Discussion questions for episodes 5 & 6

Episode 5

1. According to Krukowski, powerful decide which music gets to the top and which is rejected. In this statement, Krukowski means by influential music corporations decide which music might be a trend. The rest, as Krukowski says “the marginal-the rejected-the repressed,” end up in dollar baskets or disappeared at all. Nowadays, there are a lot of different music platforms that include a huge number of musical works. However, it is impossible to listen to them all at once. Thus, we choose music according to personal preferences or the one that may be popular. At the same time, promoting songs to the music charts is a power of money, since the music world is just a business. Unfortunately, other music projects rejecting due to lack of demand. However, sometimes happening that the music went underground because of the anarchic spirit of the lyrics. In those cases, it is called alternative art. This happens because of the resonant situation in the internal politics of a country.

2. Music distributor Forced Exposure offers over 50,000 pieces of music. Moreover, they write a detailed description of the proposed music album; indicating the direction of the music, the release date of the album and describe the content of the songs since they listen to each release. While the Spotify corporation uses an algorithm to calculate the listener’s musical preferences and play the recordings. The main purpose of Spotify is to let the listener hear the music that they are most likely to enjoy. However, Forced Exposure surprises with its variety in which you need to dig a little to find something new and completely different from the usual.

3. The difference between being “surprising” and “discovering” music is significant. For example, for Krukowski, discovering was the Ghost album he found in the Forced Exposure catalogue. This was not a surprise, but it was a discovering, as Krukowski heard amazing sounds that he had not heard before. At the same time, surprising is something unpredictable, something that may not meet our expectations. According to Krukowski, these concepts are important to corporations such as Facebook, Google, or Spotify because their main goal is to attract and engage more and more users around the world.

Episode 6

1. According to Krukowski, noise is all the sounds we hear, these sounds surround us. While the signal is a specific sound that we are trying to pick up with the neurons of our ears. Accordingly, capturing the signal, all other sounds are converted into noise.

2. The main idea of ​​this episode is the effect of the transition of noise and sound signals from analog to digital. According to Krukowski, analog sound is always accompanied by noise from which there is no escape. However, in digital sound, noise and signals are adjustable. Accordingly, it is possible to highlight or minimize this or that noise or signal. This ability to adjust noise and signals are very important in the present world as it allows us to find our sound and space.

3. The Signal & Noise episode can be the general as it covers up the main theme of the “Ways of Hearing” podcast. This podcast originally touches on the subject the sounds of analogue time and digital time. These differences are revealed precisely in the sixth episode where Krukowski explains the concept of noise and signal. As a true musician and writer, Krukowski extraordinarily connected the two genres and created an incredible and amazing podcast about the influence and differences between analog and digital time and their sounds.

Episode 3

According to Krukowski, what are the main differences between a microphone and a cellphone and why is this difference important?

According to Krukowski, the sounds of a human voice alter significantly when passing through devices such as a microphone and telephone. The microphone reflects the noise of the human voice quite brightly, conveys breathing, the tone of the voice, and creates the effect of proximity. For instance, how Frank Sinatra, Roman Mars, or Barry White discovered and improved their microphone techniques. Leaning closer to the microphone it like leaning closer to the listeners. On the other hand, the noise of a human voice penetrating through the microphone of a cellphone partially loses all variety of voice sounds. No matter how close we hold the cellphone, this will not improve the sound quality in general. Since the cellphone’s microphone is not capable of transmitting the whole gamut of sounds, unlike the microphone. Thus, the microphone can reflect voice emotions, and the phone only transmits sound information without tonality.

What do Krukowski and Gary Tomlinson, the professor he interviews, assert about the “musical” qualities of the voice and how are these changed by digital transmission?

Digital processing of the human voice allows us to send our voice over vast distances, but non-verbal voice quality is lost in digital coding. The quality of digital voice transmission leaves much to be desired since from time to time there are interruptions in the signal transmission network itself. Even if digital communication works without interruption, digital voice processing cuts the sound to the minimum that is necessary only for recognizing words, missing the melody of the voice.

What is the significance of Krukowski’s comments on the voice to ideas about community and interpersonal connection?

Krukowski states that digital communications are losing the emotional component of human communication. This is the part of the human voice that is used without language; during communication, we gesticulate, demonstrate various emotions, and non-verbal signals of our body.

Episode 4

Krukowski begins by discussing the issue of music file sharing. What is your opinion of this issue? Should music be freely available or should one have to pay?

Many musicians at different times suffered from illegal bootlegged copying and sales of their work. Thereby, was violated the rights of the label, groups, singers, and songwriters. Currently, people have begun to appreciate the work of musicians and buy songs through popular musical resources. Firstly, people began to understand that illegal copies differ in quality from the original, and secondly, listeners have become understanding the huge work of the singers and the team. I am convinced that music should have a price tag since creating a song and album takes a lot of effort and money. Creating art is also labour, and like any labour should be paid.

How does this episode represent the relationships between music, community, and culture?

Music has the property of conveying to people the thoughts and feelings of the composer. With the help of sounds, the composer describes what is happening around him. Thus, the sounds of music and lyrics affect and reflect on the listeners. Society and culture also affect the sound of music and the content of lyrics.

Does charging money for music impede the formation of communities around this music or does it help support the circulation of music?

Financial support is needed when creating and promoting a piece of music. Given the fact that the market is full of various music and songs, each musician needs his audience. In this case, the power of money comes in. Even if the singer sings for free for the audience, such a musician will be quickly forgotten. The truth is, what goes for free is forgotten very quickly, but we always remember how much and what we paid for. It may sound mercantile, but musical art is a business that requires reasonable investments and subsequent profit from selling songs and musical performances.

Time and progress do not standstill. As progress grows, the perception of time also changes. According to Damon Krukowski’s podcast “Ways of Hearing,” the author notes that the digital era has replaced the analog one, changing our perception of the world. Krukowski argues that analog experience exists in real-time since it is not possible to scroll back or delete and try again. In other words, analog time is the time of real feelings without a filter. The digital experience differs significantly from analog in that digital time can be controlled, corrected or embellished. Digital time is like a mechanical existence with a specific time code. Krukowski notes the differences between analog and digital time, citing the fact that analog time is faster than digital. For example, in 2009, the announcer of Red Sox, Joe Castiglione led a live broadcast of a baseball game. Castiglione’s speech was ahead of the image on the TV. This was explained by the fact that on that day, analogue television switched to digital. The video image was delayed because it took a little longer to convert the digital video.

When we walk along the bustling streets of a metropolis, different sounds attack us from all sides; sound signals of rescue services, performances of street musicians, or enthusiastic cries of passers-by. We hear the breath of the streets; we hear the heartbeat of the city. For New Yorkers, such sound waves are comparable to the usual noise of rain in inclement weather. However, it is worth putting on the headphones and switching to the phone screen, we cease to exist and participate in this world of sounds.

According to Jeremiah Moss on the streets of New York, people are increasingly losing historical public places that served completely different purposes. Moss says that these places were stealth took away from people, explaining that certain various rules and prohibitions were established in these places. Being once public spaces where people could trade, meet, communicate or just speak, a variety of prohibitions and rules turned these places into private spaces.

The streets of big cities have always been bustling, and sometimes it was even difficult to hear their thoughts. According to the statements of Emily Thomson, people had a desire to control the internal space, and this led to the emergence of Concert halls with noise-insulating walls helping to block the external noise vibrations of the streets. Due to the architectural solution, the audience could fully enjoy the sounds of various performances. With the advancement of technology, this privilege has become portable. Headphones and then earbuds helped people isolate themselves from the noisy world and enjoy the various sounds in a controlled space with these devices.

Hearing helps us to navigate in space, hear sounds and understand the world around us. However, sometimes residents of big cities overwhelmed of the daily vibrations of the metropolis and find various internal spaces. These spaces can hide in concert halls with noise-insulating walls or when putting on headphones we stop hearing sounds outside our space. These features allow us to disconnect from the flow of real-time, transferring us to a completely different world filled with calm, thoughts and sounds of the inner space.

1. The general concept of advertising is such that advertising produces glamour. Glamour, in turn, the happiness of being an object of envy. Thus, advertising is the opportunity for everyone to freely choose to change themselves or their lives by buying the advertised product. Nevertheless, advertising is an engine of economic progress that works for the consumer and the manufacturer, awakening the consumer’s desire to purchase the advertised product and at the same time satisfying the manufacturer. Further, the manufacturer is enriched by advertising and has a beneficial effect on the country’s economy, increasing the standard of living of the consumer and producer. Therefore, this cycle is very important for the development of the capitalist state.

2. According to Berger, advertising uses the same language as painting. However, advertising and painting have some differences among themselves. For example, advertising offers the buyer to improve their lives by buying the advertised product, while the painting does not advertise anything since it is in itself a private property. More significant differences are that oil painting belonged to those who profit from the market. However, advertising appeals to those who represent the market, i.e. viewer buyer. Oil painting as art has always been a sign of wealth and prestige while being a cultural authority in life and in advertising. Thus, painting is very useful for advertising as it demonstrates wealth and spirituality to the buyer, and stimulates the buyer to purchase a dream.

3. Everyone has different dreams. Someone dreams of an expensive car; someone wants to buy an evening dress. However, advertising does not realise these dreams, advertising only stimulates buyers to feel dissatisfaction with their existence and wish to acquire their dream in order to improve their lives. Berger mentions the dream of skin. Advertising speaks to the viewer about a future that may not come. Additionally, advertising depends on the visual language of an oil painting. Sexual poses in advertising only to attract attention and enhance the glamour of the image. Thus, images in a dream about skin show the viewer gestures, poses, and naked physical forms of men and women convey to the viewers the sensation that they can touch the image. Special sexual emphasis on the legs gives mystery to the image, allowing the buyers to imagine themselves in place of the model or near. Moreover, advertising allows the buyer to make a free choice of what to wear, what to ride, where to relax, and how to look.

Women were a constant recurring plot in European oil painting. Adam and Eve were the first nudes. Their nakedness represented shame. Over time, these conventions have changed and nakedness of Adam and Eve transformed into a kind of game with the audience. According to Berger, nakedness and nude are completely different concepts. To be naked means to be yourself, without any mask. At the same time, nude is to expose oneself to the viewer, i.e. permission to see yourself naked. I had my own experience working with nude, but not as a model, but as a painter. I was a student at the University of Architecture in my hometown. After graduation, I professionally worked as a photographer. In both cases, I had to work with nudity. At the university, we often painted the naked bodies of antique statues. However, later working as a photographer I often received orders for a nude-style photo session.

From the time of Adam and Eve, a woman was punished and subjugated to a man, and a man became a representative of God. Men and women in the works of European art had different positions. A man took the place of the beholder, being an artist or owner of a nude painting. However, the woman was an object that the man was looking at, in other words, the woman was a sight to behold. Currently, the roles of women and men are rapidly changing, equalizing the positions of both sexes in society. European works of art are simply a reminder to women that they are no longer just a thing in the eyes of men. At the same time, women understand the power of their charm and beauty.

Another equally important subject that is present in the works of European art is a mirror. According to Berger, a mirror in oil painting is a kind of approval of a woman to see her naked. Berger also says that the mirror in the hands of women was most often symbolized as female vanity. However, the author himself considers this hypocrisy by the artist: the artist first gives the woman a mirror and then accuses her of vanity. Berger also notes the look of naked women on the canvases of European art. He claims that women look with charm as if they are looking at a man who possesses her. In modern art, nakedness has become less important. However, women are still portrayed in order to flatter the man to the viewer.