Hofstra Drama 20 – Sound for the Theatre

1:  Saturday, February 16, 2013, 3:17 am, My Room in Alliance Hall

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

The boys two doors down the hall are having some sort of party in their room.  Their subwoofers emit a thunderous bass line that combines with the high-pitch clangor of their laughter and general horseplay to create a cacophony that precludes any sleep.  The voice of a more stentorian girl carries the most; she flirts with Matt, the louder of the two roommates, by protesting loudly (albeit unconvincingly) to whatever he is trying to do to her, with seemingly interminable iterations of “Stawwwp it!”  This ruckus persists for over an hour before either Matt or Henry turns the music off to speak with a girl at their door.  She is the girl whose single sits between the boys’ room and mine and thusly has taken the brunt of their late-night, sonic assault.  I can hear her something garbled about how it’s 3:00 am, and then the doors to respective rooms close.  Thankfully, the music stays off.

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

In an attempt to drown out the sound of the random dorm party, I am blasting the heat in my room, making use of the fuzzy sound of the hot air rushing out of the grate, as well as the hum of the unit itself.  As an additional measure, I have turned on an old, white noise machine, so that the its assertive whir blends in with the sound of my heater and provides me further aural distance from the racket.

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

Through a set of headphones, I listen to an ASMR video on YouTube in yet another attempt to batten down my ears.  A woman whispers into a set of binaural microphones, smacking her lips and making little clicking sounds with her tongue that are very relaxing.  She slowly goes through the entire Greek alphabet, naming each letter with a thick accent.

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

The noise level is very high – even two doors down, the sounds from the party are louder than anything happening in my own room.

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

“Antagonistic”

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 sound of my ASMR video is not as important as the external sounds of the party, with which I come into conflict with my attempts to tune them out.  Thus, the warring sounds of Matt and Henry’s music (and their very loud, pitchy voices) and my heater and white noise machine are most essential to the combative mood of this sonic environment.