Limericks

A limerick is a a type of poem that contains five lines and follows the rhyme scheme of “aabba”. These poems can be funny, inappropriate, or make no sense what so ever (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limerick_(poetry)#Origin_of_the_name). This started out with an English humorist and a painter named Edward Lear. Edward Lear would make limericks and called one “A Book of Nonsense” (http://www.brownielocks.com/Limericks.html). I’m reading some limericks on this website (http://www.thehypertexts.com/The%20Best%20Limericks%20of%20All%20Time.htm) and these are genius, for an example like the Albert Einstein one is followed the rhyme scheme but it made sense. Now this one (http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/boob-box-baby/) it doesn’t really make sense and is funny. After doing this investigation I think this my favorite type of poem. This is because, one I am a sucker for comedy and limericks are known for their humor (like I’m known for my looks). But i think it is because of the rhyme scheme as it is like a nursery rhyme. Two how clever some of the limericks are like the Albert Einstein one, that blew my mind! All I have to say after this investigation is that limericks are awesome!

Pitch

Pitch is very important when it comes to sound. Pitch is how high or low the sound frequency is. Pitch and tone go hand in hand and especially when it comes to sound art and let me tell you why. A lot of sound compositions have to do with the sound artists expressing themselves. Usually if the pitch is high and the tone in high the sound that they are expressing either happy or a surprised feeling. If the pitch and tone is low they are usually expressing a sad or scary feeling. Now you see how it has an effect on sound art? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitch_(music))

Singing

Singing is something that I enjoy and can be the most amazing sound or horrifying. So once again I am going to take you back to where it started. Singing goes all the way back the 13th century where they would sing falsetto. Just like beatboxing singing changed over time. But instead of focusing on the history lets focus on the actual sound of singing. There are different vocal ranges that singers can reach such as soprano which is really high in range (C4-C6). The second highest under soprano is mezzo soprano (A3-A5), after that is contralto (F3-F5), then tenor (C3-C5), and then baritone (F2-F4), and last is bass (E2-E4) which is the lowest range a singer can hit. Imagine the different sounds between bass and soprano, its huge. The way to hit those notes depends on your tone and that comes from your throat. Reading how your body allows you to get that sound out is amazing. I always thought though, is there a type of art that appreciates bad singing? Sorry a little off topic but that would be funny but odd. Unlike beatboxing I can actually sing (i think) but here are a few links that explains singing more. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singing#History_and_development, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocal_range, http://www.wikihow.com/Sing)

Beatboxing

Beatboxing uses a combination of different sounds like “b’s, ts and pf’s” and more. For all you people who don’t know what beatboxing is, it is a type of vocal percussion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatboxing). It is popular all over the world. Let ,e tell you where it all started. So this goes back a few decades ago where swing music was the thing. Jazz musicians would use there voices for singing and even imitating the sound of instruments. Over time as music changed so did the imitation of sound as scat music came in and (skipping over a few) hip hop it changed over time which is pretty amazing if you ask me (for more on history check this out! http://www.humanbeatbox.com/forum/content.php?34-The-Real-History-of-Beatboxing-Part-1&s=941a150b6322c3c713adb8d373d71657). Now today we actually have different types of beatboxing. For an example people do dubstep beatboxing and evven techno beatboxing! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB3N6tLgXW8). Amazing right? There is even a guy who beatboxes while playing the flute (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59ZX5qdIEB0). Yeah everyone puts a crazy taste into beaboxing. Now if you want to learn how to beatbox here is a website (http://www.wikihow.com/Beatbox), all I am going to say is don’t ask me.

Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl

First of all this guys name is hard to say, no joke. And his work is hard to understand. His compositions are always different its not always the same type of sounds, for an example he would makes noises from his throat in one song track and beat box on another, so there is some depth. I think that’s what makes him different from other sound artists but yet again what sounds the same are the type of noises he makes from other sound artists. What i think really go him into sound art is that he did poetry before and poetry is a way to express the way you feel through words. In sound art you can express how you feel through sounds and he probably saw a link between the two and thought he would be good at it.

Paul Dutton

To me most of Paul Dutton’s compositions are sounds of things. For an example in M’s ‘n’ O’s it sound like he is a car or a motorcycle accelerating (http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Dutton.php track 20). From listening to other sound artist that’s whats what makes his work unique because these other sound artists don’t do compositions like that. There is this video I watched of one of his work. I am not going to lie at first I was confused and thought that it was stupid what he was doing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCaCHyj4ozk). Then I actually studied what he was doing and made me think. What is this composition about? And how does he make those sounds with his mouth? I looked closely at his mouth and I realized that he he uses teeth to kind of cut the sound to make it choppy. Also you can see Paul Dutton  actually forming certain sounds with his facial expressions. Another sound artist is Jaap Blonc, look closely! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgNL8-FdG-k). What Paul Dutton says he does with his face is “I use a lot of effects that don’t involve voice at all, such as tongue pops and other mouth percussion and forced-air effects at the lips and the nose.”(http://www.allmusic.com/artist/paul-dutton-mn0001539928/biography). That’s just proves he uses his whole face and mouth just to make his noises. After what Paul Dutton described, this it made me realize how hard it is to make a sound composition.

Bill Cosby

Yes, yes I know what you’re thinking Bill Cosby is not a sound artist but he is and i will tell you why. if you search up some of his stand up pieces he uses sound effects to add further detail to something. For an example in his stand up “Dentists” he talks about what dentists do in various situations, and i remember at one point he makes a sound effect for when they leave the suction tube in your mouth and made a joke out of it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBqY6cJD3CE). Another example was when he did the Cosby Show there was a scene where he is talking about the way the car sounded and was a funny scene (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2XEqNXLdXM). What he does differently from other sound artists is that he uses comedy and its funny when he makes those sounds. Cosby started his silly antics in class in high school, and he made people laugh in that class. In this biography I was reading said that when he went back to school he was in English class and did better than the people in his class and after felt like he could do something another black person hasn’t done yet. That was to become the first black comedian. That’s what i think that’s what pushed him though, the fact that he is going to set an example (http://www.mlive.com/entertainment/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2013/01/bill_cosby_interview_comedian.html).

Roald Dahl

I remember when i was in elementary school and I heard the name Roald Dahl. First thing is that i found his name hard to say but that’s another story. Anyways back to my story I found out that we were going to read Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory in class, I thought i was too good to read this book because I already watched the movie but yet again that’s another story. So, we read the book as a class and I liked the book i thought it was a work of written art, I had to read more of this man called Roald Dahl’s books and I found out he wrote a lot of books. These books are The Witches, Matilda, Goerge’s Marvelous Medicine, The BFG, James and the Giant Peach, and Fantastic Mr.Fox. He wrote a lot of children books but his writing started after WWII. His work goes from books to screenplays. He also had some of his books turned into movies like Matilda, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach. His writing made me want to read when I was a kid  and was a big part of my childhood.

Chicken Wings

I love chicken wings. That is the best food to eat. I remember the Superbowl between the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49s, I went to Kelseys with my friends and they had all you can eat chicken wings. I think that was the best day of my life. The different types of chicken wings like hot, buffalo, BBQ, even Jack Daniels (yeah that’s right). When I eat chicken wings I don’t leave any chicken left over just bone and i make sure of it. I also like getting chicken wings from St. Louis because the sauce that is on it and also the fries that you get with it. A lot of places don’t give you fries with the chicken wings but St. Louis is on the house .Now every year I can’t wait until the Superbowl to go to Kelseys to get all you can eat chicken wings.

Orthography

Orthography is a unique writing style that some writers like Bill Bassett uses. Orthography is a way to represent words by having a way to spell and write them (https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/orthography). For an example said would be spelled as sd. Other key factors are a part of orthography like hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. This leads to a writer’s writing looking like it was written by a two year old. What i have read on a various different websites, it sounds like it is hard to write that way, but I find it a very unique technique that I might try doing it in my next journal.