Yoko Ono – Cough Piece

As I viewed ubu web for different sound artists and their sound pieces, I came across one with an interesting title, “Yoko Ono – Cough Piece.” Out of curiosity I decided to click on the link and check it out but in all honesty, my first impression on the piece was that it was useless. I didn’t quite get Yoko Ono’s point – if any, of coughing for a good half an hour was about. The sound piece basically consisted of coughing along with an amazingly annoying echoing/rumbling sound which seemed to serve as white noise in the piece. The piece I will say nonetheless was interesting enough to keep me wondering what she was gonna do next – other than cough. Among the coughing there was the ever-constant echoing rumble coupled with the occasional tapping on a glass or the sound of an stone object being scraped across the sidewalk. I found the piece to be intriguing enough to listen to the whole half an hour because other than coughing Yoko Ono threw in random sounds which I didn’t quite expect & I tried to figure out the point of the sound piece which Yoko Ono was trying to display, but i didn’t actually enjoy the piece as the repetitive pattern proved to be quite annoying to listen to especially for such a length of half an hour. If I could ask one question to Yoko Ono, it would be what was the purpose of the cough piece, or if it had a purpose at all, and if not, why make the piece then? Although I could not figure out any meaning to the cough piece, I plan to continue to explore this certain piece and maybe try to answer my question without actually asking Yoko Ono herself.

Shhhhhhhh by Maja Ratkje

First pre and post impressions on Maja Ratkje’s video was that as I began viewing the video, I was expecting to hear a techno-induced voice, somewhat like a mashup of trance with gino beats but as I left the video I carried a completely different thought, almost puzzled, lost and confused. Maja Ratkje created a very interesting piece that had a lot of questioning sounds which resulted in my puzzled state as I finished the video. When I read some background information on her, I read that she was an active singer/voice user and electronics player which automatically led me to believe electronics + voice = techno/trance. Although I did not get what I was thinking of, I did enjoy the artists work as it seems she is trying to induce this feeling of curiosity or uncertainty with the sounds she creates with her voice. One thing I wonder is if she created a list of sounds she could make which gave this impression of uncertainty or did she randomly make sounds out of impulse using her voice to create this piece and if she could give this impression of uncertainty towards her audience, could she create a different emotion using her voice, which would effect us, the audience. I definitely intend of looking into whether she has other sound pieces which effect other moods in the future but until then, I’d suggest you view her puzzling voice – just as a teaser http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&v=LaUaElAyjZY

Amy Yoshida – Thereness of a Voice

The first thoughts which came to my mind when watching this video were the high pitched yells you would hear from traditional Japanese music, the ones that kinda sounds eerie but at the same time very serene, but as soon as the voice performers began to buzz and make sounds similar to an didgeridoo, my thoughts of forests filled with bamboo stalks dissolved into a hot desert plain similar to the ones in Africa. The sounds again drastically changed depicting the image of a woman in a kimono preforming on a tatami floor because of the slight singing which could be heard in the background of the sound-piece. As i listened to the various sounds each woman was singing in harmony with the others, my mind was filled with different images depending on the sounds each woman was creating with their voice. About 2-3 minutes into the video, i just closed my eyes to help clarify the images in my mind. After watching the video again, i got the images of a bamboo forest, hot desert plains, a woman in a kimono singing, an apparition in the bamboo forest with the woman in a kimono, the forest ghost getting angry, an empty bamboo forest followed by the cries of the woman, the woman singing to herself once again in the bamboo forest – this time filled with distressed animals, the woman humming a tune to herself, the woman’s humming accompanied with some sort of mantra, sounds of the woman’s voice dying out and a pitch black screen, the piercing cry of a woman, a woman singing followed with footsteps down a staircase, piercing cries again with the low grunting of some sort of monster running after her, more footsteps up a staircase and finally the woman silent singing to herself with slow movement. From these images i can almost create a story of a woman which was killed long ago, her voice still haunting a forest. The forest apparition being the woman who’s cry’s never cease throughout the piece, whose job was a performer and flees a beast which was able to eventually kill her, her spirit resting in the forest. The mantra sounding humming could be a exorcism of the forest from which a previous spirit rested which the woman was able to escape from initially. The beast could be an animal driven by the original forest apparition to slay the woman, her death resulting in the replacement of his spirit in the bamboo forest. From this 8 minute sound piece i was able to form a story – without words. I then asked myself if stories could actually be told without the use of words and instead with sounds to create setting, character and plot. I believe it can be done and hopefully in the future i can make reference to a story of sounds rather than the conventional story of words

DJ Food – Raiding the 20th Century

Initially, this “track” composed with various other tracks and dialogues sounded to me like a producer brought his “overly ambitious” kid to the studio, let him loose with the $1000 mixing equipment and various tracks and records and this is what the kid came up with. It has dialogue from certain songs mixed with random music such as rap/hip-hop lyrics incorporated with barnyard-themed music, rock lyrics incorporated with a jazzy flow and even Indie Music jammed with Hip-hop. The frequently changing snippets, such as Franz Ferdinand with a Beasty Boys flow and retro Beatles “obladi oblada” mantra switching into Busta Rhymes “whoo ha-ing” to a barnyard theme, creates this effect where it sounds as if some obsessive compulsive dude keeps switching between radio stations. I found myself very entertained and wondering what mixes would come next. As I sat in my living room, with the deviating sounds blasting from my computer speakers, I asked myself what would a person consider this sound: Noise or music. So I asked my younger brother who just happened to be reading in the very same living room where this jumble of sounds was emanating. He described to me in a puzzled tone that this sound sounded weird to him and like a bunch of noise. I found his response to be something I expected yet i couldn’t seem to understand how a bunch of actual music simply mixed together became a bunch of noise – which many would consider the opposite of music. If this process of making music seem like noise was possible, I’m very sure that the opposite can be accomplished as well and probably has been. I plan on finding a piece of the opposite caliber and maybe even creating my own “musical noises”.

John Cage Investigations

John Cage mentions that music seems to him like “someone is talking, talking about his feelings or about his ideas of relationships” This first line alone made me establish this feeling of mutual respect as i was totally on par with his thoughts on music. As John Cage expressed his thoughts on sound, i began to understand and realize what he views sound to be. He described sound to be “Acting,” and this idea he pitched out to the public almost personifies sound as actors; with the rising and falling pitch of sound, its varied lengths and its wavering volume. John Cage, near the end of the clip, mentions that sound is never the same, and that music, such as Mozart’s and Beethoven’s are the same. I question this and wonder how does he see the roaring traffic of one day to be different from another as same activity is occurring creating the same sounds. I plan to test his thoughts on music and its similarities as i don’t believe music – especially between different artists in different genres, are the same.

PS. His name reminds me of Mortal Combat’s Johnny Cage

Cage chooses friendship over fatality

Hello world!

Yoo the MGCI school computers suck shit. On a lighter note, check out Nas 90′s track off of “It was written”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TllbGtempQ4