Week 2

 

Class Outline

Today's class began with a crash course on the history of recorded sound:

Edison's Cylindrical Recorder -

  • Invented in 1877
  • Wax cylinders hold recorded data
  • A sapphire needle deciphers the info into sound waves
    • The needle carves into the wax to reproduce the sound
  • Wax cylinders could hold up to 2 minutes of music, spinning at 160 RPM

Video: "From Phonograph to Spotify" -

  • The phonograph was invented in 1877 (Edison)
  • Columbia Records introduced the Vinyl LP in 1948
  • Cassettes were introduced soon after
    • Cassettes could be played on the go in cars, increasing popularity
    • The Walkman in 1981 allowed people to take their cassettes anywhere
  • CDs were introduced in 1982
    • Sales peaked in 1999
  • Napster arrived in 1999, allowing people to download mp3 files of nearly any song imaginable free of cost
    • Site eventually shut down after long legal battle
  • Spotify was introduced in 2011, revolutionizing the industry and starting the current streaming fad

We then spent some time deciphering the meaning of the phrase "music composition," deciding on the definition "organization of sound":

Norman McLaren -
  • Animator and composer
  • Sounds on film are shown by light and dark shapes
  • McLaren would draw sounds directly onto his film to create new music
Musique Concrete -
  • Style of composition created through the manipulation of wire tape recorders
  • Common items are used to make sounds
  • New musical ideas were now possible, like creating pitched compositions out of the sound of barking dogs

Our next topic was the difference between analog and digital audio:

Analog -
  • No use of samples
    • The range of values is always continuous
  • Vinyl record grooves record changes in air pressure
Digital -
  • Based on sampling
    • Thousands of samples per second are taken to approximate the sound of an instrument
  • Analog to Digital Converters (ADC) were used to record analog data on computers
  • Similar to film
    • 24 frames per second fools the eye into seeing continuous motion in the same way music at sample rates (like the CD standard of 44.1 kHz) fools the ear
  • CD quality is 44.1 kHz
    • This number is based on the Nyquist Theorem, which states the the sample rate must be double the highest captured frequency to sound accurate
    • Since humans can hear up to 20 kHz in frequency, at least 40,000 samples per second would be required
  • Bit Depth describes the amount of data points that can have values in a file
    • CD quality is 16 Bit
    • Bits can be either off or on, so larger numbers of bits give more options (2 bits gives you four possible values, 4 bits gives sixteen, etc.)
  • Fidelity and Size Comparisons
    • Lower sample rates will provide less high frequency data, giving a compressed sound
    • Quantization noise will appear with lower bit depth
    • Lower sample rates and bit depths take up less computer disc space
  • MP3 Compression
    • Little loss in fidelity (still uses 44.1 kHz)
    • File size is 1/12 that of a .wav file

Class Activities

We spent some time in Audacity with a file of Dr. Jacoby counting to ten, learning how to manipulate sounds in the program. Sounds can be transformed by speeding them up and changing their pitch, among other things. We spent the remainder of the class period creating a "hi-hat" and "bass drum" sound out of the numbers, importing those sounds into SoundTrap and making a simple beat. The assignment to create a composition with found sounds was assigned, which I will have a blog post on soon.


Class Reflection

The history of sound recording is fascinating and something I believe should be taught to all music students. To truly understand the music industry, this kind of information is vital and can help inform students why songwriters and performers made certain choices in their songs. Information on digital audio and musique concrete could be useful for the classroom as well as a segue into a music tech unit and first project. I think this found sound project will be fascinating, as it's one that could be used pretty easily in a general music classroom and gives students practice using music software, plus a chance to use other learned concepts.

I was very impressed by Audacity as a program, especially because it is free. It is feature rich, allowing high level editing of any recorded audio, which could be used by students and professionals alike. I think this program could be used in the classroom for a project like our found sound one, or to teach about concepts like sampling in popular music, where parts of one song are edited and interpolated into another. The program is a little difficult to grasp at first glance, so a good amount of guidance would be needed for students to get anything meaningful out of it.

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