further instilling me with the idea that our ability to perceive sound
was intended to enable us to survive as a species and communicate
more than to entertain, this kid is truly a phenomenon
Archive for the ‘Science of Sound’ Category
SONAR
August 4, 2010complex nonlinguistic auditory processing
June 6, 2010“There’s a neurologist in Boston, Gottfried Schlaug, who uses music therapy to return some language to stroke victims. He has them learn simple phrases by singing them. This has proved more effective than having them repeat spoken phrases, the traditional therapy. Schlaug’s work suggests that when the language part of the brain has been damaged, you can sometimes recruit the part that processes music to take over. Music neuroscience is also helping us understand Alzheimer’s. There are Alzheimer’s patients who cannot remember their spouse. But they can remember every word of a song they learned as a kid. By studying this, we’re learning about how memory works.”
— Aniruddh D. Patel Neurosciences Institute
http://slamxhype.com/author/Robert%20Abeyta%20Jr/
I can recall trying to teach art classes to kids in China and how I implemented song structure to help them associate an image with the proper English equivalent. Although I had access to an interpreter, it seemed as though the children could more readily grasp the pronunciation of “circle, square, triangle” by being able to visualize these forms alongside a simple piece of music they could sing and retain.
Of The Refrain v2
May 22, 2010
“Sonorous or vocal components are very important: a wall of sound, or at least a wall with some sonic bricks in it. A child hums to summon the strength for the schoolwork she has to hand in. A housewife sings to herself, or listens to the radio, as she marshals the antichaos forces of her work. Radios and television sets are like sound walls around every household and mark territories (the neighbor complains when it gets too loud). For sublime deeds like the foundation of a city or the fabrication of a golem, one draws a circle, or better yet walks in a circle as in a children’s dance, combining rhythmic vowels and consonants that correspond to the interior forces of creation as to the differentiated parts of an organism. A mistake in speed, rhythm, or harmony would be catastrophic because it would bring back the forces of chaos, destroying both creator and creation.”
— A Thousand Plateaus Deleuze
Of The Refrain
May 7, 2010
“A child in the dark, gripped with fear, comforts himself by singing under his breath. He walks and halts to his song. Lost, he takes shelter, or orients himself with his little song as best he can. The song is like a rough sketch of a calming and stabilizing, calm and stable, center in the heart of chaos. Perhaps the child skips as he sings, hastens or slows his pace. But the song itself is already a skip: it jumps from chaos to the beginnings of order in chaos and is in danger of breaking apart at any moment…Now we are at home. But home does not preexist: it was necessary to draw a circle around that uncertain and fragile center, to organize a limited space.”
— A Thousand Plateaus Gilles Deleuze
Author & Punisher
April 19, 2010I got a chance to experience an Author & Punisher live set
thanks to Vacation Vinyl for hosting phenomenal in-stores
It’s always refreshing to have sound waves shake your bones
look for an interview with Author & Punisher’s Tristan Shone on Orbiter soon
we will discuss unconventional and innovative techniques in audio engineering
orbiter_signalXmaze:author&punisher
“So far the songs and sound has taken a path that I didn’t really expect. It’s like by putting yourself in a different configuration, you automatically force yourself to do something different. Unlike guitar stuff where you can kind of riff in your head then translate, I really write when I’m on the setup…like full body convulsions.”
– Tristan Shone
magnitude 4.4 at 4:04am
March 16, 2010
Seismic Hazard Map:33.992°N, 118.082°W //Depth:18.9 km
nomad space & sedentary space
February 28, 2010
orbiter_signal
from within the Musical Model:
…”in a smooth space-time one occupies without counting, whereas in striated space-time one counts in order to occupy.”
— Deleuze (referencing Boulez)
This reminds me that despite all music existing within a forced time dimension, we can find liberation from the choke hold of mechanical rhythms, and rely on the familiar: natural, internal improvisational time signature; likened to our own distinct breathing pattern
listening to the Sun
February 10, 2010
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/02/solar-radio-bursts/
Thomas Ashcraft records the sound of the Sun:
http://www.heliotown.com/Sun_20100207_Ashcraft.html
Moon Phase
January 30, 2010Today we went exploring the Griffith Park Observatory. I wanted to find inspiration for a new collection of musical works geared towards Meditative States. The idea of deep space intrigues me to no end and the color/shape of what it could become finds a home in the way I approach atmospheres in music. I enjoy the idea of sound traveling to us from orbit and the potential for decoding that mystery in the implied tones embedded within music. The visit to the Observatory was both exhilarating and calming. The potentiality of transcendence and the science that accompanies it offers a unique perspective on layering soundscapes. Images below: Temple, Pendulum & Telescope:
photos:orbiter_signal
I asked my friend Chris, an Astronomy enthusiast, if he could relay some information about the nature of the intense brightness of the moon we have witnessed recently:
“The Moon’s orbit around the Earth is elliptical, not circular. The same describes the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. Due to this oblong shaped orbit, at certain points, the Earth is closer to the Sun, and the Moon is closer to the Earth. Rarely do both events happen at the same time. Well, this full Moon phase, January 28th-February 1st, happens to fall on a time when the Earth is closer to the Sun (%30 closer than our furthest point) and the Moon is closer to the Earth. (%14 closer than it’s farthest point) By the way, when the Moon enters this closer phase, people call it the Perigee Phase. So this rare event we find our selves in is known as a Bright Perigee Moon Phase.”
After our visit to the Observatory, I met up with Jimmy of Baby Tiger back at the Orbiter Signal recording studio to work on a few instrumental ideas for a film soundtrack project we are working on. The unconscious associations from the field research hopefully offer substantial insight into the color/shape of the mix below:
prisonhouse of nations
January 25, 2010encoded in the strata of our predetermined social construct, within our lineage, are cultural obligations
theoretically today is, by mathematical speculation, the most depressing day of the entire year
perhaps it is not the day in itself, but the unconscious bit before sunrise, when you cannot tell the difference from having your eyes open or closed
