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From Soundscape to Score in Andor

I was really struck, so to speak, by the anvil carillon atop a tower toward the start of the second episode of Andor, playing now on Disney+. So too, apparently, was James Whitbrook, deputy editor at i09, who wrote a lengthy appreciation of “the Andor Bell Guy” the day after the show’s first three episodes debuted. “There’s people here and there,” he writes, “lurking out there in the early dawn, but it’s when the bell guy that’s not really a bell guy — he’s the bell, I guess, spiritually speaking — rings his hammers that life starts on Ferrix, the bustle of the town below beginning to blossom as his hammers ring out, over and over. The sound fades, the day begins, and bell guy presumably goes on with his life, his job done until the morrow.” Pretty much the only thing I’d add is that the sound doesn’t entirely fade. As I hear it, the bells fade, but they are then not just subsumed but emulated by the score (composed by Nicholas Britell, best known for his work on Succession). This series has some of the most memorable music in any of the Star Wars TV series so far, in part because it doesn’t sound particularly like the John Williams music that has long defined the Star Wars universe. ➔ gizmodo.com.

Originally published in a special, experimental September 23, 2022, “TWiS x 3” edition of the This Week in Sound email newsletter. Get it in your inbox via tinyletter.com/disquiet.

The Rhythms of Primes

A 10-minute video exploring the rhythms inherent in prime numbers. For me, what was most remarkable was experiencing, through sonification, the decreasing density of primes as the numbers get higher. For context, check out its preceding video (below), which breaks down the correlation between the math and the sound. (Thanks, Adam Boyd, for the tip.)

Originally published in a special, experimental September 23, 2022, “TWiS x 3” edition of the This Week in Sound email newsletter. Get it in your inbox via tinyletter.com/disquiet.

twitter.com/disquiet: Reverbs No Hollowness

I do this manually each Saturday, usually in the morning over coffee: collating most of the tweets I made the past week at twitter.com/disquiet, which I think of as my public notebook. Some tweets pop up sooner in expanded form or otherwise on Disquiet.com. I’ve found it personally informative to revisit the previous week of thinking out loud. This isn’t a full accounting. Often there are, for example, conversations on Twitter that don’t really make as much sense out of the context of Twitter itself. And sometimes I tweak them a bit, given the additional space. And sometimes I re-order them just a bit.

▰ In that odd situation where I have four completed pieces (three on music, one about television) due for publication before the end of the year. When they surface it’ll be like, “Oh yeah that.”

▰ Nice. At Hardly Strictly Bluegrass this year, the Jerry Harrison / Adrian Belew Remain in Light set immediately follows Elvis Costello’s (two different stages), so I can just leave the latter a little early. That’s Saturday, and on Sunday the Dave Alvin / Jimmie Dale Gilmore set is right before Galactic (featuring Anjelika “Jelly” Joseph), also on different stages. Those are the four sets I’m most interested in. If I’m missing anything else in particular, lemme know. And if you’re reading this but won’t be in San Francisco, all of the above (excepting Galactic/Joseph) will be live-streamed!

▰ The 21st novel I finished reading in 2022: Summerland by Hannu Rajaniemi. An alternate-history late-1930s spy story in which life after death necessitates a new branch of the British intelligence services — i.e., “What if Johanna Constantine was the protagonist of a John le Carré novel?” Very enjoyable.

▰ If you switch regularly between full screen and windowed, this can save you some actual headaches and seasickness:

▰ I fully support this vision.

▰ Current status

▰ Encountered during lunchtime walk and upon returning home:

▰ “Nor are those empty-hearted whose low soundReverbs no hollowness” Stoked to see this Shakespeare production this coming weekend: Lear, with music by Marcus Shelby (calshakes.org/lear). Side note: we need to bring back “reverb” as a verb.

▰ The 22nd novel I finished reading in 2022: The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz. I definitely enjoyed it, but it’s way too heavy to simply be “enjoyed.” Even with its fairly positive ending, you’re left rattled. It’s a time-travel novel in which history is battled over via “edits” that are like real-life Wikipedia edit wars — imagine Neal Stephenson and Galland’s The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. but with gravitas and punk rock, or if Octavia Butler had been hired to rewrite Back to the Future.

▰ I wonder the same:

▰ Actually, no, I did mean “excising.” Sorry, Algorithm, but I feel like these little blue lines are getting out of control.

▰ When you’re working from a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy (repeat at will) and only fairly late into the process realize that what looked like an eighth note has, in fact, been a sixteenth note all along.

A Virtual Stroll Through Mexico City’s Sounds

Take a virtual/interactive browser-based stroll through the sounds of Mexico City, aka Ciudad de México, aka CDMX), and learn about the sonic aspects of the “informal economy” that is street vending. “The soundscape of the city is not fixed,” the narration goes. “It changes as the city does. As services become outdated — needs and preferences evolve, residents are displaced by new waves of gentrification and development, regulations shift — sounds inevitably disappear. … Similarly, the music of organ grinders (once an iconic sound of CDMX) may soon fade from the streets, despite its promotion by local government. Organ music simply isn’t as appealing to younger generations.” Check it out ➔ pudding.cool

Originally published in a special, experimental September 23, 2022, “TWiS x 3” edition of the This Week in Sound email newsletter. Get it in your inbox via tinyletter.com/disquiet.

Prada x Cliff Martinez

Apparently the music in this Prada womenswear runway show is by Cliff Martinez (Contagion, Kimi, Solaris), who worked with frequent collaborator, director Nicolas Winding Refn (their team-ups include Drive, Too Old to Die Young, Only God Forgives, and The Neon Demon), on videos for the installation. If you watch the archived comments scroll by as the video plays on YouTube, you’ll see numerous assumed Prada aficionados describing the music as “creepy,” which is accurate and to be expected, since that is often the impact of this duo’s modus operandi.

I’m all for fashion houses hiring great composers to do bespoke scores for their shows. I feel like I’ve read smart critiques of runway music, in particular how name DJs performing at the events get paid large fees while the musicians whose tracks they play may earn little if anything — but I can’t find a citation in my browser history.

According to , Martinez had no releases in 2000 and 2021, with the exception of his work on the TV series The Wilds, so until his next reunion with Refn or Soderbergh, we may just have to listen to Prada on repeat.

Video originally posted at YouTube.

The Guitar Circle

I’ll say this: the day you finish reading a 561-page book about practicing guitar, you practice guitar.

Robert Fripp’s new book, The Guitar Circle, is a beast. A mountain of aphorisms. Seemingly every other page is aphoristic in one way or another — and then in case you missed any, there’s a nearly 40-page alphabetical list of them at the end. It’s also quite funny (witness his rebirth as a YouTube sensation with his wife, Toyah Willcox) and odd, so don’t fall for any “He’s an old prog curmudgeon” preconceptions.

Disquiet Junto Project 0560: Sonic Disambiguation

Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto group, a new compositional challenge is set before the group’s members, who then have just over four days to upload a track in response to the assignment. Membership in the Junto is open: just join and participate. (A SoundCloud account is helpful but not required.) There’s no pressure to do every project. It’s weekly so that you know it’s there, every Thursday through Monday, when you have the time.

Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, September 26, 2022, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, September 22, 2022.

Tracks are added to the SoundCloud playlist for the duration of the project. Additional (non-SoundCloud) tracks appear in the llllllll.co discussion thread.

These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):

Disquiet Junto Project 0560: Sonic Disambiguation
The Assignment: Help the Wikimedia Foundation develop a sonic logo.

Thanks to Mahmoud Hashemi, of Listen to Wikipedia, for suggesting the Disquiet Junto take this project on.

The project this week is to participate, if it appeals to you, in the development of a “sound logo” for Wikimedia. Per the instructions: “The Wikimedia movement is searching for a sound logo that will identify content from all of our projects, like Wikipedia, when visual logos are not an option — for example, when virtual voice assistants answer queries.”

Details, including prize and rights, at soundlogo.wikimedia.org.

Note that the official Wikimedia contest deadline is October 10, 2022. For this Junto project, however, it is September 26.

Eight Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:

Step 1: Include “disquiet0560” (no spaces or quotation marks) in the name of your tracks.

Step 2: If your audio-hosting platform allows for tags, be sure to also include the project tag “disquiet0560” (no spaces or quotation marks). If you’re posting on SoundCloud in particular, this is essential to subsequent location of tracks for the creation of a project playlist.

Step 3: Upload your tracks. It is helpful but not essential that you use SoundCloud to host your tracks.

Step 4: Post your track in the following discussion thread at llllllll.co https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0560-sonic-disambiguation/

Step 5: Annotate your track with a brief explanation of your approach and process.

Step 6: If posting on social media, please consider using the hashtag #DisquietJunto so fellow participants are more likely to locate your communication.

Step 7: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.

Step 8: Also join in the discussion on the Disquiet Junto Slack. Send your email address to marc@disquiet.com for Slack inclusion.

Note: Please post one track for this weekly Junto project. If you choose to post more than one, and do so on SoundCloud, please let me know which you’d like added to the playlist. Thanks.

Additional Details:

Deadline: This project’s deadline is the end of the day Monday, September 26, 2022, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, September 22, 2022.

Length: The length is up to you, per the official instructions.

Title/Tag: When posting your tracks, please include “disquiet0560” in the title of the tracks, and where applicable (on SoundCloud, for example) as a tag.

Upload: When participating in this project, be sure to include a description of your process in planning, composing, and recording it. This description is an essential element of the communicative process inherent in the Disquiet Junto. Photos, video, and lists of equipment are always appreciated.

Download: It is always best to set your track as downloadable and allowing for attributed remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution, allowing for derivatives).

For context, when posting the track online, please be sure to include this following information:

More on this 560th weekly Disquiet Junto project — Sonic Disambiguation (The Assignment: Help the Wikimedia Foundation develop a sonic logo) — at: https://disquiet.com/0560/

Thanks to Mahmoud Hashemi, of Listen to Wikipedia, for suggesting the Disquiet Junto take this project on.

More on the Disquiet Junto at: https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here: https://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0560-sonic-disambiguation/

This Week in Sound: Nanoscience + Whale Socialization

These sound-studies highlights of the week originally appeared in the September 20, 2022, issue of the free Disquiet.com weekly email newsletter This Week in Sound: tinyletter.com/disquiet.

▰ A study on four rising stars in nanoscience includes Sabina Caneva. Her research in “protein fingerprinting” involves “using sound waves to guide the proteins to their target. Given that the wave lengths are bigger than the proteins, she’s figuring out how to attach larger beads to the proteins, which are more likely to be caught by the sound waves.” ➔ nature.com

▰ Introducing Sanas: a “startup that’s building real-time voice-altering technology that aims to help call center workers around the world sound like westerners.” As writer Wilfred Chan notes, it brings to mind the comedy Sorry to Bother You, “in which Cassius, a Black man hired to be a telemarketer, is advised by an older colleague to ‘use your white voice.’” Sociologist A. Aneesh (author of Neutral Accent: How Language, Labor and Life Become Global) has mixed feelings on the topic, expressing concerns about “indifference to difference.” Says Aneesh, “It allows us to avoid social reality, which is that you are two human beings on the same planet, that you have obligations to each other. It’s pointing to a lonelier future.” ➔ theguardian.com

▰ Researchers are suggesting that the clicking of sperm whales amounts to “symbolic marking,” along the lines of how humans distinguish themselves with their hair, wardrobe, etc. “Otherwise used to echolocate prey, these sounds can take the form of emitted morse code-like sequences that the scientists call ‘identity codas’. When different clans of whales come together, they appear to use these codas to identify themselves. They are saying: this is us.” ➔ theguardian.com

▰ Is there life after foghorns? It’s been less than a month since the New York Times commented on how much San Franciscans actually like our summer fog. So, of course, the newspaper had to go ahead and rip the fog right out from over us, by charting its reported decline. This is an anxiety-provoking article, to be sure, with some lovely descriptive material throughout:

There is little precision or pageantry to the use of the bridge’s foghorns. When the electrician on duty notes that it is too foggy to see across the mile-wide channel of the Golden Gate, the foghorns are turned on with a click of a computer mouse.

Inside a room on the south end of the bridge, Del West, an electrical superintendent, decided it was time. He warned workers all over the bridge by walkie-talkie, warned them again, then once more.

The bellow of a foghorn can be deafening, or even more dangerous, to people nearby. “It can interrupt your heartbeat,” Mr. Rosenkild said. It didn’t sound like a joke.

Mr. West clicked an icon on the computer screen that read “fog horns.” A moment later, bass tones bellowed from the belly of the bridge.

Read it in full ➔ nytimes.com

▰ Noise pollution is cited as a key concern as e-commerce warehouses proliferate in New York City: “The Last-Mile Coalition, named for the final step of the direct-to-door delivery chain the warehouses sustain, submitted a proposed amendment to the city’s zoning rules Wednesday that would ramp up regulations for such facilities totaling at least 50,000 square feet. The proposal would also bar warehouses within 1,000 feet of schools, parks, nursing homes, public housing buildings, or any other such warehouses.” ➔ gothamist.com

▰ Debate continues in Austin about the local police department’s acquisition of LRADs, or long-range acoustic devices, the volume of which can hit 160 decibels. ➔ austinmonitor.com

Audio Lingo: “Bossware”

“bossware” — a subset of spyware that lets employers keep tabs on employees, including listening to them

________
Citation: science.org

Originally published in the June 6, 2022, edition of the This Week in Sound email newsletter. Get it in your inbox via tinyletter.com/disquiet.