Though often overlooked, sound plays a fundamental role in experiences of media and culture. From the mundane sounds of our everyday lives, to the more designed and constructed sounds of popular media, to the more obscure sounds of sound art, sound is fundamental to communication and to our perceptions of the world. This class aims to introduce you to sound culture and sound studies, and to explore “what sound does in the human world and what humans do in the sonic world” (Sterne 2013).
In the course, we will consider the role sound plays in various media through topics such as: soundscapes and the way sounds affect our understanding of space, sound design and how sound and music create narrative, sound art and its manipulation of sound to bring attention to artistic perspective, silence and deafness, noise and glitch, voice and empowerment, listening in an era of digital sound, and technologies of sound production. You will also put these theories into practice through audio assignments such as the creation of mixtapes, an audio essay and other brief soundworks. You will learn the basics of digital audio recording and editing software and both practical skills for creating digital audio projects and theoretical concepts for understanding what it means to think sonically.