Today we learned a lot about sound and music, and it was really interesting and challenging. The whole shape sounds, or whatever, I really just don't understand. I know how to read music pretty well, and from the little example we got I dont see much difference between western notes and shape notes. I would like to maybe look at it a little more to understand it better, but I think regular notes are just as easy to learn if you learn them the right way, like the sound of music song. You learn how the notes sound, then just attach a word to that sound, so Do Fa la So, replace with words and you have a song.
The Cage music i also found extremely weird and hard to understand. It all just goes over my head. Like I said in my previous reflection, i always try to find rhythm and melody within sounds, so I just dont like the randomness of Cage
Also, i think his scores are insanely complicated and I dont understand them. However, I do appreciate them and think it is amazing that someone could think in that way and actually break out of what is embedded in our head and compose something so completely different and unique
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Final Project
For my final project I'm really thinking about doing something with the human mind and how it works. The video we watched of people in the elevator and how they changed just because the group was changing was really funny and also intriguing. I think it is really interesting how people's minds work and will just subconsciously do something like that.
In my writing 209 class our subject is race and power, and a lot of what we have been learning is how racism is institutionalized and even though people may not be racist they do benefit from racist institutions (if they are white). One author we read a lot argues that subconsciously all white people are racist. Im not about to get into the whole racism argument, but I think it would be interesting to investigate the subconscious of race. If i could somehow design a project that would function like the elevator video, but put it in a social context and have it illustrate some sort of dialogue on race in america. What I immediately think of is this girl from my middle school (I went to a very diverse middle school) who would act "normal" around me and other white girls (and by me saying this way of her acting is normal plays into the whole racist ideal, what i've been learning is that it is a racist institution that I believe my way is the normal, but that's a whole other subject) and then whenever any of our black friends would come she would completely change demeanor and talk "ghetto" (again im being very ignorant my writing teacher would think i learned nothing from the course by discussing my topic in these terms but its just easier to get my idea across using this). Maybe something like that, I still don't really know exactly what i want, i'll have to do some more research on psychology of race and different experiements, but that's where im leaning towards.
If i dont go down the race path, i would like to keep with the psychology idea and maybe do something with language, like how we change and manipulate language. Maybe have a video of a person talking to someone who just learned english, but use slang and the non-english speaker will have no idea what there saying . . . Like "whats up" "that shirt is cool" "chillin" , these things make sense to us but to an outsider saying your shirt is cool would imply you literally think their shirt is cold.
In my writing 209 class our subject is race and power, and a lot of what we have been learning is how racism is institutionalized and even though people may not be racist they do benefit from racist institutions (if they are white). One author we read a lot argues that subconsciously all white people are racist. Im not about to get into the whole racism argument, but I think it would be interesting to investigate the subconscious of race. If i could somehow design a project that would function like the elevator video, but put it in a social context and have it illustrate some sort of dialogue on race in america. What I immediately think of is this girl from my middle school (I went to a very diverse middle school) who would act "normal" around me and other white girls (and by me saying this way of her acting is normal plays into the whole racist ideal, what i've been learning is that it is a racist institution that I believe my way is the normal, but that's a whole other subject) and then whenever any of our black friends would come she would completely change demeanor and talk "ghetto" (again im being very ignorant my writing teacher would think i learned nothing from the course by discussing my topic in these terms but its just easier to get my idea across using this). Maybe something like that, I still don't really know exactly what i want, i'll have to do some more research on psychology of race and different experiements, but that's where im leaning towards.
If i dont go down the race path, i would like to keep with the psychology idea and maybe do something with language, like how we change and manipulate language. Maybe have a video of a person talking to someone who just learned english, but use slang and the non-english speaker will have no idea what there saying . . . Like "whats up" "that shirt is cool" "chillin" , these things make sense to us but to an outsider saying your shirt is cool would imply you literally think their shirt is cold.
reflections
The contact mics we made were really interesting and cool, i never knew that there were different kinds of mics other then the typical singing one. It was really fun to play around with it and see how things sound so different.
Also, i learned how to connect the mic to my computer so i can record directly to it, it is really great to learn things like this because i feel like im really getting my moneys worth with my computer by learning all these different things it can do
The project of making an instrument that just makes interesting noises to me is difficult. When i hear things i automatically search for harmony or rhythm, Ive danced for 15 years, played the piano and trumpet, so its hard for me to just do things for the sake of making interesting sounds, i want it to have a purpose and a meaning.
Also, i learned how to connect the mic to my computer so i can record directly to it, it is really great to learn things like this because i feel like im really getting my moneys worth with my computer by learning all these different things it can do
The project of making an instrument that just makes interesting noises to me is difficult. When i hear things i automatically search for harmony or rhythm, Ive danced for 15 years, played the piano and trumpet, so its hard for me to just do things for the sake of making interesting sounds, i want it to have a purpose and a meaning.
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