Category Archives: Discussion questions

This space is for you to engage in conversation about course reading.

John Berger’s Way of Seeing Episode#1

Discussion Questions #2

Question 1: When Berger says that seeing is not natural, but shaped by habit and convention, he was talking about perspective.  Perspective comes from the viewpoint from an individual  not just seeing the object or image itself, but our mindset on the image or object we are looking at. Our viewpoints are influenced by our environment, upbringing, age, gender, etc. The reason I write, it is because our perspective comes from many forms of standards created by society’s opinion on what is a social norm. Which is significant to how we see a work of art differently from everyone else. “Perspective centers everything on the eye of the beholder” ~ John Berger

Question 2:   Berger explains that  the camera has changed our sense of perspective by allowing the viewer another chance to see something in different ways. The device has changed our engagement with works of art by allowing it to be manipulated and made available in any size for any purpose. Berger further divulges into what the experience of being in the presence of an authentic artwork at a museum is in the terms of stillness and silence. When he says this he means that this experience goes beyond just what people teach about art. By seeing an artwork in a museum you are able to see the actual artwork in its purest form rather than seeing it on a screen or book where the image is manipulated to fit on a piece of paper to carry around or to see in the context of our own life.

Question 3: When Berger describes reproductions of paintings becoming a form of information he is saying that they can be used to convey, or narrate an idea to its viewer. Berger then mentions that talking with reproductions can manipulate an image into a different perspective by what comes before being handed the reproduction. These purposes include selling something, promoting an idea, or educating other individuals.

DB#6      Episodes 3 & 4

Episode 3

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

– The difference between the microphone and cellphone are microphone can only be spoke into with a receiver, and cellphone can be use to connect with an individual to communicate.

2. 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?

    Voice has been changed by digital transmission is what we can replay and hear it again, Knowing auto tune can be use as a digital voice to customize how you want to sound.

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

-Kurkowski comments on the voice idea has build Digital voice and knowing how to share voice over these digital.

Episode 4

  1. 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? 

-Music should be free because it a way to people enjoy your songs but you still can make monkey from live concert and doing other shows. I think music should be available all around for free to people to listen. I think in this day and age people will most like listen music on youtube for free then paying for a CD.

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

– The relationships between the music community and culture can be really all together it depends on what type of music your listening to and the genre to it. Different culture has it owns music and it own community who listen to their own music.

Discussion Post #5

Episode 1

  1. Krukowski tries to point out, when you experience “real” time you are actually hearing, feeling or touching in the exact time it’s happening unlike “digital” time. You experience an action called latency, it’s the amount of time it takes a computer to process something. These differences are significant because “real” time is lived in the actual present while “digital” time lives in a machine time locked to a clock coded and delayed.
  2. Krukowski expresses that to navigate space you need to listen to beyond what you hear. Separating every sound you hear in a busy city street makes you see how everyone is living a different life right Next to each other. Try not to block the sound out through other objects.

Episode 2

  1. Moss argues that developers have gentrified Astor Place into this open space for pedestrians to walk and walk freely but with rules to follow and with certain individuals looking over them. I’m a way they’re still being controlled. Private space is a location that has history, there’s a meaningful background unlike public where it’s open to all and now the meaning has become less. This is important because when there’s a significant location, person or object it stays important forever and one cherishes it.
  2. The significance of Thompson’s idea is that concert halls are meant to keep unwanted noise outside while maintaining the sounds of the music for only the audience and the audience not being able to be hear either. This related to headphone and earbuds because they are ment to block outside noises, while maintaining quite or wanted sounds.
  3. Some main ideas the episode expressed was the significance on how one object can influence our space negatively and/ or positively. Headphones can be a big distraction from the word. Like Moss says “it makes us opt out of the word”. It also expresses the long lasting relationship music has with a space. I find it interesting and agree with the concept of sound influencing a space. When one builds memories in a space they forever remember because of the impact of emotion the sounds gives it. Now everytime one goes back to a space they can feel and remember what once was.

Discussion Post #7

Episode 5

  1. What Krukowski is trying to say when he asks us this question is that the world as we know it is changing day by day. For example, music nowadays is being digitized and we can reach it by simply clicking on the apps in our phone instead of having to go to a store to buy a physical form of music. What he is also trying to say is that with these new advancements we are forgetting many treasures and making other forms of interacting with music forgotten. Music indicates the differences between the powerful and the forgotten in many ways, one specific way that it does this is that we are more exposed to mainstream artists and lesser known artists are being denied the opportunity to prosper.
  2. Forced Exposure is different from platforms such as Spotify because they create different experiences for the users. With Forced exposure we are given different songs and artists who we like to select and with platforms such as Spotify they use algorithms that are man made that give us a wider range of unknown music.
  3. The differences that Krukowski states between being surprised by music and discovering music is that we can be surprised by a song being good or better than anticipated but when we discover music we find music that may be different from what we are used to or new music from new artists. These experiences are different because they give us different sensations, be it of satisfaction from something we know or pleasure from discovering something new. This is important when it comes to music because these different experiences for users allow for music platforms to give relative answers than specific answers.

Episode 6

  1. According to Krukowski, noise is an unimportant sound that we can easily ignore because it is unattractive. On the other hand signal is said to be the sounds that we are attracted to and do take interest in. These distinctions are important to know because it gives an insight to what sounds might attract others and be easily ignored to others.
  2. Basically the central idea that this episode conveys is the differences between different sounds such as noise and background. This is very significant because it shows how artists and music producers will try to make the signal the most heard sound within a song to maximize the attention and also minimize the amount of noise so that people aren’t distracted by something they might not like.
  3. This episode relates to the other episodes because it gives us another look at how sounds change and how we receive each different sound and even label the sounds we hear. This episode also relates to the others because it helps us understand the process that artists undergo when creating music and what strategies they use to convey their emotions to us and how they do so to also get an emotion from us.

Discussion Post #6

Episode 3

  1. The main differences between a microphone and a cell phone are that a microphone gives the artist more control over the voice they are trying to convey. They can change annunciation as well as proximity to control how the microphone picks up their voice and therefore gives them total control when it comes to recording music. A phone distorts the voice too much, this causes there to be less control when it comes to speaking which is crucial for an artist. A phone is also untrustworthy because they pick up too many sounds within their surroundings. A cell phone does not pick up the same quality of sound as a microphone does since the voice becomes digitized and generic. The differences are important because they convey different emotions as well as give less control to the user. 
  2. Krutowski and Tomlinson say that the “musical” qualities of the voice are actually the aspects of our voices that we would consider nonmusical. The pauses and emotions are important when wanting to convey an emotion to someone else on the other end. Technological advancements have also changed the musical aspects that we convey when we talk or communicate.
  3. Krukowski comments how the change from analog to digital transmission of the voice has affected the way we are heard, be it from another person or the way we convey our voices to the community. With the evolution of technology we have been able to convey our messages faster and farther but the emotion behind the message has been lost. Connecting with others has become a harder task because of the loss of emotion.

Episode 4

  1. What Krukowski says about music file sharing is that it has benefited those who commit the act but has caused a negative effect on the musicians who truly dedicate themselves to their form of art. I believe that in a world where people have to pay for almost everything, they look to save money or take shortcuts to save money in a non-essential area. Therefore I do not agree with the idea of file sharing if it negatively impacts smaller or lesser known artists who depend on that income more but I do not think it is such a big issue when it comes to artists that are world renowned and have earned a fortune from past users. I believe that music should not be free but some artist should try to be more generous with their audience and allow their music to be heard by more if they just cut back on the cost it takes to listen to their music. 
  2. The episode does a great job when it comes to representing the relationships between music, community, and culture because with such advancements to technology and the importance of technology around the world, music is able to reach past all boundaries. Another way they are all connected is seen when popular artists with large fan bases create music with specific sounds representing their cultural and ethnic roots. This allows the sounds of their culture to reach others and be heard by many who never had such exposure to it previously. 

ways of hearing /episode 5: Power

 

Episode 5

D1 : By saying , “the marginal-the rejected-the repressed-is whatever the powerful have decided  is of no use at the moment .”Mr Krukowski want to share with people the significance of the critic . And also suggest by there that music wasn’t appreciated through CDs anymore because everything is moved fast now and it is easier for people to download music instead of going to store and purchasing CDs.Tapes and CDs are less appreciated .

D2  Music Listening experiences enabled by Forces Exposure taking time to get everything heard . If you have to listening or make a searching of a song , you must scroll thousands of of them before you got it while those that Paul lamer is working on with platform like Spotify is easier to access and decrease the time that you spend searching .

D3 : Being surprised by music is like hearing songs that we haven’t  heard before but is not that we heard it and discovering it is not ever new because we listening g to song that had ever exist .According to the author , both are not the same  and he mentions that surprise is not a helping thing . He went further asking question like :  “did google want to surprise us when we’re searching for something? Did facebook want to surprise us when we look for a friend ? ”

Episode 6

D1: Noise is everything else that doesn’t  interest us and signal is whatever is interested to us .volume alone cannot let us detect signal from noise.Everything around us is signal as long as it is not important to us but when we are in  a crowded  noise and somebody tells us things that we are interested to , so it become signal . It is really significant because these differences are important in terms of how our brain focuses on what we actually want to hear and less probably to disturbed by the surroundings noises .

D2 : In every noise there is a signal and base on the noise we can deduce signal but both are really related because when we turn the volume down we cannot hear the signal .

D3 : It Is related to all others episodes because it clearly  gives some details and present good   definition  and explanation of “ways of hearing in general .

Discussion Questions #7

Discussion questions for episodes 5 & 6

Episode 5

  1. At the beginning of this episode, Krukowski asserts, “the marginal-the rejected-the repressed-is whatever the powerful have decided is of no use at the moment.” What does he mean by this statement? He goes on to ask, “But might it [the marginal-the rejected-the repressed] not be a key to alternate approaches to art, to society-to power itself?” (“Marginalized” is an adjective that describes a person, group, or concept that is treated as insignificant or peripheral.)What is he trying to get at with this question? How does music indicate the differences between the powerful and the marginalized?

Krukowski asserts “the marginal-the rejected-the repressed-is whatever the powerful have decided is of no use at the moment.” he means that the changes come from the audience. The audience has the power to replace bookstores and physical places that sell the music and books online such as Amazon, and eBay. Our lives are being busy and running fast so people prefer to shop their books or music online to go store to explore and what the book stores or record stores have. Record stores became in a margin because of technology and digital apps that offered thousands of songs on their phones.   

  • How are the music listening experiences enabled by Forced Exposure different from those that Paul Lamere is working on with platforms like Spotify?

Digital Companies such as Spotify, Apple Music, and Pandora have music recommendations done by computers using algorithms through the recommendations that the audiences give. , acoustic similarity, and cultural recommendations. The difference is that forced exposure can have a human give you a personalized recommendation because they listened to the music themselves. Paul Lamere said the goals of that is they know automatically what you want to listen through your music playlist. Those company like Spotify, Echo nest has designs the recommendation program to figure out what do you want to listen.   

  1. What distinctions does Krukowski draw between being “surprised” by music and “discovering” music? What are the differences between these experiences and according to Krukowski, why are they important?

According to Krukowski indicates the differences between surprised and discovering in music surprise are not the same as discovering. Discover that when you use the app to discover what do you want exactly to hear. I am using Spotify app as an example,  You discover what do you want to hear because the application has millions of the song around the world. Later you got a surprise when you find a song that related to what are you listen to. In fact that it should not surprise us because this app uses a recommendation program that gives us the music related to our favorite music to keep us listening to music the app.      

Episode 6

  • According to Krukowski, what is noise? What is the signal? Why are these distinctions important?

According to Krukowski indicate the differences between noise and signal, he states that noise the voice that you want to her but the signal is sound that you want to her and interested to or you pay your attention to. 

  • What central idea about noise does this episode convey? Why is it significant?

The central idea about the noise and signal in this episode is depending on the person responded for example, when kids in the park scream, their scream is signal for their parents but it is noise for the elderly who are sitting in the park.   

  • How does this episode relate to other episodes? 

This episode is special because the impact of digital sound can create serious disease hearing loss according to the world health organization reported that 1.1 billion young people are now at risk of hearing loss from the personal audio. In episode 2 space, Krukowski said digital audio makes people create their private space and also they listen to music instead of talking to each other, It a result of that they prefer the noise and face the risk of losing their hearing. In episode 3 love digital sound has a negative impact on the music quality, the song now became noisier than before because of the digital tools. 

Discussion Questions 7

  1. At the beginning of this episode, when Krukowski asserts that “the marginal-the rejected-the repressed-is whatever the powerful have decided is of no use at the moment.”, he meant that when people lost their attention on something or when they found it unfamiliar, it will be considered as the marginal. But if we always listen to the familiar one and never be open to the new experiments, we won’t be able to go forward from here. That’s why the marginal-the rejected-the repressed] might be a key to alternate approaches to art, to society, to power itself.
  2.  The music listening experiences enabled by Forced Exposure is closer to what we are looking for and what we would like. Because, before they present those experiences to us, they are listening to that music in person and evaluate it the way one of us would do. But in platforms like Spotify, algorithms are the ones that chose and recommend the music to us. So, those recommendations may not be as successful as the ones Forced Exposure’s, since the music is for souls not for machines.
  3. The distinction Krukowski draws between being “surprised” by music and “discovering” is how much you feel familiar with what you listen to. Even though it’s the first time you listen to a song, it may feel like you listened to it before. But this is not the case when it comes to being surprised. Being surprised is listening to something that is not likely to anything you listened to before. Many people don’t like being surprised. So, when making recommendations, algorithms chose songs that familiar with what we listen to.
  4. Noises are sounds that we are not there to hear, like the surface noise in a record. And, to Dr. Quinnell, signal is whatever sound we are trying to pay attention to. 
  5. The central idea of the episode’s message about the distinctions between signal and noise. Anything you pay attention to is a signal, and anything you don’t want to hear is a noise. The distinction between them is up to the person who hears them. For example, in the subway, the sound of a baby who is crying is a noise to the other passengers, whereas it is a signal to the baby’s parents.
  6. In this episode, we saw a new thing that the digital world brought to us. From the beginning to the end, every episode we talked about this. Sometimes we miss the analog world but we can’t unsee the improvements that came with the digital.

  1.  Krukowski wanted to point out that we are naturally affected by music. Big companies like Amazon, Google, Spotify, or other online music servers, serve us all sources of information irresponsibly .he finds that some specific albums/records are preserved for a long time. Also, these records are expired/out-of-date. Nowadays, people prefer downloading music from the internet or uploading music apps such as Spotify, Sound cloud or YouTube rather than going to the music store wasting time picking up CD’s. But music records stores are a type of art and there are some people who use it. Krukowski mentioned that by visiting the record store, he discovered a lot of information there. He gave an example such as workers over there can provide you with information about years ago that you didn’t know.

 

 

  • Forced Exposure means listening to the opinion of those who listened to all of the available records and wrote about them.Jimmy from Forced Exposure Collects songs of various genres and when he likes something he records it and he knows what he will hear later.  People picked what they wanted to listen to based on this information. In contrast, Spotify is choosing for us a source of music based on our listening history by using the algorithms.Paul Lamre’s experience in sites like Spotify, he makes an automatic way to choose songs based on the person’s taste, and he selects similar songs.

 

 

 

  • Krukowski states the point that surprise is not the same as discovery to a huge digital corporation eager to change every one of us and as much of our time as possible with their product.He gives the examples of Google , Facebook and Spotify. He compares the way how these three companies provide our information we would like to know. According to Krukowski is that people are experiencing a new type of music without the need of searching for a specific kind of music. The main purpose of Spotify is to let the listener hear the music that they are most likely to enjoy.  you can be surprised by a song you discover, for example it could be better or worse than what you expected.Forced Exposure surprises with its variety in which you need to dig a little to find something new and completely different from the usual.

 

 

Episode 6

 

 

  • According to Krukowski, noise is something, we are not paying attention to when we are listening. Signal is the voice we are paying attention to and that we want to listen to. These distinctions are important because until we decide the distinction between signal and noise, we won’t know what we are listening to.Signals are fluid because our attention can shift based on what we want to hear at any given time. Noise is everything we can hear besides the signal we are looking for. 

 

 

 

  • Noise is very important, that is something lost. Remove the noise and only keep the signal. He explains there is a richness to noise that allows our brain to choose its signals.The signal in music is something that the producers want listeners to hear. if we cut out noise completely and try to layer signal with other signals, it just becomes competing signals. When there is noise in the background the audio engineer gets to choose what to highlight as a signal and what to leave in back. It allows the engineer to weave sound textures together to create a more complex sound. 

 

 

 

  • This episode gives us one of the most important points in music, in real time and space. In the machine time, we come to approach to reduce the noise and focus on the signal. In digital time, we can use headphones to enjoy the signal of our song and reduce the noise we are hearing around. We can avoid the noise.

 

 

Discussion questions #7

  1. At the beginning of this episode, when Krukowski asserts that “the marginal-the rejected-the repressed-is whatever the powerful have decided is of no use at the moment.”, he meant that when people lost their attention on something or when they found it unfamiliar, it will be considered as the marginal. But if we always listen to the familiar one and never be open to the new experiments, we won’t be able to go forward from here. That’s why the marginal-the rejected-the repressed] might be a key to alternate approaches to art, to society, to power itself.
  2.  The music listening experiences enabled by Forced Exposure is closer to what we are looking for and what we would like. Because, before they present those experiences to us, they are listening to that music in person and evaluate it the way one of us would do. But in platforms like Spotify, algorithms are the ones that chose and recommend the music to us. So, those recommendations may not be as successful as the ones Forced Exposure’s, since the music is for souls not for machines.
  3. The distinction Krukowski draws between being “surprised” by music and “discovering” is how much you feel familiar with what you listen to. Even though it’s the first time you listen to a song, it may feel like you listened to it before. But this is not the case when it comes to being surprised. Being surprised is listening to something that is not likely to anything you listened to before. Many people don’t like being surprised. So, when making recommendations, algorithms chose songs that familiar with what we listen to.
  4. Noises are sounds that we are not there to hear, like the surface noise in a record. And, to Dr. Quinnell, signal is whatever sound we are trying to pay attention to. 
  5. The central idea of the episode’s message about the distinctions between signal and noise. Anything you pay attention to is a signal, and anything you don’t want to hear is a noise. The distinction between them is up to the person who hears them. For example, in the subway, the sound of a baby who is crying is a noise to the other passengers, whereas it is a signal to the baby’s parents.
  6. In this episode, we saw a new thing that the digital world brought to us. From the beginning to the end, every episode we talked about this. Sometimes we miss the analog world but we can’t unsee the improvements that came with the digital.

Discussion questions #7

EPISODE 5 – POWER

 

  1. When Krukowski asserts, “the marginal-the rejected-the repressed-is whatever the powerful have decided is of no use at the moment.” He means that society forget about anything they get tired of to replace it for something new, and that happens to the music too, the audience has power to control what is on demand nowadays. Why would people go to a record store when they can buy any album they want in Ebay or Amazon? Krukowski says he pick up some knowledge every time he goes to a record store, in a record store you can find new perspectives and approaches to art looking at what the mainstream culture has no use for.
  2. Forced Exposure employees listen to every new release and they even write about it, and produce a printed catalog, they inform us what is worth it; people choose the music they want to hear based on the reviews. Paul design recommendation programs, instead of having to search new music for yourself, you just hit one button and the algorithm plays songs based on what you like, your mood, where you are, where you are doing. Also this companies like Spotify and Pandora work with almost all the music available in the world so it’s impossible for them listen to every song.

  3. Surprise is not the same as discover, when you discover music is because you were searching for a specific type of music, but being surprised by music means that you were not expecting to hear that kind of music. Music corporations want to keep us engaged, they want us to find what we are already comfortable with, they don’t want to turn our requests upside down. They are replacing the freedom and chaos of the internet at large, with the control and predictability of their programs making harder for us to find new perspectives and question our knowledge.

    EPISODE 6 – NOISE

  4. Noise and signal are always connected in the analog world, think of a radio if you turn up the volume you turn up the noise, but digital allows the busting of signal without the busting of noise, for example when you are listening to a podcast online there is no static, no surface noise, so if you turn up the volume you get more volume. There is no noise to restrain the sound and everything is louder.
  5. Noise is the background sounds, sounds that you are not interested in, signal is the main sound, the sound you are trying to pay attention to. This episode conveys the importance of noise and signal. We are very skilled at shifting our attention from noise to signal, focusing and refocusing on different sounds in the environment, and shutting out others.
  6. In all the episodes they talk about the switch between analog and digital changed our ways of hearing, and also the impact of technology in the society. Digital devices remove the noise we don’t want to hear and make more clear the message we want to express. Our perception of sound is not as natural as we tend to believe, we hear what they want us to hear. This episode explores the differences of noise and signal, it’s related to the other episodes because it is like the start of everything else, for example in the episode 2 when they talk about the efforts to control sound or the episode 3 when they talk about how digital devices remove the musical qualities of our voice and the main message are our words.