Assignment 8

Mini assignment: Listen to sounds and relate how they make you feel, both physically and emotionally. If the Star Trek sounds didn’t have titles/names, could you still guess what they mean? Do car sounds carry any emotion? How do you respond to special effects sounds for sounds you’ve never actually heard? How loud is a gun shot? How loud is a baby crying?

The sound itself evokes various physical interactions. When I hear a car honk, I jump. Or when I hear the helicopter flying on Craig street, I unconsciously raise my volume when I talk to my friend. Emotionally, they can often petrify me when I hear something squeak when I am alone, or make me nervous/lazy when I know that my morning alarm will ring soon. Or even my cat, when she meows, I instantly feel curious and try to communicate.

I think the sound itself is important as well but the fact that we can mimic the sound plays a big role. Like your question, if the sound effects didn’t have titles/names, for example, 808 base, one can mimic the sound and go “boom boom boom” and someone would be able to tell that it’s 808 base.

The reaction I had when I heard a sound that I never heard in my life from sci fi movies, the weird thing about it is that I just believed it. Like Wall E, I don’t know what I imagined future moon robots to sound like, but beep boop is very convincing to my expectations.

There are some sounds that carry emotions. The best and the most expectable example would be music. Because music without language such as EDM can also bring happy emotions to people which even increases people’s heartbeat to the rhythm.

I feel like decibel plays a lot in the world of sound, but the part I am interested in sound is what kind of interaction thunder brings. Thunder is not only shockingly loud but also evokes an immediate physical reaction in people. Moreover, the distance becomes ambiguous. Like when you are trying to walk towards the moon and can never get closer, that’s how I feel about thunders.

Author: kyungsec@andrew.cmu.edu

Junior in Art, trying to minor in physical computing.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.