Music Thursday - Soundscape

People who get to spend some time with me say I am very quiet, that I can hide at plain sight and that I breathe so quietly they sometimes start suspecting I don't breathe at all.

 
That is on purpose.


I love sounds and I practiced for a long time to make my breathing mindful and controllable so it doesn't interfere with listening.

I love sounds. I'm in awe with sounds.

Scrapings, blinks and boinks. Gusting, squeaks and oinks.

Ambient noise. Radiator bubbling and refrigerator singing. Whiplash of breaking static charge with my fingers. Heart beating. Peristalsis.

When I'm watching new anime for the first time I close my eyes and hold my breath and guess seiyu performing in the anime. Even my daughter (8) exclaims victoriously: "We know this voice!" when somebody who we already know speaks.

Hearing new piece of music I rarely think genre. I think components, clarity, extraneous noise, fingers scratching guitar wires, voices, words, appropriateness.

As I see it is a pyramid with sound in base, voice-emotion-semantic in the middle and music on top. Music is also very catholic (look into dictionary to find that catholic = universal in extent, broad and wide-ranging in tastes) so anyone can perceive it and enjoy it with or without any appreciation on their part, but I like appreciating it, understanding it, analyzing, dosing and celebrating it.

I love sounds and and I admire sound design and this is the best small treasure of sound design introduction and explanation that I know of and adore.

Photo by Deborah Coleman, ©Disney/PIXAR

Ben Burtt, the guy that won Oskar for sound effects in Star Wars(!), talking about his work and sound design for Wall-e.

And second part:

I love how it ends with Andrew Stanton and Ben Burtt assigning credits for job well done. Those are the traits of true geniuses.