Ways/States of listening

Causal listening: concerns “listening for the purpose of gaining information about the sound’s source

Semantic listening: listening for the purpose of gaining information about what is communicated in the sound.

Reduced listening: listening to the sound for its own sake, as a sound object, by removing its real or supposed source and the meaning it may convey.

My audio paper will contain elements focusing on…

The names of specific songs and bands – the source of audio – yet the material itself is abstracted and almost becomes found sound

Deep listening through the roadtrip link however for the form factor (10 min limit and topic) this might not work particularly well.

In H. Westerkamps kit beach. I found the manipulative nature of narration interesting. She’s telling you all this information and you just have to believe it’s true as the role of the narrator.

I will use this in my work through the narration of the journey, getting the train to London. I only recorded the first field recording of my home, the rest of the journey is from separately sourced videos online, layers of sound from different locations, yet once together they form a single place, one that has never existed before (yet every element previously did in different locations). 

The listener imagines a journey with the context I have given – a car journey and train ride – a completely plausible event. Most people might gain no meaning for the places I recall. ‘Colchester’ and ‘Marks-Tey’ have an association for me, of place, distance, sound, and the journey between, but said to those unknowing – these place might as well be anywhere in the world, and so too the accompanying sounds of a journey between them. But even then I used a sample of Brentwood station during the train segment so it kind of blurs the line. Misleading, yet so is the nature of recorded sound, or any form of capture, and its not misleading in the new world it creates as a condenced sensory experience – the sonic journey taken is true.