Class: ENGL 4320 SR SEM: RHET & COMP-CTW
Term: Spring 2015
Professor: Dr. Hocks
Genre: Soundscape, Sound Documentary
Audience: Professor and Classmates

 

The project “Good Vibes: An Assessment of Mr. Carmack’s Sonic Rhetoric” focused on autality, and analyzing the sound recordings of the April 24 show in Atlanta, to understand the rhetoric of DJ. Mr Carmack. I did this by attempting to pinpoint, and analyzing the sounds that created the most resonance with the audience.

In order to do this, I analyzed the recordings, and collected an extra testimony through a guided reduced-listening session. Then I compiled my observations, and analyzed them with the perspective about sound that I gathered in the introduction of The Sound Studies Reader. Finally I delivered the content through a Soundcloud podcast.

This project was very fun to research and compose. A part of me was kind of bothered to be stressed out about a project during a concert, but I felt that the level of resonance that I witnessed there had to be recorded and analyzed. Conducting the interview was fun but challenging, the interviewee that I picked gave me really good feedback, and provided a nice definition of the term “vibe.” However it was a little time consuming to get him to that level of mindfulness. I also wish that I could have interviewed more people.

This project could be improved. If I had begun earlier, I would finish The Sound Studies Reader in order to arm myself with more insight, and to go deeper into the topic. It’d be especially interesting to study the chapter “vibrations”, to see if or how this concept relates to the “vibes” conclusion.

Nevertheless, I think that the reduced listening exercise along with the artifacts, gave an interesting glimpse into the sonic characteristics of the Atlanta trap scene (“Atl chant, song preferences, cheering, singing along). It was also interesting to interpret Mr. Carmack’s reaction to the crowd.

It was also incredibly fun to play with pure sonic composition. I wanted to create a “viby” podcast that would express the thesis without words. To do this, I used my cell phone (iPhone 5), and Garage Band on my laptop. I relied a lot on the samples that I recorded during the concert. Sometimes, I’d be talking, and I’d raise the volume in the background music to highlight the crowd reaction. I enjoyed using four voices (deep, regular, megaphone, and echo) in order to augment the arrangement with levels and style. Besides voice effects, it was very exciting to play with vocalix, and try to make myself sound like a radio DJ. Further, to use my voice to build rapport with the podcast audience, by using a colloquial style. The end sample, in my opinion, flawlessly complemented the conclusion.

Growing up I learned the technical music theory definition of resonance/dissonance: basically bringing notes of the same scale together/ bringing notes that are out of scale; or the same thing with rhythm. In a sound studies context, I think this means more whether, a sound fits the aesthetic expectations of audiences. In this case, the Mr. Carmack soundscape may be very resonant to the people who attended the show, but will probably be dissonant to people who don’t like hip-hop, or dance music.

Through research I learned more about sonic rhetoric– about the various levels and perspectives, and the span of diversity for analysis methods. I was especially interested in the mindfulness exercise, which asks us to listen to sounds from an objective point of view, and to express our true instinctual reactions. It was also interesting to see the influence of sound to environments, and how sounds can be a very descriptive and immersive artifact of an era. As Sterne pointed out, we usually think of sound as a passive factor of environments, but this is not the case.

I want to continue learning about sound rhetoric, in order to better understand my environment, and to create a more interesting/powerful impact in society with composition. I specifically look forward to reading more on Sterne, Dyson, Oliveros, and Bull.