Third Reading Response.

I've always been annoyed when people make snarky comments while watching films that are slightly out of the ordinary. It is a pet peeve, and I hear it much more often than I should be able to stand. I've never questioned, however, the reason why people feel the need to complain about a film that seems strange and unconventional. In his article, "Introduction to 'Avant-Garde Film,'" Scott MacDonald explains why many people feel uncomfortable in the presence of unconventional films.

Most people, when they see a movie, go to see cinema - they want a show, not a film. So the majority of mainstream movies follow certain structures to pander to that desire. And every movie is neatly packed into a particular genre and sent out to marketing experts to be formatted for advertising. The whole process is very commercial. Because of this, most people have ideas in their heads of what a given movie will be like before it is seen. It is no surprise, then, that people don't know how to react when they see a film that is 'avant-garde.' But it isn't as if 'avant-garde' filmmakers are unaware of this problem. They know that many of their viewers will have a difficult time watching experimental films. Consequently, many 'avant-garde' filmmakers take into account how they think their viewers will react when they are constructing a film. For example, a very long take in a film is probably not just an arbitrary long take. Instead it is likely that the filmmaker chose to use a long take to allow the viewer to concentrate on a given image.

MacDonald's article helped me realize that making a film is more than just assembling images and sound to create a story or an environment. The filmmaker must also keep in mind the context in which his or her viewers are seeing the film. And that context is a cinematic environment wherein most movies are tailored to a certain mainstream structure.

On the Video Hardware and Software.

I did not have any problems with the digital camera. The only criticism I have is that the video quality was not great, but given the nature of these drifts, that was expected. The camera was easy to use, and it was certainly small enough. I have used a Sony digital video camera in the past, and normally I would prefer using that. For this project, however, I liked using a smaller, less conspicuous camera. In an ideal world, the digital camera would not require the use of any batteries.

To edit my video content, I used two programs: Quicktime Pro and Magix Movie Edit Pro 10. I used Quicktime to edit most of my rough cuts because I wanted to use a new program, and also because I didn't want to incorporate any fancy editing. For the final cut, however, I wanted to be able to edit with dissolves and incorporate sound more easily. So I used a program that I was already familiar with. I still wanted the video to feel natural, so I shyed away from all the available crazy effects. I will definitely continue to use MME Pro 10 in the future.

Second Reading Response.

John Cage, in his article, "The Future of Music: Credo," had a brilliant vision of what's to come in the evolution of music. I took particular interest in the article because I found it fascinating to see Cage's 1937 prediction of the future of music. Has this vision come true? I couldn't say (after all, there's still a future ahead of us). But before I try to analyze Cage's prediction, it would be helpful to know what he said.

First, Cage points out that people are constantly taking an interest in the sounds that they hear. In fact, he seems to be saying that we can't help it - we are bothered when we cannot hear something. His main point, then, is that music will continue to incorporate new and interesting sounds until the point where musicians will utilize every possible tone. Generally, in producing music, a musician will write a combination of notes, and each note will have a specific tone, according to a specific scale. So there are a finite number of notes to choose from. This idea is much like the diagram of an atom - the electrons in their energy levels being analogous to notes in music. The electrons must stay on one of the designated paths in an atom - they cannot rest in between one of those paths. Similarly, musical notes must fall on a very specific frequency... Or so it was thought. But Cage argues that musical notes and tones can and will explore the space between the normal frequencies. And he says that musicians will begin to use electronic instruments to do this. Cage says that the fundamental idea of tones will differ greatly in future, but we will still look to the past to gather our ideas about form and structure.

As a musician, I think that many of the predictions that John Cage made in 1937 have come true. Music is evolving. But I question the effect that new forms of music are having on people. The most evolved forms of music (that is, the forms of music that have changed the most from the forms of the past) are not very popular. This is the age of soundbytes. Most people listen to music on portable MP3 players, and when I am listening to music with a group of friends, I rarely hear an entire song played through. Interesting music is being made, but for the most part, I fear it's not being heard.

On the Audio Hardware and Software.

In order to record the sounds that I heard on my first drift (and the sounds that I will hear on my second drift) I created a pair of microphones. Well, I didn't exactly create the microphones, but I soldered two tiny mics to an audio cable (which feels like the same thing). The process was not very hard - it merely required patience. Lots of patience. The most aggravating aspect of building these microphones was cutting the rubber off of the wires. This took a few tries and very steady hands, but all in all, it was much easier than I had expected.

When I went on my drift I attached the two mics to opposite sides of my shirt's collar. They weren't exactly hidden, but they weren't a hinderance either. I didn't attach any sort of windscreen to the mics (I tried, but the fabric kept rubbing against the mics, causing distortion); luckily, that didn't turn out to be a problem. There was very little wind on the day that I went on my drift. This setup (with the mics on my collar) worked well for what I wanted to accomplish: I wanted to record the city as I would hear it normally with my ears. On my second drift, however, I might try more interesting things with microphone locations. My ideal microphones would be very tiny and would not be affected by the wind or by objects bumping the audio cable. I suppose they would be something like those spy microphones that the CIA is also using in awful action movies, only with higher fidelity.

I didn't have any trouble with the minidisc recorder. I kept it on most of the time I was walking (so I didn't have to change the audio gain settings repeatedly), and I only had to change the battery once. In comparison with other recording devices I have used, the minidisc recorder is much more convenient and simple. I use an eight-track digital recorder on my own, which is obviously not as portable as the minidisc device. Although the minidisc recorder is already quite small, my ideal recording device would be a little less bulky, so that it could fit in my pocket. It would also have a gain control that is more accessible.

To edit the audio that I recorded, I used a software program called Cubase. I've used this program on a fairly continual basis for the last year and a half to edit music that I've recorded. So I was lucky to be working with a familiar software program while I edited my drift material. I'm certain that I will continue to use Cubase to edit music and other sound material in the future. Now that I am familiar with it, I can easily accomplish what I want to do.

Ten Questions That I Asked.

1. Can I follow a drift strategy that does not necessarily depend on roads?
2. Can I create a sense of chaos in neighborhoods that appear on the outside totally serene?
3. Can I make my drift more unpredictable by following a stricter pattern of walking?
4. Can I find places in the city where nature seems to overtake human development?
5. Is it possible to portray industry in a way that is beautiful?
6. Can I transform the normal to the abstract without drowning it in digital effects?
7. Are there obscure or odd places where I can go inside and not be told to leave?
8. Can I construct a rhythm that elevates in continual linear pattern, as opposed to a rhythm that has cyclical ups and downs.
9. Can I explore many different parts of the city by walking in a straight line?
10. Can I connect the quality of a given area's aesthetics to the beauty or ugliness of the sounds in that area?

Thoughts on my First Drift.

1. Describe two situations that aggravated, bothered, shocked or otherwise stressed you during Drift 1. (Please note that the situation CANNOT be technology-related.)

As I was sitting at the corner of Wisconsin and Third Street, getting ready to begin my walk, a man came up to me. He asked for change so that he could go into the Grand Avenue Mall to get some french fries. I told him I didn't have any money, which was true, but he probably thought that I was lying to him since I was holding my recording device and a digital camera. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I was aggravated, but it was certainly surprising.

I was a bit aggravated as I walked on Prospect. I wasn't finding any interesting sounds, and I was becoming uncomfortable (the temperature was getting warmer and I was dressed for cooler weather). The problem was that I was walking slowly and hoping that something interesting would arise. For my next drift, I'd like to cover a greater area so that I'll have more material to work with when I'm done walking.


2. Describe, with details, two situations during Drift 1 in which you felt unusually peaceful, at ease, or contemplative.

First, I should point out that the entire drift was strangely serene for me. It was almost like an out-of-body experience. I wasn't so much walking (like everybody else in the city was doing) as I was listening (to everybody else in the city). That said, I was even more at ease with myself and my surroundings later on in the drift. At one point, I came upon a Church holding a Saturday service and decided to go in. Normally I wouldn't walk up to a random building (even a church) and go in, but in this instance I just did it, without thinking twice. A few blocks away from the church I came to a large water fountain in the middle of a park. I sat down on a bench beside the fountain and listened to the bubbling water and the nearby crows. I just sat there - it was peaceful, and very simple. While I didn't end up using those sounds in the blog, that instance stood out as one of the more memorable parts of my drift.


3. Describe three surprises or unexpected situations you encountered on your Drift and in the days that followed. The surprise could stem from your expectations that conflicted with "on the ground" realities, cultural or social issues of which you were previously unaware, feelings and reactions that you did not expect to have, appearances and soundings of things you did not expect, good or bad outcomes of "on the spot" decisions you had to make, or the discovery of "deeper" realities in the materials you brought home. (Again, skip anything technology-related!)

Sometimes I would turn on my recorder when nothing particularly interesting was happening, and moments later I would stumble upon some great material. For example, the family from the segment "We're Going Straight Home After Lunch" came into the recording after a long period of inactivity.

For me, the segment where I was at the Juneau Village Towers (on Jackson Street) was one of the most interesting. However if I had stuck to my algorithmic pattern I wouldn't have stumbled upon that situation. I accidentally turned right one block early... but it turned out to be a happy accident.

Another unexpected (but warmly welcomed) surprise came soon after this... I changed my algorithm at the corner of Marshall and State (I turned left instead of right), and I soon found myself across the street from a Saturday morning outdoor church party. I didn't end up using the sounds I recorded, but in person the sounds (and images) were quite rewarding. In fact, I took four pictures of this church, which I posted as a sort of collage in my "Derive Un" blog.


4. Describe your favorite experience, situation, place, or recollection from your Drift. Be specific about what happened, how you felt, how you reacted, and why you think this particular experience affected you so much.

"Hey, we're going straight home after lunch." These were the words from a father to his crying daughter. When I heard the man say that, I sort of took it in as I had taken in all of the other sounds of my drift - car tires, bells, a cicada, the wind... but in retrospect, this encounter had a huge impact on my understanding of the quiet neighborhoods through which I had been walking. On that beautiful Saturday morning, across from a picture perfect park, a little girl was crying and essentially being told, 'No, not everything is good in the world. There is a darker side to life.' I know, I'm reading into this situation a lot, maybe too much - but it sparks a lot of interest. I might even explore this concept further in my next drift...

First Reading Response

A little over a half a year ago, in the dead of Winter in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, I attended a "noise concert." The location was a chilly warehouse, often used to host these sort of underground art exhibits. The instruments used were all electronic: a microphone, effects pedals, and amplifiers. Prior to this event, I had no experience listening to anything that wasn't popularly regarded as music. But hearing the sounds that I did that night had a profound effect on me. It opened my third eye, or rather my third ear, so to speak. Based on this experience, and a general interest in an experimentation with sound, I chose to discuss David Toop's article, "The Art of Noise."

Toop begins by placing sound in the context of the average person's life - it is important (in fact it probably defines our environment as we know it), but it remains generally ignored nonetheless. The only time we tend to notice our audible surroundings is when we're annoyed (maybe this is where the word 'noise' gets its negative connotation). Regardless of whether or not it is noticed by the general public, sound art is just as important, and in some ways even more complex than any visual art. It is unique from say, film, because film is concrete. It has specific boundaries and specific ideas that are presented to the viewer. Sound, on the other hand forms an entire atmosphere, and the ideas presented are not as clearly defined. In fact there may be no definitions at all - at least not in the sense that we normally think of a "definition." Because of this, it was thought that sound art would render music (a more structured and stable form of noise) useless. Sound art has definitely flourished since this prediction was made, but certainly music has not faded away. According to Toop, today there exist three different media for noise: music, sound art, and art that uses sound (the difference between the last two being that sound art is solely the art of sound, thereby placing all importance on the element of noise). There are, as noted in the case of Christian Marclay, artists who utilize all three elements of noise; however, Toop seems to think that music, sound art, and art with sound are still seperate factions. At the end of his article, he declares his hope that one day these seperate elements can be combined and understood as a single medium.

If I understand David Toop's message correctly, then this is a very exciting time for sound art and music. Having lived in a relatively small city, even I was exposed to new variants of noise. This leads me to the conclusion that people are seeking out new ideas in sound, not just in underground movements in large cities, but literally everwhere. As a musician and sound artist myself, I am very interested in combining music (the structured) with sound (the spontaneous) in a multimedia environment. Toop points out that sound used with other forms of art is often placed in the background, but it could also be presented at the forefront of a multimedia artform. But after all, there are so many possibilities with sound that it is almost useless to try and predict what is going to happen. Just look at Luigi Russolo and John Cage: right as they were about sound art, they could not see the entire scope of the future of noise. Nobody can. That it is why it's so interesting.

Soundwalk Reflection

This afternoon, I went on a short 'soundwalk.' I wandered through a relatively quiet neighborhood, focusing exclusively on the sounds. What I came up with is not the half of what is possible in a more eclectic sound environment, but it is interesting nonetheless.

First of all, some of the locations were overwhelming in terms of sound. The most common noise was the sound of car tires rolling over the concrete, coupled with the rumbling engines of larger vehicles, like buses and trucks. But even on the loudest part of my walk, I could still pick out various other noises, the most significant being an airplane. Several, in fact. Each plane made a different noise though. One was rather high pitched and probably a private jet. The others made a low rumble and were most likely large commercial planes.

The quiet part of the neighborhood was the most interesting. Here I was able to hear things close-up and far away, and I was able to distinguish recognizable sounds from noises that were unfamiliar. The most common sound on this part of my walk was the rustling of leaves, caused by the wind, a sort of continual, soft hiss. From the same direction came the whistling of birds, although this was far less frequent, and much more variant. Also present for most of the walk was the signature high-pitched drone of the cicada.

Other highlights included soft, melodic wind chimes in the distance, the buzzing and whining of an electric saw, and church bells chiming at various pitches, not quite making a song, but creating an eerie free form harmony. Some sounds were very far away and barely audible, such as a child playfully yelling, or the random echo of a barking dog.

I found it distracting to be walking with a large group. By myself, I would've been able to control my footsteps and volume of breathing to make my presence barely audible, but when you add ten or fifteen other people to the equation, you get a clunking, panting mob that upsets the delicate balance of a quiet sound environment.

This was a good experience, even if it wasn't the most interesting soundwalk. It was helpful to practice isolating noises and describing them, one by one, in an environment that contains thousands. Hearing is the one sense that we don't seem to have any natural control over. You can close your eyes, you can refrain from smelling, you can move to avoid feeling something, but without ear plugs, you are forced to hear whatever is making noise in your immediate environment. This soundwalk has demonstrated that while I cannot 'close' my ears, I can purposely focus on one sound, even when there are thousands to choose from.