A Parametric Sound Object Model for Sound Texture Synthesis

This thesis deals with the analysis and synthesis of sound textures based on parametric sound objects. An overview is provided about the acoustic and perceptual principles of textural acoustic scenes, and technical challenges for analysis and synthesis are considered. Four essential processing steps for sound texture analysis are identifi ed, and existing sound texture systems are reviewed, using the four-step model as a guideline. A theoretical framework for analysis and synthesis is proposed. A parametric sound object synthesis (PSOS) model is introduced, which is able to describe individual recorded sounds through a fi xed set of parameters. The model, which applies to harmonic and noisy sounds, is an extension of spectral modeling and uses spline curves to approximate spectral envelopes, as well as the evolution of parameters over time. In contrast to standard spectral modeling techniques, this representation uses the concept of objects instead of concatenated frames, and it provides a direct mapping between sounds of diff erent length. Methods for automatic and manual conversion are shown. An evaluation is presented in which the ability of the model to encode a wide range of di fferent sounds has been examined. Although there are aspects of sounds that the model cannot accurately capture, such as polyphony and certain types of fast modulation, the results indicate that high quality synthesis can be achieved for many different acoustic phenomena, including instruments and animal vocalizations. In contrast to many other forms of sound encoding, the parametric model facilitates various techniques of machine learning and intelligent processing, including sound clustering and principal component analysis. Strengths and weaknesses of the proposed method are reviewed, and possibilities for future development are discussed

Pragmatics & Language Learning, Volume 12

Pragmatics & Language Learning Volume 12 examines the organization of second language and multilingual speakers’ talk and pragmatic knowledge across a range of naturalistic and experimental activities. Based on data collected on Danish, English, Hawaiʻi Creole, Indonesian, and Japanese as target languages, the contributions explore the nexus of pragmatic knowledge, interaction, and L2 learning outside and inside of educational settings. Pragmatics & Language Learning (“PLL”), a refereed series sponsored by the National Foreign Language Resource Center at the University of Hawaiʻi, publishes selected papers from the biennial Conference on International Pragmatics & Language Learning under the editorship of the conference hosts and the series editor, Gabriele Kasper

Proceedings of the 7th Sound and Music Computing Conference

Proceedings of the SMC2010 - 7th Sound and Music Computing Conference, July 21st - July 24th 2010

“What can’t be coded can be decorded” Reading Writing Performing Finnegans Wake

This thesis examines the ways in which performances of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake (1939) navigate the boundary between reading and writing. I consider the extent to which performances enact alternative readings of Finnegans Wake, challenging notions of competence and understanding; and by viewing performance as a form of writing I ask whether Joyce’s composition process can be remembered by its recomposition into new performances. These perspectives raise questions about authority and archivisation, and I argue that performances of Finnegans Wake challenge hierarchical and institutional forms of interpretation. By appropriating Joyce’s text through different methodologies of reading and writing I argue that these performances come into contact with a community of ghosts and traces which haunt its composition. In chapter one I argue that performance played an important role in the composition and early critical reception of Finnegans Wake and conduct an overview of various performances which challenge the notion of a ‘Joycean competence’ or encounter the text through radical recompositions of its material. In chapter two I discuss Mary Manning’s The Voice of Shem (1955) and find that its theatrical reassembling of the text served as a competent reading of the Wake’s form as an alternative to contemporary studies of the book, and that its specific ‘redistribution’ of the text accessed affective and genetic elements that were yet to be explored in Joyce scholarship. In chapter three I consider several decompositions of the Wake by John Cage (1975-1983) and find that by paying attention to the materiality of the book rather than its ‘plot’ or ‘meaning’ his performances reencountered the work concealed in Finnegans Wake’s composition. In chapter four, I document and analyse my own performance, About That Original Hen (2014), a ‘research-as-performance’ lecture which re-enacts a visit to the James Joyce Archive. By reconfiguring Finnegans Wake in relation to a marginal figure from its composition process and a contemporary act of protest within the university, this performance explores how a diachronic re-animation of archival materials can engage with the ghosts which haunt its composition and enact a political reading of the text’s production and subsequent archivisation. I conclude the thesis by arguing that these performances repeat the contingencies, misreadings and appropriations and collective acts of reading and writing that were integral to the composition of Finnegans Wake

Cultural history of sound in England 1560-1760

Sounds both penetrate bodies and emanate from them, and in this thesis I consider both the reception and deployment of sounds in a variety of social contexts - an aural history of England between 1560 and 1760. I confine my analysis to nonverbal and non-musical sounds which were made both deliberately and incidentally, voluntarily and involuntarily, and ask, under what conditions were sounds meaningful? The concern of Chapter 2 is the sense of hearing - how and when it was appreciated or confused, and how it could be sharpened, or dulled and deafened. The experiences of the deaf are also discussed, with a distinction made between the congenitally deaf, and those who became deaf after they had developed verbal language skills. The third chapter considers body sounds, such as belching, farting and ( sighing, and the factors :which influenced their suppression or enhancement. The chapter explores in depth the various functions of laughing and crying, highlighting differences in behaviour between different social and demographic groups. Sound signals - sounds which warned that something was happening or would happen - are the subject of the fourth chapter. The discussion commences with an investigation of sounds which were thought to indicate future disasters, to provide clues about health, or to forecast weather. However, the bulk of the chapter is devoted to signals which were deliberately issued in the public realm in order to convey information, warn of calamities, announce deaths, instruct and gather communities, and mark temporal, social and spatial divisions. Chapter 5 extends this discussion by exploring the ways that secular and ecclesiastical authorities tried to control the apparatus of signalling, and by considering both the success of such attempts and the efficacy of sound signalling. Aggressive sounds feature in Chapter 6. The manner in which aggression was expressed depended on the status of the aggressor and the person towards whom aggression was directed; inferiors were subjected to crude and harsh sounds, while caution was required when projecting aggressive sounds at superiors. Chapter 7 analyses early modern conceptions of noise - sounds which were considered to be irritating. It explores the various contexts of noise, and shows how ' people manipulated their environment to reduce noise disturbance, through legal means and by altering buildings

Soundscape and the Experience of Positive Silence

This body of work employs a practice-based research methodology to explore the experience of silence as positive, of benefit to the individual and, by extension, wider society. The research is positioned within the related fields of Sound Art and Sound Studies with the practice component including soundwalks, sound installation, exhibition and phenomenological enquiry initiated through listenings and reflections. Current research in this area has explored the value of silence through quiet space studies, acoustics and psychoacoustics as well as research in the field of psychology around the human experience of solitude, mindful awareness and distraction. This doctoral research draws upon the insights of these disciplines to inform both the artworks and thinking that cohered into the themes explored in this commentary. Solitary and shared silences characterised by thresholds, masking, sounds of nature, simplicity, familiarity, safety and quality of attention are explored. In so doing, psychological theories of extended mind, construal level and psychological distance are considered in relation to the web of interactions between individual and soundscape. In all, these investigations revealed auditory distraction as a feature of the soundscape that consistently undermined the experience of silence as positive. Acknowledging the growing influence of the ‘attention economy,’ the work explores the psychoacoustic basis for auditory attention and concludes by forwarding practical strategies for working with distraction that have been developed and refined through listening exercises and participatory arts practice