Custom «Elements of Sound» Essay Paper Sample

Sound is defined as a mechanical wave that result from oscillation of pressure and is transmitted though solid, liquid or gas and it's constituted of frequencies of levels that are strong enough to be heard or to be detected by the organs used for hearing purposes. Different animals human being included have a diverse ability to hear sound sat different frequencies and some animals like dogs and cats are able to hear sound propagated at higher frequencies than man.

Elements of sounds are: pitch, dynamics (loudness or softness) and duration. The element of duration describes the length of time that a sound produced by a source takes to before the receiving media ceases detecting it. The pitch of a sound is determined by the frequency of the sound that is produced by the source and the faster the vibrations the higher the pitch and the slower the vibrations the lower the pitch of the sound. The element of sound dynamics is related to the degrees of loudness or softness of a sound produced by source. It is often attributed to the amplitude of the vibrations that produces sounds and it is also referred as the property of sound.

Environment Experience

In the outdoor sound experience at the bus terminal the sound produced especially the speeding, screeching and hooting automobiles produced very loud sounds that felt uncomfortable to listen to for prolonged periods and the sound produced by the conversing people at the terminal were softer and lasted for longer time whereas the sounds produced by automobiles lasted for short periods e.g. the hooting lasted only for some seconds. The murmuring in the background lasted throughput the time spend in the terminal and sounds produced were softer in nature. In the indoor experience the sound produced both by the couples as well as the background of music playing and dining process were softer and low pitched sounds (Rolfe, 64)

The environment chosen is the busy bus station terminal to represent the external environment and a couple conversing while taking a candle lit dinner inside their apartment. In the bus terminal sounds are produced by all types of sources including, moving automobiles, hooting, people speaking, screeching sounds, and the sound produced are mainly transmitted through the air and the solids like walls, ground and metals. The receivers of most of these sounds produced at the bus terminal are hearing organs of people, the traffic camera audio devices and the animals that may be found at the immediate environment like birds.

In the indoor environment sounds are produced by the speaking done by the dining couple, the stereo playing music, the sounds made by the cutlery and utensils used for dining and any movements made by movements made by the couple for instance moving of the chairs or even munching of food. Sound transmitted through the air medium and is received by the couple present in the room. Most of the sounds produced are very soft and low pitched.

The sounds of the automobile at the bus terminal indicate the intense and busy movement that is characterized with a bus station and the hooting create images of commotion between the travelers and the vehicles in the environment (Dorai and Venkatesh, 67).

Literal and Non-literal Sounds

The non literal sound also referred to as no di-egetic sounds don't convey any literal meaning or refer to any particular source hence they are disconnected from their sources and do not evoke any visual images of the sources that produces such sounds. They exist in form of sound effects like hisses, booings and whams and are mostly viewed as the background sounds in any environment.
The literal sounds are referential in nature and convey a specific literal meaning in an environment and often refers the listener to the sound producing sources. The literal sound can either be source connected or source disconnected and audience see the source of the sound while they hear source connected sounds. In most cases the source disconnected sounds are off screen and audience are only able to visualize of the source-disconnected sound which is evident when a sound comes from behind and the audience eyes can only see 180 degrees while the ears can hear sound at 360 degrees thus audience in the bus terminal could only see the hooting automobiles in front of them but could only perceive the presence of those vehicles hooting behind them (Dorai and Venkatesh, 157).

For instance in the environment of a bus stop di-egetic sounds refers to the conversations of the travelers at the bus station or the rush-hour traffic which refers to the people and the automobiles while the non-diegetic sounds can come from sources like the murmuring that is created by the distant conversing people as well as the indefinite sound from the commotion of activities far from the station.. For the indoor environment involving a couple conversing while taking diner the diegetic sound some from their own conversation about issues affecting them while the non-diegetic sound comes from the romantic music playing on the background intended to create the romantic feeling suitable for a couple having a romantic dinner.

Sound Re-creation

Sound can be captured and recreated using machines to produce a different type of sound for instance SFX can record the sounds of a chicken and convert it to produce the high frequency sound of a bat. Such instruments and advanced equipment one can use sampling and synthesis enabling creation of an array of sounds in the studio. The process of sound is very complex and involve a series of steps that are carefully a carried out by professional person. For example the process involved in the recording and creation of sound using the SFX propel head reason involves the following procedure: the initial patch using the synthesizer, shaping of the sound in terms of range, adjusting of tunes using oscillators, filtering of sound, creation of real effect, blending of sounds, sound sampling, routing of audio signals, routing of CV signals and finally processing of the sound recreated.