Naturally Human Sound

What is the most naturally human sound? 

I asked this question to 11 Lawrence students and recorded their sound with a digital camera. Their first reaction was captured and I used almost every sound I obtained from them. Here is the the piece:

Naturally Human Sound 

Here is the link to the YouTube Video

        For the video I decided to use my own picture drunk laughing as I walked around Time Square in NYC. That area is all about the visual and the only sound you can hear is that of the people hanging out taking pictures. I did not focus in the visual because my interest is in the sound. Yet it can captures the type of faces I got when people were recording their "human sound".

 

     In this version I wanted to create a conventional piece of music using human sounds only. Nevertheless, after trying different ways to mix the recorded sounds I realized that human sounds do not have a beat that could be used to create a conventional song unless you distort the sound until it creates a rhythmic beat or unless you add a beat that is conventionally accepted as music (such as what I did in my other version of this piece). 

     I preferred to keep the recorded sounds as close to the original sound as possible. Therefore I put all the sounds together repeating the sounds that were more pleasing to my ear, juxtaposed with sounds that disturbed my hearing.

     This piece does not have a specific rhythm or a conventional musical element but, who can say it is not a piece of music? John Cage said, "everything we do is music." People talking, laughing, screaming, whistling, crying and (why not?) making animal sounds, are sounds that can be considered music.

Human!!!!!!!!!!

I added a Garage Band drumbeat to this piece to achieve what I originally wanted to do in my other version: to create a conventional piece of music using human sounds.

Naturally Human Bass 
Here is the link to the YouTube Video

     The image I used in the video is a picture I took in NYC. In this image you can only think of sound coming from cars in the street just as the overwhelming sound of the drumbeats interacts with the human voice.  The water seems to come off the car at the end of the street and made me think of a non-stopping element that originates from an unknown place, time, which comes from a metaphysical construction in the human mind yet is so physical that we can feel it or even see it as the things around us change. The female voice is important for the music just as the woman is in the picture and therefore this picture was perfect for the video.

     The fragmented female voice and the repetitive drum beat work together to create rhythm, a musical tone. These elements create a space where the human voice interacts with the controlling drumbeat throughout the linear continuous time. In other words, it becomes what I would call a conventional piece of music or song. 

     I had to challenge this construction of sound by disturbing the linear composition by inserting a unit of multiple spatial planes that uses layers upon layers of different recorded sounds crammed into a limited time frame. 

    The piece continues with the drumbeat and the repeated word "human" to mock the listener and challenge the individual to think of his or her own understanding of music and his or her role as natural producers of sound and music.

Hope you enjoy or hate both pieces, and I hope it challenges you or takes you to an uncomfortable place.