Marc Weidenbaum's Blog, page 325
September 1, 2016
Listening to Yesterday: Banking On It
The bank was quiet yesterday. It was especially quiet for a mid-week visit in the afternoon, especially on the last day of the month. The line was short, two people ahead of me, with three people at the lengthy counter. The bank was sizable, with hard, shiny floors and wide, blank walls. Despite the reflective power of all that surface area, the financial conversations were muffled, muted, their privacy respected by the room’s structure and design. Street noise occasionally became apparent when the front doors, down a short hallway, opened, especially when a bus was pulling up to or out of the stop just beyond the entryway. Keystrokes were heard. The occasional beeping of generic computer equipment was absorbed into the room’s capacious silence. Inside the main hall of the bank, music played lightly, music as background noise, so matched in volume to the hush of the space — a hush akin to a museum, or to a proctored examination — that it took effort to discern the identity of what song was being played.
After I was done with my transaction, I walked down that short hallway and turned to take the stairs to the garage. The music faded slowly as I moved further and further from the main area of the bank. However, as quiet as it got with each step, the music was only suddenly, firmly gone when the stairwell door closed behind me. Immediately the space around me was void, empty, echoing its own silence, reinforcing its absence by presenting nothing more than a voluminous hush, a hush that made the quietude of the bank feel, in retrospect, more like a stage whisper, like a carefully crafted impression of quiet. The bank was private. In contrast, the stairwell was vacant. Private is valuable, comforting. Vacancy is neutral at best; if anything, it is devoid of presence, of comfort.
Stepping into the stairwell was like having the illusion of the bank’s authority dispelled. Inside the bank, its institutional gravitas was everywhere, from the visual depictions of its storied history to the sheer impression made by the activity. To step into the stairwell was to realize how much of that authority was a performance. To step into the stairwell was to step backstage, into the wings of the show that was the bank. I wondered: Had the music continued from the bank into the staircase, would I have experienced the transaction denouement for a longer period of time? Would I have had the song more likely in my head as I exited the garage? Would the authority of the bank have lingered more in my imagination? Would I have remained comforted by its institutional loco parentis, rather than dispiritingly enlightened as to the environmental conceit that had provided that comfort in the first place?
Part 18: Banking On It
The bank was quiet yesterday. It was especially quiet for a mid-week visit in the afternoon, especially on the last day of the month. The line was short, two people ahead of me, with three people at the lengthy counter. The bank was sizable, with hard, shiny floors and wide, blank walls. Despite the reflective power of all that surface area, the financial conversations were muffled, muted, their privacy respected by the room’s structure and design. Street noise occasionally became apparent when the front doors, down a short hallway, opened, especially when a bus was pulling up to or out of the stop just beyond the entryway. Keystrokes were heard. The occasional beeping of generic computer equipment was absorbed into the room’s capacious silence. Inside the main hall of the bank, music played lightly, music as background noise, so matched in volume to the hush of the space — a hush akin to a museum, or to a proctored examination — that it took effort to discern the identity of what song was being played.
After I was done with my transaction, I walked down that short hallway and turned to take the stairs to the garage. The music faded slowly as I moved further and further from the main area of the bank. However, as quiet as it got with each step, the music was only suddenly, firmly gone when the stairwell door closed behind me. Immediately the space around me was void, empty, echoing its own silence, reinforcing its absence by presenting nothing more than a voluminous hush, a hush that made the quietude of the bank feel, in retrospect, more like a stage whisper, like a carefully crafted impression of quiet. The bank was private. In contrast, the stairwell was vacant. Private is valuable, comforting. Vacancy is neutral at best; if anything, it is devoid of presence, of comfort.
Stepping into the stairwell was like having the illusion of the bank’s authority dispelled. Inside the bank, its institutional gravitas was everywhere, from the visual depictions of its storied history to the sheer impression made by the activity. To step into the stairwell was to realize how much of that authority was a performance. To step into the stairwell was to step backstage, into the wings of the show that was the bank. I wondered: Had the music continued from the bank into the staircase, would I have experienced the transaction denouement for a longer period of time? Would I have had the song more likely in my head as I exited the garage? Would the authority of the bank have lingered more in my imagination? Would I have remained comforted by its institutional loco parentis, rather than dispiritingly enlightened as to the environmental conceit that had provided that comfort in the first place?
Disquiet Junto Project 0244: Euro Mixin
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.
This project was posted in the morning, California time, on Thursday, September 1, 2016, with a deadline of 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, September 5, 2016.
These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):
Disquiet Junto Project 0244: Euro Mixin
The Assignment: Combine tracks from three different European netlabels (Portugal, Spain, Switzerland) into one sonic union.
Please pay particular attention to all the instructions below, in light of SoundCloud having closed down its Groups functionality.
Big picture: One thing arising from the end of the Groups functionality is a broad goal, in which an account on SoundCloud is not necessary for Disquiet Junto project participation. We’ll continue to use SoundCloud, but it isn’t required to use SoundCloud. The aspiration is for the Junto to become “platform-agnostic,” which is why using a message forum, such as llllllll.co, as a central place for each project may work well.
And now, on to this week’s project.
Project Steps:
Step 1: This week’s project is a remix. The following three tracks are available for creative reuse thanks to a Creative Commons license. Please download them and extract the specified source segments:
Use the first 20 seconds of “The Station and the Underclass,” performed by the Phonetic Orchestra, released on the Insub. netlabel based in Geneva:
Use the first 20 seconds of “Cloud Scissors” composed by Lo Wei; performed by Cristián Alvear, Santiago Astaburuaga, Gudinni Cortina, and Rolando Hernández, released on the Impulsive Habitat netlabel based in Portugal:
http://impulsivehabitat.com/releases/...
Use the first 20 seconds of “Zraerza,” performed by Geeksha Beka and Berio Molina, released on the Alg-a netlabel based in Galicia:
https://archive.org/details/alg-set05...
Step 2: Create an original piece of music based on the source audio from Step 1.
Five More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:
Step 1: Per the instructions below, be sure to include the project tag “disquiet0244” (no spaces) in the name of your track. If you’re posting on SoundCloud in particular, this is essential to my locating the tracks and creating a playlist of them.
Step 2: Upload your track. It is helpful but not essential that you use SoundCloud to host your track.
Step 3: This is a fairly new step, if you’ve done a Junto project previously. In the following discussion thread at llllllll.co post your track:
http://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-p...
Step 4: Annotate your track with a brief explanation of your approach and process.
Step 5: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.
This project was posted in the morning, California time, on Thursday, September 1, 2016, with a deadline of 11:59pm wherever you are on Monday, September 5, 2016.
Length: The length is up to you. Around three minutes seems like a good length.
Title/Tag: When posting your track, please include “disquiet0244” in the title of the track, and where applicable (on SoundCloud, for example) as a tag.
Upload: When participating in this project, post one finished track with the project tag, and 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: Due to the Creative Commons license allowing for this work to be remixed, it is necessary that your track is set as downloadable, and that it allows for attributed remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution).
Linking: When posting the track online, please be sure to include this information:
More on this 244th weekly Disquiet Junto project — “Combine tracks from three different European netlabels (Portugal, Spain, Switzerland) into one sonic union” — at:
More on the Disquiet Junto at:
Subscribe to project announcements here:
http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/
Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:
http://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-p...
There’s also on a Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.
Image associated with this project is by Thomas, used via Flickr and a Creative Commons license:
August 31, 2016
Patterns and Illusions
Unstable Range’s “Karussell” is two things. The first is a series of short melodic bursts, little single-note streams of playful, buoyant effortlessness. They bring to mind a childlike perspective. They glitch and rupture on occasion, notes held in a near-static space, bouncing like marbles in a small box made of rubber sides. Notes toward the end of their duration fizz upward and outward, like a distant firework or a spray of soda.
The second thing is an underlying layer of echo, of repetition. Each segment of these playful melodies is heard several times, bounding quickly into the sonic distance. There’s an illusion of chords, the notes teaming up in small groups, but it’s just that, an illusion. The repetition isn’t merely a harmonic slight of hand. The patterning suggests, at times, that the piece is moving more quickly, the pacing of the echo matching nearly enough that of the main melody and doubling it, tripling it. Despite which appearances, it’s just a single thread repeated as if in a hall of mirrors. It’s quite splendid.
Track originally posted at soundcloud.com/rudzupuke. Unstable Range is Andrea Peregrini of Austria.
Listening to Yesterday: Blinded
The back window hadn’t been open regularly for some time, not for more than an hour or so at a time, always with the shade pulled down to the slit opening. This was because of the drought. The drought meant turning off the water in the yard, and turning off the water meant the plants that were supposed to grow didn’t and the plants that weren’t supposed to grow did. Working in the back room, far from the street, meant a certain amount of quiet. The shut windows reduced planes and birds to a muffled whisper.
This summer the yard was reworked with low-water plants, native to our region or to regions that bear climatic resemblance to our region. The yard was no longer a post-apocalyptic vision of neglect, and the window was open all the time. Briefly. Then came the discovery of black widow spiders — speaking of things thriving in the absence of rain — which led to some research before the exterior ledges and walls were cleaned (broom rinse repeat).
Yesterday the window was open much of the day, and I was home much of the day. Having the backyard rejuvenated makes the house seem bigger. The open window extends sight lines. The space to sit expands in turn, even when that usable space is imaginary (mental sight lines) during the summer San Francisco fog. Planes and birds are louder now, as are the wind, and the neighbors, and the stray cat, and the occasional helicopter.
Previously the window muffled the outside. Yesterday I sat at my desk, back to the window, peaking occasionally over my shoulder out the window at plants whose names I knew and herbs I’d cooked with just the night before. Something had drawn my attention. There was a rattle. The pull-strings from the shades rustled in the breeze. They conversed with a small mobile on the other side of the house. Having an open window in the back meant the open window in the front now had a partner in air-flow. The mobile rustled. The shade strings rustled. The rustling created a foreground noise. It provided a sonic metric of the wind, and also a distraction from noises further away. Deep into the afternoon I realized I hadn’t heard a plane or a bird or a neighbor. The rustling string had created a subtle aural distraction, something for the mind to secondarily focus on, in favor over more distant distractions. Opening the window had removed a physical partition, but in turn a sonic partition had presented itself.
(Photo by i_yudai, used via Flickr and a Creative Commons license.)
August 30, 2016
Listening to Yesterday: Bathroom Cues
Twice a day my mouth turns into a cavernous venue for what could be mistaken for a solo didgeridoo concert. This is when I use my electric toothbrush. It’s battery-charged, and takes close to half a day to get enough power for it to last a few weeks. I know the toothbrush is due for a charge when the light persists in blinking after I’m done brushing. I know I’m done brushing because the room, along with my mouth, goes silent. Previous to that silence, for two minutes straight from start to finish, my mouth reverberates with the sound and sensation of bristles going full speed.
When I first started using the electric toothbrush, after a lifetime with the unplugged sort, I was concerned I’d made a terrible and not inexpensive mistake. Those vibrations are my least favorite part of my thrice-annual dental visit. There’s a quiet ferocity to them, and the hum of the machine is matched by the ticklish tinging where gums meet teeth. After a short time, thankfully, I became comfortable with the brush, and now I rarely travel without it. I came, in fact, to admire the vibrations, or more specifically the use of the vibrations as a design element.
There’s a particularly ingenious aspect to the electric toothbrush’s vibrations. Every 30 seconds there is a lull, not a cesura, just the briefest of pauses. The lull is a signal. It means rotate, like we used to do in volleyball during gym class back in high school. The brush is programmed to match the quadrants of a human mouth: front top, front bottom, back top, back bottom. The lull, a split-second drop in the rotary drone, is a signal to switch quadrants. Kudos to the device’s designers, who opted to use the absence of sound as a cue, rather than adding a beep. The absence of sound is one of the great tools in a sound designer’s toolbox. It’s a difficult choice for a designer to leave something out, rather than to add something.
The lack of a beep in the brushing is matched by that battery alert. It’s risky to have something as important as battery life be gauged simply by a little light. What if you put down the toothbrush quickly after brushing? What if you place it on the counter so the light is turned away from you? What if the bathroom is brightly lit? No matter. This brush would rather you learn the hard way. One cycle back with the archaic “manual” brush is a small price to pay to be trained to keep an eye on that light in regard to your toothbrush’s battery life. The absence of the beep as an alert, for both the quadrant-swapping and the battery notification, feels like a conscious acknowledgement of the utility scenario, of the quiet period when brushing takes place: early in the morning and late in the evening. Those are times when any additional noise is especially unwelcome, in life and in consumer-product design.
The World-Weary Robots of Wouter van Veldhoven
Before hitting play, consider expanding this video to full-screen, and turning off your lights, and wearing headphones, and maybe even dimming the screen a bit. For 10 minutes, immerse yourself in this compound-like studio installation of Wouter van Veldhoven. The performance is titled “automated reed organ, old televisions, radios and other machines,” which is helpful, because otherwise we’d very much be in the dark, quite literally, about what’s going on. Lights swell and recede, giving snapshot glimpses of equipment, notably a wide array of old reel-to-reel tape recorder-players, and cathode-ray TVs tuned to no channel in particular. The pacing and the clack of the momentary illumination suggests a slide projector is in effect. The “automated” aspect of the title gives some sense of what’s going on, that the machines are being triggered in various ways that treats them more like samples in physical form than as musical interfaces, and the line items of equipment explain what’s being triggered. The result is something akin to a team-up between Pierre Bastien (robotic derivations of old-world instrumentation, notably that sad-sack reed organ) and Nam June Paik (Cold War–era media art). It’s a tremendous piece, bringing to mind steampunk aesthetics, but exploring them without the emphasis on fashion filigree. There’s little here that doesn’t need to be here. There’s no visual artifice added to the tape machines or the TV, for example. They’ve just been jacked into a hand-made system that produces archaic, romantic music. Part of the romance relates to van Veldhoven’s presence. He’s seen coming in and out of view, apparently tweaking the apparatuses, like a custodian from a Hayao Miyazaki movie who is charged with the constant maintenance of some fragile, failing infrastructure.
Video originally posted at the YouTube channel of Wouter van Veldhoven, who is based in Utrecht. More from him at
twitter.com/WvVeldhoven and woutervanveldhoven.tumblr.com.
It’s the latest piece I’ve added to my ongoing YouTube playlist of fine “Ambient Performances.”
August 29, 2016
Listening to Yesterday: Printing Sound
Reading books to my little kid has been an education, for me, in how words are presented and expressed on a page, especially words related to sound. Onomatopoeia is ever present in kids books, often set off from the rest of the text in italics, and with an expressive exclamation point, like the thunk! with which a car trunk closed prior to the start of a family trip in a book I read aloud just yesterday at bedtime. That thunk! was in a book written in full chapters. In books for a younger age, books intended for early readers, such “sound words” might appear as playful typography, the letters of a “boing!” treated in varying sizes, and with numerous n’s, to suggest a spring-like effect, or set off in an artist’s rendering, apart from the main body text.
It’s unclear to me if the distinction is intended to be playful or cautious, if effort is being made early on to make it clear that, say, “blech” is not a word in the way that, say, “bleach” is a word. (Then again, “blech” is from Yiddish. It’s a transliterated onomatopoeia, so maybe it gets grandfathered in as an “actual” word after all.) In books for older kids, the distinction is presumably already ingrained. By that stage, italics seem sufficient as a gentle reminder. Italics are a useful tool, able to imply speed and slowness, loud and soft, depending on the context. Also useful is a pair of em-dashes, which provide a safe zone — a “these aren’t real words” quarantine — from the rest of the narrative.
I was reminded, while staring at the “thunk!” on the page, of how, when I first started out interviewing musicians, I took cues from plays as to how to present the dialog of a Q&A, how “…” at the end of a statement meant someone was trailing off in their speech, and how an em-dash meant they were being cut off. And, how after their interlocutor spoke, starting off with an em-dash suggested they were picking up where they left off. I thought about how, when I worked in manga for half a decade, I became conscious of how Japanese comics use any number of dots in an ellipsis to suggest the length of a pause, and how in Japanese and American comics alike, and elsewhere around the globe, “sounds words” are often presented as dramatic, page-spanning events unto themselves. By then, though, my kid was deep asleep. We’ll discuss this all another time …
August 28, 2016
Listening to Yesterday: Dim Sonics
The local restaurant at lunch yesterday was sizable, in all three dimensions. The large space was packed with diners of all ages, several tables with at least four generations of family members. The double-high ceilings collected the conversations from the various tables, jumbled them up, and shot collages — echoed, splintered, layered — to wherever you sat or stood. Virtually every table was speaking Chinese, ours being one of the few exceptions. Nothing overheard by us was understood, rendering the numerous conversations, the ones close by and the ones reflected off the ceiling, into a kind of human-generated white noise. The murmuring, all at a reasonably sedate volume level, combined with the drone of the nearby soda machine into an underlying purr. In some ways we felt culturally apart; in different circumstances, the buzz might have reinforced such a feeling. In other ways, though, we felt strongly bound by our shared neighborhood and our mutual affection for this restaurant’s sesame balls, shrimp dumplings, shumai, and other dim sum treats. In that latter regard, the vocal hum felt like we’d tapped into the neighborhood’s energy, into the tonality, if not the content, of micro-regional conviviality.
(Photo by i_yudai, used via Flickr and a Creative Commons license.)
What Sound Looks Like
Things decay differently down by the ocean. Sand eats at the plant life. The faces of residents look older, thanks in no small part to extended sun exposure. Wind pushes trees away from the coast. Bird droppings cover much of the west sides of ocean-facing buildings, the air current forcing the poop eastward before it might hit ground. And the salt air rusts what it can, such as the exposed defunct button spaces on these doorbells. Further inland, a dead button is merely void. Here, long after it’s been replaced by a cheap secondary device, the void corrodes and rusts, as do the larger container parts. The doorbell buttons may no longer function, but they’re evidence nonetheless that nature has called.
An ongoing series cross-posted from instagram.com/dsqt.
