This sound sculpture has been brought to you by Julian Tsang, Andrew Chen, and Kevin Cheng. Close your eyes and listen with earphones (or high volume) for best results.
“Zoning Out…” explores the instance of falling asleep in class. The inspiration for this assignment is attributed to one of our group members, Andrew Chen, who has a habit of constantly falling asleep everywhere he goes. We thought it would be an interesting concept to explore falling asleep with respect to music since most people can relate to zoning out and falling asleep in the classroom setting.
Professor Wollman’s voice introduces our piece, acting as a generic teacher’s voice for the classroom at school. The ticking of a clock transitions her voice into an incomprehensible warbling recognizable from the adults featured in the “Peanuts” cartoons. This instance is utilized to implicate the concept that when the human mind is in deep sleep, sounds and voices are hard to discern and understand.
The ambient and “twilight zone-esque” sounds in the background is implemented with the intent of creating a sense of falling into a void of sleep. This invokes a lucid feeling, which is utilized to give the impression of the mind-body disconnect that accompanies the feeling of drifting to sleep. The underlying tune of “Call Me Maybe” by Carly Rae Jepson, is presented to illustrate the drifting of thoughts to random things. “Call Me Maybe” was specifically chosen for its undeniably catchy tune that can easily get stuck in someone’s head.
The ticking clock is also used to help create a sense of time passing. Furthermore the conglomerate of all of the other sounds gives off the feeling of being lost in one’s thoughts. Towards the end of the sound sculpture, Chris Brown’s “Don’t Wake Me Up” is looped in an effort to present a sense of irony when the individual finally wakes up. The use of “Don’t Wake Me Up” represents the subconscious feeling of not wanting to be woken up during a satisfying slumber, regardless where a person might be sleeping. However, it is inevitable that people will eventually wake up. The annoying school bell at the end of the sculpture represents all annoyances, occurrences, and instances that brings all of us back to reality.
Works Cited
Jepsen, Carly Rae. Call Me Maybe. School Boy, 2012. MP3.
Brown, Chris. Don’t Wake Me Up. RCA. 2012. MP3.
PlayStation Startup HD (Original). N.d. YouTube. YouTube, 23 Nov. 2009. Web. 04 Oct. 2013.
“Charlie Brown’s Spelling Bee with the School Teacher’s Voice.” YouTube. YouTube, 10 Aug. 2012. Web. 04 Oct. 2013.
“Clock Ticking HD.” YouTube. YouTube, 24 Jan. 2012. Web. 04 Oct. 2013.
“Free Snore Sound Effect.” YouTube. YouTube, 09 Dec. 2010. Web. 04 Oct. 2013.
milo, “Resonant bass flute and Viole Air.” April 8, 2013 via freesound, Creative Commons Attribution.
uwesoundboiz, “coke snort 001.” September 15, 2008 via freesound, Creative Commons Attribution.
Special thanks to Professor Wollman for lecturing on impressionism.
I like that in your sound sculpture you played with the idea of being detached. Daydreaming is common for every individual so I think we can all relate to focusing out of our surroundings and simultaneously being very aware of ourselves. Even though the person is asleep in class, he or she is still conscious that he or she should be paying attention. The fade ins and fade outs of your music clips were really well done and showed how our daydreams can oftentimes be unintentional. I also thought the voice of Professor Wollman was perfectly in pitch with the Charlie Brown clip; I didn’t even realize at first that there was a difference.
I agree with Lisa’s comment. This is very relatable to everyday life. I liked that you put “Call Me Maybe” in the piece. I thought it was random, but thinking about it, isn’t daydreaming random? You wake up, dream about random things. I also liked how you used Professor Wollman’s voice. That was an interesting touch. I felt like the entire daydreaming process in class (except for sleeping for me, haha) was described within 90 seconds. Overall, I enjoyed your piece and thought it was an interesting topic to make a sound sculpture of.
Janice Fong
I think your project is very interesting because your subject is so comical and relatable. At one point or another, everyone has experienced being distracted or zoning off in class. You definitely captured the random aspect of daydreaming very well with all the songs that you inserted. It’s pretty ironic and funny that the lyrics at one point were, “Don’t wake me up,” so it’s cool that you chose the words to go along with your piece as well. Also, I thought it was interesting how towards the end Professor Wollman’s voice came back into focus, but it was already too late to pay attention because class was ending and then the bell proceeded to ring. Overall, your topic is really funny and you managed to capture your idea well.
I found your idea very interesting. You used a seemingly simple idea to demonstrate the inner workings of the mind when it needs rest. The transition from Professor Wollman’s voice to the “incomprehensible warbling” was really smooth. Furthermore, the sound you used to depict the “twilight zone-esque” phase reminded me of fairy tales. Also, I liked how the sound of snores varied over time. (This shows how attentive you were to minor details of the story.) Moreover, by bringing Professor Wollman’s voice back into focus, you showed that the student is coming closer and closer to waking up. Overall, your sound sculpture was very unique and entertaining. It enabled me to visualize the entire journey and the possible events following the end of class. In fact, I could imagine the student frantically looking up at Professor Wollman and rushing out of class after being jolted by the school bell.
I have been guilty of dozing off in a few classes and I do agree this is how the scenario plays out most of the time. I’m sure some of us can relate to this feeling and the confusion that comes after the ringing bell. I would gather all my belongings and go outside the room only to ask my friends what the professor had lectured about, hoping it will not be on our test. The concept itself makes it relatable to many students.
The project itself is creative because of the unique idea and the implementation of it. The experience created by listening to this sound sculpture is extremely realistic because of the sounds associated with it. The part when Professor Wollman’s voice slowly dissolves into the background is an excellent example of this. Listening to your sound sculpture is interesting because of the use of a model and the recommendation to have the audience close their eyes.
This is awesome! I like the whole concept of falling asleep in class because I can relate to it. Like Lisa mentioned, the fade-ins and fade-outs were very effective in your piece and portrayed the act of daydreaming and zoning out pretty accurately. I also really liked your incorporation of the ticking clock effect because it provides us with a dimension of time. I think this sound sculpture is very creative overall. Your use of common sounds and music make it relevant to everyone.
First of all I want to applause you for this brilliant idea and your nice execution of the piece. Falling asleep in class is a experience I won’t say all, but definitely most students have experienced in their career. It is a nice touch to have a teach speaking and then fading away, since this is a “standard procedure”. The teacher gets into a topic the students consider boring, and then they get distracted and falls down to sleep. Although personally I do think you are missing a part to make the piece perfect. When we students fall asleep in class it is very unlikely we would sleep deep enough to have dreams. Instead we sleep so lightly that to a certain extend we can still hear our teacher speaking, so I really think you should add at least a faint sound of a teacher still teaching in the background.
This is awesome! And just like everyone pointed out, it’s also totally relatable to all of our daily lives (no offense, professor!). I especially like the way you inserted the song “Call Me Maybe.” While some may consider it as random, I think it fits in very well. When I’m daydreaming in class, random things pop into my head all the time. I also enjoyed the transitioning- I especially commend you on mixing the various sounds of Dr. Wollmans voice with the bell’s and snoring to really give the sense of you “zoning out” yourself. Overall, great job!
The piece transitioned nicely from very different audio clips. It sounded very psychedelic. It’s interesting that the various clips sounded so distinct. You guys might’ve intended for the exact opposite, but yes, I found the various parts of the piece oddly clear. I’ve always thought that dreams or things that resemble dreams only emerge seconds before awakening. Therefore, I expected a muted floating sensation (which could definitely be represented by sound) for most of the piece and a huge mesh of sounds right before waking up. I feel that this piece met my expectations somewhat. I suppose everyone has his/her own interpretation of dreams/slumber.