ABC's Hearing Voices: The Invisible Intruders

1) The podcast that I chose to review was ABC National Radio's "Hearing Vpices: The Invisible Intruders".
2) The topic of the podcast is essentially people who suffer from psychological conditions that result in them 'hearing' voices of other (or themselves) that aren't really speaking, or even there. This podcast looks deeper into this phenomenon, and humanizes it a bit more, straying away from the traditional view that people who hear voices are inherently crazy. These conditions are related to regular everyday people who wouldn't be seen as insane by most, and instead of being terrifying, they can apparently sometimes be somewhat comforting in times of crisis.
3) This podcast definitely addresses issues of listening and hearing, because its consists of stories and cases of people who one day, began to 'hear' and 'listen' to voices that didn't really exist outside of their minds. This particular podcast doesn't so much deal with the effects of technology as much as it addresses physical people and the extent to which they believe what their minds conjure up internally. These voices are described as initially being very distracting, but after a while become one with these people's everyday lives, becoming even comforting. This can be compared to technology and the extent of which it surrounds us; initially new and distracting but becoming inherent and 'part' of us as we continue with it ingrained in our lives.
4) The theoretical and cultural contexts of this podcast is exploring the case-by-case basis of one's 'imagined' voices, and the hold and effect they have on their creator's everyday lives and interactions. The cases and examples of these afflictions range from being subconsciously comforting to being extremely destructive. The podcast begins to explore how most peoples voices are triggered by a specific instance, usually a traumatic one, and can be traced back to such instances and pinpointed. There are both segments involving people with first person experiences involving voices, to medical and psychological professionals who offer a more objective viewpoint.
5) The podcast doesn't really explore too many audio production techniques, and primarily relies on one or two effects, such as fade outs, layering of sound (voice + music/audio samples), etc. Because this podcast doesn't address music or the business/practice of audio production, we don't hear to much variation other than people's voices and selected accompanying musical tones. The podcast doesn't encourage us to listen as it encourages us to be aware and more introspective.
6) If this was my podcast, one production technique I would apply to more so engage the theme, would be to layer multiple voices and have them wander in and out of our audible existence. No one voice would would be clearly heard, nor would it be very impressionable; but creating an atmosphere with multiple voices could potentially shed some light one what it is actually like to 'hear' voices (your own or someone else's) that aren't really there.

Podcast- musical language

1）Musical Language

2）This podcast focus on what is music and what music is made of .By using languages, physics, brains etc as a guess to prove the elements that consist of music. It’s both interesting and exciting to find out that even a word or a sentence can become a cheerful melody. Especially, how the woman professor saying randomly phase turned into music.

3）This music language podcast address issues of “listening” by lots of examples. In one of those examples, I have heard the host uses my mother language Mandarin as an example to illustrate those four tones of the same word express the different meanings of it. Like “ma”, 1^st tone means mom, 2^nd tone stands for perish, 3^rd tone means horse, 4^th tone stands curse. Technology plays the role of tool which can analysis and invent a new meaning of a simple thing. Like the most impression loop example I have heard, “sometimes become so strangely”. People use the technology to make this phase into a loop, which provide a new meaning of it.

4）Tone language, cultural language. As I have mentioned before, the four different tones of the same word stands for different meaning in Mandarin. In different tone we express the same word show our emotion and mood change. Also the example of touch at a distance, which let also know we can feel the music according to mankind’s brain system. It also explains the reason why we have the feeling of consonance and dissonance.

5）The host uses the audio examples and other guest host speaking to fill the empty in the podcast. They did an extremely good job in getting involved people by keep asking question and let the professor answer the question by their examples. The structure of this podcast is really clear; we know the start, middle and the ending of the podcast.

6）I hold the view that they should do more interviews in the podcast. In that way, listeners like as can know the theme more deeper; and give us a “break time” to think about the issue they have discussed. Also, I like they way they use the technology as a tool to invent new things. Maybe they should show more interesting examples to hook the listeners. 

RadioLab's Musical Language

1)  Musical Language-RadioLab 

      Sonorah Vinyard 

2) Identify the podcast topic and theme in your own words.  What does the podcast

have to tell us that is new, focused and exciting about the topic?

            The topic and theme of this podcast is how the use of tones and variations of tones create a listening experience and can change the perception of the word just by changing the pitch or tone.  By analyzing different backgrounds of children with perfect tone ability and conducting experiments of saying the same words over two different days allowed the podcast to created what would appear to be a loop, even though the words were spoken over two different days.  Also to listen to music like Rite of Spring which challenges the idea of previous perception of music.  One of these questions becomes what is music and how language can easily become music with a shift in tones.  Exposer at a critical period could be the difference of these abilities of human potential explains Diana Deutsch.

3) How does the podcast address issues of “listening” or “hearing”?  According to

the podcast, what role does technology play in listening or hearing?

            This podcast brings attention to how tones and pitches neurologically change how a human hears a particular sound.  How the air and forces are pushed into your ear creating vibrations and voice travels through space and time.  The podcast uses visual sounds to create an effect for each explanation they are trying to capture of how the ear hears sound.  Using bones, vibrations and electricity.  In Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, begins to create a different between “hearing” and “listening” to music.  The differences between someone sitting and listening to the sounds can be a lot more effective and productive as they are analyzing each tone and pitch.  When someone is simply “hearing” music, there is no analytical productivity.  There is also a memory aspect to music.  When the mind hears a sound or a particular word memories that might have happened before are brought up.  After listening to this podcast for the second time the phrase "they somehow behave so strangely" automatically sounds like a melody even when said normally in the podcast. 

4) What theoretical and cultural contexts are being used to present and discuss the

theme?  Do these contexts go beyond historical and biographical documentary?

            During the podcast the tones tend to change with the topic they are discussing, using the elements of “feeling” and creating emotion and relay the message.   Anne Fernald brings up the fact that “sound is touch at a distance.”  As babies develop they are taught to ear an emphasis on particular tones and pitches to relate how they feel.   The example of the different ways of saying mama could change and with different words they meaning can change throughout different languages.  I also think this tone and pitch is somewhat of a cultural thing.  We were taught to hear those tones and then translate that into how the speaker wants the listener to react.  The reaction of babies’ changes as they hear higher pitched noises.   This idea also coexists with the point I mentioned above about how memory and previous feelings towards a particular song effects how one "listens" or "hears" the music. Why does music make us feel so strongly and how does this electricity from the ear becomes feelings?  This one one of the questions the podcast addresses. 

5) What specific forms of audio production or phenomenon, specific techniques or

styles of production, are demonstrated by the podcast?  How does the podcast

encourage and support us to listen to, compare and/or contrast specific “sonorous

objects”?

            The production of this podcast again reiterates how tones are used to create emotion and by creating a loop with the words they use and creating a musical pitch to sayings, it changes our perception of that section.  The language of the people does affect how tones and music could be perceived.  It is argued through out the podcast, which one was first music or language?  By repeating the section where Diana says, “they somehow behave so strangely” it turned language into a music piece just by changing the production of that piece.  Patterns also become a relative term within this podcast through speaking of the rioting, which happened at the Rite of Springs

Brain wants to put previous experiences into the now experiences.  This last music is putting the listener in a position to not put those previous experiences in it.  Continents and dissentients ears in an internal struggle.  Jonah Lehar 

6) If this were your podcast, what is one production technique you would want to

use in order to more creatively engage the thematic focus?

            The theme in this podcast is fairly precise and manages to stay focused on the theme, which is using tones and pitches to relay a listening and hearing environment.  It could be productive to create a more concise way to hear more examples by altering their speech as Diana does in the first section of the podcast.  Through out the interviews, I do think it makes it a related experience with the listener.  By having a conversation feeling to the podcast allows the listener to stay more engaged instead of someone reading their answers off. 

Spaces of Listening / The Record Shop.

1. I listened to the podcast Spaces of Listening / The Record Shop. http://soundstudiesblog.com/2012/04/19/sounding-out-podcast-episode-6-spaces-of-listening-the-record-shop/

2. The theme of the podcast was to hear varying viewpoints on the consumption of music. The podcast included opinions from music lovers, record storeowners, record store employees, and artist. It is interesting how they compare today’s kids buying and listening to music, to when the speakers themselves were kids, buying and listing to music.  How people buy music has changed so much because of technology. 

3. The podcasts address issues with listening and hearing by giving examples from their own background.  One factor discussed is the way in which technology has impacted the way people listen to music. One person talks about going to the record store and hearing the record over the stores speakers and falling in love with it.  With technology today we have mostly lost the record store listening experience.  

4.  People are using their own experiences to demonstrate the ways the music industry has changed over time.  They are trying to show that most kids today will not have the same experiences they had going to record stores

5. The form of audio production the podcasts uses has one focus, but instead of having one person telling their story they have multiple people telling short stories of their time with record stores.  I the podcast encourages people to listen to different types of music; not to worry about what people think to go out and try to find what music you like. 

6. I would want to use the technique of having multiple people on the podcast. This can keep people focused because it changes so much that people are tying to pay attention and they are trying to keep up with the podcast.   

Shallow Rewards: The Hiding

1.) http://vimeo.com/54523062 2.) The podcast discusses how alternative artists appreciate having enough exposure to have their music enjoyed to its fullest by a specific group of listeners. On the other side of this, some fans of non-mainstream music chose to listen because the music is not mainstream. These teens prefer to keep their music private so that they have a place of belonging that is theirs because they have proven themselves by learning about particular artists on their own and only a small group of people with the same interests would be just like them. Additionally, he says that they chose to listen because they are intending to hide from the music that is mainstream rather than running away from it and because of this they do not want the artists their listening to become mainstream since they will no longer be able to hide. And if an alternative artist ends up being mainstream the fans end up disliking them for it and refer to them as being washed out and/or selling out. Likewise, alternative artists could feel exploited by getting the wrong type of media coverage that does not satisfy them in the way they were exposed. 3.) The podcast addresses issues in listening by exploring the topic of choosing to listen to a particular kind of music from a fan’s perspective. He explains that teens can strongly identify with certain artists because the artists are able to better express for them feelings that they cannot from lack of experience; so much so that teens can view such artists as being part of them which they do not want the artists to change by suddenly widening their fan base to include other people that they cannot identify with because they would be unmotivated to listen. Within this privatization of listening to music, he gives the example of being able to use other technological ways of playing the music as a way that alternative artists allow their fans to put in the effort to explore their music by remaining alternative rather appearing everywhere as mainstream artists which defeats the purpose of needing to make an effort to hear their work. 4.) The theoretical and cultural context being used to present and discuss the theme is idea of being a serious fan of something. He provides examples that he parallels to being a fan of alternative music. He centers this argument on the idea of its seclusion from mainstream music and equates it to fans being consumed in rare pokemon trading cards that are rare because the company generated so few of them. He adds to that by highlighting that in the cases of rare pokemon trading cards because of the artificiality based in the nature of their rarity they are not appraised at the same great value as a rare baseball card would. Rare baseball cards, he highlights, have their rarity based more on historical events rather than what the manufacturer is at present time doing to generate buzz around the item. The context does go beyond a historical and biographical documentary. Not only does he make personal connections to his youth, he parallels them to examples of similar activities that are being engaged in by the youth of a different generation, one of which includes the alternative music scene under discussion and pokemon trading cards. 5.) The video uses effective imagery in the beginning by demonstrating a term commonly coined by fans of alternative music, which is examined at length in the podcast that is to follow. The video sequences a cassette being taken out of its package, played and then put in the dishwasher and taken out all accompanied by a resonating one note sound vibrating in the background to emphasizes the actions being taken. The term he addresses by doing this is when music is “washed out” which happens when musicians make more sales, which is coined as “selling out” and they in turn earn more money and make more fans. The negative connotation that surrounds the terms “selling out” and “washed out” music is one that is based on the fans reactions/perceptions to the music’s gain in popularity. He addresses this perspective by stating that teen fans can so strongly identity with a particular music enough to see it as their own, so much so that they would only want to keep it to themselves and at their level, rather than sharing it with a million more fans which is when it can be over played and lose meaning to their older fans. He criticizing this reaction as being childish but he understands how teens can be so consumed in a particular genre of music as he had in his youth. He encourages his sort of listening, by highlighting the thrills he experienced in his youth of getting a record and privately playing his own music and enjoying it privately as a way to hide his listening interests from mainstream music as a way to curve out his own identity. 6.) I would use examples of clips of alternative music to serve as examples of the type of music he is discussing rather than simply holding up the cassettes that he was referencing. His eye contact throughout was extremely effective in that it exemplified that the topic in the video was of his opinion only and that he is a prime example of who is talking about and his serious expression translated to him wanting to be taken seriously which is all why he was effective. But instead of having the video focus on his eyes, he could have inserted images of what he was talking about in order to create more specific examples of his thematic focus aside from himself.

Ayinde Chong: Sounding Out!

            This pod cast explores idea of the “record store” and how the role it plays in society has changed as our values have changed. From the discussion of issues like childhood experience and seeking mentors and role models to how recording artists being challenged by changes in economic structuring of the music industry the listener is guided through interviews and commentary illustrating a chronological transformation.

             Chronologically we as the listener are firstly given an adequate back grounding on the history of the relationship dynamics between recording artist, record label, and record store, this is very important in the timeline for how things were to be laid out digitally making it much more challenging for record stores to maintain relationships with the record stores.

One of the more engaging features about the design of this particular pod cast was the use of recorded interviews on the subject, where people were able to voice their opinions, concerns, and express themselves. This was particularly effective when thinking about the experience or act of listening and the technology with which we use to do it. On the one hand, in many of the interviews people are describing experiences or anecdotes in which they experienced some sort of interaction (usually human interaction) that helped shape the way they listened or heard material they were interested in or exposed to in these record shops. On the other hand You as the listener are listening to a digital recording that to some extent shows how technology has already made the change they may be speaking of preventing. When speaking of their experiences going into a record shop one interviewee speaks of the clerks disgust with the Compact Disc and another interviewee speaks of how she was dissuaded from buying a record both experiences that will be lost with the disappearance of the record store.

Theoretically this cast is pulling from a vast nostalgic source of a sense of familiarity and commonplace and contextualizing it by foregrounding the importance of a music culture as sound sense. The cultural contexts are already there they are things we can relate too. Someone mentions having a “shop dog” the sense of “independent business” haven’t we all been there at one time or another at this point??

The production on this pod cast was very limiting in terms of the sonorous object as the segment consisted mainly of interviews however there were quite a few moments as with other radio labs where you could hear sonorous objects peek out from behind the vocals such as the wind chime on a doorbell ding or faint murmur of voices as they attempted to paint a picture of a somewhat more active space using audio.

The interviewing technique was incredible and the mastering was impeccably done on it. I was already thinking of using some sort of cacophony type work in my piece to help guide the listener through space and hearing this only made the possibilities that much more exciting!     

Musical Language - Radiolab

1) Musical Language - Radiolab

2) This podcast dealt with topics and concerns regarding music and how the human mind perceives sound.  It dealt with the implications of speech patterns and musical tones on society and mental ability, the differences between those who possess perfect pitch in tonal languages vs. non tonal languages, the theory behind the universal language of sound, dissonant and consonant sounds and their effects at a neurological level, and musical arrangement composed using software.  I thought it was very interesting the way Jad and Robert constructed the argument for music's ability to re-sculpt or restructure the brain and how the brain processes information.  The idea that culture wins out over biology seemed fluid throughout the discussion.

3)  The podcast addressed the issues of "listening" and "hearing" mainly through example.  They spoke about Stravinsky and the Rite of Spring.  The riots that ensued with the first group who "listened" to the composition vs. the praise Stravinsky received with the second group who sat down and tried to "hear" the composition.  Another example would be the music composed by computer.  The people who merely "listened" to it did not appreciate the actual qualities of the sounds and instead focused on how those sounds were produced.  The woman who actually "heard" what sounds were produced, loved the composition made by computer. 
     Both of these instances are also examples of technologies role in "listening" and "hearing."  The first is an example of technique as technology in which brain chemistry and dopamine levels were altered by uncommon musical arrangements resulting in different audience experiences.  The second is an example of technology as tool.  Composer's block lead to the development of software that analyzed musical arrangement in order to create compositions in similar styles to other composers.

4) Theoretical and cultural contexts were initially concerned with the musical components of language.  How universal language exists in tonal structure and the way phrases are organized by sound structure like pitch, volume, and length.  This was further expounded upon by the differences between cultures that use tonal language and their greater ability to possess perfect pitch.  Another example of theoretical and cultural context dealt with sound as touch from a distance.  The idea that music can be felt.  This theory was explained through the use of dissonant and consonant sounds and their impacts on the brain. Another example of theoretical context used in the podcast is the idea of plasticity in the cortical fugal network, the neurological structure by which the brain adjusts biochemically to better hear sounds.  This example was used to explain the riots that occurred during the first performance of Rite of Spring as too much dopamine with its euphoric effects can turn to schizophrenia.

5) This podcast is exceptionally well done.  Through the use of supporting audio examples and small segments of audio clips, the makers of this program are better able to facilitate what is being discussed.  The production has a very polished feel.  They make great use of the stereophonic sound as all areas of the stereo space are employed at any given time.  This helps to keep the audience engaged with the program as there are always interesting things happening aurally.

6) If this were my podcast I think I would want the hosts to engage more with the interview subjects.  At times, it seemed more like they were documenting the experience with their guests and only providing further explanation rather than interacting with them in person.  I think direct connection to the subjects may have enhanced the listening experience a bit further and possibly could have provided a more personal feeling toward the interviews.