Five Things

1. We started off class today with a five minute free write on something that interests us; difficult as the topic is little ambiguous i thought, but i just started writing and ended up surprising myself with what i chose as an interest: my insomnia. i don't know why or how or where i got that topic from but i started writing about how i enjoy being awake at the early hours of the morning when everyone else is asleep because i have the world to myself and nobody else gets to experience the night-exclusive sounds, sights, ambiance, and thoughts that i do.

2. Immediately after the free write, artist, Rob Sheterly, came in to speak about his work. I previously reflected on his visit in a post, but wanted to add that his short explanation of the surrealism that he used to do inspired me to sort of do something similar as my own personal project. I want to study certain artists that I emulate and appreciate, and paint a response to one of their paintings, or the message in the painting. Just a thought.

3. My favorite part of class : The Jam Session. I was so surprised that all of the varying "instruments" that we were using somehow collaborated and created a unique and interesting sound that had a beat, rhythm, pitch, tone, etc. I liked experimenting with timbre, because I never really understood what it meant, and now i do.

4. Then we talked about abstract vs environmental sound. I think i prefer abstract sound because it's so obscure and complicated and you don't even know how the sound was created or where it originated. It was really cool to see the uses of abstract sound in the media, or commercials such as the kit kat or nike commercial [ i can totally understand why they used abstract noise as a marketing tactic]. there is a fine line between sound and music; music incorporates harmony, melody, and rhythm, where as sound only emphasizes one or two of these. i think its interesting when you can't tell whether something is sound or music, it makes you really pick it apart and pay attention to it.

5. finally we ended the class with learning how to edit and put together sounds to create our project. we also started experimenting with the sounds we accumulated as a class and that was really fun and i continued playing around with the software when i came back to my dorm. i know that i prefer abstract sound now because those were the kind of sounds i ended up creating. i'm really looking forward to doing this abstract sound project.