Sound Logic

Thinking about sound, I considered how sound could be used to construct a project like a visual argument. How could sound be used to argue, or in a broader sense, how can sound be used rhetorically? If we can create a visual argument in Photoshop, which takes a rhetorical stance with very few words, could we do the same with sound, using sound elements that are mostly not words?

I decided to see if I could create a short segment of sounds that had some sort of narrative—a beginning, middle, and end—so I am going with traditional linear narrative. I thought it would be a good way to learn to mix sound in Audacity. What I ended up with is more straight narrative, and not an argument—or rhetorical stance—at all, but the experiment taught me a few things.

I realized how much sound mixing must follow logical patterns. I’ll call it sound logic. For example, if you hear a person walking and opening a door, the choices of what to add next will create a story. Will the footsteps continue, suggesting the person has gone through the door? Will more footsteps be added to suggest another person has arrived? Will the door shut (another sound that would need to be added), and then the footsteps stop, suggesting the person went through the door and has left?

It makes me think of narrative points of view, which I’ve always thought of as visual, like the focalizer and focalized of narratology and film studies. We have the same things for sound—so, if the person I referred to above has gone through the door, and we now hear no more footsteps, we’re “listening” from the point of view of being inside the room with the door. We’re not “listening” from the point of view of the character.

I realize, though, that I can’t separate my thinking about how to construct sound for a narrative from visuals. I’m definitely privileging visuals, since when I created my experiment, I thought about what I was seeing in my head and used that to determine the logic.

To sum this post up, I’ll say it was really fun to make this, and I found some good sites I’ll post where I found free sounds. I hope you’ll listen to my creation, which is about 43 seconds long. Click below to hear:

IMPORTANT---it will loop when you click play, so there's a gap at the end after the door shuts!

http://www.box.net/shared/1t6oiuz0oo

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