UTOPIAN IMPOSSIBILITY EVALUATION

UTOPIA IMPOSSIBLITY – EVALUATION

My project is going to be to explore the notion of a utopian society and the ideals of communism.

Communist ideals wish for a utopian society Communism is an ideology that aims to establish a classless, moneyless state. Common ownership by means of production.  A system in which the state plans and controls the economy often one party holds power. They clam to make progress towards a higher social order in which the goods are shared equally by the people.  The Marxist – Leninist of this ideal are to advocate the overthrow of capitalism. Free the lower class from poverty and give the poor a fighting chance. In order to free the lower class the government would have to control all the means of production so that no one could outdo anyone else by making more money. Sadly this is hard to achieve when humans are involved and proves to be difficult still to this day.

Unfortunately the practise of communism has not gone to plan and with the nations suffering at the hand of dictators. Anyone with there own views denied a voice and killed or tortured for their beliefs. Not being allowed to disagree with the state this undermining the idea of a utopian world.

AIMS

• Ø Show what sounds we think are part of a utopian ideal.
• Ø Is communism the way forward for a utopian world?
• Ø Is Marxism the way forward to achieve a perfect world?
• Ø Is communism merely a way for a dictator to have domination?
• Ø Can humans live in a utopian world? Can we exist together happily without someone dominating us?
• Ø Does humanity always need a hierarchy?

The finished piece has fulfilled the brief although I would argue that it has a sound of dystopia rather than utopia. I wanted create a track that when listened to would make the listener feel the contradictions that are associated with the idea of utopia the fact that communism itself tries to accomplish a state of fairness and ideals that everyman is equal yet the practice often is achieved through dictatorship and violence. The iron fist often rules and the reality of a perfect society itself is a ridiculous notion. Humans are not perfect anything living is not perfect we are all flawed in one way or another and trying to achieve this impossible task is going against the grain of nature.

I wanted to have a lulling introduction leading into a speech of Stalin with the undercurrent of propaganda music. Underneath that it had gunfire to a steady beat. With birds tweeting and singing in the background. Rain falling alongside the birdsong with the guns banging in the distance and the gentle waves helping to establish the beat along with the guns the drums of the piece the heartbeat of the piece. Fading of to the hazy sounds of a chaotic yet gentle lull fading into the distance.

I started by recording sounds of the waves then exporting these to adobe audition I didn’t really change much with the sound of the waves I wanted to hear the breeze with the sea.

I then recorded a combination of guns firing in repetitive beat layered the sound of rain falling I did this in mix craft 5 using the virtual keyboard.

I layered more sound of rain falling with bird songs having these fading in and out of each other. This I did again on mix craft 5 on the virtual keyboard.

I made two more sounds on the virtual keyboard horns and whitenoise layered these together and changed the pitch and the reverb this crated a gentle and lulling sound that I used for the introduction to the piece.

I again used the virtual keyboard to make another two ambiguous sound like a wave distorted and fading off this I used for the ending of the piece I like to think the finished is a myriad of sounds to create my sound of utopia or dystopia.  All of the sounds I created on mix craft 5 I imported to adobe audition to add and echo and change the quality of the sounds I had. I found a nice piece of Chinese propaganda music and a Stalin speech that I used YouTube converter to remove the audio I then I imported these into adobe audition added a filter and changed the speed and layered these in-between the intro and the outro of the piece to achieve the finished piece.

Aesthetics explained

Aesthetics

What is the Mimetic Theory?

Mimetic Theory The Mimetic Theory is concerned with the art work itself. It is a reflection of nature. The work is a correct representation of reality. Assertions Use these assertions to help you understand the Mimetic Theory better. Questions Answer these questions to help you better understand the Mimetic Theory. Philosophy Where do the ideas of the Mimetic Theory come from?

Activities

Find Out About the Mimetic Theory What is the Mimetic Theory? What is the definition of the Mimetic Theory?

What is the Hedonist Theory?

Hedonist Theory The Hedonist Theory is concerned with the art work and the audience. For a work of art to be considered a good work of art, it needs to bring pleasure to the audience. Assertions These assertions will help you understand what the Hedonist Theory means. Questions Answer these questions to help you better understand the Hedonist Theory. Philosophy Where do the ideas of the Hedonist Theory come from?

Activities

Find Out About the Hedonist Theory What is the definition of the Hedonist Theory?

What is the Expressivist Theory?

Expressivist Theory The Expressivist Theory is concerned with the artist in a work of art. Art that fits this category may communicate ideas, feelings and the emotions of the artists. It does not necessarily have to involve the audience, as long as the artist was able to express their inner feelings. These ideas, if conveyed, are usually communicated forcefully by the artist. Assertions These assertions will help you understand what the Expressivist Theory means. Questions Answer these questions to help you better understand the Expressivist Theory. Philosophy Where do the ideas of the Expressivist Theory come from?

Activities

Find Out About the Expressivist Theory What is the Expressivist Theory? What is the definition of the Expressivist Theory?

What is the Formalist Theory?

Formalist Theory The Formalist Theory is concerned with the art work itself. It is concened with the “formal properties”, such as color, shape, rhythm, balance, etc… Is is not interested in what the art work represents or what it expresses. What matters most is form, not content. Assertions Use these assertions to help you better understand the meaning of the Formalist Theory. Questions Answer these questions to help you better understand the Formalist Theory. Philosophy Where do the ideas of the Formalist Theory come from?

Activities

Find Out About the Formalist Theory What is the Formalist Theory? What is the definition of the Formalist Theory?

What is the Instrumentalist Theory?

Instrumentalist Theory The Instrumentalist Theory is concerned with the audience. Having the audience receive the message that the artist if trying to convey is the most important thing. It can be an idea, a statement, but the depth of communication is most important. Assertions Read and anaylize these assertions to help you better understand what the Instrumentalist Theory. Questions Use these questions to help you better understand the Instrumentalist Theory. Philosophy Where do the ideas of the Instrumentalist Theory come from?

Activities

Find Out About the Instrumentalist Theory What is the Instrumentalist Theory? What is the definition of the Instrumentalist Theory?

How to Look at a Work of Art

Looking at Art Work How to Look at a Work of Art:

Activities

How to be an Art Critic in 5 Easy Steps Art criticism sounds like it could be easy. It is. There are 5 easy steps that you must follow.

Art Definitions

Activities

Art Definitions Use this web-sit to help you understand the meanings of the art vocabulary that you do not understand.

Tour Images

Thomas Cole “Youth” Jaques Louis David “The Oath of the Horatii” Chardin “The Return from Market” Carraviggio “The Conversion of Saint Paul” Leonardo da Vinci “Mona Lisa” Albrecht Dürer “A Young Hare” Jan van Eyck “The Arnolfini Marriage” Claude Oscar Monet “Woman with a Parasol” Edouard Manet “The Railroad” Edgar Degas “Dance Class at the Opéra” John William Waterhouse “The Flower Picker” Paul Cezanne “Tulips in a Vase” Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder “Flowers in a Glass Beaker ” Pierre Auguste Renoir “La Promenade” Jacques-Louis David “The Farewell of Telemachus and Eucharis” Gabriele Munter “Autumn” Vincent Van Gogh “Starry Night” Henri Matisse “Green Stripe (Madame Matisse)” Edvard Munch “The Scream” Wassily Kandinsky “Composition IV” Kandinsky said…… “Black is like the silence of the body after death, the close of life.” Franz Marc “Fighting Forms” “Ash Wednesday” Robert Motherwell “Vega Lep G” Victor Vasserely “Earth and Green” Mark Rothko “New York Mural” Stuart Davis “I and the Village” Marc Chagall “False Start” Jasper Johns “Bay Area” Helen Frankenthaler “Composition” Joan Miro “Judith Beheading Holofernes” Carraviggio “The Shootings of May Third 1808” Francisco Goya “The Burden or The Laundress” Honre Daumier “Night Hawks” Edward Hopper “Death” Kathe Kollwitz “Bottom of the Sixth” Norman Rockwell “Mill Pond” Maxfield Parrish “Where the Wild Things Are” Maurice Sendak “Aunt Harriet’s Underground Railroad in the Sky” Faith Ringgold

expressivism and formalism

Feldman, E. (1970), Becoming human through art, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Feldman, E. (1985), Varieties of visual experience. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Feldman, E. (1968), Some adventures in art criticism, Art Education : Journal of the National Art Education Association, 22(3), 28-33

Here is some background:

The theories of Stephen Pepper summarized centuries of work in aesthetics. Edmund Feldman’s adaptation of some of Pepper’s theories provided us with a model of art criticism that could be used in a subject (discipline) based art curriculum. The 60’s saw the ‘child centered’ movement in art education face transition and change. Research and application turned to the task of establishing a teaching approach which was more ‘subject oriented’ in its focus. In the summer of 1966, Edmund Feldman, Eugene Kaelin and David Ecker presented a seminar on art criticism at Ohio State University which was to help change art education in this new direction where the “subject” is central to learning, According to Feldman, one of the conclusions of the Ohio State Seminar was that “what an art teacher does – whether in art appreciation or studio instruction – is essentially art criticism. That is, art teachers describe, analyze, interpret, and evaluate works of art during the process of instruction.” (Feldman, 1968, p.24)

Another of the conclusions of the Ohio State Seminar was that education in aesthetics should involve the learner rather then force the traditional student – teacher (audience – expert) relationship in the learning environment. In Feldman’s view, appreciation should have the learners involved in using criticism to inquire into the nature of art ( its craft, its form, its content and the cultural heritage that is contributed by the work). In other words, Feldman had the position that teaching about making art and teaching about the appreciation of art require an active participation of students and the teachers talking together in the process of art criticism Feldman saw learning about creating art and learning about art appreciation as experiences of active criticism moving from description and analysis (interpretation) to hypothesis grounded in the evidence.

Feldman saw three ways to enter the experience of art criticism. He listed these approaches as, Formalism, Expressivism and Instrumentalism.

His “Formalism” was a theory of communication in art where quality is founded in the formal concerns of the work (the relationship or composition of the physical elements). Formalism requires an acceptance of ideal and universal art values. We can think of this theory objective.

When I think of Feldman’s Formalism, I think of the order of Greek classical architecture, Kondo (Golden Hall), (Horyu-ji, Asuka period, Japan), or the traditional interior of a Japanese house, Sung and Koryo ceramics, the architecture of Leon Battista Alberti, the paintings of Cezanne or the structure of some of the Cubist paintings in the early part of this century. .

Speaking of ‘Expressivism’, Feldman said “expressivist criticism sees excellence as the ability of art to communicate ideas and feelings intensely and vividly.” (Feldman, 1985) Quality in expressivist criticism involves an acceptance of subjective concerns as legitimate values in the work.

When we think of Feldman’s Expressivism we might look at Hellenistic Greek sculpture, the paintings Correggio, Pontormo, Matthias Grunewald, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, James Ensor, Edvard Munch, Gustav Klimt, Salvador Dali and Frida Kahlo, as well as the architecture of Antonio Gaudi.

Excellence, in Feldman’s ‘Instrumentalist’ criticism, is based upon some quality of psychological, political, social, moral or religious consequences that results from the work.

When thinking of Feldman’s Instrumentalists, I think of Egyptian tombs and temples, Byzantine temples, Islamic masques, Gothic cathedrals, Illuminations from the Book of Lindisfarne, the many images of Buddha, Tea ceremony ware of ancient Japan, Navajo sand paintings, The Sistine Chapel of Michelangelo, the Arnolfini marriage portrait by Jan van Eyck, murals of David Alfaro Siqueros, Jose Clemente Orozco and Diego Rivera.
To apply Feldman’s theories, you can involve your students in the process of talking and thinking critically about art as they are learning to make it and as they are learning to appreciate the works of others. This experience should involve Feldman’s model of description, analysis, interpretation and judgment. Keep in mind that theories such as Feldman’s are human constructions. They are schematized devices for art criticism which may well include the same work of art as formal, expressive and instrumental. As art educators, we must value students’ talking, thinking and the learning that results from the use of Feldman’s tools rather then to require a perfect fit of value and criticism into Feldman’s order.

Description: Students take inventory of what is visible. They can look for expressive lines, colors, shapes, textures, spaces and volumes as well as techniques..

Analysis: Students notice how these visual things relate to one another. They can compare the design relationships of these elements and the principles which help to organize the work.

Interpretation: Students are encouraged to identify themes and ideas in the work to find meanings and emotion. Think of it as description and analysis coming together to create the interpretation (explanation) of the work. Feldman once said, “It is difficult to be right the first try. In fact, being wrong — missing the target — is very helpful in arriving finally at a convincing explanation” ( Feldman, 1970, p. 363). At this stage of the criticism, students can try to examine the work as if it were a product of Formalism, Expressivism and Instrumentalism.

Judgment: Students are encouraged to make decisions on the success, the value or worth of the art object. In this stage, the students can rank the work in relation to other works from the same time period or from other periods in art history.

Pierre Henry – Dimanche Noir II

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piA4XtAqM4A

 

Pierre Henry began experimenting at the age of 15 with sounds produced by various objects, and became fascinated with the integration of noise into music. He studied with Nadia Boulanger, Olivier Messiaen, and Félix Passerone at the Paris Conservatoire from 1938 to 1948 (Dhomont 2001).

Between 1949 and 1958, Henry worked at the Club d’Essai studio at RTF, which had been founded by Pierre Schaeffer in 1943 (Dhomont 2001). During this period, he wrote the 1950 piece Symphonie pour un homme seul, in cooperation with Schaeffer; he also composed the first musique concrète to appear in a commercial film, the 1952 short film Astrologie ou le miroir de la vie. Henry has scored numerous additional films and ballets.

Two years after leaving the RTF, he founded with Jean Baronnet the first private electronic studio in France, the Apsone-Cabasse Studio (Dhomont 2001).

Among Henry’s best known works is the experimental 1967 ballet Messe pour le temps présent, written with Michel Colombier, and one of several cooperations with choreographer Maurice Béjart featuring the popular track “Psyché Rock. In 1970 Henry collaborated with British rock band Spooky Tooth on the album Ceremony.

Composer Christopher Tyng was heavily inspired by Henry’s “Psyché Rock” when writing the theme to the popular animated cartoon show Futurama. The theme is so reminiscent of the Henry’s song, it is considered a variation of the original (Cohen 2001).

 

susan Philipsz “lowlands”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWeKzTDi-OA

LOWLANDS  by Susan Philipsz.

Susan Philips sound installation lowlands was inspired by Lindbergh canal in Berlin where Rosa Luxemburg was murdered and thrown in the canal in 1919. Susan saw pictures of her body once recovered   covered in weeds and silt. Though grotesque she then had the idea of rebirth and how the water had reclaimed her after she was murdered.

This led her to think of a character in Finnegan’s wake by James Joyce called Anna Livia Plurabelle Anna Livia meaning river goddess and Plurabelle meaning all the rivers in this chapter he weaves all the rivers of the world into a text written phonetically to sound like a flowing river and at the end of the book she morphs into a river and goes to the sea to be reborn.

Is a haunting melodic recording of her voice singing folk song Lowlands away this 16^th century  lament is about a fisherman who is drowned at sea who returns to tell his lover of his death. It is sung over public address systems. She recorded three versions of Lowlands Away and performed beneath three bridges over the River Clyde in Glasgow it has been playing in an empty room at Tate Britain. The empty gallery space was equipped with three speakers each playing a different cappella recording of Philipsz lowlands. Sombre and haunting the work resonated around the empty space creating an eerie calm.  This pivotal point for sound art, which often involves electronically produced noises, but as this examples it can also comprise popular song.

The recording has a somewhat calm, sombre mood yet calming effect. The noise of the traffic and the river waves add to this effect. The acoustical qualities underneath these bridges add to the mood of the piece. One under a railway bridge where at one point we can here the train passing by with the melodic sound of the waves of the river Clyde and the birds in the distance. The noises of the wind and the cars speeding by building up momentum then passing by again. The mood of the piece is altered for the better with the additions of the natural Glasgow sounds that we here daily yet forget to appreciate within the hustle and bustle of city life.

She chooses a slow tempo for the piece well as it is a lover returning to his loved one to tell her of his demise it would hardly suit to be a high tempo song.  her voice singing a capella almost monotone recorded three times and played at slightly different points under three bridges builds up to a layering effect almost ghost like harmonising with the traffic, the waves of the river and the seagulls in the background. Now and again the train passes by or the cars passing by builds up a sound that comes to a climax then returns again to her voice simple clean echoing under the bridges.

Philipsz uses a public address system to play her voice this adds to the echo of the song it has almost a tin like quality to it. Her voice reverbs around and has a haunting sound that matches the acoustics underneath the bridges one bridge being stone and the others being metal. The refractions of the sound differing slightly to get a different feel to this song mixed with the noises of everyday city life truly make the difference to the effect of the lonely piece.

She sings three different versions of this song with different verses yet the chorus remains the same so when you listen to the recording you hear slightly different songs yet the same song adding to the general ambiguity of the word. Still remaining the chorus lowlands away tying in the three versions of the song. This looping over again adds to the haunting qualities of the piece.

While this sound installation has a great atmosphere in the Tate gallery it definitely lacks the honest quality that the original piece has. The original piece had the tones of the city hustle and bustle in the background added to the loneliness of the piece. Contrasting busy modern life   with Susan’s haunting a cappella melody singing which could be from the 16^th century itself.  Her voice singing sadly yet has a freeing quality to it like a ghost whose last wish is to bid farewell to their loved ones. Truly a song of death but also rebirth, reborn to a new life none of us know. This is a quandary with installations like that though the recording can hear the tones of Glasgow soundscapes with her voice over it you miss the atmosphere of the bridges of Glasgow who you can imagine have seen their fair share of activity through the years although I think the installations in the Tate loses some of the quality it does not lose its integrity.

I really appreciate this piece of sound art not just because I am  from Glasgow and have spent many days walking along the river Clyde wondering if the walls of the bridges could talk what wonderful and interesting tales they would tell not only of prosperity but of poverty and hard times. But the way in which Susan Philipsz arranged the address systems under these bridges to complement city life this being said city life also complements this beautifully haunting and sombre sound art. The two different kinds of sounds colliding to create a wonderful piece of sound art. This piece won the Turner prize in 2010 the first sound installation to win the turner prize.

LOWLANDS AWAY

I dreamed a dream the other night

Lowlands, lowlands away my John

I dreamed a dream the other night

Lowlands, my lowlands away

I dreamed I saw my own true love

He stood so still, he did not move

So dank his hair, so dim his eye

I knew he’d come to say goodbye

“I’m drowned in the lowland sea,” he said.

“Oh you and I will ne’er be wed.”

“I’ll never kiss you more,” he said

“Ne’er kiss you more, for I am dead.”

I will cut off my bonny hair

No other man will find me fair

I dreamed a dream the other night

I dreamed a dream the other night

UTOPIAN IMOSSIBILITY

UTOPIA IMPOSSIBLITY

My project is going to be to explore the notion of a utopian society and the ideals of communism.

It has often been said that Utopian societies are impossibility.

The first problem is the “One man’s heaven is another man’s hell” this is a fundamental problem with this idea.

A Christian utopia may not jive with a Muslim utopia the old adage one mans rubbish is another mans treasure.

. Would a world without war be a Utopia to a solider or certainly a politician who seems to consider the act of war more for political or financial gain or a world without disease or death be a Utopia to doctors or people who devote their time to helping the sick. Worlds with out any form of disability what would this be to millions of people who devote their time and energy into caring for disabled. What about police? They lose in a world without crime. No death puts all the industries that deal with death out of business.

Healing and medicine will not totally end as new problems will always arise

For all of these utopian ideals there could always be a solution .As a utopian society progresses it reaches a point where an outside observer can not tell a very high tech society from a low tech one.

But the way people work and earn “wealth” will change. Wealth is a state of contrast. One is “wealthy” in comparison to many who are not, like “the “poor.” Now a Utopian society is probably not a communistic society.

A Utopian society does not have a government system that is overly complex as most of the current functions of governments are met by strong independent capable individuals. You mean politicians will be displaced in a Utopian world.

A Utopian world will have some sort of loosely structured central world government, but not a government like any that exist at this time.

See all of the police, doctors or anyone who deals with the ills of the world they won’t be pushed to the way side more evil is always out there just waiting for a fight. A notion of “singularity” has individuals who spend most of their time pursuing enjoyable interests. At first this seems an increase in wild behaviour. Ten years or so of planetary mindless partying, then boredom sets in and they discover that life is more complex than just enjoyment that we can not have enjoyment without some sore of pain or discomfort in our lives. We need the Yin and yang in life opposites to make us appreciate what we have in life.

Communist ideals wish for a utopian society Communism is an ideology that aims to establish a classless, moneyless state. Common ownership by means of production.  A system in which the state plans and controls the economy often one party holds power. They clam to make progress towards a higher social order in which the goods are shared equally by the people.  The Marxist – Leninist of this ideal are to advocate the overthrow of capitalism. Free the lower class from poverty and give the poor a fighting chance. In order to free the lower class the government would have to control all the means of production so that no one could outdo anyone else by making more money. Sadly this is hard to achieve when humans are involved and proves to be difficult still to this day.

Unfortunately the practise of communism has not gone to plan and with the nations suffering at the hand of dictators. Anyone with there own views denied a voice and killed or tortured for their beliefs. Not being allowed to disagree with the state this undermining the idea of a utopian world.

THE BREIF:

Iam going to analyse and look at communist propaganda using a series of sounds to describe how we as people view utopian society and what sounds we associate with them. For many a communist ideal is the best way forward or others it’s a living hell. I want to achieve a sense of apprehension yet optimism. Looking at sounds that we think would exist if everything in our world was perfect.

AIMS

• Ø Show what sounds we think are part of a utopian ideal.
• Ø Is communism the way forward for a utopian world?
• Ø Is Marxism the way forward to achieve a perfect world?
• Ø Is communism merely a way for a dictator to have domination?
• Ø Can humans live in a utopian world? Can we exist together happily without someone dominating us?
• Ø Does humanity always need a hierarchy?

METHODOLOGY

Look at online archives of footage of communist advertising sampling sounds for the footage or video. Listen to communist propaganda recordings of speeches take parts of these recording and remix them. Look at Marxist art see what the Marxist ideal promotes and take footage from this to assemble my sound piece.  Listen to sounds that as people we think are naturally part of a utopian world. Bird sounds, waves, rain, thunderstorms the calm after a storm that peaceful moment after a storm.  Record pleasant sounds of nature that we naturally think would be there if we lived in a utopian “shangrlia” Listen to sounds that we associate with a dystopian world. Gunfire, Explosions, crying sounds that make us feel uneasy inside like the apprehension of something bad going to happen.

Use mixcraft 5 to create these sounds using the effects setting to recreate these sounds as well as record them using a microphone.

Upload these sounds to Adobe audition where I plan to mix them to create the sound piece that best describes my “UTOPIAN” world.

Take any footage of the archives I have looked at and on adobe premier edit them together with my sound to create my final piece of work.

 

 

RESERCH

• Look at YOUTUBE videos
• Read articles on communism and utopian society
• Look at political artwork
• Listen to Marxist views
• Watch interviews on communist society
• Explore the work of artists who have explored Marxist theory’s in their work
• Listen to speeches my Lenin, Stalin etc.
• Read paper articles that I can find online of useful information and relevant pictures.

 

Microphone, headphones.

Laptop.

College pc.

Adobe master suite 5.5 Audition, premier pro.

Mixcraft 5 sound suite

House hold objects to get some sounds.

soundcloud app.

 

http://soundcloud.com/you/tracks

 

Musique Concrete

THE BEGINING

 Around 1948 a couple of French musicians Pierre Henry and Pierre Schaeffer started to play with tape recorders.  They realised that tape recordings allowed them to do things they could not do before.  They could speed sounds up; they could slow them down; they could make them louder or quieter; they could repeat a sound, cut pieces out of it, filter it and then, they could do the whole lot again playing the sound backwards.  German composer, Karheinz Stockhausen, and others were also experimenting in Cologne.  They were among a number of musicians around Europe and beyond who began to see that the gramophone and tape recorder were the start of something new in the world of musical composition.  Around 1957 a couple of Studio Managers in the BBC Drama department, Daphe Oram and Desmond Briscoe, recognised the need for the BBC to have a facility to make unusual and unreal sound effects to add a new dimension to drama, both on television and on Radio.  they could take sounds from real life everyday objects they could use any sound from real life and turn it into music.

Composers who worked at the BBC RWS over the years included: Daphne Oram, Dick Mills, Maddelena Fagandini, Brian Hodgson, Delia Derbyshire, John Baker, David Cain, Malcolm Clark, Paddy Kingsland, Roger Limb, Elizabeth Parker. Sir David Attenborough’s explorations of natural history; funny sound effects for comedians like The Goons; theme tunes and backing music for schools’ TV programmes; and a vast amount of work for Doctor Who all benefited from the work done at the BBC.

Traditional  editing  using a razor blade required  patience to sit for hours, recording, altering tape speed, re-recording, cutting, sorting, joining tiny pieces of tape to make your finished work. mechanical tape recorders we used to get the sounds you want. Then we came into the digital era using recording studios and macs or pcs to edit the sounds. We longer require to sit with a razor cutting tape we can do the same job faster and much easier than ever certainly makes us realise how the pioneers for sound could only have dreamed to do such things…

 

four decades followed, some of the most poineering advances in musical creativity were inspired there.  Among many bands and artists to be directly inspired by some of the workshop’s composers are acts including: The Beach Boys; The Beatles; Pink Floyd; and, more recently, Sonic Boom.

 

HOW MUSIC CONCRETE IS MADE

Musique Concrète is about building music from concrete or recorded sounds.  Some composers refer to these as found sounds

The original sounds can come in four categories:

Tones: The sounds made by musical instruments, played normally;

Mistones: The sounds we can get doing things we are not meant to do with musical instruments [like playing a percussionist’s wire brush across the strings of a piano, or trying to play a guitar with a violinist’s bow, for example];

Pseudotones: Sounds we can get by trying to imitate the sound of a musical instrument using some other device – saucespans and dustbins as percussion, for example, or blowing across the top of a bottle to sound like pan-pipes; and

Sones: Any other sound we can make or record.

Once we have our concrete sounds, then we can manipulate them by adjusting their pitch; changing their duration; chopping pieces from the beginning, middle or end; filtering them to take out or emphasise part of the sound; applying other effects – and other processes.

 

 

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creative industries

Creative Industries Introduction

(Outcome 1)

Creative Industry Task
Force, discovering that this industry employed over a million people and    
contributed to around 4% of GDP.  From
2001 to 2009 a an enormous amount  of
papers, journals and reports were carried out to measure the health of this
industry and to insert them into social consciousness, these include the second
Department of Culture, Media and Sport Industries Mapping Report, London was
launched as Creative London in 2004, the Creative Economy Programme was
delivered from 2005-2007 and was subsequently adopted by the Government, then
the UN delivered their Creative Economy report in 2008.

The many technological advances made have been
the cornerstone to the success of the Creative Industries, whilst being
innovative they are able to adapt to change quicker than most sectors since
they all stem from the creation of ideas from individuals/groups and teams,
such small gatherings act as a task force to deliberate over the coming new
technologies by which could be used to great advantages, and so off they go
onto another revolution, from Internet to the Digital age they have adapted and
adopted such change and reflected upon British society ultimately enriching our
lives, we really would never be bored or have an excuse to be, again.

Essentially, The Creative Industry Sector in the United
Kingdom is an industry based upon the individual’s ability to create,
produce/manufacture their work and which has a potential for wealth creation
and a future capacity in generating employment through small to medium business
start-ups progressing further and contributing to the economy through this
process. ownership of intellectual property is big business but to you and me
it often translates as buying a game/song/painting/ or going to the theatre.

Creative Industry
incorporates a variety of trades all huddled under this umbrella heading and
they include Music, Fashion, Film, Publishing, Design, Television and Radio et
al and are not to be confused with a the neighbouring umbrella of Cultural
Industries and huddled under here include, Cultural Tourism & Heritage,
Museums, Libraries, Sports et al.  One
may observe that they are similar in that they exist to enrich our lives but it
is how they do this that makes them different.

Cultural and Social
Wealth whereas the former deals more so with the creation of economic wealth.  What’s the difference?  Well it all relates back to ownership;
economic wealth  is always owned by
someone, whether privately, publicly or individually; cultural wealth), it is
in cultural wealth that we can add value to our lives through the passing down
of history and in turn allowing us to identify with ‘the bigger picture’.  Lastly social wealth deals with our
relationship to one another, how much we respect and care in genral in todays
fast pased modern world.

Through the education,
promotion and yes, exploitation, our culture is layed out for us all to see and
if we want, we can click, go, visit, call and see, all from the comfort of our homes

Sector	GVA at basic prices (£million)	Proportion of total UK GVA (%)
1. Advertising	7,800	0.7%
2. Architecture	3,600	0.3%
3. Art & Antiques	300	0.03%
5. Design	1,600	0.2%
6. Designer Fashion	100	0.01%
7. Film, Video & Photography	2,700	0.3%
9 & 10. Music & Visual and Performing Arts	3,200	0.3%
11. Publishing	10,100	1.0%
8 & 12. Software & Electronic Publishing	26,400	2.5%
8 & 12. Digital & Entertainment Media	200	0.02%
13. TV & Radio	3,200	0.3%
Total GVA for Creative Industries	59,100	5.6%
Total GVA for all Industries	1,053,9002	[1]

 

Globally the Creative
Industry creates 4% of the world’s economic output.  As the table above shows, each sector has
its own percentage of GVA however there are examples within the industry of
interfaces between sectors.  For example,
no movie, TV show, game or otherwise creative output would create any
substantial social, cultural or economic value without the power of advertising
and publishing.  Likewise, Digtial and
Entertainment Media really walk hand in hand with Music, Visual and Performing
Arts as well as TV, Radio, Film Video and Photography.  It is the combination of such sectors that
amplify creative output to its maximum value, audience and meaning.

Advertising

(Outcome 2)

 

Statistics

Revenue                   £3Billion

Export                       £815Million

Employment            92,800           

 

There is a lot more to
advertising than advertising.  This
sector within the Creative Industry employs a vast array of talented
individuals, each a cog in the ultimate goal of creating an advertising
product.  The many roles that would be
Marketing Executive, Market Researcher, Press Officer, Public Affairs
Consultant, Sales Promotion Account Services et al.

A Press Officer.  “The job of a press officer is to be the
point of contact for a public or private agency to any media questions or
interest”[2], this
role is crucial in maintaining a positive image throughout the media through
press releases and grim board meetings and this in turn will filter to whom
uses this medium, for example, readers of The News Of The World 9you know who
you are)  However, if say, an advertising
campaign was deemed to be inappropriate after consumer contact, it would be the
press officer that would liaise with the media to keep them up to speed with
what they intend to do about it, and the handling of this is crucial in keeping
a positive company image.

Cadbury: We all know and
sort of like their chocolate products.
When they decided to launch their ‘Get Active’ campaign back in 2003
they were met with a barrage of public and professional criticism; many
believed that they were shamefully promoting their chocolate to kids in a time
when obesity was quite an issue amongst them, Dr Wendy Doyle of the British
Dietary Association said: ‘We believe that it is sending out the wrong message
linking chocolate with health… misguided is a word I would use.  Carmel Hogan, the press advisor for Cadburys,
“We recognised there would be a debate. We will continue to get the message out
– this is about kids getting active” Her role within this debacle was to guard
the image of Cadburys and diffuse any ill feelings in the media, one may say
she didn’t do so well at this; the campaign was abandoned six months after it
began, £9m wasted and Hogan quit a year later.
A Press Officer in this situation would have been key in diffusing the
situation, articulating facts and aiming to find a positive outcome.  When all is plain sailing this role is ideal
in promoting the company within the media, advising current and future
projects.

The responsibilities of
undertaking any role within advertising are common to general employment; for
example, conducting business in a professional and respectful manner; polished
inter-personal skills, honesty and integrity; but what is needed in this
sector, like of those in other sectors in the Creative Industries, is discretion
and secrecy since the whole industry is based upon the ideas and creations of
individuals, trading information for money is essentially intellectual property
theft and will not be tolerated in any industry sector.  This is truer for the self-employed
individual whom has more opportunity to do this through the many organisations
and businesses they liaise with.

The Advertising Sector

(Outcome 3)

Traditional advertising
such as those on the TV, radio newspaper and magazines recently saw a decline
at the end of 2009 by -10.1%, -11.7%, -18.7% and -14.8% respectively[3].  Companies are now becoming aware that there
is another media now that can deliver the message quicker and easier – through
the internet.  The end of 2009 saw a
growth in internet advertising by 18.1%, through pop ups, banner ads, and the
increasing amount of junk mail that seems to be everywhere, it is no wonder
people are tuning in.  With constant
connection with the consumer the advertising campaign came quickly seep through
a volume of people in no time, for example advertising campaigns can set up
Facebook profiles to allow users to ‘like’ and ‘follow’, with over 500 million
registered users, friends can quickly exchange data and the result is
limitless.

Customisation of consumer
related content has further allowed the advertisers to tailor advertisements to
an individual, increasing the success of product related behavioural change,
otherwise known as a sale. Not only this, advertisers have put the onus onto
the consumer in creating their ad through competitions whereby the winner will
get to star or part make the advert, and on a wider sense allowing the consumer
to identify better with the brand, a humanist approach as the companies are
striving to deliver messages in gear with consumers values and concerns, what
better way to do this than getting them involved.

Although again, the
advertising guys up there know how to get out of a toughie, they just slap
their logo onto whatever, the American TV show Survivor now comes with an ad on
the actual screen throughout the show.
Great.

Despite the often gross and
desperate lengths companies will go to simply to get their name on a screen;
does not mean that the Advertising Industry is not bound by law, by a code of
ethics and statutory controls.  Indeed since
1955 when commercial TV began broadcasting, advertisers have been subject to
formal regulation in the claims they made, the first advert aired was for Gibbs
SR toothpaste (digital
viewers click here for the advert), and they were the
first to adhere to this. The Council of the Advertising Association (ASA) was
set up in 1961 to regulate the claims advertisers were making and exists to
this day, and recently “the ASA’s digital remit is extended to include
marketing communications on companies’ own websites and in other non-paid-for
space under their own control.”

Advertising for the
greater good is a modern affair, and shows its power in our culture and society
when informing us on say, the dangers of smoking; drink driving, drinking
alcohol; domestic and child abuse; and the recent ecological affairs of
deforestation and global warming; in this sense advertising for non-profit
making really encourages our society in bettering itself and I think primarily
on broadcasting, such advertisements should be limited to this, the internet
can then take the product related advertising where the consumer has the choice
to look and listen, without being co-arced or misled.

http://www.culture.gov.uk/advancedsearch.aspx?q=creative+industry&client=dcms&access=p&entqr=0&filter=0&output=xml_no_dtd&ie=UTF-8&site=default_collection

 

http://www.internsnetwork.org.uk/advertising-marketing/press-officer.html

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising#Rise_in_new_media

   

   

---

http://www.culture.gov.uk/advancedsearch.aspx?q=creative+industry&client=dcms&access=p&entqr=0&filter=0&output=xml_no_dtd&ie=UTF-8&site=default_collection

http://www.internsnetwork.org.uk/advertising-marketing/press-officer.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising#Rise_in_new_media

TASK ONE: 9 WORDS

• Ambiguity
• Diaphanous
• condition
• crash
• ephemeral
• loop
• sequential
• serendipity
• utopia

Using the words above create a visual image for each word.

provide justification of your chosen image and how it relates to the text, this should be both visually and conceptually.

could you provide a technical explanation and justification of your image that looks at pixel depth, compression, colour and the software techniques used.

Any pictures I have taken myself I used a 14mp Olympus waterproof camera and a Sony Ericson 8mp camera phone.

The size of the pics were saved as web size 640 x 480 and 72 pixels resolution.

I used the adobe cs5.5 master suite – Photoshop.

AMBUITY

I chose this image because although you can see it is a person person you are not sure what they are reacting to. Are they scared, frightened, angry, upset or excited. It is an ambiguous picture.

This was taken with a compact camera in low light with the flash on. The backround was very dark with a shadowy appearance with the facial contours much darker. I then put this image into photoshop where I made layers and converted into a smart object and retastersized the layer so i could remove the backround.  I changed the hue and saturation and changing the colours to the light blue. I played about with some of the shading and the image was finished. My initial image was alot more hazy and almoset like a smarm of colour but i decided to change it and have it more simple,  saved it as a jpeg and I uploaded it to the pc this way.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

 DIAPHANOUS

This is my image for the word diaphanous.  I chose this image because the inital concept i had was for looking through glass at somthing. I saw an image of an amsterdam shop girl standing looking with a blank expression on her face through the window.  The purpose of the girl is as clear as the glass we see her through. What she has to do and become is clear.

I saw this lovely image of the girl in the window her expression was quite blank. I imported the image to photoshop and made about 9 cpoy layers of the same image. the 1st layer i changed the hue and saturation to a dark pink making the yellow in the picture much darker leaving the opacity at 100%. The 2nd layer I did the same with the hue and saturation but a  little lighter and changed the opacity to 80%. I contuned to do the same with every layer making them all slightly different. I made some layers into smart objects and retastersised the layers so i could remove different parts of the picture i then moved the layers about so that every layer looked like it was looking through the class at the one before it and the girls where side by side.The last layer I put on the text tool and wrote the word diaphanous. I like the outcome i uploaded it after saving it as a jpeg

DIAHPANOUSE VIDEO

.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7qqg1ACVy0

 

 

 

 

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————

LOOP  

I picked this picture for the word loop.  This is a series of fingerprints because in the middle of the finger print in this case the swirl in the middle is called a loop. I got a picture of a finger print and copied it many times each time i changed the appearance of the fingerprint slightly by converting the image to a smart layer and cutting out different parts of the print. I changed the colours of each of them and changed the position to an angle and layered them over on another to fill the page changing the opacity of each from 100 to 60 % so that some could be seen through then others.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

  SERENDIPITY 

This is the image for serendipity. this was 3 layers of Alexander flemings petri dishes with the original bacterias forming what we now call penicilan. I suppose a happy accident that the dr discovered.  the inital pictures were black and white but i got a later petri dish that was in colour with these blues, greens. I put the black and white pictures on the bottom and layered them changing the opacity so that you could see them through each other i put the green on top and the patern looked like an eye I changed the blending of the top layer so it was a little brighter than the first then using the type tool i typed the work serendipity on the right hand corner of the “eye” using a handwriting style.

—————————————————————————————————————————–

SEQUENTIAL

I took this picture up north using an 8mp mobile phone. Tilting the phone at an angle. I used this picture because it was a sequence of wooden posts on the beach the atmosphere was eerie that day and the sky was very moody. I really like the feel of the picture.

I imported it to Photoshop and changed the colour to black and white. I added a tint of yellow and changed each of the colour settings to change the feel of the picture I prefer to do it individually because you get a more subtle look.                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

 

—————————————————————————————————————————

EHPEMERAL

I chose this picture because the effect of alcohol is short lived once you stop drinking you slowly sober the time factor depends on the amount of alcohol you consume. Buckfast is a drink of tonic wine mixed with caffeine so that you can drink more for longer the effect is still not going to last although the effects on society can. This has a teenager drinking the wine childhood and teenage years are also fleeting and a relatively short part of our lives now a days childhood is diminishing and you see children as young as 10 out drinking this sort of beverage trying to grow up much before there time. This is also a reflection of the world we live in when it’s cheaper to buy cheap wine than to feed a family with healthy fresh food also the decline in our economy sees more and more young ones turning to alcohol to soothe their disenchanted childhood.

I had a picture of a teenager drinking buckfast I layered the picture 9 times. I changed the hue and saturation of each layer to change the colours of each layer and displayed them in an Andy Warhol inspired fashion without the same vibrancy I wanted to be able to see the label on the bottle.

Using the type tool I made a band at the top and bottom of the picture saying the word ephemeral.

 

—————————————————————————————

 

CRASH

This is a picture I took on m 14mp compact camera. I was walking around Glasgow city centre when the film world war Z was being filmed and took lots of pictures. This was one of the crashed vehicles this was quite a close up shot. I was thinking of doing a picture of a computer crashing or a person crashed out. But I liked this picture because these vehicles had collided into one another in true Hollywood fashion here in sunny Glasgow. And they made Glasgow look like a street in Philadelphia so the two collided I supposed collided together for a short time.

 

I imported it to Photoshop and changed the hue and saturation to change the colour. I wanted to make this simple and mute the colours because the taxi was yellow I wanted all the colours to blend more.

—————————————————————————————

UTOPIA

I chose this picture for this word because the idea of utopia is that everyone should be happy and provided for with an ideal society with a perfect social and political system .  the communist idea was of this society rightly or wrongly and flawed that is what the state tried to promote likewise when housing estates like Castlemilk were made they were for everyone to have a clean and safe environment to like unlike many of the slums of the time. Communist propaganda photos had lots of red and yellow from chairman moa to the Soviet Union with its red fist they all were to highlight and promote a utopian society.

For my word utopia I have chosen a picture I made in Photoshop.  I uploaded a photo of a chairman Mao poster and removed the writing my converting the layer to a smart object retastersizing the layer and removing it with the magic want tool. I slightly adjusted the colour to brighten it slightly. I had an old photo of castlemilk when it was just built looking nice and new I layered the red and yellow poster style over the photo. I them imported a picture of the soviet fist and layered it over once I had removed the background. I then changed the opacity and the fill so you could see the pictures of the building through the fist. Using the text tool I wrote the word utopia in yellow curbing the angle of the words and placed it under the fist changing the opacity to about 70%.

AUDIO TIMELINE

1877

Thomas Alva Edison, working in his lab, succeeds in recovering Mary’s Little Lamb from a strip of tinfoil wrapped around a spinning cylinder.He demonstrates his invention in the offices of

Scientific American,

and the phonograph is born.

1878

The first music is put on record: cornetist Jules Levy plays “Yankee Doodle.”

1881

Clement Ader, using carbon microphones and armature headphones, accidentally produces a stereo effect when listeners outside the hall monitor adjacent telephone lines linked to stage mikes at the Paris Opera.

1887

Emile Berliner is granted a patent on a flat-disc gramophone, making the production of multiple copies practical.

1888

Edison introduces an electric motor-driven phonograph.

1895

Marconi achieves wireless radio transmission from Italy to America.

1898

Valdemar Poulsen patents his “Telegraphone,” recording magnetically on steel wire.

1900

Poulsen unveils his invention to the public at the Paris Exposition. Austria’s Emperor Franz Josef records his congratulations.

Boston’s Symphony Hall opens with the benefit of Wallace Clement Sabine’s acoustical advice.

1901

The Victor Talking Machine Company is founded by Emile Berliner and Eldridge Johnson.

Experimental optical recordings are made on motion picture film.

1906

Lee DeForest invents the triode vacuum tube, the first electronic signal amplifier.

1910

Enrico Caruso is heard in the first live broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera, NYC.

1912

Major Edwin F. Armstrong is issued a patent for a regenerative circuit, making radio reception practical.

1913

The first “talking movie” is demonstrated by Edison using his Kinetophone process, a cylinder player mechanically synchronized to a film projector.

1916

A patent for the superheterodyne circuit is issued to Armstrong.

The Society of Motion Picture Engineers (SMPE) is formed.

Edison does live-versus-recorded demonstrations in Carnegie Hall, NYC.

1917

The Scully disk recording lathe is introduced.

E. C. Wente of Bell Telephone Laboratories publishes a paper in

Physical Review

describing a “uniformly sensitive instrument for the absolute measurement of sound intensity” — the condenser microphone.

1919

The Radio Corporation of America (RCA) is founded. It is owned in part by United Fruit.

1921

The first commercial AM radio broadcast is made by KDKA, Pittsburgh PA.

1925

Bell Labs develops a moving armature lateral cutting system for electrical recording on disk. Concurrently they Introduce the Victor Orthophonic Victrola, “Credenza” model. This all-acoustic player — with no electronics — is considered a leap forward in phonograph design.

The first electrically recorded 78 rpm disks appear.

RCA works on the development of ribbon microphones.

1926

O’Neill patents iron oxide-coated paper tape.

1927

“The Jazz Singer” is released as the first commercial talking picture, using Vitaphone sound on disks synchronized with film.

The Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) is formed.

The Japan Victor Corporation (JVC) is formed as a subsidiary of the Victor Talking Machine Co.

1928

Dr. Harold Black at Bell Labs applies for a patent on the principle of negative feedback. It is granted nine years later.

Dr. Georg Neumann founds a company in Germany to manufacture his condenser microphones. Its first product is the Model CMV 3.

1929

Harry Nyquist publishes the mathematical foundation for the sampling theorem basic to all digital audio processing, the “Nyquist Theorem.”

The “Blattnerphone” is developed for use as a magnetic recorder using steel tape.

1931

Alan Blumlein, working for Electrical and Musical Industries (EMI) in London, in effect patents stereo. His seminal patent discusses the theory of stereo, both describing and picturing in the course of its 70-odd individual claims a coincident crossed-eights miking arrangement and a “45-45” cutting system for stereo disks.

Arthur Keller and associates at Bell Labs in New York experiment with a vertical-lateral stereo disk cutter.

1932

The first cardioid ribbon microphone is patented by Dr. Harry F. Olson of RCA, using a field coil instead of a permanent magnet.

1933

Magnetic recording on steel wire is developed commercially.

Snow, Fletcher, and Steinberg at Bell Labs transmit the first inter-city stereo audio program.

1935

AEG (Germany) exhibits its “Magnetophon” Model K-1 at the Berlin Radio Exposition.

BASF prepares the first plastic-based magnetic tapes.

1936

BASF makes the first tape recording of a symphony concert during a visit by the touring London Philharmonic Orchestra. Sir Thomas Beecham conducts Mozart.

Von Braunmühl and Weber apply for a patent on the cardioid condenser microphone.

1938

Benjamin B. Bauer of Shure Bros. engineers a single microphone element to produce a cardioid pickup pattern, called the Unidyne, Model 55. This later becomes the basis for the well known SM57 and SM58 microphones.

Under the direction of Dr. Harry Olson, Leslie J. Anderson designs the 44B ribbon bidirectional microphone and the 77B ribbon unidirectional for RCA.

RCA develops the first column loudspeaker array.

1939

Independently, engineers in Germany, Japan and the U.S. discover and develop AC biasing for magnetic recording.

Western Electric designs the first motional feedback, vertical-cut disk recording head.

Major Armstrong, the inventor of FM radio, makes the first experimental FM broadcast.

The first of many attempts is made to define a standard for the VU meter.

1940

Walt Disney’s “Fantasia” is released, with eight-track stereophonic sound.

1941

Commercial FM broadcasting begins in the U.S.

Arthur Haddy of English Decca devises the first motional feedback, lateral-cut disk recording head, later used to cut their “ffrr” high-fidelity recordings.

1942

The RCA LC-1 loudspeaker is developed as a reference-standard control-room monitor.

Dr. Olson patents a single-ribbon cardioid microphone (later developed as the RCA 77D and 77DX), and a “phased-array” directional microphone.

The first stereo tape recordings are made by Helmut Kruger at German Radio in Berlin.

1943

Altec develops their Model 604 coaxial loudspeaker.

1944

Alexander M. Poniatoff forms Ampex Corporation to make electric motors for the military.

1945

Two Magnetophon tape decks are sent back to the U.S. In pieces in multiple mailbags by Army Signal Corps Major John T. (Jack) Mullin.

1946

Webster-Chicago manufactures wire recorders for the home market.

Brush Development Corp. builds a semiprofessional tape recorder as its Model BK401 Soundmirror.

3M introduces Scotch No. 100, a black oxide paper tape.

Jack Mullin demonstrates “hi-fi” tape recording with his reconstructed Magnetophon at an Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE) meeting in San Francisco.

1947

Colonel Richard Ranger begins to manufacture his version of a Magnetophon.

Bing Crosby and his technical director, Murdo McKenzie, agree to audition tape recorders brought in by Jack Mullin and Richard Ranger. Mullin’s is preferred, and he is brought back to record Crosby’s Philco radio show.

Ampex produces its first tape recorder, the Model 200.

Major improvements are made in disk-cutting technology: the Presto 1D, Fairchild 542, and Cook feedback cutters.

The Williamson high-fidelity power amplifier circuit is published.

The first issue of

Audio Engineering

is published; its name is later shortened to

Audio.1948The Audio Engineering Society (AES) is formed in New York City.

The microgroove 33-1/3 rpm long-play vinyl record (LP) is introduced by Columbia Records.

Scotch types 111 and 112 acetate-base tapes are introduced.

Magnecord introduces its PT-6, the first tape recorder in portable cases.

1949

RCA introduces the microgroove 45 rpm, large-hole, 7-inch record and record changer/adaptor.

Ampex introduces its Model 300 professional studio recorder.

Magnecord produces the first U.S.-made stereo tape recorder, employing half-track staggered-head assemblies.

A novel amplifier design is described by McIntosh and Gow.

1950

Guitarist Les Paul modifies his Ampex 300 with an extra preview head for “Sound-on-Sound” overdubs.

IBM develops a commercial magnetic drum memory.

1951

The “hot stylus” technique is introduced to disk recording.

An “Ultra-Linear” amplifier circuit is proposed by Hafler and Keroes.

Pultec introduces the first active program equalizer, the EQP-1.

The Germanium transistor is developed at Bell Laboratories.

1952

Peter J. Baxandall publishes his (much-copied) tone control circuit.

Emory Cook presses experimental dual-band left-right “binaural” disks.

1953

Ampex engineers a 4-track, 35 mm magnetic film system for 20th-Century Fox’s Christmas release of “The Robe” in CinemaScope with surround sound.

Ampex introduces the first high speed reel-to-reel duplicator as its Model 3200.

1954

EMT (Germany) introduces the electromechanical reverberation plate.

Sony produces the first pocket transistor radios.

Ampex produces its Model 600 portable tape recorder.

G. A. Briggs stages a live-versus-recorded demonstration in London’s Royal Festival Hall.

RCA introduces its polydirectional ribbon microphone, the 77DX.

Westrex introduces their Model 2B motional feedback lateral-cut disk recording head.

The first commercial 2-track stereo tapes are released.

1955

Ampex develops “Sel-Sync” (Selective Synchronous Recording), making audio overdubbing practical.

1956

Les Paul makes the first 8-track recordings using the “Sel-Sync” method.

The movie

Forbidden Planet

is released, with the first all-electronic film score, composed by Louis and Bebe Barron.

1957

Westrex demonstrates the first commercial “45/45” stereo cutter head.

1958

The first commercial stereo disk recordings appear.

Stefan Kudelski introduces the Nagra III battery-operated transistorized field tape recorder, which with its “Neo-Pilot” sync system becomes the

de facto

standard of the film industry.

1959

EMI fails to renew the Blumlein stereo patent. Hello – anybody home?

1961

3M introduces the first 2-track closed-loop capstan-drive recorder, the M-23.

The FCC decides the FM stereo broadcast format.

1962

The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) sets the standard for the time code format.

3M introduces Scotch 201/202 “Dynarange,” a black oxide low-noise mastering tape with a 4 dB improvement in s/n ratio over Scotch 111.

1963

Philips introduces the Compact Cassette tape format, and offers licenses worldwide.

Gerhard Sessler and James West, working at Bell Labs, patent the electret microphone.

The Beach Boys contract Sunn Electronics to build the first large full-range sound system for their rock music concert tour.

1965

The Dolby Type A noise reduction system is introduced.

Robert Moog shows elements of his early music “synthesizers.”

Eltro (Germany) makes a pitch/tempo shifter, using a rotating head assembly to sample a moving magnetic tape.

Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass tour with a Harry McCune Custom Sound System.

1967

Richard C. Heyser devises the “TDS” (Time Delay Spectrometry) acoustical measurement scheme, which paves the way for the revolutionary “TEF” (Time Energy Frequency) technology.

Altec-Lansing introduces “Acousta-Voicing,” a concept of room equalization utilizing variable multiband filters.

Elektra releases the first electronic music recording: Morton Subotnick’s

Silver Apples of the Moon.

The Monterey International Pop Festival becomes the first large rock music festival.

The Broadway musical

Hair

opens with a high-powered sound system.

The first operational amplifiers are used in professional audio equipment, notably as summing devices for multichannel consoles.

1968

CBS releases “Switched-On Bach,” Walter (Wendy) Carlos’s polyphonic multitracking of Moog’s early music synthesizer.

1969

Dr. Thomas Stockham begins to experiment with digital tape recording.

Bill Hanley and Company designs and builds the sound system for the Woodstock Music Festival.

3M introduces Scotch 206 and 207 magnetic tape, with a s/n ratio 7 dB better than Scotch 111.

1970

The first digital delay line, the Lexicon Delta-T 101, is introduced and is widely used in sound reinforcement installations.

Ampex introduces 406 mastering tape.

1971

Denon demonstrates 18-bit PCM stereo recording using a helical-scan video recorder.

RMS and VCA circuit modules introduced by David Blackmer of dbx.

1972

Electro-Voice and CBS are licensed by Peter Scheiber to produce quadraphonic decoders using his patented matrixes.

1974

D. B. Keele pioneers the design of “constant-directivity” high-frequency horns.

The Grateful Dead produce the “Wall of Sound” at the San Francisco Cow Palace, incorporating separate systems for vocals, each of the guitars, piano and drums.

3M introduces Scotch 250 mastering tape with an increase in output level of over 10 dB compared to Scotch 111.

DuPont introduces chromium dioxide (CrO

₂

) cassette tape.

1975

Digital tape recording begins to take hold in professional audio studios.

Michael Gerzon conceives of and Calrec (England) builds the “Soundfield Microphone,” a coincident 4-capsule cluster with matrixed “B-format” outputs and decoded steerable 2- and 4-channel discrete outputs.

EMT produces the first digital reverberation unit as its Model 250.

Ampex introduces 456 high-output mastering tape.

1976

Dr. Stockham of Soundstream makes the first 16-bit digital recording in the U.S. at the Santa Fe Opera.

1978

The first EIAJ standard for the use of 14-bit PCM adaptors with VCR decks is embodied in Sony’s PCM-1 consumer VCR adaptor.

A patent is issued to Blackmer for an adaptive filter (the basis of dbx Types I and II noise reduction).

3M introduces metal-particle cassette tape.

1980

3M, Mitsubishi, Sony and Studer each introduces a multitrack digital recorder.

EMT introduces its Model 450 hard-disk digital recorder.

Sony introduces a palm-sized stereo cassette tape player called a “Walkman.”

1981

Philips demonstrates the Compact Disc (CD).

MIDI is standardized as the universal synthesizer interface.

IBM introduces a 16-bit personal computer.

1982

Sony introduces the PCM-F1, intended for the consumer market, the first 14- and 16-bit digital adaptor for VCRs. It is eagerly snapped up by professionals, sparking the digital revolution in recording equipment.

Sony releases the first CD player, the Model CDP-101.

1983

Fiber-optic cable is used for long-distance digital audio transmission, linking New York and Washington, D.C.

1984

The Apple Corporation markets the Macintosh computer.

1985

Dolby introduces the “SR” Spectral Recording system.

1986

The first digital consoles appear.

R-DAT recorders are introduced in Japan.

Dr. Gunther Theile describes a novel stereo “sphere microphone.”

1987

Digidesign markets “Sound Tools,” a Macintosh-based digital workstation using DAT as its source and storage medium.

1990

ISDN telephone links are offered for high-end studio use.

Dolby proposes a 5-channel surround-sound scheme for home theater systems.

The write-once CD-R becomes a commercial reality.

3M introduces 996 mastering tape, a 13 dB improvement over Scotch 111.

1991

Wolfgang Ahnert presents, in a binaural simulation, the first digitally enhanced modeling of an acoustic space.

Alesis unveils the ADAT, the first “affordable” digital multitrack recorder.

Apple debuts the “QuickTime” multimedia format.

Ampex introduces 499 mastering tape.

1992

The Philips DCC and Sony’s MiniDisc, using digital audio data-reduction, are offered to consumers as record/play hardware and software.

The Nagra D is introduced as a self-contained battery-operated field recorder using Nagra’s own 4-channel 24-bit open-reel format.

1993

In the first extensive use of “distance recording” via ISDN, producer Phil Ramone records the “Duets” album with Frank Sinatra.

Mackie unveils the first “affordable” 8-bus analog console.

1994

Yamaha unveils the ProMix 01, the first “affordable” digital multitrack console.

1995

The first “solid-state” audio recorder, the Nagra ARES-C, is introduced. It is a battery-operated field unit recording on PCMCIA cards using MPEG-2 audio compression.

Iomega debuts high-capacity “Jaz” and “Zip” drives, useful as removable storage media for hard-disk recording.

1996

Record labels begin to add multimedia files to new releases, calling them “enhanced CDs.”

Experimental digital recordings are made at 24 bits and 96 kHz.

1997

DVD videodiscs and players are introduced. An audio version with 6-channel surround sound is expected to eventually supplant the CD as the chosen playback medium in the home.

1998

The Winter Olympics open with a performance of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” played and sung by synchronizing live audio feeds from five continents with an orchestra and conductor at the Olympic stadium in Nagano, Japan, using satellite and ISDN technology.

Golden Anniversary celebration held in New York on March 11, the exact date of the first AES meeting in 1948, with ten of the original members present.

MP-3 players for downloaded Internet audio appear.

1999

Audio DVD Standard 1.0 agreed upon by manufacturers.