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I was just listening to this slow music and thinking about my sound investigations. At that instant this loud cacophonous and alarming sound of my ringtone starts ringing and startles me. The volume was in its highest level so this made me kind of jump out of my seat. My heart was pounding and at the same time I was laughing because of how fast I reacted. That encouraged me to later investigate reactions of human beings towards different sounds. The main question that I kept on asking myself was why do loud sounds scare or excite people and low or slow sounds keep people calm?

While investigating, I learned that it is actually our body’s reaction to the loud or low sounds. Each of us react to every kind of sound that is around us. Basically, our mind takes time to mark the cause of the loud or low sound, so the fast reaction occurs from our body. It doesn’t really expect what happens so it reacts to defend itself out of impulse and natural feeling. I also learned that the rapid action of mine got my blood circulating and speeding up the rush of “adrenaline” throughout my body. This happens to everyone when they are under stress and it might increase their hearth rate, sweating and increase of metabolism.

I always loved to learn how to play certain instruments. My favourite from the starting was the keyboard and as I grew older, I started liking violin as well. It has this smooth, regular, pleasant and definite pitch that makes me want to listen to it every time I’m calm and alone. We all know that sound coming from musical instruments are very intricate but creative and beautiful. Different instruments unleash different levels of vocal repetition when sounding and hence produce different tones.

I have taken some music courses in the past, while in grade 9 and 10 which helped me a lot with my investigations. Music is sound, so it helps us understand how sounds are different in terms of pitch. Sound can be called both music and noise, but the difference between them is that musical sounds are organized into patterns that have pitch, flow and rhythm. On the other hand, noise is just arbitrary, muddled sounds. Whether it is music or noise, sounds are prepared and travel in the same way. A tone is a musical sound, and is made by vibration of air and it is called waves. Till now I didn’t know that in order for the musicians to control the loudness, how well it plays, and the quality of the tone, the sound waves must be applied in a creative way. The reed, string, or other appliances of some instruments help create sound waves when it is moved. An example would be, the violin, which is a very small instrument that makes a very high sound and the cello is bigger, so it has a low sound. Therefore, investigating instrumental sounds has helped me gain a lot of knowledge about sound.

Ever wondered why each person sounds differently? I have. It is quite fascinating to think about what kinds of sounds people make. Every individual’s voice is different, and that difference is the pitch. Men’s voices are normally lower than women’s which are much higher and deeper. In addition to that, kids have much higher voices than adults. This is because, different factors influence an individual’s voice, and one is the shape of their mouth, plus as they grow older, they develop a deeper voice. This causes them to sound differently from others. How they are brought up is another reason for their different voices. Each person’s vocal system is flexible and malleable, therefore can produce a variety of different sounds. Thus, voices make sounds that are profound and different between men and women, and it is a way of human interaction.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2krVT5R9PQ

After watching this video, I was astonished to know how different people make different sounds. Most of the time, a person can be recognized by the sound of their voice. Therefore, we learned that sound is everywhere and is different in terms of how high, low, deep, soft, smooth, rough, or boring it is.

Stephen Vitiello

Born: 1964
Birthplace: New York City
Gender: Male
Occupation: visual and sound artist

Stephen Vitiello is a talented person who is an electronic musician and sound artist, which collects works such as independent films, investigational video projects and art settings. He was first a guitarist in punk bands in 1978 when he was 14 years old. After attending college, he studied literature and plastic arts. In 1988, he found a job at an arts center and started becoming successful in his career, creating video and sound art presentations. In 1999, he was asked to record the cracking noises of the 91st floor of World Trade Center’s Tower One, after the Hurricane Floyd. This helped him come across with aesthetic and unique sounds.

“I am interested in the physicality of sound and its potential to define the shape, feel and color of a room. I wish to explore how people receive sound and how I may create a work, with no visual component, that a viewer will be enticed into listening with the attention that they would give to a visual or audio-visual work.” – Stephen Vitiello

The person who had a massive influence on Vitiello’s life was a video artist Nam June Paik. He is the person Vitiello started working with in 1991 and examining his creativity. After coming across with Paik, Vitiello entered into a different world. Nam June Paik is a composer, performer, and video artist who is best known for introducing artists and audiences to the idea of using video for artistic expression. From being a punk guitarist, Stephen changed his ideas into a reconciling path for himself. In wanting to change, Vitiello began to experiment with guitar and electronics, finally focusing on the physical sound, at the same time losing interest in rock.

Like other sound artists, Vitiello also does more than just create sound. He was first a guitarist, and then became interested in video making and movies. While getting involved with different things, artists will be able to experiment with different sounds. These sounds can either be reconciling or irritating, it doesn’t matter to the sound artists. They would investigate them by either listening to them or trying them out themselves.

The difference between him and other artists is that he puts different things together, and is particularly interested in the physical features of sound and its likelihood to describe the beauty and atmosphere of the environment. At the same time with making sound, he also examines them. He listens to different sounds to have an idea of how people receive them and where it’s coming from.

Francisco Lopez

Born: 1964
Birthplace: Madrid, Spain
Gender: Male
Nationality: Spanish
Occupation: Experimental music, sound art

Francisco López is known as the person with creative voice in investigational music. He has recorded over 200 works from great simplicity to high testing noise in over 25 years. It doesn’t matter how high or low the sound is, as long as enough attention is paid. This can be kind of hard because he speaks and does his materials really fast. Francisco’s work has been aesthetic, as he has been honoured for his work twice at the Ars Electronica Festival. Also, in 2006, he won the First Prize for the Sound Art Competition of the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León. He has additionally received 3 honorable mentions in the Prix Ars Electronica in the year 1999, 2002, and 2007.

He has his own way of performing in front of the audience, as he performs in total darkness, or hands out blindfolds to his participants. This helps the people get deeply involved into his sound makings and help them understand exceptionally what he’s trying to create. He has another purpose to blindfolds; not wanting the audience to know what he’s doing. Basically, the whole point of covering the eyes is to get people really involved with the sound. The sound system allows Lopez to have a lot of adaptability for working with the space and the sounds. This gets the people into the sound world he’s trying to create. He calls his work “the exploration of the universe of broad-band noise from the real world”, because his music rises from the nature and the environment around him.

The setup of his performance
The way the room is setup is by placing surround system all around it in a circle outside the seats for the audience. He likes the performance to happen in complete darkness, so the audience has to face the speakers with blindfolds. Also, he performs in the middle of the seats to have control over the circle. The reason for his arrangements is that so the audience can listen very carefully to what sound he is making. Thus, with the intense focus they can discover many different unique sounds that they haven’t heard before. He uses the sounds that he has recorded from before, and processes them in the studio to combine during the live performance in different ways.

“My music is loaded with a multitude of cultural references, from the soundtrack of “Eraserhead” to some sound approaches in Buddhism. Whether or not these are apparent is more a question of perception than of explicit explanation. What is essential to it, though, is the fact that I don’t attach myself to any specific system of aesthetic, conceptual or spiritual beliefs. I think its universal reach potential is dependent upon the individual -more than social or cultural- attitudes concerning listening and creation. Both pop music and rock’n'roll (in a wide sense) are deeply attached to certain cultural references, yet they’ve made their way into the universal reach realm all over the world.” – Francisco Lopez

His influences
The environment has been a major influence on Fransisco’s understanding of the creation of soundworks. The complicating sound environments, their natural richness, the unusual pace of the flow of sound events, are an example. He likes to use dramatically slow changes that happen to the environment, with extreme level changes that occur in it. He has an intense focus on broad-band sounds and their complexity that are all the things people find in the clear reality of nature.

Lopez performs completely differently in comparison to other artists. He likes his performance to take place in a dark room with people wearing blindfolds so they don’t look at him or each other while listening to his sounds. This creates involvement with sounds around them. Something else that is different about him is that he doesn’t believe in attempting to achieve something such as advertising or teaching. He just does what he loves doing without trying to make it noticeable. He is not interested in any theories of description or meaning, and he tries to create a more free world around him.

Lopez also tries to create interesting sounds by investigating and trying it out. Just like other sound artists, his main purpose is to create something that hasn’t been discovered yet. Sound is everywhere, so they all try to bring it out in their own ways. Lopez and other sound artists share a more essential approach and appreciation of the different sounds surrounding them. This is an entertainment for themselves and their audiences. It is also an influence from them to others, as in to never give up on what they love to do and discover something new to show it with the world.

Brenda Hutchinson

Born: June 15, 1954
Birthplace: Trenton, New Jersey
Gender: Female
Occupation: Composer, Sound Artist

I would like to start by introducing Brenda Hutchinson. She has attended University of California, San Diego and earned her M.A. in Music Composition. Hutchinson was interested in sound ever since she was a young girl. She would try out different things to make unique sounds. She is very resourceful because, she found her way of making sound, which is singing into a 9 1/2 foot tube. She was fascinated in sound ever since childhood, as she mentions “I started out, I got a pink-and-white plastic Sony tape recorder for Christmas when I was really young and I used to lock myself in the bathroom and record things.” This shows that she likes to try out new things to invent something of her own. And she has been successful in doing that. Brenda mostly performs at international festivals in New Zealand, Europe, Latin America and Canada.

Hutchinson’s work mainly consists of: dance performances, film, video, radio, and multi-media mutual system with strong usage of language. She has designed sounds she calls “collaborating with strangers.” Hutchinson tells people to create sounds of their own, share stories, and make music. This is what she did while growing up and found that sound is extensively important to people’s lives.

“My artform is sound and performance”.

“Much of my work is centered on creating large-scale experiments in socially based improvisations. I work with sound, stories and performance in order to engage people directly and to ask them to focus on themselves and their own experiences as ways to begin to connect with others. I am deeply committed to understanding people and to bridging gaps among strangers. Through my work I try to find common ground among groups of people or to create situations and occasions for people to find their own.

Sound is my medium. Performance and collaboration are the means I use to engage with others. It is through sound that I explore, navigate and understand my relationships with people and to the physical and social world. I believe in the transformative power of paying attention to sound. Listening without judgment to sound itself is something I learned from music, and I try to transfer that quality of attention to all aspects of my work”. – Brenda Hutchinson

The sounds that emerge from the pipe which is connected to a small speaker, enhanses Brenda’s sound making. It is kind of difficult to keep up with her if we were to imagine and draw these sounds. Both her hands are tightly holding on to the pipe and she blows on it with some air passing through the side of her mouth to create different sounds.

The person Brenda was most influenced by was her favourite artist Etta James. Etta is an American blues, soul, R&B, rock & roll, gospel and jazz singer and songwriter. Her work has been used in many movies, television shows, commercials, and web-streaming services. Just like James, Hutchinson likes to get involved in many different things to entertain people.

She is very similar to other sound artists because just like them her sole purpose is to invent and create new sounds.

The difference between her and other artists is that she invented the Long Tube and makes interesting sounds through it. Brenda likes to get others involved with her if they have sounds, songs or poems to share. She mostly makes low sounds, such as whispers, whistles and wails.

How to apply proper make-up

I always loved putting makeup on. Not too much, but enough to look and feel good. Applying makeup is a skill that not everyone has. Maybe that’s why some people don’t even bother putting it on. I think make-up should be worn as an accessory and should blend with your personality. It is your inner beauty that will count most when the makeup wears off. I have a little experience putting makeup on but I’m not a professional. So this is why, I would like to investigate how to apply proper makeup. I’m going to investigate my favourite type of applying makeup, which is the smoky eye, with light lip gloss and blending eye shadow.

Eye shadow: Blending
Well I kind of knew this, but I wasn’t sure how to blend. You usually use three different colors: The base is very light, a highlighter for the bend and a main colour for the lid, but how to get them to look as if they blend nicely? Start light then go darker. Brush the base colour, apply the lid colour and then apply the highlighter. Also, don’t be too heavy-handed or you will have to start over.

Lip gloss
1. The first step of putting on lip gloss is very easy. Apply some amount of      lipgloss onto the tip of the wand of the tube.
2. Looking at a mirror, push out your lips and apply the lipgloss gently.
3. Make sure you do not apply outside your lip-line.
4. If you want, put your finger inside your mouth and pull it outward after applying. This will ensure that nothing will stick to your teeth.

Eye liner: The Smoky Eye
This one is my favourite. Perhaps there is no longer running eye makeup trend than the smoky eye, which most likely will not go out of style. The main idea here is to blend well. Also, make sure to keep all other makeup light or you might look like a clown. You don’t want the rest of your makeup to compete with your eyes.

Step 1: Holding your upper lid close, apply eyeliner from the inside corner of the eye outward. The middle of the line should be a bit thicker than the edges.
Step 2: Use a cotton swap to “smudge” the liner and clean the undesired makeup off your face.
Step 3: Dab an eyeshadow brush into a deep-light eyeshadow and apply over the eyeliner. Layering liner with a shadow can result to a great smoky eye.
Step 4: Blend shadow well, and then apply eyeshadow. Colour should spread out from rich and dark near the lashes to almost upright as it extends to bend.

Michael Ondaatje

After reading Michael Ondaatje’s book, In the Skin of a Lion, I found interest in him because this book of his was very alluring and profound. Apparently, he is a Canadian writer, so I was excited to know more about him. Ondaatje wrote a lot of romantic books. This shows his characteristics and the romantic side of him. I know this also because he had many affairs before he got married. After reading his book, I noticed that he creates his characters and lets them reveal themselves through their actions. When I started reading his book, I found myself looking forward to the story and happenings. Therefore I am eager to investigate more about him to have a clear idea of where he’s from and what is appealing about his way of writing, so I can be further inspired.

Some information about him

Born: September 12, 1943
Birthplace: Ceylon, Sri Lanka
Gender: Male
Occupation: Novelist, Poet and Film
Currently lives in: Toronto, Canada
Background: Sri Lankan

Michael Ondaatje moved from Sri Lanka to England in 1954 with his mother. After moving to Canada in 1962, Ondaatje became a Canadian citizen. He first studied at Bishops College School and Bishop’s University in Lennoxville, Quebec, but moved to Toronto, and received his BA from the University of Toronto and his MA from Queen’s in Kingston, Ontario. After, he began teaching at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario. In 1970, he settled in Toronto and, from 1971 to 1988, taught English Literature there at York University and Glendon College.

Apart from being a novelist, Ondaatje is also interested in autobiography, poetry and film. Running in the Family (1982) is a fictional journal of his Sri Lankan childhood. He published thirteen books of poetry, and won the Governor General’s Award for two of them, which is The Collected Works of Billy the Kid (1970) and There’s a Trick With a Knife I’m Learning to Do: Poems 1973-1978 (1979). Now, with his family, Michael Ondaatje lives in Toronto. He edits the literary journal Brick with his wife, Linda Spalding. In all, his new novel is Divisadero (2007).

Interesting

Ondaatje’s novel, The English Patient became very famous after it was made into a film. The story is a fictional World War romance. It is about four individuals whose lives come together at the end of World War II in a left alone Italian villa. The novel becomes a collection of memories that searches themes of war, nationality, identity, loss, and love. This book earned The Booker Prize for best novel of 1992.

Quote: This quote shows his personality and the type of writer he is
“Some writers know exactly what their books are about when they begin,” he says. “That seems incredibly boring to me. I am much more interested in how the writer evolves in the writing, so that the novel evolves as well.” It was the same, he says, when he wrote his most famous novel, The English Patient. “I didn’t know who the patient was: he was just the patient. He was a mystery to me. But then, as a book progresses, there is a kind of archaeology the writer performs on the characters; you work backwards.”

Here’s the book I read

 His most famous book