Discussion Questions #7

Episode 5

  1.  what Krukowski means in the beginning of the episode where he says “the marginal-the rejected-the repressed-is whatever the powerful have decided is of no use at the moment”   it means that power is being consoled how people want to hear digital information and sound but they are thinking of making sure that the digital still stays with us. The other point that he explains art is not being used the right way  and it is getting forgotten in the power of people.  what krukowski means by the questions is that he wants to find why power its not being used in a proper way of hearing. 
  2. there different because the way the are being used as a good way for digital followers can listen to and that can be something positive.
  3. The distinction between being surprised by music and discovering music that krukowski explains is that being surprised is unexpected in other words didn’t know what they were going to hear and discovering music is when people are interested in a particular sound or music which integers someone to like it.

Episode 6

  1.  according to krukowski noise is the way you hear a sound and how it is being heard. A signal is the way the sound is being heard if its in many different ways that people grab information. These are important because it helps everyone know where the information is being used.
  2. The central idea of noise is that it is being in the digital world can be easy to hear.
  3. this episode relates to other episodes is because the way people is forgetting the whole concept of the way we hear things it can be a radio,news ,sports,or even space but those things help us think on how listening can be very important.

Discussion Questions #7

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.

Sonic Example 2 – I Used to Love H.E.R.

“I Used to Love H.E.R.’ is a song by hip hop legend Common Sense released back in 1994. The song was produced and arranged by No I.D. The beat and accompanying musical arrangement uses a sample from the Jazz song “The Changing World” by George Benson. Benson’s song was recorded using all analog recordings before digital recording was prevalent in the music industry. The recording includes a significant amount of background noise. Common’s “I used to love H.E.R.” was recorded completely digitally, but producer No I.D. decided to leave some of that background noise in the song. 

 The song’s lyrics tell a first person story about Common’s love for a female who over time changes for the worse. The female in the song is actually an analogy of hip hop music and the changes it went through through the late 80’s and early 90’s. Hip Hop during that time period went from mostly underground music with little commercial or financial appeal to music made for the masses. It has continued in this fashion as one of the more profitable music genres in the world. 

This change is analogous of the move from analog to digital music. Hip Hop went from a period of including noise to removing all noise and only featuring the signals that are profitable by large record corporations. Krukowski’s idea of what has changed in the world as we have gone from analog to digital applies to the change in Hip Hip, even though Hip Hop has always been a digitally recorded style of music. It has gone from its pure unadulterated form, to a commercially influenced form which waters it down by removing all the noise, or authenticity.

 

Discussion Questions #7

Discussion #7

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.)

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.” He is telling us that the powerful ones, the music that are trending, suppresses those that are not trending on digital platforms. Since people are only exposed to songs that are trending, unless and until we look for a particular song, we don’t come across a variety of songs. Also, with the algorithm created by the digital music companies we only get exposed to the kind of songs we tend to listen to. In this process, all other music is marginalized, rejected and repressed inadvertently for the consumers. He goes on to ask, “But might it not be the key to alternate approaches to art, to society, to power itself?  Krukowski is suggesting that if listeners are exposed to these marginalized and repressed group of music as much as the powerful ones, it can generate an element of surprise in the listeners and our musical experience will be diversified eventually.

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

The music experiences enabled by Forced Exposure is different from those that Paul Lamere is working on with platforms like Spotify because Forced Exposure doesn’t create an algorithm like Spotify does. It exposes us to all different kinds of music and enables us to explore them. With Forced exposure, there is a chance that we can bump into a kind of music that we never thought we would like, but Spotify only allows us to listen to the kind of music that we like. Krukowski asserts, “Online, it is becoming more and more difficult to escape the influence of those corporations and their algorithms that shape the subset of information we each see. They’re replacing the freedom and chaos of the internet at large with the control and predictability of their programs, but subverting that system is easy offline.” Music is catered to our own liking and if choices are not made consciously, we end up listening to the same kind of music over time.

3. 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?

Krukowski says, “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 compares it with Google and Facebook, how they provide us with the answer we are looking for. We don’t like it when they provide us unrelated and surprising answers to our searches. Similarly, recommendations on Spotify are designed to our liking which doesn’t surprise us, and we keep listening to them. However, discovering music is a totally different experience. It is coming across a different kind of music we have not heard before and then end up liking it. Krukowski shares his own experience of discovering the first ghost album through Forced Exposure. He liked it so much that he and his wife collaborated with them. 

Episode 6 

1. According to Krukowski, what is noise? What is signal? Why are these distinctions important?

According to Krukowski, noise is something that we are not paying attention to when we are trying to listen. 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.

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

The central idea about this episode is that noise is a part of sound and that noise and signal is relative. Noise is not literally a noise. It is beautifully used in the recordings of the analog days. In today’s digital generation, noise can be eliminated during recordings, but it is not more than a noise when it is played loudly. It is significant because if we reduce noise, we are eliminating the choice as well. According to Krukowski, “When you choose as a listener to focus on what is buried deep in the layers of a recording, instead of what has been placed up front to catch your attention. You have changed what is signal and what is noise”.

3. How does this episode relate to other episodes? 

This episode relates to other episodes in a way how all other episodes distinguish between signal and noise. Digital time is considered the signal in episode 1 because it gains our attention and it is similar to the signal we pay attention to when we listen to something. Similarly, urban noise is allowed to control with the signal you want to pay attention in the concert halls. We learnt that musical quality of voice was missing when cellphones were invented, but it did not affect the transmission of the words. So, we can say that missing quality of voice is considered noise because they did not pay attention to it. Likewise, when internet music sharing entered the market, people did not buy cds or cassettes. The market got rid of the physical forms of music like a noise, they only wanted to listen to the signal – the song. Also, the online music platform encouraged the marginalization of music that is not powerful or trending like the noise we don’t pay attention to.

Discussion Questions 6

1. One of the main differences between a cellphone and a microphone is, when you are using a microphone you should do it with a technique. The sound that will reach to the other person/people changes according to how close or far you are to microphone. But when you are speaking to someone on a cellphone, the sound that other people will hear, will be the same no matter how much you are close to the mikes on the cellphone.

2. Gary Tomlison asserts that we had utterances with musical qualities which we used to communicate before the languages. He believes that our ability to communicate with the nonverbal parts of our voices goes so deep that it is coded into the genetic makeup of our species itself and today, the way we use the technology encodes our language, sends it over the Internet and make it perceivable to the other end of the specif distance. 

3. We use our voices to communicate with each other for thousands of years. Digital tools helped us to do this without worrying about the distances or even if we know or not know the person who we communicate with. But while sharing our voices over these digital tools we lost an amount of the emotions in it.

4. In my opinion, one should be able to share the music that they created, freely. If they put enough effort into it and if they have the gift, their music will be appreciated. Otherwise, if people don’t like it, this can break the will of the musician and they might give up trying5

5. Music is the expression of people’s feelings and culture. History of it goes way before the existence of languages. I believe it is magical because we can hear the same emotions in the different cultures’ musics. Music connects us with each other without needing words.

Blog Post #5

Poets of the Fall – Late Goodbye (Official Video w/ Lyrics)

No Description

In this world, we all love to hear music. Some people also love to write lyrics or make music. However, we all have at-least one favorite song, music artist or band. Some people have lots of like me. Yeah, I’m a music-lover and sometimes I love to make rhythms or write lyrics. I want to clarify that we have some kind of memories with the song we love to hear most. It can be a one song or an album/record. I have a story about finding one of my favorite band by an unexpected incident. I want to add that I love to play video games especially on the PC/Desktop. I’m a gamer and it’s my second favorite thing like music. So, when I was in class 6 or 7, I was playing a game called “Max Payne 2”. It’s a game by ‘’Rockstar Games’’ who created epic games such as the Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption or Bully. I loved the story/theme of the game. Generally, I like this type of games a lot. It took one or two weeks to finish the game. When I finished the game, I heard the soundtrack of the game called ‘’Late Goodbye” by “Poets of the Fall”. After finishing a fantastic game, this song just blew up my mind. Therefore, I discover a great rock band from Helsinki. Poets of the Fall’s vocalist called Marko Saaresto has a great vocal range and can sing a song very uniquely. The song called Late Goodbye has a beautiful lyric such as “And we keep driving into the night, It’s a late goodbye, such a late goodbye”. After that, I keep listening to this beautiful band and still listen this amazing band. Furthermore, when I listen the song called ‘’Late Goodbye”, it brings back me the old beautiful memories. Also, I’m absolutely grateful that I’m fortunate enough to play a good game with discovering a great artist. It feels so astonishing when you find an awesome game with beautiful soundtracks by your favorite musical artist.  In conclusion, there are many stories similar like this, but this my most favorite one.

Discussion Post #7

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.)

When Damon Krukowski enters the record store, he finds that some specific albums/records are preserved for a long time. Also, these records are expired/out-of-date. I really think that the reason is   people usually like to download music from online music websites and not want to go to music record/albums stores. As a result, the records what only available in the record stores become valueless/unused. However, the records can give a new vision of art. Another thing is we can find much information on a music store. Such as the author pointed out that workers in the music store can provide information about music/records about many years ago that you did not know or thought. Moreover, music albums/records in the record store are in the form of physical/material and it has more attraction or attention than the non-physical music what usually on the internet. Also, we can discover a new category of music that we don’t know by visiting music stores.

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

First of all, Jimmy from Forced Exposure listens songs what he like and what he chosen. Here he can listen and gather/find what kind of music he likes and want to hear in the future. On the other side, Paul Lamere from Spotify who creates algorithm to choose songs from millions of songs based on the category you heard before. It’s like an automatic system/process and people can’t discover new variety of music. Moreover, they will stick with the trend. Also, listening experience of music will never fulfill like the satisfying experience Jimmy had.

3. 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?

Surprising and discovering has different kind of relations. First of all, when we hear a new type of music, it’s like a surprising moment for us and we eager to hear more type of music in the future afterwards. On the other side, discovering is what we are usually searching for. Such as we can get the same type of songs on the Spotify based on the songs we listened. Here technology cannot help us to get new vibes of music. In addition, we cannot get out from the same music taste. Therefore, many information about an innovative kind of music get disappeared.

 

EPISODE: 6

4. According to Krukowski, what is noise? What is signal? Why are these distinctions important?

First of all, the signal is the sound what we want to hear and the remainder of the sound is the noise. It relies upon our cerebrums/brains/mind. However, in the studio the musicians and producers increase the volume of signal and decrease the volume of noise, blended the music very excellently and make signal and noise sounds more clear so it can give us the full fulfillment of a song.

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

Producers and musicians usually maximize the volume of the signal and minimize the volume of noise. Noise is the unwanted sounds related to signal and this is very significant. Without noise the song may sound slightly better, but it will never sound like a perfect song all the time. Noise can upgrade the signal and makes the song more powerful and rhythmic. In the meantime, musicians use software to take out the noise. Nevertheless, they can reduce the noise insisted if removing it. Noise is inevitable and also carries the meaning of a song.

6. How does this episode relate to other episodes? 

The episode relates to other episodes of Ways of Hearing. Much the same as the ‘’noise’’ peoples/individuals ignore the unwanted sounds by headphones or cellphones. In addition, noise has been diminished in right now. For instance, until further notice anyone who doesn’t care for a conversation or anything can put on the headphones to ignore the surroundings or other interruptions.

  1. Microphone maximizes the signal of the voice and minimizes the noise that inevitably comes. The noise may be a sound that comes from the mouth that we do not consider in music. Microphone sounds clearer than a phone. It is used for recording. Senorita control proximity effect. Cellphones are worse to listen to. cell phones do not transmit the full range of sound picked up mic. cell phone background noise put away; it can regulate our voice. Digitally process that sound compressing it to remove whatever engineers have decided is unnecessary data.

 

  1. People have already lost some language skills when we use digital transmission because when people who are separate far away have to use digital transmission, it causes people to lose some feeling. Human voice allows us to send our voice over vast distances, but non-verbal voice quality is lost in digital coding. musical quality of our voice is the nonverbal part of our voice to communicate.
  2.  Music, community, and culture are all interrelated, with each having a continuous effect on the other. Music is inextricably linked with the context in which it is produced, consumed and taught and the inter-relationship between music, society and culture has been researched for many decades. Music like language operating on a different level through symbolic processes using different units of exchange and this work has advanced. music practices around the world and increasing our understanding.

 

Episode 4

  1. ways of hearing “Money” by Damon Krukowski. In this episode he talks about music being property, he states that music should be freely available for everyone because it is something immaterial and therefore it shouldn’t be a price on it. This point that he makes is very interesting because ideally, it would be amazing having the possibilities of being able to listen to any music without having to pay for it. music should not be freely accessible for everyone as it would have a negative effect in the music industry and there would be less artists dedicated to this. In my paper I will be going over and interpreting Krukowki’s arguments in this episode and consequently stating the advantages and disadvantages of music being freely available for everyone.

 

  1. Playing musical instruments is particularly important for human social development because music making is fun and uses different skills to the ones that most people usually make music is relaxing and can relieve feelings of stress and anxiety. In fact, there is now a growing body of research which demonstrates that playing musical instruments is really good for you in terms of both improved physical and mental health. Music does not suffer the frustrations of catering to the diverse group of people that we are likely to see in a modern community because music is non-verbal and does not differentiate or discriminate between age, culture or ability.

6 . Music is like sound which goes inside our ear naturally and we can stop it. In the same way, music is something that we can’t stop but why is it stopped by the tag of money. music should be available free to anyone who is hearing and how free music can make people popular. Music should be something that free of cost because music is for entertainment, and we can’t make this entertainment just for people who can pay for it because poor people need to enjoy as well. That would make more people listen to music which makes artists more famous with more fans. Now companies are becoming rapacious and turning music to a business that they could benefit, so we can’t just put the blame on artists. Some artists do sing as an avocation without caring about money, and street singers.

 

 

 

post #5

Working Out at Home Without Annoying Your Neighbors (Published 2020)

Noise complaints are up as residents jump, kickbox and lift weights in their own apartments during the coronavirus lockdown.

The colorful world is full of strange sounds: the melodious bird cry, the eerie wolf roar; the majestic tsunami, the thunderbolt; the roaring machinery of the factory day and night, the sound of the piano in the concert hall… they make up the “environment” “Symphony” movement. Sometimes the movement is harmonious and tranquil, sometimes passionate and unrestrained, and sometimes chaotic. Sometimes it prevents people from resting and thinking. Noise is called the “invisible killer”. It can affect people’s hearing, shorten people’s life span, and seriously cause death. The development of science and technology has changed our lives. We are building houses, roads, and concert halls with sound insulation materials. At the same time, more people can be protected from noise. Therefore, the key to preventing noise is to control and eliminate noise sources.

Discussion Questions 7

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?

 

Music creates power on the Internet. The strong in music usually go to the top, and they can express themselves through sound. Marginalized people are often ignored, and they are not needed in the current mainstream culture.

 

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

 

The experience of forced exposure is one you can’t choose. You have to listen to all the music before you know what’s worth watching, and you build up an insatiable appetite for answers. Paul Lamere’s experience on platforms like Spotify is this magical music player whose system automatically recommends songs to help you find the right ones.

 

3.  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?

 

When Krukowski used Spotify, he was surprised to find that the system’s predictions of Krukowski’s taste in music were so accurate and disconcerting. According to Krukowski, we need to click away from any AD tracker before it has a chance to catch our attention because the control and predictability of advertising in the program replace the freedom and chaos of the entire Internet so keep our attention.

 

Episode 6

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

The signal is whatever sound you pay attention to and focus on. Noise is the sound that you do not pay attention to. But all sounds can be noise until we decide what a signal is.

 

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

 

The central idea about noise in this episode is that noise around us can be a meaningful signal, and it is depending on whether you’re interested in the noise. Noise is also an important aspect of the development of our digital communications.

 

3.  How does this episode relate to other episodes? 

 

In this episode, Krukowski emphasized the difference between signal and noise. but throughout the series, we discuss sound and music. The author wants to express that this is the most essential change experienced in the transition from analog communication to digital communication.