Getting My John Cage: The Artist Statement

The focus of my project was to bring awareness to sound and audio production. Even though it is one of the primary senses, hearing stands in the shadow of sight’s domination over the senses. From the mundane to the exciting noises occurring throughout our lives, sound is taken for granted. It seems humans choose to listen to something that is significant to them OR voluntarily choose not to hear by wearing earphones and listening to music. Mother Nature’s acoustic “jam session” is muted as humans shuffle along through their lives. My project (and a minimal one it is) explored to aspects of hearing and sound: Audio recording and Audio editing.

First, I wrote out a statement on how people would be hearing my voice, whether I am present when you hear it or not. The statement served as a guideline because the whole thing ended up being improvised This performance would reflect on how the sound takes over, especially with the lack of visual aids. The audience would have to imagine the soundscape I was performing in. Each person will have a different interpretation of my recording as they actively listen to my voice. The second half of my dictation focuses on (in a haunting manner) the act of editing in an audio recording system. The entire dialogue was spoken with a British accent, making it sound as if I am giving instructions rather than communicating indirectly and nonchalantly. It distances myself from the listener, and with the creepy, proper tone, it will probably produce a range of emotional reactions, whether they are connected with the multitude of voices or not.

My first goal in editing was not to have one track looping over and over. I layered the same audio recording, in a linear fashion, six times in a round. At first, the editing was going to be conducted in Soundtrack Pro, but with my lack of experience, I abandoned the editing suite and moved onto Logic Pro. The only difference from the original track and from the time I transferred to Logic Pro was I tampered with with pitch in Soundtrack Pro. It produced a rather dull but echo aspect to the original recording. When imported to Logic Pro, it became the “original” track, thus changing the soundscape while I continued to alter it further. Here is a list of how the post-editing went:

Track One dealt solely rendering the audio track to make the sounds “not hit the wall” in terms of being too loud. It is the
only piece that did not have any adjustments in panning or EQ’ing.

Track Two was panned all the way to the right, with an added EQ called Fuzz-Wah. The EQ device did exactly what the title states, it created a fuzzy, low reverberation of my voice. It sounds like someone is talking out of a tin can basically. The panning actually heightens the sound experience, drawing the audience’s attention to the right amp to pay attention to that recording over the first one.

Track Three was a wavelength of volume. Starting at home base, around -19.6 for volume (zero is usually where sound is not too loud or too quiet). I started at a negative number because I recorded in stereo with the microphone close to my mouth. Since I project loud anyway, I had to minimize my voice as not to be overbearing. Anyway, it was an allegro of sounds: crescendo up to -15.4 and decrescendo to -26.9. The sound, if isolated, rolls smoothly and is not abrupt or direct like Track One.

Track Four is the opposite of Track Two. Although it does apply the Fuzz-Wah application, it pans to the left. It is quite noticeable because it fills the room with surround sound when it competes with Track Two. Also, it acts like a tag team: when Track Two is completed, Track Four will complete or fill in the gaps.

Track Five is the opposite of Track Three, but this time the panning fluctuates in sets of twenty-one. It starts at zero, pans to the right 21, goes back to zero, then pans to the left 21.

Track Six is a slow crescendo of the entire piece, starting at negative infinity. This is the only track I wanted to focus on “hitting the wall,” and the audience will notice this because I conclude with the last part of this piece with a solo, informing the audience that I hope the message has reached them well before I say good-bye. Audio fades. End Project

So, how does John Cage enter into all of this? Well, the avant-garde recording artist wanted to bring back the focus of mundane noises of the world. As the mass media drowns us with its industry produced songs and music, they create a lifestyle people now accept as the norm. For example, I-pods. People wear them to forget other sounds or help occupy their minds as they shuffle throughout the day. More than likely, when I type this, I am listening to music, and right now it is Bruce Springsteen’s Living Proof. John Cage wanted people to focus on the natural sounds that the world produces and make the audience more aware of these noises. In a way, this project tries to take those same concepts and apply them to the project. Since it was a project focused on a certain medium, I choose to focus not on audio recording, but audio editing because editing functions as a way to select sounds I or the viewer want to here. In conclusion, the project was an audio recording focusing on an audio recording, and how sounds, recorded naturally are manipulated and adjusted before people hear them for “the first time.”