As the last assignment in this course, we take it very seriously as usual. When we finished all the clips and listened to our audio from beginning to end, we were still very satisfied, which makes us feel that it’s worth the effort. In particular, when we hear the last part, we are all deeply attracted. We are touched by the sound without understanding the meaning of the language they speak. We can really feel the emotion they want to express, and we are also feeling the same.  I think that’s what we want to achieve the most after we’ve done the whole job, and that’s the best feedback we can get on the subject we’ve chosen — the power of language.

Supreme mystery of anthropology is the diversity of languages. As the ultimate tool of communication, language reflects the unity and universality of human wisdom (Purec 2013). We wanted to use this opportunity to showcase the power of language. We interviewed people from many different countries to show that language is not just a mechanical communication tool, but that everyone’s language is emotionally unique. The interview is basically a series of simple questions. We asked the interviewer to answer our interview questions twice in order to show mother language, which can express his initial emotion. As Purec(2013) said, there are many languages in the world, so people want to understand the meaning of different languages through translation, but the translation cannot exactly express the original meaning, there is no perfect translation in the world. Therefore, we want to better reflect the meaning they most want to express through mother language.

For the structure of the entire audio, our inspiration from the in tandem with macba ‘s chronological presentation of cage’ s work. In his show, the model of sound is a crescendo, starting from an elusive, and voice to obtain power, makes the whole audio become very have administrative levels feeling(Bloom 2010). We’re using a similar model to make our audio more layered, rather than monolithic. First of all, we simply present an interviewer’s monologue through one’s confession, no background music, no effect, which is like a sample answer to seduce the next voice. We then list all the questions, and cut out the answers to the same question from the interviewees. But the answers to each of our questions are presented in a different language. For example, we use English for very simple things that do not need to show with emotion (Like what is your name?), but for such problems as’ best moment in Melbourne ‘, we adopt the editing method of bilingual combination, the mother language is loud, and English is played behind the back as a kind of translation. In fact, this part verifies the theme of noise. Noise is actually the voice of others (Zittoun 2012), this statement is indeed valid. We want to raise people’s attention through noise, as mentioned in Zittoun (2012), Noise can arouse people’s attention to different sounds. And final part, I think which is the most important part of our entire audio. The part that shows emotion, and this is what these interviewees say to the people they miss, and we use their mother language during the whole final part, Like Purec said (2013), we understand the original language become a hieroglyphic language, composed of sound hieroglyphs as suggestive as the graphic ones, as you can imagine it. So when the audience is listening, they can feel it with their senses without being translated without interviewees’ race, and what they look like, which is also the reason why we do not use video, we want the audience can fully feel the power of language.

It’s worth noting that we almost did not using any effects. except we want to highlight the most important interview question and use the echo effect. The most important method we are used is panning, panner is separates sounds using surround sound decoding, and places the separated sounds in the serried places in an output sound fields, The advantage of panner is discrete audio channel (Apple Inc 2014). Therefore, we use the transfer of left and right channels to distinguish mother language and English, so that people can better distinguish the sound information in the same time period. In fact, we have tried to use other effect, such as EQ, but the effect is really not what we want. We believe that the original sound can best reflect the power of language and is most inspiring to the audience. 

Through this semester’s study and the final exhibition, I really gained a lot of knowledge about sound. When I saw other groups’ perfect works, I really enjoyed it, and I thought it was really necessary to learn audio, which will be of great help to my future work and life.  Finally, I would like to thank the teachers Georgia and the team members. The teamwork made this exhibition very successful. Thank you.

Reference:

‘Apple Inc.; Patent Issued for Audio Panning with Multi-Channel Surround Sound Decoding’ 2014, Journal of Engineering, 16 July, Pp. 3608.

Blom, I 2010, ‘Signal to noise: Ina Blom on John Cage and “The Anarchy of Silence”’, Artforum International,  February, Vol.48(6), Pp.170.

Purec, S 2013. ‘OUR COMMUNICATION LANGUAGE IS NOT A LOST LANGUAGE’, Analele Universitatii “Constantin Brancusi” Din Targu Jiu. Serie Litere Si Stiinte Sociale, Issue 4, Pp.12-17.

Zittoun, T 2012, ‘The art of noise: Comment on The sound of silence’, Culture & Psychology, 11 December, Vol,18(4), Pp.472-483.

Google Drive Link for Assessment 4:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1UNvhwXYLgH4FG-ywUjmXJAFpk97D9nwO

This is the first time I’ve known infrasonic music or called soundless music. I think this music is very interesting because it’s hard to hear sounds, but it can feel vibrations from sound waves. Infrasound sometimes referred to as low-frequency sound, is sound that is lower in frequency than 20 Hz or cycles per second. Actually, since the infrasound can’t be heard, I don’t think it can be called music. On the other hand, I was thinking that although there was no melody and no sound, but it is vibrating, so it’s also music. I’m still a little confused about that. Through this presentation, I learned that there are many uses about infrasonic music, for example, in 3d movies. And infrasonic use on warfare. It is necessary to learn about infrasound, but we should use it carefully because it will affect our body.

Movie audio must balance three basic elements, dialogue, music and effects (Cook 2018). I think it is not just apply to the sound of film, it is also use of these elements in our sound wok and in other audio, we should try to balance these three elements. As mentioned in the article, dialogue is preferred in both habit and logic. Especially on our soundtrack, our purpose is to show the charm and power of the language, so when we balance the three elements later, it’s always centered around the dialogue, around conversation, whether it’s adding effects or adding background music, it’s all about the language sound. To make the whole soundtracks sound is not strange,  typically through panning, equalization, avoidance of speech frequencies, and “density” in orchestration. And we should pay attention to the sound system system and format later (Cook 2018). For example, surround sound, I think this effect can make the audience feel the sound source better. When I check the internet, When I check the data, it shows that the stereo is not changing the position of the left and right channel speakers, so the volume and phase of the left and right channel sound frequency is adjusted. I think the use of surround sound will make the audience mentally aware, rather than stereotypical audio effects.

Our group has recorded the voice from different people and different language. From the recording results, the sound effect is quite different by speaking different languages from same people, which is exactly what we want to achieve. We are quite satisfied with it. Next, we’re going to focus on sound processing, focus on sound effects and background base. As mentioned in the article, we need to consider the balance of all elements, dialogue, background music and effects. and I believe we can do this, time is running out, we need to work hard.

Reference:

Cook, C. (2018). Examining the effect of emerging audio formats and technology on acoustical space in film composition and mixing. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, March, Vol.143(3), Pp1907

As mentioned in the article, Sound as multiplicity has physical, which include many event, experiences and ideas. So from my understanding and my experience, a person’s voice has its own mind. For example, if a person is calm, he may speak slowly. A shy person’s voice is less clear and resonant. Through our discussion this week, my team finally determined our theme and decided the direction of our final work. We want to understand the different areas of sound and demonstrate the multiformity of sound by recording the voices of different people. As I said in class, for example, we want to record the voices of people from different ages, which can show the changes in timbre. And we will try to record some international students’s sound, because they mostly speak two languages. We want to show different tones and emotion according to different languages, but which voice from same people. and we will show how language affects people’s emotions by answering our questions in different languages. We all think of voice emotions that are spoken in the first language as distinct from emotions that are spoken in the second language. As the Byrne said, a person’s voice is still in multiple, even they already has their personality. The ultimate goal of the homework, we want from the speaker’s voice, which explore the mood of vocal expression, although it is a challenge for us to work, but we want to treat it as a creative experiment, to show the wonderful sound.

We not only have to record the voices of the people who involved in the sound experiment, we also have to record some noise, similar to the background sound, this will give our homework a more layered feel. And when we want to edit, the earlier part is pure sound, the later part is mix together, and add special effects to create a mysterious feeling. But we need to further discuss how to make the final cut.

Reference:

Byrne, B (2017), ‘Sound as Multiplicity: Listening with Thoreau, Cage and Serres’, Organized Sound, December, Vol.22(3), Pp.362-368.

This week is our presentation, and this reading is the main talk about the importance in the film area. In fact, for reading, my idea is just like what my classmates said in class, discussing movies should not separate the sound and the picture. The critics were also one-sided. Take one example,  some critics think that the film was there before the addition of sound, so the sound is not a fundamental part of the film, they think the sound is an additional product. I think these critics refuse to acknowledge that the media’s identity and form is constantly changing, the structure and essence of the film should be changed during the change of the time。In addition, the importance of sound synchronization was evident long ago, also  “Silent film”, confirmed to model of standardized organ or orchestral accompaniment. So those critics’ opinion is wrong. There are other critics’ fallacies, but they still don’t hold up because of their inadequate analysis of the film’s structure and their one-sided thinking. In my opinion, I think the importance of film should include both sound and image. if separate them to discuss, which make no sense.

Before reading this article, I did not know Roland barthes. He was a French writer, thinker, sociologist and critic, and he supported structuralism in the early days, but he changed his structuralist theory in the later years after he published his works (the symbolic empire). She characterized the narrative text in an impassive manner, and by removing humanitarian scientific theories. In fact, the text of Roland barthes is difficult to understand, because I do not know much about the background of the author’s creation. And I found Roland’s writing style very unique. Some of his famous documents are Writing Degree Zero, The Death of the Author, S/Z,  A Lover’s Discourse:Fragments, and Mythologies.