Marc Weidenbaum's Blog, page 43
October 23, 2024
More This Week in Sound: Phonosynthesis, Farts
▰ ROOTS MUSIC: Call it “phonosynthesis,” as scientists confirm that sounds can improve the growth of fungus, per the New York Times: “Playing sound to Trichoderma harzianum, a green microscopic fungus that defends tree roots from pathogens, led to growth rates seven times as fast as those of fungus grown in the sound of silence. If the laboratory findings can be replicated in nature, then sound could be an unexpected new tool for improving the health of forests, encouraging beneficial microbes to take root and thrive.” (Thanks, Mike Rhode!)
▰ SCREEN OFF: One thing I love about the Diary section of the London Review of Books is it often doesn’t announce its topic. It’ll just say “Diary” at the top, along with the entry’s author’s name, and unless you read the piece, you might not know what it’s about, and when you begin to read, you don’t necessarily know what’s ahead. A Diary by Dani Garavelli earlier this month waits until its second paragraph to introduce the topic at hand, movie theaters, and while you might guess it’s about their decline, it doesn’t get around to that for a spell. Eventually we do get around to the introduction of sound in the 1920s and ‘30s, and eventually to the unfortunate results of haphazard cost-cutting decades later. With one theater, by way of example: “They simply dropped a wall from the circle downwards and then divided what they had behind that into two more cinemas. There was no soundproofing: you could quite often hear the film in the neighbouring auditorium.”
▰ BOTTOMS UP: Noni Hazlehurst was a presenter on the longrunning Australian TV series Play School from 1978 to 2011. I hadn’t heard about the show until she was interviewed by the Guardian. Here she describes an inflatable raft that caused what she says was the most chaotic thing to ever happen on the show’s set: “Now, the thing is, it’s meant to inflate in 30 seconds into a two-person rubber dinghy, which it did – but it made the most extraordinary farting sound that you’ve ever heard in your life. For a full 30 seconds. It exploded and just about knocked the whole set over. We were in absolute hysterics, to the point where someone wrote in and said we were obviously drunk. You couldn’t have written it. It was just so funny.”
▰ 21ST CENTURY FX: “I’ve never really used sound effects in comics much. I don’t like them. As a kid, they fascinated me, but after a certain age they started to take me out of the storytelling, so I’ve tried to avoid them. I was part of the generations that helped kill the sound effect and the thought balloon, I guess.” That’s the opening of a great consideration the sound effects (and related topics) of comics in the latest issue of Warren Ellis’ newsletter, Orbital Operations. There was also a heap of inventive sound in his recent audio drama, The Department of Midnight, which I need to get around to unpacking.
▰ GRACE NOTES: Listen Up: Paranoia about whether or not smart devices are listening to us got a nudge when 404 Media shared a leak of an “active listening plan” that proposed to use “‘real-time intent data’ from smart device microphones to deliver ads to consumers.” ▰ No Fooling Around: A multimedia feature in the Guardian on life — especially sonic nocturnal life — during wartime: “people can see almost nothing in the darkness and so strain their ears to hear the noises that haunt them afterwards.” ▰ Punctured: Inconsistency is cited in research on the use of breath sounds in respiratory evaluations. ▰ Battle Bots: Robot vacuums across the country were hacked in the space of several days, [allowing] the attackers to not only control the robovacs, but use their speakers to hurl racial slurs and abusive comments at anyone nearby.” ▰ Just Browsing: A Chrome extension keeps alert for audio deep fakes.
The Ears Have IT
Restaurants are getting noisier, and the noise gets harder for people to deal with as they age. Both those things are true, and they combine to make the situation even worse. Fortunately, in the wake of revised FDA regulations back in 2022, over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids are becoming available, dropping the price significantly (from the thousands of dollars to the hundreds), and increasing innovation in the marketplace.
The new hearing health tools in Apple’s AirPods became the FDA’s first authorized OTC hearing aid software device, as announced last month. Without that regulation change, the situation would not have improved as quickly as it has.
As Chris Welch reports in the Verge, the initial trio of Apple featues includes “clinical-grade hearing aid functionality, a hearing test, and more robust hearing protection.”
Rebecca Hamilton at Slate reports on the scale of need: “[J]ust 16 percent of Americans between the ages of 20 and 69 years who would benefit from hearing aids ever use them. Some 20 million go without.”
Pete Wells in the New York Times notes a particular use case that predates the hearing health additions: “What you may not know is that the AirPods Pro 2 already come with a setting that can turn up the volume on the voices of people you’re talking to and another one that tamps down background noise. Other earbud makers, including Sony, Samsung, Beyerdynamic and Soundcore, also offer functions meant to make conversation easier in noisy places.” Wells was a long time restaurant critic, so if anyone knows something about noisy rooms, it’s him.
Technology will help, but a major next step is going to require changes to cultural norms. Right now, AirPods and earbuds in general send a visual signal of isolation, that someone is paying attention to something other than the world around them. We’ll need to get comfortable sitting across from someone and not take the presence of their earbuds as a physical indication that they aren’t paying attention to us. No one sees a traditional hearing aid in someone’s ear and thinks they’ve checked out of the conversation, quite the contrary.
Related stories on the topic of things we put in our ears:
▰ Up to 11: For some with extreme hearing loss, the answer in the future may be an SCBI, or “spinal computer–brain interface,” which can “effectively convert sound into interpretable spinal cord stimulation patterns, offering a novel approach to sensory substitution for individuals with hearing loss.”
▰ Fungus Among Us: Mycelium is a fungus with manufacturing utility and reported antibiotic properties. Also, the fungus is the sole ingredient in a brand of earplugs made by Gob (gob.earth), a company based in San Francisco. “The result is a hypoallergenic earplug with a secure fit that moulds to the ear with a similar action as memory foam,” writes Ellen Eberhardt in Dezeen. The makers claim certain unique qualities: “Unlike traditional foam earplugs, which can muffle certain frequencies, our mycelium-based earplugs provide superior sound absorption while maintaining clarity and comfort.”
▰ Ear Ache: A conservative political commentator was involved in a recent humorous kerfuffle. He reportedly attended a sports event wearing earplugs, and later was accused of editing the plug out of a selfie. Reminder: the year is 2024, and everything is political, including the perceived manliness of hearing protection.
▰ Say What?: “[Researchers] have found those who experience hearing loss are more likely to be diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease later on. … But if hearing aids are prescribed right off the bat, the risk of diagnosis appears significantly dampened.” The chart below is from the latest issue of JAMA Neurology, published by the American Medical Association.
October 22, 2024
On the Line
▰ Suit Up:
Kirin said Acknowledged at the same time all the others on the strike team did, their voices blending into a single sound that the suit parsed for him — their names going from yellow to green on his display.I’m always interested in the role of sound in user interfaces — even if those interfaces are in fiction, and especially if it’s science fiction. This bit is from the new novella Livesuit, by James S.A. Corey (also author of the Expanse series, and actually two authors — Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck — who use one shared name).
. . .
▰ Queen’s Throat:
I’m always frustrated because my DynaVox is monotone. Because of my sass, I would like to show more emotions. When I say, "Darling it’s lovely to see you, may I please have a friendly kiss on each cheek?," my DynaVox Maestro isn’t as flamboyantly gay as I am.That is Mark Steidl. “Steidl has cerebral palsy and speaks through an augmentative and alternative communication (or A.A.C.) device, which can make ordinary interactions painfully slow.” He is the star and co-librettist (with Katherine Skovira) of an opera, The Other Side of Silence, composed by Robert Whalen (New York Times gift link). The work involves “a generative synthetic voice taught to sing opera.” (Thanks, Rich Pettus!)
. . .
▰ House Music:
Then the wee hoursawake in bed,rocking and meditating,strangely blissful lonelinessand insomnia, the sound of my ownhumming and the house ticking,the first tears afterthe first death—That’s a segment of the poem “Meaning of the Word ‘Never’” by Deborah Garrison. It was published on October 21, 2024, by the New Yorker. There is something beautiful about the “house ticking,” all the more so because the section preceding this one introduces a clock, which suggests a tick, which doesn’t arrive until now.
Sound Ledger: Earplugs, EPA, Snoring
40 billion: number of plastic earplugs made per year
43: number of years since Ronald Reagan, then president, defunded the EPA’s Office of Noise Abatement and Control
45: decibel level exceeded by two-thirds of habitual snorers
Sources: earplugs (dezeen.com), EPA (fox8live.com), snoring (newscientist.com)
October 21, 2024
Ch-Ch-Chain
My friend Mahlen Morris, who proposed this past week’s Disquiet Junto project and who develops some very cool virtual synthesizer modules, recently came to recognize that when his phone records video in slow-motion, the resulting sound is, naturally, also slowed down. Here’s a short clip of a metal chain clanking, to provide an example of the effect. When recorded this slowly, the sound of the clank has a depth and detail that is unlike the almost binary on/off thunk of it in real (i.e., real-time) life. And in addition, there is a haunting background drone, perhaps just artifacts of the chain, or a passing plane, or something else entirely. No matter, it’s a splendid effect.
October 20, 2024
Doorbel (Sic)
Where to begin? The counterclockwise — and bleached-by-the-elements — numbering? The requisite additional text information for visitors? The damage to said information — notably to the words “button” and “can”? The misspelling of the word doorbell itself (and subsequent missing apostrophe)? The odd, solitary logo on the NuTone button? The fact that of the four buttons, there seem to be three different types?
October 19, 2024
Scratch Pad: Space, Soul, Depeche Mode
I do this manually at the end of each week: collating most of the recent little comments I’ve made on social media, which I think of as my public scratch pad. I also find knowing I will revisit my posts to be a positive and mellowing influence on my social media activity. I mostly hang out on Mastodon (at post.lurk.org/@disquiet), and I’m also trying out a few others. And I generally take weekends off social media.
▰ Two seasons into For All Mankind, very much digging it, even if it’s more soap opera than space opera at times. I sure hope they start introducing pop songs that exist only in this alternate timeline (sorta like the Prince bootlegs in Counterpart).
▰ I’m about a decade and a half late to the documentary Thunder Soul (2010), about a Houston, Texas, jazz-funk band that gained much-deserved acclaim, toured the world, and then reunited 30 years later. It should come with a box of tissues, I’ll tell you that.
▰ Afternoon drone trio for idling bus, fog horn, and passing jet plane
▰ I’m definitely a sucker for a thriller in which the mark has an earbud in the whole time and they’re taking directions from someone else, be it antagonist or not. I imagine that mode doesn’t last this full movie, but I’ll be checking it out for sure.
▰ I’d swear that whoever does the voice menu for the jury duty phone line in this town was hired ’cause it sounds like he did the voiceover for the opening of Dragnet
▰ The feeling when you think that’s the ice cream truck down the road and it turns out to be the especially colorful van of a plumber
▰ My friend Matt Nish-Lapidus (@emenel) made a fantastic piece of online art, the less said about it in advance the better. Just give it a click, and then another and …
▰ Dream last night: I’m in a band with Kathryn Hahn. We share a manager with Depeche Mode. The manager set up the four of us to record together. Dave Gahan is being lazy somehow. Hahn marches Gore and me to the mall, pulls Gahan out of his fitness class, and lectures him about his responsibilities.
▰ Perhaps the best thing about this Martin Gore* video about his new (and very pretty) signature Gretsch guitar is the evidence that those famous floor-to-ceiling walls of Eurorack modules in his studio weren’t sufficient, and now he has additional massive cases on the floor.
▰ A friend told a friend long ago “Don’t read books; write ’em” and that’s my main excuse for having not finished reading a book since the first week of September, when I completed The Mercy of Gods, the first in a new series by Expanse author James S.A. Corey (actually two authors writing under one pseudonym). That was my 21st novel of 2024. I’ve read a bunch of stuff since, and am nearly done with too many books, but the first thing I’ve finished since The Mercy of Gods is a novella, titled Livesuit, in the same Corey series. It’s pretty short, but I’ll count it as a novel, I think.
October 18, 2024
Please Forget (Everything)
My friend Charles Lindsay — who long ago invited me to speak at SETI, back in 2014, when he was running the artist-in-residence program there — asks: “Can AI become sentient? If AI can become sentient, can it become conscious? If AI can become conscious, can it become enlightened?” And he does so in the context of an exhibit of his art currently showing at Heron Arts here in San Francisco. It will run through October 30. In addition to a range of pieces that explore the intersection of cybernetics and enlightenment, he’s been hosting a series of events at Heron. Just this week there was an interesting conversation I attended about Art, AI, and psychedelics. There’s also this hour-long soundtrack he created, a mix of field recordings, music, voices, and other sonic effluvia. He explains that among the founds sounds heard in this flowing collage are “the persistent ‘do not forget anything’ messages delivered by synthesized voices in all manner of public transportation in Japan.” It is from those messages that he derived the name of his show, Please Forget (Everything).
October 17, 2024
Disquiet Junto Project 0668: All Right Then, Keep Your Secrets
Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto music community, a new compositional challenge is set before the group’s members, who then have five days to record and upload a track in response to the project instructions.
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. The Junto is weekly so that you know it’s there, every Thursday through Monday, when your time and interest align.
Tracks are added to the SoundCloud playlist for the duration of the project. Additional (non-SoundCloud) tracks also generally appear in the lllllll.co discussion thread.
Disquiet Junto Project 0668: All Right Then, Keep Your Secrets
The Assignment: Bury a secret sound until it is no longer identifiable.
This project was proposed by Mahlen Morris.
Step 1: Record a 30-second chunk of sound from a single source. This may or may not involve a microphone. This recording shall be referred to as The Sound.
Step 2: Manipulate the Sound extensively. Stretch, break, torture, soothe, remove, heighten The Sound. Reveal subtleties of The Sound you didn’t notice when you recorded it.
Step 3: Layer the results of Step 2 in a way that pleases you. Revel in it.
Step 4: Reveal to no one the original source of The Sound. Ever. In the description when posting your finished track, you can say what you did to The Sound, but do not even hint at the source.
Step 5: Keep and carry that secret. Not all must be revealed.
Tasks Upon Completion:
Label: Include “disquiet0668” (no spaces/quotes) in the name of your track.
Upload: Post your track to a public account (SoundCloud preferred but by no means required). It’s best to focus on one track, but if you post more than one, clarify which is the “main” rendition.
Share: Post your track and a description/explanation at https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0668-all-right-then-keep-your-secrets/
Discuss: Listen to and comment on the other tracks.
Additional Details:
Length: The length is up to you. How hard do you need to work to keep your secret?
Deadline: Monday, October 21, 2024, 11:59pm (that is: just before midnight) wherever you are.
About: https://disquiet.com/junto/
Newsletter: https://juntoletter.disquiet.com/
License: It’s preferred (but not required) to set your track as downloadable and allowing for attributed remixing (i.e., an attribution Creative Commons license).
Please Include When Posting Your Track:
More on the 668th weekly Disquiet Junto project, All Right Then, Keep Your Secrets — The Assignment: Bury a secret sound until it is no longer identifiable — at https://disquiet.com/0668/
This project was proposed by Mahlen Morris.
The image associated with this track is a detail from a photo by Chris Riebschlager, found on Flickr and used thanks to a Creative Commons license:
https://flic.kr/p/2eGb3D
October 16, 2024
Moran x (James + Dobson) =
Kelly Moran tapped the great Loraine James and her percussionist colleague Fyn Dobson to do a remix of the track “Superhuman,” off Moran’s recent album, Moves in the Field. The title of the track references how Moran’s instrument on the recording is a Yamaha Disklavier, a tool that allows her to compose and perform music that would be, in effect, impossible for an unaided human to accomplish on their own. In the able hands of James and Dobson, the source material is muffled, its intricacies heard as if through glass, and that sonic shape is improvised upon with drums and synthesized tones, individual bits of the piano occasionally peeking out.
And here’s the original track for comparison’s sake:
