Podcast - Audio Analysis of Sound

"Sound is the perfect sign for artists but a maddeningly imprecise one for logicians; it points without confirming and suggests without asserting." -Joanna Demers

This semester, we’ve attempted to identify how sound persuades, moves people, and forms community. In looking at Jazz as an example, Gregory Clark has shown us how to theorize sound as a persuasive tool, one that relies upon experience to help people “get along.” Similarly, we’ve seen how sound has been distrusted as well, as philosophers like Plato and theorists in our Keywords in Sound book like Mark M. Smith (Echo) have demonstrated a reliance on other means of persuasion to communicate with more precision and specificity. Still, we’ve seen that sound persuades, sound unites, and sound brings people together.

Your goal in this final cumulative research project is to tune your ears toward one specific community of people who unite, identify, or join around sound, music, or some other sound-based text. What sounds or music do they use to find common ground? What “soundmarks,” to use a term from R. Murray Shafer’s “The Soundscape” article, unite this group of people, and how does sound help them overcome any divisions they might have had? What are those divisions, and how do members of this group rise above them? 

Your goal in this 15-20 minute audio analysis of sound is to get at these questions through a careful and thoughtful analysis of your chosen topic using the theoretical texts we’ve been reading this semester. In addition to including these sounds as a part of your overall audio analysis, you should rely on multiple sources from this semester’s readings as a lens for analysis of how these sounds persuade. While you should think of this audio project as a similar text to a “final term paper” (15 minutes read aloud is about the equivalent of 7-8 written pages), you should also attempt to find ways to incorporate sound and vivid language characteristic of the oral tradition to make your argument. For instance, consider using more obvious signposting and repetition to hold your listener’s attention as you present complex ideas about your topic.

While we will work to identify your topic in individual conferences, you might start by considering how sound has already formed communities. Think of the "Parrot heads" who have created a subculture around Jimmy Buffet; or the Aboriginal radio culture described on page 157 in Keywords in Sound; or Tom Rice's research on "Hospital Listening" on page 104. What about the sounds of chants in recent or long past protest movements? Whatever you choose, the sounds or music should be repeated often, and should distinctly be a source for forming communities. Also, you should consider choosing a topic that has a number of secondary sources for you to reference. While the field of Sound Studies often examines new uses of sound bringing together communities, we don't have enough time to conduct ethnographic research here. Your method will likely involve more of a historical approach, so find a topic people have written about already.

Following our meeting during the week of April 2nd-6th, you will be required to submit a brief one-page double-spaced proposal by email that outlines your topic and provides a sense of the theoretical frame for analysis from our readings that you will use to make your argument. You will also be required to submit a rough draft of your script as a part of the overall grade for this assignment.

Proposal Due: Monday, April 9th

Script Rough Draft Due: Monday, April 16th

Final Podcast/Transcript Due: Monday, April 23rd