Acoustic Ecology

Today I read a few articles and watched a short film about acoustic ecology. Usually, when we think about pollution we don’t think about sound pollution all that much. Today I learned that it was more of a serious problem and less of an inconvenience and that there is legislation in several countries aimed at reducing it. Sound pollution has directly affected several species of bird. Noise pollution is causing new generations of birds to have trouble learning unique calls associated with their species. This has cause a drop in these species of birds.  Noise pollution has been a problem for humans even since the time of ancient Rome where poets often complained of carts coming into the cities early in the morning and waking them up. The articles also talked about the drone that the humans create. I found it funny because as I was reading about this drone I was experiencing the drone from several sources in my apartment. On the flip side, the articles also talked about the pure soundscape of nature and how it can affect humans on an emotional and spiritual level.  I have experienced this first hand. A while back I was in a choral concert by the name of Missia Gaia(Earth Mass). Several of the songs in this concert utilized recordings of nature, mainly animals in their composition. There were songs based around whale calls and wolf howls among other things. The composer had painstakingly transcribed the tones present in these animal calls into the music as well so parts of the songs would mimic the calls in the music notes that were sung.   This is just one example how natural soundscape and soundscape in general is important in art as well as life. 

Synesthesia and Cymatics

Today we’re talking about cross sensory experience.  It is possible for some people to see sound or for words and numbers to have colors and shapes automatically. This is called synesthesia. I first heard about synesthesia in a introductory psychology class my first semester of college. I thought it was one of the most interesting currently known conditions. It’s pretty cool in that it isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It doesn’t impede life in a way that we think most psychological and physiological conditions do. In fact, much of the time it does quite the opposite. I was watching a TED Talks by a man named Daniel Tammet, a high functioning autistic also known as a savant.  He demonstrated that his synesthesic condition allowed him a different way of looking at things as he was able to see different words and numbers visually.  For example, he was able to do a pretty complex math problem in his head because the visualized the numbers as squares.  His synesthesia also highlighted alliteration for him.  This condition isn’t so much of a detriment or an oddity than a different way of looking at the world.  In some ways, it makes me sad that I don’t have synesthesia and can’t experience the world in this way. Speaking of combining different senses, I also watched a TED talks on cymatics a process by which sound is visualized through shapes. It’s a kind of practical, do-it-yourself synesthesia.  The applications for both art and science are immense. It was really cool how higher pitches make more complex patterns. Cymatics of music itself look so cool. Also, the fact that they are using it to decode dolphin linguistics is really awesome. This was the first time I had ever heard of cymatics but now I definitely will be looking to learn more about it.

Feelings On the Hand Painted Film

This is what came to my mind during the reflection:

Calm train of thought. Beautiful thoughts of a city street during the day. Red and yellow autumn leaves came to mind. It was calm despite the hustle and bustle of the city. It left me felling pretty calm until the middle where it seemed like a flurry of thoughts came to push through the autumn leaves. Things became flustered. Strings came that looked like they were forming chords in the song of the city. It seemed to be orderly chaos. Perhaps musical Chaos. It felt warm and relaxing then cool but just as relaxing as before. Thoughts pop in and out before I can realize what they are. I enjoyed this man's work although I can't tell who he is because his name came up in such a short frame. It made feel like I was in a bustling city. At the same time, this imaginary city seemed empty. Music drifts through the city matching the chaos. I am in the city. I like it here.