Hofstra Drama 20 – Sound for the Theatre

1. 2/25/15, 5:30pm, Adam’s Playhouse

2. Farthest: Sampson and Brian talking on stage, drill coming from the shop

3. Medium: 55 students on break chatting

4. Closest: hum of the rack at FOH, sound effects in headphones

5. Sound levels are at a low level except in my headphones, fluctuating depending on what the 55 crew is doing

6. One word: Mumble

7. 3 Sounds:

• Chatter
• Hum
• Chain effect in headphones

1. 2/17/15, 10:30am, Nassau Hall

2. Farthest: Muffled conversation, footsteps, doors opening and shutting, distant constant bell ringing

3. Medium: My suitemate’s door opening and shutting, shoes being put on, my roommate shuffling clothes on, air blowing from the vent

4. Nearest: Fire alarm going off and echoing, keys falling on the floor

5. Sound levels are generally loud and busy but remain constant for a brief period of time.

6. One word: Cacophonous

7. 3 Sounds:

• Fire alarm
• Doors opening and shutting
• Shuffling of feet

1. 2/10/15, 2:44pm, Lowe 216

2. Farthest: Rattling of the design studio door, wind whirring outside, faint rhythmic music likely coming from the dance studio.

3. Medium: Muffled conversation in the hallway, doors opening and shutting in the hallway.

4. Nearest: Hot air blowing softly from the vent above me, music playing from my computer speakers, rustling of papers on my desk

5. Sound levels are low and occasionally changing by people entering the room, but overall no major outliers in sound levels.

6. One word: Busy

7. 3 Sounds:

• Air blowing through the vent
• Rustling of papers
• Background music

1. 2/5/15, 11:11pm, Nassau Hall Dorm

2. Farthest: A few solid knocks on the door across from my dorm accompanied by a brief conversation between two deep voices.

3. Medium: Water smacking against shower floor in bathroom. Blurred high pitched exaggerated laughter coming from my suite mate on the other side of the wall.

4. Nearest: Humming of my refrigerator and steady air flowing from the vents, as well as the gentle snoring of my roommate.

5. Sound levels are quiet and constant. Although there several simultaneous sounds, they are all very low volume.

6. One word: Tranquil

7. 3 Sounds:

•  Humming of refrigerator
• Air blowing through vents
• Gentle snoring

1:  Monday, April 15, 2013, 5:11 pm, Social Sports Kitchen

2:  Identify and list the sounds farthest away from you.

The large, wooden front door to the restaurant is propped open, so as business men and women trickle in through the swishing, inner set of glass doors and make a beeline for happy hour at the bar, I can hear the violent swiping sound of cars whipping down the turnpike at illegal speeds.

3:  Identify and list the sounds at a medium range from you.

The bay of televisions hanging from the ceiling is playing multiple news stations.  On a normal day, the manager Michelle sets things up to have the 30+ televisions to play coverage of multiple sports games and will play the audio to the most popular one or put popular music over everything.  Today Michelle is playing the audio to the news, but somehow the audio to multiple televisions is playing simultaneously.  This creates a strange, movie montage effect of many newscasters grimly reading the same sharply enunciated words over and over, echoing each other’s “Boston Marathon,” “terror,” “bombing occurred,” etc, as the tally of the injured climbs from 40+ to 80+ to 183.

4: Identify and list the sounds closest to you (– you can include internal sounds if noticed or relevant).

The guests at the bar in front of me eat in silence, eyes glued to the screens.  Nothing emphasizes silence more than the sound of a dozen people setting down glasses and bottles on a lacquered, wooden bar, scraping forks and knives against porcelain and not saying a word to one another.  The only people speaking consistently are a woman under TV 8 who keeps saying slowly to herself with sincere despair, “Oh my God, and my coworker, who alternately queries, “You need a refill, buddy?” and makes an unfathomably distasteful joke about amputees.

5: Describe the general sound level and amount of sound activity.

The televisions are loud, but the actual level of activity and the energy of this activity are very, very low and somber.

6: Assign a one-word description to the “sound environment”.

“Sober”

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.

The cars outside don’t play much of a part in the aural atmosphere, nor do my coworker’s inane comments.  The abnormally slow pace of the dish-and-silverware clattering and the accompanying reticence, coupled with the intense choral effect of the televisions on blast and the punctuation of the woman’s upset “oh my gods” are the most necessary for setting the sonic tone of the day.

1:  Saturday, April 6, 2013, 12:19 pm, 31 W 19^th St, 12^th 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:  Wednesday, March 20, 2013, 11:10 pm, House on Braxton St

2:  Identify and list the sounds farthest away from you.

I’m taking a bubble bath in my friend’s newly installed tub as a rare treat, because the tubs on campus seem dirty.  I am also doing this with the specific intention of creating a sound journal for what I hear underwater.  Once submerged, the only distant sounds that can be heard are of so low a register that they seem more like pure vibrations – the sonorous thud of a shutting door and the dull footsteps of a heel-walker on the hall floor outside the bathroom door.

3:  Identify and list the sounds at a medium range from you.

I can hear the hot water rushing out of the faucet, making frothing sounds and splashes as it divides to slap the surface of the water and churn down to the closed drain with its stream.  Once I turn off the faucet (with a feeble squeak), I can hear the occasional, singular plink of water into the tub, and even the fluid rustle of water displaced by my shifting limbs.

4: Identify and list the sounds closest to you (– you can include internal sounds if noticed or relevant).

Internal sounds are more audible than they’ve been in any previous sound journals with the water pressure pushing up against my eardrums.  I can hear my heart beating with a thud, with the sonic clarity of hearing it through a stethoscope.  Occasionally my viscera make squishing noises in hunger – as my friend Greg once described the growlier of these noises, they’re like “a monster submerged in pudding.”

5: Describe the general sound level and amount of sound activity.

The sound level to an external ear would be very low – in fact, most of the sound activity I’m observing would be practically inaudible to anyone as far as the other side of the small bathroom.  But beneath the water, the sounds are very full.

6: Assign a one-word description to the “sound environment”.

“Internal”

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.

The sounds from outside the bathroom give clues to context like dulled honking outside a sealed up car, but they aren’t vital to the vibe of the sonic environment.  The sound of the water of varying sizes and speeds (from a downpour to the sporadic droplet) go well with the internal sounds of my body, as there is a fluid, quality to both.  After all, the human body is filled with fluid; therefore, being inside a bathtub is aurally like being inside a body.  Thus, listening to the fluid in my body while submerged in fluid is like meta-sound-journaling.  (Whoa!)

1:  Saturday, March 8, 2013, 9:19 pm, Steinway St, Astoria

2:  Identify and list the sounds farthest away from you.

Steve and I are in his Honda, driving up and down the pedestrian-heavy streets of Astoria, looking for a parking space within walking distance of our friends’ apartment on Steinway.  Finding a parking spot is proving impossible, and we keep cycling through the same side streets.  The farthest audible noises are those of traffic on other streets and across an overpass – I hear some honking horns of cars of all different makes, creating varied tonality to the sound of the widespread fight for parking spaces.

3:  Identify and list the sounds at a medium range from you.

On the main street, replete with storefronts and late night lounges and hookah bars, the sidewalks teem with pedestrians, some drunk, some sober, all highly vocal and energized by being out and about on a Saturday night.  People call to one another from across intersections, hollering greetings and squealing when they see their favorites bars.  From the open doors of many of these late night establishments emanates an assortment of popular music, to which many people smoking cigarettes outside playfully dance.

4: Identify and list the sounds closest to you (– you can include internal sounds if noticed or relevant).

In spite of the racket of Astoria at this time of night, the inside of the car feels very quiet.  I can hear Steve humming faintly to himself, I can hear him switching gears, I can hear the uneven purr of his car’s engine, and I can hear the haptic feedback on my phone as I type out text messages to our friends, updating them on the tribulations of our search for legal parking.

5: Describe the general sound level and amount of sound activity.

There is a great deal of sound activity, with sounds from far and near layering without cancelling out each other.  Nothing is painfully loud, especially from within the car.  And there is an interesting interplay of human and mechanical sounds, of music and simple sound effects, and of bold sounds and very delicate ones.

6: Assign a one-word description to the “sound environment”.

“Urban”

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.

The sounds from inside the car feel least relevant to the Astoria nightlife vibe of the sonic environment, but I would still be reluctant to take them out of the picture.  Their audibility even over shouting and car horns adds depth to the environment and is so characteristic of the quiet of the inside of a car that anyone listening would immediately know the context.

1:  Saturday, March 1, 2013, 1:17 am, Social Sports Kitchen, The Gallery Room

2:  Identify and list the sounds farthest away from you.

I am sitting in the coat check of the basement level of Social Sports Kitchen, counting the cash accrued from checking 87 hoodies, parkas, blazers and peacoats during the Saturday night mob scene.  The door to the walk-in-closet-turned-coat-check is hinged in two separate halves, so that I can partition myself from the bedlam of mass, collegiate inebriation like I’m taking orders at a drive-through window.  Being set apart from the nucleus of pulsating sounds that is the dance floor means that I am spared certain hearing loss by the walls around me.  I have never heard the music played so loudly at the bar before.  Even with the sound cushion of my partial seclusion, the amplitude of the music feels like it’s battering my eardrums.

3:  Identify and list the sounds at a medium range from you.

Flocks of girls occasionally clomp unevenly past my window, one complaining loudly to the others about her heels or her sorority sister or some other bane of her existence.  I usually can only hear the women that pass because they speak in higher pitch tones that can be heard over the bass-heavy roar of the music.  The men’s voices just become vague, mellow inflections wavering somewhere in the less intelligible levels of the soundscape.

4: Identify and list the sounds closest to you (– you can include internal sounds if noticed or relevant).

I literally cannot hear anything inside the coat check.  The noise of the party is so all-encompassing that the little sounds of metal coat hangers sliding against the metal of the rod and pen on paper as I tally the ticket stubs are indiscernible.  Only once in five hours does the music stop (due to a computer problem), and I can hear the swishing sound of paper money as I bank-face my tips.  Even that is almost unnoticeable to me, however, as the ringing in my ears is so strong.

5: Describe the general sound level and amount of sound activity.

The sound level is remarkably high, to the point of discomfort.  I’m always the girl chided for listening to music too loudly through my headphones, yet I can barely handle the sound pressure.  The cement floor seems to move with the bassline, as if car bombs are going off outside.

6: Assign a one-word description to the “sound environment”.

“Aggressive”

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.

The only really pertinent sound is that of the music.  Overly loud dance music in a nightclub has such a signature sound – wide, fuzzy, and mind-numbingly percussive.  The occasional snippets of shouted conversation as people move from the bathroom to the dance floor can also help build this particular sonic atmosphere.

1:  Wednesday, February 27, 2013, 3:14 am, Alliance Hall, 7^th Floor Bathroom

2:  Identify and list the sounds farthest away from you.

Inside the shower, water falls steadily in thin, high-pressure streams onto an assemblage of plastic, toiletry bottles, of which the varying degrees of emptiness create an array of tonalities.  The water also drums on the edge of a plastic shower curtain, creating the full, soft sound of rain on wide-leafed flora – the sort of sound one hears on a recording of a lush rainforest, meant to work as a relaxation/sleep aid.

3:  Identify and list the sounds at a medium range from you.

A girl sits in a stall on the other side of the bathroom, talking on the phone in a low yet urgent voice.  Each syllable, no matter how hushed, ricochets off the smooth, Formica countertops and the hundreds of small tiles, echoing onto the start of the next syllable and garbling her words so that only the vague sounds of pleading and apologizing can be discerned.  The conversation has the intimate, shameful tone of a confession to a romantic partner, and she seems to have sought relative privacy in the bathroom at 3:00 am, presumably to not disturb her sleeping roommate.  The sound of me showering has made her self-conscious, and she murmurs sheepishly for the better part of my shower.

4: Identify and list the sounds closest to you (– you can include internal sounds if noticed or relevant).

Outside the bathroom, a resident can be heard strumming his guitar inside his single room.  However robust the sound may be within the room itself, when emanating through the wood of the bathroom door and the curtain of water, the notes sound eerie and thin.  Compounding this effect is the slow, lilting pace at which the player strums as he tries to find his way through the ill-remembered chords.

5: Describe the general sound level and amount of sound activity.

The sound level is somewhat low, in keeping with the time of night and the solitary nature of the various, simultaneous activities, from my ablutions to the girl’s chagrinned confessions to the boy’s meandering guitar practice.

6: Assign a one-word description to the “sound environment”.

“Intimate”

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.

All three levels of sound work well together, however disparate the individual sounds may seem in character.  Each is the product of a private activity, carried out alone in the latest hours of the night, and thus creates a sound suiting one such mood.  As a result, the tone of each sound fits nicely within the theme of the collective.