Sound Research

"Ionized air and wires may take headphones to the next level."

The Song Books by the sound artist Rolf Julius (born in 1939) consist of several bound sheets of Japanese paper, of which each sheet is marked by a different kind of spot.[1] These red or black spots are prints of the processed photographs of color pigment clusters. Julius had already used these types of pigment clusters in earlier sound art installations, combining them with different sounds. There were similar sheets in his Piano Piece No. 1 (1998), whose title indicates that they can be performed musically.[2] It would hardly be possible to detect this solely on the basis of their visual form. According to Erhard Karkoschka, Julius's musical graphics can therefore be classified as pure musical graphics, that is, as musical graphics without a staff.[3] It must above all be stressed that musical graphics constitute individual solutions to problems with notation as perceived by an artist, and therefore stand out due to their different relationship to conventional notation. When interpreting musical graphics with so few parameters, which is the case for the Song Books, the performers have to develop a convincing translation for the ambiguous parameters. In the Song Books, the repetition of a similar form-in this case, the various spots-directs the performer's gaze toward minimal differences, such as the different sizes or fraying of the spots,[4] which are then translated into sound.

"When one thinks of his work, what comes to mind are not so much objects, stable and defined. Rather, these are "moods" or "atmospheres" or "situations." "Ecosystems," in which things and places are enveloped in sounds."

"Sounds carry intelligence. If you are too narrow in your awareness of sounds, you are likely to be disconnected from your environment. Ears do not listen to sounds; the brain does. Listening is a lifetime practice that depends on accumulated experiences with sound; it can be focused to detail or open to the entire field of sound. Octogenarian composer and sound art pioneer Pauline Oliveros describes the sound experiment that led her to found an institute related to Deep Listening, and develop it as a theory relevant to music, psychology, and our collective quality of life. Pauline is a composer and accordionist who significantly contributed to the development of electronic music. The culmination of her life-long fascination with music and sound is what inspired the practice of Deep Listening, the art of listening and responding to environmental conditions. As a Professor of Practice in the Arts Department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, she produced highly regarded work as a composer and improviser. Pauline's 1989 recording, Deep Listening, is considered a classic in her field."

"Where do you go to listen to your thinking? Which sounds steer your choice of direction?"

Writings on Maryanne Amacher

Craig Smith, has digitized and shared a 27GB collection of vintage sound effects. The sounds form three collections. They consist of high-quality, first generation copies of original nitrate optical sound effects from the 1930s & '40s created for Hollywood studios. They were collected by a prominent sound editor who worked in the industry for 44 years. The fragile optical elements were donated to USC, and transferred to tape by USC Cinema students in the early 1970s. There are three collections: The Gold and Red Libraries (Gold effects start with "G", Red with "R") consist of high-quality, first generation copies of original nitrate optical sound effects from the 1930s & '40s created for Hollywood studios. They were collected by a prominent sound editor who worked in the industry for 44 years. The fragile optical elements were donated to USC, and transferred to tape by USC Cinema students in the early 1970s. The Sunset Editorial (SSE) Library was also donated to USC around 1990. It includes classic effects from the 1930s into the '80s. These effects are from 35mm magnetic film. They were often several generations removed from the originals, and not as clean, so some careful restoration was done to make them more useful. SSE effects start with "S" About Craig Smith: "I have been recording, editing, & mixing sound since 1964, and teaching sound design and technology at California Institute of the Arts since 1986. In my spare time, I experiment with implied narrative and accidental sound design -- putting together sounds & images that have nothing to do with each other to create unexpected stories."

"Thousands of species of fireflies all blink in different patterns, not only blinking in rhythms but simultaneously performing specific flight choreographies. The timing and pattern of their flashes are unique to each species. In Bioluminescence, I translated firefly behavior data from Prof. James E. Lloyd's Studies on the Flash Communication Systems of Photinus Fireflies into an orchestral piece. Rhythmic patterns of light and insect movement provide the material for both melodic and rhythmic figures. In biology, bioluminescence is the ability of living things to produce light through biochemical processes. Most bioluminescent organisms are found in the sea. The group of marine bioluminescent organisms includes fish, bacteria, and jellyfish. Some bioluminescent organisms, including fireflies and fungi, are found on land. Bioluminescence is used by creatures to make prey, defend themselves against predators, find mates, as well as for other vital activities. Recent studies show that the number of fireflies is declining. Light pollution from human-generated light disrupts insect courtship behavior because it can only occur in the dark. The artificial extension of daylight into the night disrupts the fireflies' dark-light cycles and thus their biological behavior."

"how Speech AI systems operate from a very limiting set of assumptions about the human voice- are we training it, or is it actually training us?"

"Birds are a way to connect with nature, which is associated with better body and brain health, research shows "

"For this performance, an ensemble of vocalists will interpret Raven Chacon's American Ledger No. 3 (2020), a score devoted to the journalist and anti-lynching campaigner Ida B. Wells. Chacon, an artist, composer, and musician from Fort Defiance, Navajo Nation, often creates compositions in the form of graphic scores, trading traditional notation for visual symbols to be interpreted by performers, whether individually or collectively. In addition to utilizing his scores in performances, Chacon presents them as artworks, calling on viewers to interpret the symbols in much the same way as musicians."

Great collection of printed brochures for Braun hi-fi audio products going back to the 30's

"The Tokyo-born London-based artist navigates the discipline of art, design and music in an effort to activate human relationships with the surrounding environment."

"A Japanese-Korean working with installation, performance and composition, residing in Huddersfield, UK.  Her works sculpt domestic appliances and scrap wastes with invisible energy, especially interested in heat, magnetism and gravity, into kinetic contraptions. Her site-specific works infuse both aural / visual occurrence as one entity, creating ephemeral situations that magnify silence, time and space. Interested in nature of relativity, culture and system, her artistic practice examines architecture, environment, conflict and fluidity. "

"Recorded in its entirety using just a laptop, a pair of headphones and a midi sampler, Indentations is the debut full length album from New York based percussionist and producer Grant Chapman. Indentations draws deeply on Chapman's personal experiences surrounding loss and betrayal. An intimate work reflecting the struggle of dealing with traumatic experiences, the album makes the case for equilibrium following life-altering experiences. ''The album is a meditation on the sheer weight a broken relationship can have on two people. A personification of the stages of grief one feels when growing apart from someone they love, for reasons they can't seem to reckon with or comprehend.'' Working from his East Village apartment, Indentations is a rich amalgam of intricately layered found sounds, almost all of which were found on YouTube, taking in influences that range from ASMR to acapella choral performance. The effect is dizzying in its depth and scope. Chapman has created a boundless emotional musical journey that can feel both deeply intimate and cosmically vast."

"Between 2011 and 2013, thieves committed a rash of burglaries at 12 high schools in the Los Angeles region, stealing tubas from band rooms across the southland. This curious anecdote provides the title for artist Alison O'Daniel's recent film The Tuba Thieves. Although it features re-enactments of the thefts, the film does not focus solely on the incidents; instead, it weaves these scenes together with other loosely related narratives into a patchwork dealing with loss, grief, communication, community, challenging shifts in perspective, and the different ways we experience the world through sound, vision, and touch."

Based in Brooklyn, New York, much of multi-media artist Sari Carel's work focuses on translation from one modality to another. Her projects consider interspecies communication, relationships between people and place, and how the senses inform our perception. Also an environmental activist, Sari is a sharp observer of ecosystems, be they natural or human.

"Japanese artist Kenichi Kanazawa manipulating sand on a steel tabletop."

"framework began broadcasting in june, 2002 on the newly reformed resonance 104.4fm in london. the show now airs on twelve radio stations around the world, with regular new additions to its broadcast family, and streams and podcasts here on its own website. framework is consecrated to field recording and its use in composition, and began broadcasting at a time when a new community of sound artists with a special interest in found sound was developing, a community spread across the globe that, thanks to the internet, was no longer limited to a specific geography. framework sees itself as an outlet for this ever-growing and developing community, a folk-tool in a new folk movement, a community driven exchange point for creators and listeners alike. framework's goal is to present not only the extremely diverse sound environments of our world, but also the extremely diverse work that is being produced by the artists who choose to use these environments as their sonic sources. we hope to ask this question: is 'field recording' a style, or a genre, or is it in fact as uncontrollable and undefinable an instrument or tool as any, that may be interpreted, manipulated, and appropriated by anyone with a microphone and an idea? these works are its definition, and not vice versa. "

"Microphones capture ultrasonic crackles from plants that are water-deprived or injured."