The Sound of Athletes & Traffic

Loading...

From the course by Duke University

Art of the MOOC: Experiments with Sound

3 оценки

Duke University

Art of the MOOC: Experiments with Sound

3 оценки

Students of this course may try their hand at their own sound interventions and musical compositions, or simply focus on learning more about diverse musical traditions, sonic experimentation, and acoustic phenomena in everyday life. Designed by artist and Duke professor, Pedro Lasch, and UdK composer Mathias Hinke, this course is also co-taught by scholar and musician Jace Clayton (DJ Rupture) and curator Candice Hopkins (Documenta 14). The lectures link major artistic developments of recent decades to wider ideas about sound in specific social and spatial contexts. Also included are guest presentations from key thinkers and practitioners, like: Christopher DeLaurenti, Jen Delos Reyes, Tina Haver Currin, Quran Karriem, Christina Kubisch, Thomas Kusitzky, Scott Lindroth, Mark Anthony Neal, Bill Seaman, and John Supko. As the ‘ART of the MOOC’ title implies, learners and participants are encouraged to treat the MOOC itself as a public art medium. This happens mostly through the course’s optional practical components, local project productions, global exchanges, and critical feedback. While no prior sound production or musical experience is required, projects also offer challenging options for advanced learners. For other course offerings or language versions in this series, just search 'ART of the MOOC' in the Coursera catalog.

From the lesson

Elements of Sound and Social Practices

This lesson expands on specific terms or ‘sound elements’ that include tuning, resonance, silence, improvisation, rhythm, synchronization, duration, and timbre. It also addresses traditional tools in sound production, from musical instruments to sampling, auto-tunes, and other more recent technologies. The module concludes by exploring the role of sound in specific non-musical social settings and practices, such as clapping, fan culture, sports, traffic jams, mass demonstrations, and more.

Demonstrations & Fan Culture13:18

The Sound of Athletes & Traffic10:25

Social Conventions & Sound Rules9:39

Meet the Instructors

Pedro Lasch
Visual Artist and Associate Research Professor
Duke Art, Art History & Visual Studies
Candice Hopkins
Documenta 14 Curator, Producer, and Author
Jace Clayton
Composer, DJ, Author, and Lecturer
Mathias Hinke
Composer, Researcher, and Professor University of the Arts (UdK) - Berlin

So let's think about the sounds of sports.

Just imagine, instead of just watching sports over

the television or maybe at the stadium, close your eyes,

and I'm sure you would be able to tell in most cases,

what sport you're watching, simply because of the sound telltales of the sports.

There are many examples, for instance,

by tennis the grunting of the players, and/or the weightlifters.

Splashing of water in swimming competitions.

Right. So there's so much that not only you as an athlete produce the sound,

but the surrounding, the immediate environment that

you disturb and that produces the sound as well.

Since sports all have extremely organized structure because the specific time they last,

the rules of the game, and the space where they're being performed.

You could consider all of these to be extremely musical.

It's just because they produce the sound that they produce that

we don't understand them as being very musical

but they have all the prerequisites and ingredients to become a piece of music.

They're organized, they're linear,

they go from A to B from the beginning to the end and they

use sound as a material of expression.

Yes, and also well in many cases the sound is a shadow sound in that it's a by-product,

it's not necessarily deliberate or intentional.

There are also of course many instances with athletes where

the sound has an organizing structure in itself.

And you know, another example that's more an individual athlete,

but this happens of course in confrontation or team

sports too like the grunting you mentioned before of tennis players.

This is a very common. We're all used to hearing this.

You hear the grunting on the one hand.

It allows the tennis player to concentrate force on that hit,

but it also creates that sense of rhythm and dialogue with the other player right?

Yes.

The other player can always hear the other player's grunt

and so you have this non-verbal exchange.

And it's also used tactically,

because you may grunt in a particular way to imply a hit with a particular spin,

and in fact you're implying the opposite what you actually did.

Right, so a deceptive grunt.

Right exactly. So grunting is not only to concentrate your strength,

it's also a means of communication or deception in that case.

There's also this in martial arts,

there's this one called the Kiai.

Which is what they shout also to greet

themselves and to accompany all these forms that they do.

And it's highly ritualized and the specific moments where you hear that.

And when you see these people in films or whatever doing their forms,

it seems deliberate at what time they do that.

And it's a semantic sound if you want,

because it's delineating sentences.

Right.

And so I'm done with this part and I shout.

And then I move onto the next and then I shout.

It's the comma and the dots that they're actually announcing with just a shout.

And what about the Haka.

Yes, well the Haka.

Some of you might not know this,

but the Haka itself is a highly ritualized,

choreographed communication form from the Maori culture of New Zealand.

And there are plenty of Hakas and these Hakas,

they all have a particular meaning in a particular moment when they happen.

So the national rugby team of New Zealand performs prior to the match, always a Haka,

to intimidate the opponent,

and in fact what they are saying in their Haka is we're going to basically kill you.

But they do it in this very stylized form of communication.

In the case of the Hakas also,

a good way to understand how many of the case studies and the materials that we're

introducing to you are using so that we can understand our concepts and analyses.

We are focusing on sound in this Mooc.

But that doesn't mean that one should isolate sound from other aspects of experience.

Right.

So for example, with Haka,

the sound is intimidating but if you see all the gestures

and the bodies that these athletes do with the Haka,

they're as important as the sound that is projecting.

But it's this concept of the material frame that actually helps us

bridge sound with the instrument of sound.

Exactly. Exactly.

Because we understand just like a musician who

plays the clarinet knows to use that instrument.

A Haka, like a rugby player who does the Haka,

understands the role of their body to create fear.

Exactly. So it is definitely very good that

you mentioned this because the material frame is not just

only the intention and the shadow sound of what it is that you're seeing.

It is also the source that you're watching and conceiving.

So, also the space where it's resonating.

Most of our previous examples,

and case studies in the MOOC have dealt with

the human body and either the shadow sounds of our body,

or the deliberate sound production of that we produce as individuals and as collectors.

For the next set of case studies,

we thought it would be really great to think

of a sound production device that most people do not think of as an instrument,

yet clearly is at least in

our mindset as we try to understand sound in the world and it's the car.

It's this prevalent object around the world car culture,

it exists all over the place.

And especially if you live in big cities,

it's an object you know from everyday experience,

and there is very different context that where sound is produced with people and cars,

and so we will just present three of these contexts, right?

So, the first one,

is what we may call the car parade.

We start thinking about car parades as a very jolly way

of shouting out to the world or at least

to the vicinity whatever it is that you're partying about.

Whether it be your national team won the cup,

or your sister got married or whatever that sense.

Or it could even be something solemn like a funeral or

something that is structured through

an authority like what we would call not corporates but motorcades.

Right. Like when important diplomats or a president runs through

a town and they're accompanied by the all of their security in different vehicles.

It's a controlled movement of cars.

So the next case study we want to talk about,

is where you're compromising already your free will.

All of us that have been in a car at times, in a big city.

We're stuck with the rush hour.

The fear of the rush hour and how to prevent

rush hour and take different routes to avoid it.

And so it's still

free will because you may avoid it but sometimes you have to go through it,

because it's the shortest way,

even though it might take some stress.

And rush hour has implied within it,

this sense of what we may call orchestration of

the specific times in a city when

everybody has to do one thing whether they like it or not.

They pick up children from school,

go to work if they work in specific times.

So rush hour is produced not by the free will of individuals,

but by their participation,

but there is still some free will.

But then, the biggest fear of rush hour is our third context which is the traffic jam.

Right, so what.

Well, there's no free will anymore.

There you're stuck and then there's no way out.

It's fine and good that we're talking about the free will and to be forcing

a situation but what is it that we are interested in

looking at these things sonically and also visually because we now have

discovered that the material frame is not only what you hear, but also what you see.

So, this is what we're going to be doing in our analysis.

Ознакомьтесь с нашим каталогом

Присоединяйтесь бесплатно и получайте персонализированные рекомендации, обновления и предложения.

Coursera делает лучшее в мире образование доступным каждому, предлагая онлайн-курсы от ведущих университетов и организаций.

© Coursera Inc., 2018 Все права защищены.

Загрузить из App Store

Загрузить в Google Play