Filmvid 103 -- Special Topics in Sound
J. S. Lee
Spring 2002
Duke University
Program in Film and Video
5:30 - 7:30 MW - - 106 West Duke
Telephone: 682-5853
E-mail: jim.lee@verizon.netTA: TBA
Telephone: xxx-xxxxA Preliminary Listing of Readings and Resources
Online texts (Free): Overview of the Course:
This course is an exploration of the art of audio production and some of the aesthetic and theoretical issues that attend that enterprise. It is an opportunity to explore some of the possibilities of audio as a stand alone medium and audio in conjunction with other media. It is my hope that your thinking about audio will reach way beyond radio programming and new CD releases within the first few days. In one sense, this is a creative, production-oriented course in which you are encouraged to stretch the limits of your imagination and pursue your interests as far as time and facilities allow. In another sense, this is a theory and criticism course in which you are expected to develop a keener sense of the place of audio in the sensory world. Mainly, this course is about listening!Some of what we do in this course will depend upon your interests and skills. For that reason you will be given a questionnaire which will help me structure things in favor of your interests and needs. Previous experience with audio production is not assumed. We will, therrefore, go over some of the basics in the first few days. Students will be encouraged to concentrate on a single area of interest. That could be live music recording, documentary production, dramatic works, natural history research with field recordings, abstract works, audio installations or whatever strikes your fancy. The whole point of the course is exploration of the field of audio production within the constraints of time and facilities given us by the University.
Perhaps he most important thing you will learn in this course is how to listen. Aesthetic and technical criticism are key aspects of the work you do here. All work will be presented in class and you will be expected to provide thoughtful criticism of your own work and that of your classmates.
Each class session will consist of some lecture/discussion based on assigned readings, some hands-on work with the hardware and/or software of audio production, and some listening opportunity. Your obligation is to show up ready to discuss and work.
Assignments and Grading:
Project One (15%)
Project Two (20%)
Project Three (20%)
Project Four (25%)
Term Paper/Proposal (20%)General Audio References:
Perhaps a good place to begin an exploration of audio matters is with the vocabulary. Barry Truax's Handbook for Acoustic Ecology is at the very least an excellent annotated dictionary of audio related terms. It should be used as a beginnng point for any new territory of exploration. You can search the text by theme or by alphabet. Many audio examples are included in the site.Yuri's Audiodramatists Lexicon is another good review of terms related to audio production. It is not limited to terms related to audio drama. Take a look at the Rane Professional Audio Reference , an online dictionary of audio and audio-related terms. This is a technical document, one intended as a reference for people interacting with professionals. The Filmsound site is another wonderful reference for sound terminology especially as it relates to the moving image.Paper Textbooks (Not Required)
If you want to have some dead trees to haul around, you might consider printing out some of the web sites shown in the syllabus. Alternatively, you could purchase one of the following:1) Alten, Stanley P. Audio in Media (Fifth Edition), Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1999. Alten's book has become something of a standard for production courses in universities. For a comprehensive look at audio matters it is hard to beat. It is expensive ($75.00) but worth owning if you are really serious about audio. You could save some money by buying an earlier edition or doing some comparative shopping online. Try Best Book Buys. Some might argue that the fourth edition is more complete. It is certainly bigger.
2) Chion, Michel. Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen, New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1994. This work does a wonderful job of being both integrative with respect to image and sound and reductionist to the point of rendering sound understandable in its own right. It is a very enjoyable read. Chion's basic conceptualizations of sound/image relationships are covered online at the Filmsound site.
3) Kahn, Douglas and Gregory Whitehead (Eds.). Wireless Imagination: Sound, Radio, and the Avant-Garde , Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1992. These readings are rich and complex but well worth the digging. Kahn and Whitehead provide an excellent collection of essays on early historical and even mythological considerations of sound as a cultural medium then move on to throughly contemporary considerations.The reference to radio in the title belies the breadth of these works.
Listening:
Another site (You should consider this one required reading) that can enhance your sense of production in audio is the Noise site. Noise is a five part series of programs that ". . . will listen to these noises, and try to evoke the new modes of hearing being formed in response to the omnipresence and insistence of noise." An important part of this course is to help you develop an appreciation of the difference between hearing and listening. Read about the Common Misconceptions about Sound and Hearing . Some more sophistication in understanding listening as opposed to hearing can be found in Garry Fearington's essay, " Keep Your Ear-lids Open ." Finally, readS. Arden Hill's Listening to Myself Listen.Acoustics and Perception of Sound:
The Soundry is a good starting place for demonstrations of the principles of acoustics and audio perception. There are several other good online sources for the physics and phycho-acoustics of sound. One good page on the physical basics of sound is hosted by the UCSC Experimental music program. In fact they have a number of very good, easy to understand technical essays on sound and recording. Please read the online Physics Text that deals with Sound Waves and Music . Modules 37-45 in the Cybercollege online Television Production Text deal with audio. Review that material.Radio Journalism:
This is not a primary focus of this course. Nevertheless, there is something to be learned from the craft/art of radio journalism. Radio College is a developing site that has some potential. It is certainly worth a visit from time to time to track additions. There are several articles of interest in the section devoted to Radio Journalists . The Legacies Handbook is a very concise summary document outlining the production process. It is certainly worth the read. The NPR Online Style and Ethics Guide is a comprehensive handbook for public radio journalists. Even if your main interests lie in features or documentaries, the Guide will prove very useful. The "Writing for Radio " site is geared mainly toward those people interested in commercial news broadcasting. It is well written and very basic . . . worth a scan. NPR actually archives most of the segments from Morining Edition and All Things Considered on the Web. You can listen online using RealAudio.Radio Documentary:
Documentary production is a more specialized area. Producing Historical Documentaries for Broadcast and Internet Radio is a course offered at the University at Albany-SUNY. The site contains some interesting examples of documentaries using RealAudio. The site also contains many useful links to other audio production sites. Bookmark it. Sound Print is an audio documentary production center whose work can often be heard on NPR. Many of thier works can be heard online using RealAudio. Sound Portraits is an internet site that features the recorded voices of ordinary people. It is a specialized kind of documentary site. 1stPerson.org is a realtively new web-based place to tell one's stories. They invite submissions of audio as well as graphic and written stories told in the first person. The site is very inspiring, well worth a browse. Sonic Sanctuary is Claude Rallins' collection of audio on the net. There are some good examples of documentary work on this site. John Couper's "Voices from an African Village" provides good examples of using local sound to tell the story.Nature Recording:
Interested in nature recording? Steven L. Hoop has a good resource page dealing with nature recording and some of the equipment and software required for recording and analysis. There are techniques in use by nature recordists that certainly apply to documentarians and journalists. Nature recording is admittedly a very specialized area of audio production. Nevertheless, the tools of nature recording experts can be very useful for documentarians and narrative producers alike. Read Virginia Madsen's essay " Notes on Sound Ecology in the Garden of Listening " just to keep some of the idealism about natural sounds in perspective.Radio Drama:
Radio drama? Listening to Radio Plays: Fictional Soundscapes , is Alan Beck's overview of the elements of construction in radio drama. His analysis is really limited to the earliest established conventions (which still work even if they offend us in their simplicity) or radio drama. These conventions, like all such conventions, grew out of a lack of a grammar of dramatic construction in radio. Beck also supplies us with, Is radio blind or invisible? A call for a wider debate on listening-in . In this essay he examines the limiting effects that viewing radio as a blind medium has on the way we use the medium, create for it, theorize it, and listen to it. While the work of a Journalist is never to fictionalize the news, it is certainly to tell the story. Perhaps there is something to be learned about story telling from the work of radio drama.Audio Art:
Arnte's Sound Site is a good general site for sound matters. Rolf Langenbartels has an interesting site called Soundbag in which he presents a new sound art related image every week. The opening page is accompanied by a delightful and peaceful composition by Eric Satie. Not particularly useful for this course but fun anyway.Personal Recorders:
You will also need access to a good quality portable cassette, MiniDisc, or DAT recorder. The Program in Film and Video has a few recorders and microphones available for checkout. Still, it is advisable that you develop some other options for doing field recordings. I strongly recommend that you consider the MiniDisc format if you are thinking about buying a portable recorder of your own. For more information on MiniDiscs check out the MiniDisc Community Page . This is an incredibly comprehensive site covering any and everything related to MD technology. If you are even mildly interested in MD, go to this page but do not expect to make a quick exit.Microphones:
Of course you will need a microphone if you are doing field recording. Again, there are a few available for checkout from Film and Video. For personal purchases, the possiblities are endless and range from the useless to the exquisite. You can even make your own. Your final decision in this matter will depend on what you intend to do in the field. There are a number of online sources of information that can get you started in the research process. Shure has a site with some interesting technical details regarding microphones . One value of the site is the explosion of some microphone myths. The Shure FAQ page is also helpful.Headphones:
I do recommend (actually, I insist) that you invest in a pair of good quality headphones. They can make production work much more precise and clean. They are absolutely essential for work in public computer labs even if the workstations do have speakers associated with them. Buy real headphones! Not the little things you stick in your ears to listen to your Walkperson. We can discuss some of your options in class but in the interim, do some research.The Headwize page has a good overview of headphone technology . as well as a FAQ page that answers questions about which headphones to buy. You may want to spend some time "listening" to what other people have to say about headphones but ultimately your choice will turn on your own preferences for comfort, acoustic isolation, price, and performance. Headroom is another site that deals with headphones. It is a bit slicker and has a somewhat different approach. One of the more comprehensive sites for head mounted speakers is hosted by Michael Hoffman. It deals with both earbuds and headphones .
Most of the work in the Computer Labs will be done using headphones or the small tabletop speakers. Headphones are problematic in some ways. Please read the Art of Monitoring and Mixing with Headphones for a good discussion of some of the important considerations. A somewhat more technical discussion is in Thoughts . . Mixing with Headphones .
Personal Software:
If you have reasonably recent vintage PC with a sound card, you can turn it into a very powerful audio workstation with the installation of some inexpensive audio software (shareware). Consider this if getting to on-campus labs is problematic for you. Check out the following sites and download one or more of the demonstration versions. The fully functional trial versions are free.Gold Wave http://www.goldwave.com/ We will be using CoolEdit Pro and Sound Forge in class.
Cool Edit h ttp://www.syntrillium.com/cooledit/index.htmlMore Generalized Audio Information:
Much of the material on this page comes from the syllabii for my Advanced Audio Production and my Audio Aesthetics, Criticism, and Theory courses.