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Gerald McBoing-Boing

Gerald McBoing-Boing. sound, image, text. Lecture Seven Wed Sept 3, 2008 HEARING VOICES VOICING SOUNDS. Hearing Voices. Voices communicate ideas and concepts through language Voices give expression to emotions Voices transcend language and produce meaning through sound

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Gerald McBoing-Boing

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  1. Gerald McBoing-Boing

  2. sound, image, text Lecture Seven Wed Sept 3, 2008 HEARING VOICES VOICING SOUNDS

  3. Hearing Voices • Voices communicate ideas and concepts through language • Voices give expression to emotions • Voices transcend language and produce meaning through sound • Voices are pervasive in everyday life. We hear voices everywhere.

  4. Voice as Language • Two terms from Linguistics • Phonetics is the study of the physical sounds of human speech. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds (phones), and the processes of their physiological production, auditory reception, and neurophysiological perception. • Semantics is the study of the meaning of words and fixed word combinations (phraseology), and how these combine to form the meanings of sentences. • Example Wholphin – Stairway to Heaven.

  5. Contextual Voices • Voices function and circulate in distinct ways depending on context. • Contexts - a pop song on the radio, at the opera, on film in a cinema, in an electroacoustic composition through speakers, through a megaphone at a sports arena, through a microphone In a lecture theatre • Compare the stereotypical voices of: rapper & opera singer, army officer & poet, kindergarten teacher & stand-up comedian. • Example – Most Unwanted Music

  6. Voice as Sound • Aside from speech, the range of sounds produced by the voice is vast: cough, breath, laugh, mutter, sigh, gasp, cry, moan, groan, whisper, shout, babble etc • Example – Christina Tester ‘Come Together’ (DVD 2008) • In Douglas Kahn’s ‘Noise Water Meat. A History of Sound in the Arts’ he speaks of ‘Beast Language’, a language of noises common to poets and animals

  7. GHOST TANTRAS byMichael McClure GOOOOOOR! GOOOOOOOOOO! GOOOOOOOOOR! GRAHHH! GRAHH! GRAHH! Grah gooooor! Ghahh! Graaarr! Greeeeer! Grayowhr! Greeeeee GRAHHRR! RAHHR! GRAGHHRR! RAHR! RAHRIRAHHR! GRAHHHR! GAHHR! HRAHR! BE NOT SUGAR BUT BE LOVE looking for sugar! GAHHHHHHHH! ROWRR! GROOOOOOOOOOH!

  8. Concrete poetry In text-sound composition, (also known as concrete poetry or compositional linguistics) the semantic importance of words gives way to the sound of language itself. Language takes on the form or quality of music, often by manipulating the rhythm, timbre and /or texture in performance or through the use of technology. Ursonate(1922-32) Performed by Kurt Schwitters

  9. Soundings Audio example 1: Night Birds by Sainkho Namtchylak Ancient Tuvan throat-singing vocal techniques meet modern genres of sound production, avant-garde, and performance art Audio example 2: Katajjaq, an Inuit throat-singing game. Two women sing short rhythmic patterns until one laughs or runs out of breath. Audio example 3: Cough Piece by Yoko Ono Fluxus artist Yoko Ono coughs into a microphone in Tokyo in 1961 Audio example 4: Cambodian Funk Yodeler - Unknown Title Found in a cheap record store bin back around 1993. For all we know it's a story of a true cross-cultural love, Cambodian boy meets Swiss girl in ski resort. Legitimate music.

  10. Techno-Voices Technology has greatly increased the capacity to extend the voice beyond the body (through amplification) and recontextualise it (through sampling or mixing). Technology offers up a range of new ways of interpreting the voice as an object. Voices can be stripped of their humanity, become disembodied or robotic vocalizations. • Example 1: (iconic robot) • Example 2 – Look Who’s Talking Too

  11. Voices and Reality / Unreality • In cinema, TV and radio, the voice is used to convey expression and meaning. It renders the character as individual and real: the closer the voice is to a performer/ actor’s physiognomy and gestures (in the audiovisual media), the more real they appear. • Sonic characteristics of the voice include pitch, timbre (quality), rhythm, tempo, breathiness, • These might be mapped to character, age, social position, class, ethnicity, education, emotional state, occupation etc. • Brian Boyce – Election Collectables (peripheral produce DVD)

  12. voice-characters • Acousmetre is Chion’s term for the disembodied voice or “voice-character” of cinema. It has a unique position of being heard and not seen. With this comes the power to see all but to have no impact on the action. The acousmetre also has the gift of being ever-present. • The acousmetre plays on the audience’s imagination by supplying the aural without the visual. In some films the acousmetre is revealed towards the end of the film (for example the wizard in the “Wizard of Oz”) The embodiment of the voice brings with it a loss of power, for the voice is now without its omniscience.

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