1. April 18, 8:06 pm, Calkins hall
2. Fingers tapping on floor, whistling, humming, doors opening and closing
3. Voices speaking dialogue, pencil dropping to the floor, footsteps
4. Claves, pencil on paper, soda bottle opening
5. Medium. Slow, steady energy
6. Focused
7. Voices, claves, humming
1) Netherland’s Bridge, 5:34 P.M, 4/18/13
2) The sound of the elevator going up, people talking in the elevator
3) Cars honking and driving, the ding of the elevator, people’s footsteps from across the bridge
4) My own footsteps, the guy talking behind me, my keys jingling
5) Its minimal sound activity, the loudest sound is loud, but the rest is really quiet
6) Serene
7) The elevator door, my footsteps, the guy behind me
1- 4/18, 1pm, dorm room
2- I hear a door thump closed from the down the hall, the window is open and from far away I can hear a bird twittering off and on in the distance
3- The air conditioner hums softly and consistently, my roommate is doing her homework in which she has to listen to a recording in Italian and do a worksheet off of it. I can hear the lesson tape, and hear her mumble to herself on and off.
4- My fingers typing on the keyboard, the shuffling of the papers next to me
5- Both sound level and activity are low
6- Studious
7- the hum of the HVAC, the voice over italian and typing
1- Date/Time/Location.
4.17.13/12:00pm/My dorm room
2- Identify and list the sounds farthest away from you.
Someone speaking obnoxiously loudly in the hallway; they must be walking by because I can hear their voice grow louder, and then fade out. It sounds like they (or someone they were walking with, perhaps) were swinging their keys back and forth, because I could hear a rhythmic jingling.
3- Identify and list the sounds at medium range from you.
One of my suite mates intermittently yelling and laughing extremely loudly at a television show or movie on her television or computer (which I can also hear, though faintly), another suite mate coughing.
4- Identify and list the sounds closest to you.
Jukebox the Ghost playing from my iPod dock, softly. The steady drip, drip, drip from my heater into the garbage can placed under it as it hums, wheeze-like (I should really get that fixed…), the squeak of my bed as I shift position.
5- Describe the general sound level and amount of sound activity.
Medium level and activity. It’s lower in my room, but it’s certainly higher in my suite mate’s room.
6- Assign a one word description to the “sound environment”.
Manifold.
7- Select and list 3 sounds which are essential to the sound environment.
Rachelle yelling/laughing at her television, Jukebox the Ghost, and the hum of my heater.
1- 4/17/13 – 7:15 P.M. – Drama Lounge
2- Identify and list the sounds farthest away from you. – Furthest from me I hear the sounds for the last three or four sorority brothers that are still out playing catch with the football in the last few minutes of sunlight on the quad for the day. They are all standing in a square shape and facing each other diagonally across the quad. I could distinctly hear the noises of the soft leather smacking into their hands as they hurled the ball across the grass to each other. Every so often you could hear a deep shout of their voices at each other and then the thud and tumbling noise as the ball hit the ground if they missed the catch.
3- Identify and list the sounds at a medium range from you. – Medium range from me I can hear the sound of the cast of Carrie belting their music from 110. They are constantly starting and stopping, repeating the same lines of music over and over until they master every note and tone of the music. Every time they ran the music it began with. “He does not know… I will be there tomorrow… all alone…” Every once in a while the noises that would come from their voices would suddenly spike in volume as an actor opened the door to the room and shut it again.
4- Identify and list the sounds closest to you (You can include internal sounds if noticed or relevant). – Closest to me I can hear the sound of the three people in the lounge conversing and reviewing their monologues before they performed for the faculty. The nerves were running high but almost everyone rehearsing their lines was rehearsing to themselves in a soft whisper to themselves.
5- Describe the general sound level and amount of sound activity. – Furthest and closest to me the sound is soft while at a medium range the sound is almost overwhelming.
6- Assign a one word description to the “sound environment”. – Springtime
7- Select and list 3 sounds which are essential to the sound environment. Note: you need to try to figure out what sounds make up this environment and which of those sounds need to be there for the feeling of the environment to stay intact. – Football, singing, whisper of lines
1- Wednesday April 10, around 7:30pm (or whenever it began to downpour), intramural fields
2- Girls screaming and shouting to each other, scrambling to the cars; another car drives by humming through the rain
3- Thunder rolls loudly and rain hits the metal face of the scoreboard for the softball field.
4- Rain pours down all around and on me, pitter-pattering, slapping and clapping against the ground; my cleats crunch on the ground
5- The sound activity is low, but the sound level is a medium, spiking high with each crack of thunder
6- Calming
7- Rain, footsteps, thunder
1. My Dorm room, 5pm Thursday
2. a car horn, the wind blowing, faint voices, what sound like an airplane flying by far away
3. the shower in the bathroom across the hall, furniture moving on the floor above me, the elevator dinging and doors opening and closing, wing blowing
4. my refrigerator humming, the heater, myself breathing
5. Low volume but lots of activity
6. Enclosed
7. the refrigerator, doors closing, the elevator
1- 4/11/13 11:45 PM, Alliance Hall
2- Identify and list the sounds farthest away from you: birds chirping outside the open window, cars driving by
3- Identify and list the sounds at a medium range from you: People running through the hallway, someone talking loudly on the phone outside my door, someone in the hallway laughing so hard they are practically cackling
4- Identify and list the sounds closest to you: my fan whirring on high, sleep songs lightly playing on myipod
5- Describe the general sound level and amount of sound activity- Far too high for 11:45 at night
6- Assign a one word description to the “sound environment”. Annoying
7- Select and list 3 sounds which are essential to the sound environment: Person talking on phone, person cackling, birds chirping
1: Saturday, April 6, 2013, 12:19 pm, 31 W 19th St, 12th Floor, Studio B
2: Identify and list the sounds farthest away from you.
I’m in a studio at the New York Film Academy with my BFA Performance class, and we’re working on cold reads. The scene we’ve been given is a typical, post-kidnapping interrogation from an NCIS-style crime show. Megan is playing a badly beaten, psychologically rattled prostitute whose best friend has gone missing, and Mary is playing the empathetic investigator who sits said prostitute down to ask a few questions. The scene is very intense, so the fact that the Film Academy is hosting children’s auditions for some commercial or other right and the queue has formed right outside the studio door is quite inopportune. The farthest noises that we can hear are those of the congregated seven, eight, nine and ten year olds grumbling and protesting at their momagers’ overhandling. The chatter outside the door, near which the orchestrators of the event have stupidly placed the sign-in table, reaches a dull roar while our camera is rolling, with one of the girls telling her mom she has to “go tinkie again” and one of the moms telling her daughter that if she fusses with her headband again, she’s going home.
3: Identify and list the sounds at a medium range from you.
At the far side of the room, away from the door, Megan and Mary perform their cold read. The instructor Omar stopped the pair to attempt the scene before Megan and Mary multiple times to tell them to reduce their volume. He insisted that, with mic’ing practices, the modern convention for filming is contrary to that of stage acting in that scenes are performed at very, very low volume. For this reason, Mary in particular is almost entirely inaudible. We can see her lips moving, but the most that comes out at this distance mumbles of varying inflection.
4: Identify and list the sounds closest to you (– you can include internal sounds if noticed or relevant).
At medium range, my class watches Megan and Mary from a section of plastic seats that creak sporadically as we shift. We try to stay quiet for filming, but the intensely low volume of the scene makes our every sniffle and paper rustle hyperaudible. The interesting thing about the quiet of the scene is that it so limits the range of audiblity and demands such aural attention that you feel like you’re zoomed in for a close-up, even while watching fifteen feet away.
5: Describe the general sound level and amount of sound activity.
The dichotomy of the sound environment, in which the lowest-volume sonic activity demands the most attention and the highest-volume (outside the door) must be ignored, is very interestingly inverted. The disparity in sound level is great, but the closed door between the larger sounds and me allows me to will myself to tune them out.
6: Assign a one-word description to the “sound environment”.
“Multidirectional”
7: Select and list 3 sounds that are essential to the sound environment. Note: you need to try and figure out what sounds make up this environment and which of those sounds need to be there for the feeling of the environment to stay intact.
Mary’s murmuring and the restrained sounds of my class trying to limit our own noise level (resulting in stifled coughs and abruptly ended creaking noises) creates a sonic picture of a film set. The noise outside is so coincidental and disruptive that it doesn’t feel in keeping with this specific concept; nevertheless, it is part and parcel to the kooky sound environment that I actually experienced.
1. 4/10 – 8:46 PM – Studio
2. Someone yelling down the hall, music from Carrie rehearsal drifting upstairs
3. Nic tapping his pencil, the music playing over the speakers
4. Pouring rain and incredibly loud thunder
5. The general sound level was very high because of the storm. The amount of sound activity is relatively low. There are only three people in the studio, and most of the noise is either coming from outside or downstairs so it is very minimal.
6. Powerful
7. The thunder, the rain, the yelling