The Day in the Life of a College Student: Converse Style
By Lindsay Chaplin
Hearing is an ability that we all take advantage of; we consider the slight rumbling of trucks and mechanical hums of a heater to be a nuisance, when in fact they’re a blessing in disguise. Within Sound and Society, various texts such as “The Voice of the Grain” by Barthes, and “Open Ears” by Schafer have open my eyes (and ears) to how sound has impacted my daily life. In fact, my perspective now has caused me to become more appreciative of all vibrations. With this new-found perspective, my classmates and I have the task to record ten prominent sounds here at the university and explain not only the significance of the sound, but also to contextualize it with our readings from class.
Waking up in the frigid rooms of Converse, nothing sounds more appealing than a nice hot shower. Just by reading the word “shower,” you can already imagine the sound of the hissing water panging against the floor. Similarly, the tapping of footsteps, a creak and lock of a door and the murmuring of voices in a library are all something that we are familiar with; it’s just a matter of how much we pay attention to it. In Hudspeth’s “The Energetic Ear” he states: “Moreover, like many manmade feedback systems, the active process exhibits gain control: it can be turned up or down as circumstances dictate,” (Hudspeth, p. 50). This leads to the idea that despite the ability to focus on particular sounds, we won’t always have the ability to isolate ourselves from sound. As I write this paper I can hear people locking their doors, the bass of music through the floors, and murmuring voices in the background all at once. Yes, it can be an annoyance, but without those sounds my life would be filed with unbearable silence. We all have to face it: we all want what we can’t have. There will always be a constant battle between what is considered to be “noise” or “sound,” and it all has to do with how you decide to perceive it.
In the piece, “Senses of Vibrations: A History of the Pleasure and Pain of Sound,” Shelly Trower discusses the idea that hearing is not just one sense, but a full body experience for individuals. Looking from this perspective, many vibrations can be a pleasant experience. For an example, listening to ringing of the phone until a loved one answers is a comforting moment as they greet us with a warm “hello.” A particular song can also cause a swelling of emotions, whether that is of happiness or sadness. Within my Podcast that I created, I used the theme song from Scrubs because, although it is short, it brings me joy knowing that I can relax and unwind to a great comedy. In addition to this, “The Grain of the Voice,” by Roland Barthes, the idea of “the grain” illustrates the presence (or lack thereof) technicality, uniqueness, and mind and soul of the performer in their piece; each individual can experience a sense of pleasure or emptiness towards music, it is just a matter of having a connection. The song “Hello, I’m in Delaware,” by City and Colour, is a song that I would consider to have “the grain” regardless of when or where I listen to it due to the numerous emotions it evokes.; it grabs my attention, the singer relaxes me with his soothing voice, but yet my mind wanders from a distance thinking about my past in relation to the lyrics.
Each of the examples that I have presented all hold value to me, regardless of how small the sounds are. Similar to Schafer’s ideas in terms of how our history has been influenced by both opened and closed ears, as students at University of Vermont, we have the power to not only change how we view vibrations as a whole, but impact how our peers view campus sounds.
Citations
Trower, Shelly. “Introduction: Hearing Vibrations.” Senses of Vibration: A History of the Pleasure and Pain of Sound. N.p.: n.p., n.d. 1-12. Print.
Hudspeth, A. J. The Energetic Ear. N.p.: n.p., n.d. 50. Print.
Scrubs the Complete Season Seven. ABC, 2007.
Barthes, Roland. The Grain of the Voice. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N. pag. Print.
City and Colour. Hello, I’m in Delaware. 2005. MP3.
Any sound can be music if you listen to it the right (or wrong) way. Living in the Farm to Table living/learning community at the University of Vermont, I am constantly surrounded by musical people (who knew so many wonderful people could love both food AND music!?). In this podcast, I have collected 10 sounds from my daily life which I consider to be music. We begin with the noises I wake up to, such as the box fan in my window, and progress through my daily life until the last things I hear before going to bed. Additionally, you may notice that the music in my life starts out as an individual experience each morning, and slowly builds to include our whole community by the end of the night. Each and every sound can be found within the Farm to Table house. Some of these noises are indeed actual songs that can be played, but others are fragments of noise which inspire me to create and connect to other people.
Box fan – Each morning, before my alarm even goes off, my brain registers the sound of the fan in the window of my room. The sound is constant, and always in the background of my daily life.
Book Pages – Books are a huge part of my life, whether I am reading them for class or just for fun, I have always loved the sound of crisp pages turning.
Pencils drumming – A tick similar to tapping a foot, I often tap my pencil in my room while thinking of an idea (or sometimes out of boredom).
Feet on the Stairs – Every person has a unique, distinct walk. The acoustics of the stairwell outside our suites carry the pounding of feet up three floors, so we always know when people are home.
The Laugh – One of the members of my suite has an amazing, deep, bubbling laugh. Whenever I hear it, I can’t help but smile.
Food Song – While hiking with five other people from my house this past weekend, I was introduced to a song by one of the other members. He taught us this song which he sang while in high school, and we sang it before our lunch at the top of the mountain. Later that evening, we taught it to the parents of one of the other members.
Eating – Oftentimes I come back to my room to find my beautiful roommate spread out on the floor, eating pretzels or other snacks.
Percussion Jam –Spontaneous jam sessions often happen on the third floor of A Mid, such as this percussion circle from a week or so ago. One person started with a beat, and slowly everyone else (about 20 people) added in their own rhythm until we were all clapping, stomping, and shaking trashcans as one.
Night Music –Nightly music adventures make our community ever stronger. Sitting around in a circle, singing and playing music together allows us to bond as a community. We are no longer each our individual selves trying to do the best we can, but parts of the whole machine that work to achieve a common goal.
Deep breathing/absence of sound – After everyone goes to sleep, this quietness seeps through the suite like a blanket, quieting our minds until we wake up to the sounds of a new day.
The way we perceive sound, and thus music, is highly individual. However, the act of hearing is also a cultural phenomenon. As explained in “BANG (a beginning),” our culture and language greatly influence how we hear. In the article, Schwartz states that “just as noise is what we make of certain sounds, the meanings we assign to noise are no less consequential than the meanings we assign to other sounds” (Schwartz, 28). In that case, I consider all of the noises in my podcast to be music, so therefore they are. Additionally, my observation of Farm to Table as a whole has helped me find each individual’s own voice. As Barthes states in his article “The Grain of the Voice,” “the voice is not personal… it is not original… and at the same time it is individual” (Barthes, 182). This is the essence of Farm to Table. Though we all come into the house with our own voice and personality, there is a constant give and take between us and the music we create together. To me, it seems that at the end of the night our voices all together make up one singular new grain.
Picking 10 sounds that exemplify my life with Farm to Table caused me to thing about many things, but most importantly it made me realize that sound is a communal experience. In choosing which noises to include on the list, I was required to ruminate on what I personally consider music, and why. I have decided that, for me at least, music does not need to have an established rhythm or melody, but just something that strikes a chord in my heart, and brings me back to a specific place or time. These 10 sounds will forever remind me of Farm to Table, a place that I have come to call home.
Bibliography:
Bathes, Roland. “The Grain of the Voice.” In Image, Music, Text, translated by Stephen Heath, 179–89. Noonday Press, 1977.
Schwartz, Hillel. “BANG (a Beginning).” In Making Noise: From Babel to the Big Bang & beyond, 18–36. Brooklyn, NY: Zone Books, 2011.
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