition that made it so beautiful. 

I recently saw Y La Bamba play live at the Cactus Cafe. There was a moment where every member in the band pulled out some sort of rhythm maker or shaker. The sudden eruption of the folky organic stripped down sound of the acoustic instruments mixed with the singers beautiful spanish vocals was absolutely gorgeous. I closed my eyes and it was as if every cell in my body was moving while I stood in place. After the show, I bought the record and brought it home to listen to the digitally mastered track of the same song. As you can imagine, it just wasn't the same as the live performance. 

I can't say that my sound design even came remotely close to Y La Bamba's beautiful live performance, but I can say that the magic and spontaneity of live sound components coming together triggered that same sort of tingly feeling that occurred when I wanted to stand and applaud a tape deck for coming in on cue.