Category Archives: Personal

Sound Installations

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Sound installations,have been identified as an art form since the dawn of time– Wikipedia defines it as “related to sound art and sound sculpture, is an intermedia and time based art form”. The main difference between the two is that sounds installations are three-dimensional and they interact with the surrounding environment whether it is in a close or open space. Nowadays most installations use technology to enhance impact (for example, sensors and kinetic devices), but others are more traditional and use old-fashion speakers or simple instruments. Another benefit of creating an installation is to bring art outside of the confined space and open it to the public and become “social”. In an academic setting, many have taken advantage of this artistic form, by using sounds and integrating it with visual and digital design. There are many uses of sounds within the curriculum, from the Music and Art Departments but also Engineering and other science courses. In literature, the Futurist movement, comes to mind. In particular, the work by Luigi Russolo, (and others like Marinetti, and Cangiulo) represents all that music meant for such composers who rejected tradition and introduced sounds inspired by machinery. We all know that music affects our moods in all sorts of ways, and we recognize it as a powerful tool we can use to express emotions and moods. Some studies have showed that during tests if you listen to opera or classical music you have better chances of getting higher grades since the brain creates more sophistical connections. This research supports this basic fact: music impacts and improves our learning and living so… happy listening everyone !

Luigi Russolo’s page

http://www.ubu.com/sound/russolo_l.html

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Tools to create a storytelling or a digital sound project in the classroom

 

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A great way to find out about “human sounds” is to explore the many oral archives that populate the internet. Some of the most interesting collections are the ones that bring together dialects and speech accents from various parts of the world. These audio files and collections are housed in renowned universities and libraries and the good news is that they can be freely accessed from everyone just by surfing the web. Some of the most interesting ones are the Dialects Archive which displays all of the dialects from different parts of the US (and around the world), http://www.dialectsarchive.com/united-states-of-america. Another interesting archive is the British, Sounds Familiar? Accents and Dialects of the UK http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/ which stores all of the dialect variations of  the English Language. Among the many oral archives one can find, an interesting one is the Smith College’s Voices of Feminism, Oral history Project. It collects recorded interviews (on DVD or VHS video tapes, plus audio CDs) with transcripts; and also the correspondence between interviewer and interviewee.

This could be an interesting way to incorporate audio podcasts in the classroom! Simply ask students to work on a large scale project. Students can interview immigrants, folks who grew up in the 50s or those with large families.  To carry out this work students can use different programs or use the old digital player or phone recording apps even though, their quality is not so great. I recommend thefollowing free recording (with storage options) programs: Audacity, Wavosaur, Olefa, Audiopal and Podomatic

Have you tried to create a digital oral project in your class? If you want to check out more options, then visit the following page !

http://www.techtoolsforteaching.com/tools-for-digital-storytelling.html

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The Italian Unification and TV ads

The Italian TV produced several TV ads in celebration of the 150 year since the Italian Unification (1861-2011), The first one revolves, of course, around soccer –one of the few unifying elements — that makes all Italians feel like one (the music underneath is of the Italian National Anthem). Happy Birthday Italy !

The other ads displayed in the clip below show all of the richness of the Italian dialects which are still being spoken throughout Italy today.  The ads make fun of the fact that if we still spoke to each other using the languages spoken 150 years ago we would not be able to understand a single word ! My dialect is not represented in the ad (Emilia Romagna), and therefore I do not understand anything of what people are saying here ! (just like the people in the ad) Not a word. “If we were still living 150 years ago we would all still speak like this…” the ad says at the end. EH?

Check out the ads no need to speak Italian.

https://podcasting.commons.gc.cuny.edu/about/personal-interests/

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