by G. Jack Urso
From
the Aeolus 13 Umbra YouTube channel.
American Air: The Sound of the 20th Century is a 6
minute 18 second sound collage constructed from over 200 separate audio clips
taken from approximately two dozen different sources. I prepared it for Professor
Pierre Joris’ graduate-level poetry workshop class at the University at Albany
in the Spring 2000 semester.
As a
former radio news producer, I had experience with editing audio, but on tape,
using a crayon to mark the tape, a razor blade to cut it, and splicing tape to put
it back together; a laborious task even for an experienced hand. Fortunately, that
semester I was also taking Producing the
Historical Documentary, with UAlbany Professor Gerald Zahavi, which trained
me in the use of audio recording and mixing software.
For this
project I used Sound Forge XP and a free version of DDClip multi-track software.
Between the two programs I was able to emulate cross-fades and other effects
that otherwise would have required more sophisticated programs. The total effort
required over 100 hours of work.
Taking a
fin de siècle perspective, I wanted to create an audio collage with a clear
narrative that would reflect some of the political and social anxieties I
experienced growing up during the Cold War.
Using
Microsoft Movie Maker, I warped an image of an eye from George Lucas’ film THX 1138 over the soundtrack. This
creates a focal point as you listen to the piece, much as a mandala creates a
visual space for meditation. Some may find the idea of an all-seeing, floating
eyeball getting warped and twisted an unsettling image, yet that is what we
are; observers whose point of view is affected by sounds and images, from the
news, radio, TV, film, art, literature, politics, history, and even from the
conversations around us.
American Air: The Sound of the 20th Century is
my vision in sound of the America I knew and experienced.
SOUND
ELEMENTS
Sound
Clips:
·
Jim Morrison from An American Prayer (spoken word).
·
Beatnik girl reading poem from The Blackboard Jungle
(film).
·
Conversations from a WNYC radio news
documentary
Footloose in Greenwich
Village (news).
·
Computer god from THX-1138 (film).
·
HAL, the computer from 2001 A Space Odyssey (film).
·
Patrick McGoohan from The Prisoner (TV series).
·
Robbie the robot from Forbidden Planet (film).
·
Radio Beijing announcement from June 3, 1989.
·
Allen Ginsberg, selected audio clips from America (poem
recorded 1959).
·
Dr. Martin Luther King, audio clips from I Have a Dream
speech.
·
President John F. Kennedy, audio clips from
various
speeches.
·
Herbert Morrison, WLS radio broadcast of
Hindenburg disaster.
Sound Effects:
· Atmospheres by Gyorgy Ligeti from
the sound track to
the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Several minutes from
the piece is inverted, distorted, and reversed.
the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Several minutes from
the piece is inverted, distorted, and reversed.
·
Guitar effect from the introduction to Joan Jett's Bad
Reputation
(song).
·
Signal from Russian satellite Sputnik (1957).
·
Sensor effect from TV series Space: 1999.
·
Computer crash from TV series The Prisoner.
Background
Sounds:
·
Street noise from An American Prayer (spoken
word).
·
Cafeteria noise, Cairo market noise, and
office noise from
Microsoft clip art files.
This is a list of the sound clips and the sources, in the order in
which they appear:
Sound Clip
|
Source
|
Switching radio frequencies & telegraph
|
From Microsoft Windows 98 Theme “The Golden Era”
|
Jim Morrison
|
An American Prayer
|
Reverberating Sound (background)
|
Modified sound effect from Space: 1999
|
Edited conversations from 1950s radio news report
|
“Footloose in Greenwich Village,” The Beat Generation
|
Preacher/Cursing woman
|
An America Prayer
|
Poem: “My old man was a bread-stasher all his life…”
|
Poem from The Blackboard Jungle
|
“We know the biggest H-bomb button-pushers …”
|
“Footloose in Greenwich Village,” The Beat Generation
|
Commentary about society
|
The Prisoner Video Companion
|
Radio announcer’s observations about Beat poetry
|
“Footloose in Greenwich Village,” The Beat Generation
|
“Telephone, wrapped around my head…”
|
“Footloose in Greenwich Village,” The Beat Generation
|
“I can’t stand my own mind”
|
“America,” Alan Ginsburg, The Beat Generation
|
“My mind is going”
|
Hal from 2001: A Space Odyssey
|
“That’s one small step…”
|
Neil Armstrong
|
“I Can Feel it… I Can Feel it…”
|
Hal from 2001: A Space Odyssey
|
Commentary about political freedom
|
The Prisoner Video Companion
|
“America… America… America”
|
“America,” Alan Ginsburg, The Beat Generation
|
“We today…have concluded an agreement…”
|
Nixon (mixed with above Ginsburg audio clip)
|
“I will not be pushed….”
|
Patrick McGoohan, Number 6 in The Prisoner
|
“If Freedom is a myth…”
|
The Prisoner Video Companion
|
Reverberating Sound (background)
|
Modified sound effect from Space: 1999
|
“You are a true believer…”
|
THX-1138
|
“I feel much better now..."
|
Hal 2001: A Space Odyssey
|
“Let us be thankful…”
|
THX-1138
|
“Quiet please, I am analyzing””
|
Robby the Robot from Forbidden Plant
|
“One can never escape…”
|
The Prisoner Video Companion
|
“You’re going to find that rather difficult”
|
Hal 2001: A Space Odyssey
|
“They cry put down pot, don’t think a lot…”
|
Poem from The Blackboard Jungle
|
“I’m trying to come to the point”
|
“America,” Alan Ginsburg, The Beat Generation
|
Switching radio frequencies & telegraph
|
From Microsoft Windows 98 Theme “The Golden Era”
|
“I have a dream/The world is every different now”
|
Speeches of JFK and Dr. MLK Jr. edited together
|
Switching radio frequencies & telegraph
|
From Microsoft Windows 98 Theme “The Golden Era”
|
“This is Radio Beijing”
|
Announcement by Radio Beijing during Tiananmen Square Massacre
|
Switching radio frequencies & telegraph
|
From Microsoft Windows 98 Theme “The Golden Era”
|
“Oh the humanity…”
|
Herbert Morrison, reporter at the Hindenburg Disaster
|
Switching radio frequencies & telegraph
|
From Microsoft Windows 98 Theme “The Golden Era”
|
“That is the voice and sound of our time…”
|
“Footloose in Greenwich Village,” The Beat Generation
|
Reverberating Sound (background)
|
Modified sound effect from Space: 1999
|
● ● ●
