1575465drawing with sound.pdf

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Drawing with SoundAuthor(s): Karen Frimkess WolffSource: Leonardo, Vol. 24, No. 1 (1991), pp. 23-29Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1575465 .Accessed: 25/04/2014 17:25

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SOUND, MUSIC, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

rawing w i t o u n d

Karen Frimkess Wolff

D rawing is the joy of my life. I draw withpencil and dry pigments on paper and canvas, and with'sound lines'. By drawing with sound lines I mean movingthe apparent, or virtual, point source of a sound in a spaceso that it is perceived as describing a line in the space. Inthis sense, sound lines are used as linear elements on sur-faces or through forms in the same way that a visual linewould be used, with the difference that they are heard ratherthan seen. Because the point-sounds move, they perform anact of drawing for a viewer rather than present a previouslycompleted drawing. My sound lines have consisted of eithera single tape-recorded voice speaking English words or else

electronically produced tones. The points move over sur-faces, through two- or three-dimensional forms and aroundrooms by means of electronic circuits that switch the soundsource from one loudspeaker to another in predeterminedsequences.

I think by drawing. Like most artists I know, I am usuallyattracted to a subject by my interests and by the circum-stances of my life. Each piece is an expression of my thoughtsand an attempt to communicate those thoughts. My firstinstallation works were motivated by my concern for thephysical senses (by a fear of blindness in particular), by myinterest in physical growth processes, movement and mod-ern technologies and by a much greater interest in the

process of my own actions than in the final product. At thesame time, I needed to treat transitory subjects such as grief,pride, fear, healing or disorientation, which are states ofmind or states of being.

Caring about process, and wanting motion in real timeand real space for work about states of being, I could notjust paint allegories. Sound and electronics have been ameans for turning drawings into experiences, although thiswork has been a struggle.

Fig. 1. Pride Goeth Beforea Fall, diagram of the backside of theinstallation, wood, drywall, speakers, electronics, tape recorder,

audio tape and wall, 96 x 144 x 10 in, 1975. A line made by thesound of a male voice was drawn across the wall in response to aviewer's approach. The voice said, Every ime I think I'm alright,something hits me again, so every time I think I'm alright I remem-ber that I might not be.

EXPANDINGDRAWINGS

Drawing, painting and sculpt-ing have been among my dailyactivities since early childhood,for my father was my firstteacher. Later, in high schooland college, I studied tradi-tional modes of artistic expres-sion. I never expected to deviatefrom accepted artists' materi-

als. Each step on the path fromtraditional drawing to causingsounds to move around roomswas made with trepidation.

By 1974, my traditional waysof seeing and working were fall-ing away. Drawing became thepreferred format for my works,and the scale of my drawingsincreased. It was at this timethat the process became more

ABSTRACT

The author elates heprincipal esthetic nd ubjectconcerns hat resulted nherexperiments ith oundused asline n drawing. hedevelopment fthe artist's udio echnology nduse of exhibition pace are dis-cussed inrelation o six specificinstallation orks. nteractions ithcollaborators re examined, ndclosing omments onsider es-theticoutcomes and goals.

interesting to me than the result. I came to see every objectin terms of drawing and to consider the structure and nature

of the act of making a drawing.To establish parameters for myself, I decided on a work-

ing definition for 'drawing': the description of form andspace with line; and for 'line': a series of points side by sidein a row. My definitions then extended beyond paper andpencil to most objects, events, sounds and even people, thatis, to lines of anything and everything. If streets of houses orcollections of words or any objects are envisioned as sets ofpoints placed in a row, then such lines define space, justas surely as do ink marks on paper. Further, the path of athing or a person moving in space, the trail of movement,momentarily defines space and form. A pencil line on apiece of paper or a line drawn in wet sand with a stick is a

record of movement.

FINDING MY WAY TO SOUND

In 1974, before I did my first sound drawings, I worked withlarge strips of paper. I cut through the paper in addition toor instead of marking its flat surface. I stuck beads on piecesof paper, poked nails through them, drew with pencil be-hind them and, using long strips in combination with wallsand shadows, I looked for ways to make them move. Somewere large enough to catch air currents, which caused the

Karen Frimkess Wolff (artist and teacher), 1412 Glendale Boulevard, Los Angeles, CASource 90026, U.S.A.

Received 27 May 1988.

Tape Recorder

? 1991 ISASTPergamon Press pic. Printed n Great Britain.0024-094X/91 $3.00+0.00 LEONARDO, Vol. 24, No. 1, pp. 23-29, 1991 23

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Fig. 2. Mourning Piece, wood, drywall, speakers, electronics, tape recorder and audiotape, 60 x 84 x 6 in, 1976. Installation view: Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art,1977. A female voice was heard when a viewer approached. The voice moved from left toright across the panels saying, found-gathered-picked up-dropped-put back-lost-set aside-mourned .

strips and their shadows to sway.Smaller paper strips went into trans-parent Plexiglas boxes where static elec-tricity caused the paper to reach outand touch the inside surface of the boxwhen a person touched the outside sur-face. This much movement had merit,but I wanted more control over inten-sity and direction of movement.

Around the same time I also began aseries of simple word studies using

short English sentences and phrases.Though the literal meaning of thewords was less important to me thantheir images on the paper, the functionof words as symbols of ideas could notbe overlooked.

Finally, motion itself became themost important issue for me. It was nolonger sufficient to have a record of theact of drawing. I wanted to movethrough the walls and be uncatchable.Sound could do that.

I found a job typing reports and

design guidesat an acoustic

laboratory.The position provided me with valuableknowledge about the principles ofsound insulation and sound isolationand the nature of sound and hearing.Fascinating and brilliant people of-fered me their specialized expertise,interest and encouragement and elec-tronic systems to make sounds move.Declaring that it would be easy, oneengineer built an electronic steppingsystem that consisted of a series of digi-tal switching circuits. We recorded oneof my word studies on audio tape andthen wired a tape recorder and several

speakers to the circuits. Sure enough,the result was a definite graphic sensa-tion from an audio stimulus. We wereclearly able to 'see' the particular lineand shape with our ears. This experi-ment was my first use of a tape-recordedsound as a medium comparable to apencil marking a drawing surface.

SOUND AND ELECTRONICSIN THE GAlIERY

My earliest sound pieces consisted ofsolitary voices recorded on a tape re-corder and played through a series ofspeakers. Each work used a few Englishwords that moved a short distancein space and in time over solid formsand surfaces. Small and inexpensivespeakers were used to place the pointsof sound in the physical structure. Thespeakers were concealed from theviewer. The backs and sides of each

speaker were enclosed in small, insula-tion-lined boxes to control the disper-sion of the sound.

My first opportunity to exhibit asound drawing was at the Pasadena Ar-tists' Concern Gallery in Pasadena, Cal-ifornia, in September 1975. My statedintent was 'to draw a thought across awall, free from dependence on the eye'.The insertion of both a foreign ele-ment, sound, and the efforts of anotherperson into a work of mine was terrify-ing to me; to exhibit such a workseemed foolhardy. So for this first timeI chose a word phrase about defeat and

named it Pride Goeth before Fall. A 24-word phrase spoken by a male voicemoved across a plain wall. The wall andthe two stands for the light beam (usedto start the work when someoneentered the room) were the only visiblephysical parts (Fig. 1).

I had no preconceived plan to workwith sound. I did not know of anyonedoing such a thing before I began.What I did know about were environ-ments, installation works and perform-ances. After my own first sound showopened, people told me about othersound works and I saw some immedi-ately thereafter (they made me feel alittle less strange and ridiculous) [1].

Electronics for the First WorksWilliam Kingsbury, a friend and neigh-bor, was my collaborator in this firstsystem for exhibition. The system con-sisted of a tape recorder, 10 speakers,logic circuits with relays driven by toneson one of the tape's two tracks, and astarting switch triggered by the break-ing of a light beam. Continuous-loopcassette tapes did not exist at the time,so using a 2-x-4-ft board, we constructeda tape loop by mounting a reel-to-reeltape recorder on one end and a thirdreel on the other end.

When a viewer approached, the lightbeam was broken and a sensor triggeredthe tape machine. A 7-kHz tone re-corded on Channel A of the tape reset

the counter circuit to 0 (this disabledthe trigger, preventing restart till thesequence was complete). The voicemessage on Channel B began, wasamplified and played through onespeaker. The next 150-Hz tone incre-mented the counter to number 2, dis-connected the first speaker and con-nected a second speaker. The sequencecontinued until the last 150-Hz tonedisconnected the final speaker in theset, stopped the tape machine andreapplied operating voltage to the

trigger.The electronic elements were in aback room of the gallery, connected tothe piece by a long cable. On two occa-sions during the course of the show,gallery visitors or attendants meddledwith the electronics. It was necessary tomake emergency trips to the gallery torepair the damage and restore thepiece to working order. This first ex-hibit revealed many problems thatneeded solving if such pieces were towork smoothly and effectively, but theresults were so

interestingthat I could

not abandon the work.

24 Wolff,Drawing with Sound



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Mourning Piece was to look like (or tobe) broken pieces of a ruined wall orwhole (Fig. 2). The words used in itoccurred to me during the construc-tion of the visual aspect of the work. Asusual, I made dozens of drawings ofshapes and words. Eight loudspeakerswere needed for the eight-phrase chantby a female voice. The electronic equip-ment used in the previous piece wasmodified for use in the exhibit of this

second work at the Los Angeles Insti-tute of Contemporary Art in 1977.I wanted a viewer to be able to ap-

proach and experience Mourning Piecejust as if it were a conventional drawinghanging on the wall-free from anyawareness of technology. A burglaralarm was used as a trigger to start thetape. A resetable timer caused the tapeto run until 5 min after the last viewerwas detected. People were unable to tellthat they were starting the tape loop; itsimply took place before them. The

gallery attendants did not have to listento it when no one was there. The soundequipment was placed in a storeroom,well away from the piece in the gallery.This time we included a big red signthat said 'DON'T TOUCH', and no-body did.

Some viewers understood all mytechnical and esthetic intentions; others,however, gave so much attention to themeanings of the words that they wereless affected by the movement of thesound and its interaction with the physi-

cal form than I wanted them to be.

More AbstractComplexities and SpecializedElectronic SystemsThe Keeper ocused more directly onthe issue of movement in space andthrough form (Fig. 3). It developed outof a series of studies made with paperwrapped over wooden boards in whichthe folds of the paper were used asgraphic lines. As before, the visual

aspect of the piece emerged first andthe sound followed.Four major elements were combined

in this piece: its name, its form, itscolors and its sound. It was named forcertain ideas embodied in the HighPriestess of the Tarot [2]. The formcame from the tightly held folds of thepaper studies. In the fully constructedpiece, these planes and folds becamenine panels, separated and large enoughfor several viewers to walk among them.It was painted soft pastel yellows and

pinks for the eye, but it was hardand cold to the touch. The sound re-

Fig. 3. TheKeeper, iagramsof (top) frontview and (bot-tom) top view,ink on paper, 11x 14 in, 1977. Tomove the sound(indicated by thebroken line),speakers were

placed insideeach panel at alevel of 41/2 tfrom the floor.Sound began inthe left-frontpanel andfinished in theright-front panel.

trasoncSensor

The jumps fromspeaker to Electronicsspeaker weretimed so that the Cilowest pitchesseemed to come

from inside thepanels and thearcs or higher- Spiral Spitched parts ofthe soundseemed to occurbetween thepanels.

sembled a siren, though a pleasant one.The siren sound gave the illusion of a

spiral spinning through the panels ofthe form. I wanted an environment in

which the irresistibility or inevitabilityof instinct, plus the appearance of soft-ness and the hardness of reality, com-bined with the ideas of urgency, threatand harm. The formal excitement ofthe piece was in the obvious whirling,piercing movement through structureand around the room.

With nonobjective imagery and with-out words, interpretations can be nu-merous and diverse. Though I used theTarot as my own reference for the struc-ture and symbol of my intent [3], issues

of instinct and contemporary circum-stances and society are everywhere inthe world. I did not give an explicitexplanation of the work because Iwanted to see how people would under-stand it; I did not want to limit theirunderstanding, and, besides, the piecewas an inquiry for me too. Some peoplepaid attention to the sound, the colors,the form, the title and the drawings inthe adjoining room of the gallery. Theyunderstood everything and told me sodelightedly. Other people did not un-

derstand the work and expressed con-fusion.

An electronic synthesizer was usedto create the sound for The Keeper. Al-though it was a small and primitive oneeven for 1977, I was able to make on it

a sound pertinent to my preconceivedvisual requirements: a slow and unevensirenlike sound that I then recorded ontape. Later, as digital electronic step-ping systems progressed, the possibilityof digitizing the sound from the tapebecame apparent, and a friend and Igenerated a punched paper tape ver-sion of my conventionally taped audiosignal. I then took the punched tapeand had the data put into a digitalmemory chip.

For a show at the Thomas Lewallen

Gallery in Santa Monica, California, wewanted the electronics to be as easy andconvenient as a light switch. The triggerwas an ultrasonic sensor. The logic cir-cuits were a digital control that recre-ated the digitized recording. We used avoltage-controlled oscillator as a syn-thesizer and replaced the relays with a9-channel programmable volume con-trol that regulated the output to theindividual speakers through 9 amplifi-ers (one per speaker). This system wasdesigned exclusively for The Keeper. t

could not be modified to serve anotherpiece, but it was perfect for this one.

Wolff,Drawing with Sound 25



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sented by the number of forms andrepeated in the B-flat tone that drewthe floating form, was for the cycles ofbeginnings and endings [6]. The trape-zoid itself, the hovering shape-a re-petition of the rectangle in an alteredform-represented change, differenceand new form. A statement and manyexplanatory drawings on canvas andpaper were included in the exhibitionso that observers knew exactly what wasintended.

The quiet little stepping system saton a sculpture stand behind the wall atthe back of the piece in the huge gal-lery. For 4 weeks, it produced the B-flattone. I had placed the schematics nextto the electronics in case there mightbe a problem that needed emergencyattention. There were no problems, butthe schematics were stolen.

ENDING ANDBEGINNING AGAIN

The years 1980-1984 included work onan extended drawing project based onthe Tarot and the building and exhibi-tion of acoustic sound works made withtiny brass and chrome bells tied tostrands of monofilament. When touched,the thousands of little bells rang. Theirtiny sounds echoed and bouncedaround the spaces, taking advantage ofnoisy, high-reverberation environmentsthat would have been impossible set-

tings for the electronic sound drawings.By 1985, I was ready to continue with

more controlled and purposeful move-ment of sound. In particular, based ona series of drawings on the subject ofwandering and spiritual pilgrimage, Iknew what forms I wanted to build andthe sound that should move throughthem. I asked a friend, Michael Sabo, todesign a versatile system that couldwork with a tape player, a radio or anyother electronic sound source.

Like earlier systems, Sabo's system

provided for speakers in series. A 19-x-24-x-24-in metal box contains places for16 speakers. The wiring for each pair ofspeakers is on removable, interchange-able circuit cards (Fig. 6). We plannedto use all of the available 16 speakerplaces in this system, but I am still usingjust 8 of them [7]. For a recent piece, Iplaced double speakers at the first andlast positions. This allowed for soundsfrom 10 places with the same 8 speaker

shape in relation to the forms and theintent of the subject (Fig. 7). I recordedthe sound [8] and placed it in a physicalstructure consisting of eight columnarforms, each 6 ft x 16 in x 8 in, that werepainted in soft pastel colors and hung ina row along a wall (Color Plate A No. 3).The 11/2-min sound, which was morelike music than my previous pieces,traced the silhouette of a mountainrange as it moved through the forms,going from column to column, left toright. I exhibited ThePilgrim n a narrowcorridor to force the experience ofa passageway. The piece dealt withthe issue of wandering and searching.Eight tiny postcard-like watercolors wereplaced opposite each column insidethe corridor. Each little picture repre-sented something taken from the colorof the column it faced: a tree for green,a geode for violet, the sun for yellow, apeach for peach color, the sky for blue,a daisy and a poppy for yellow, a human

body and a heart for rose and water forthe final blue column.

SURFACES, FORMSAND SPACES

To be most effective, my sound worksneed an environment with a low rever-beration time. To be comparable to agraphic line, the sound line must stayas close to the surfaces of the forms aspossible. The louder the sound, the

farther into the room space it radiatesand the more the linear quality is lost ordiluted. The lowest comfortable volumeis best. The quieter the room, the softerthe sound can be and still be heard.

People can pinpoint the location ofa high-pitched sound more easily thanthat of a low-pitched sound. It is also

easier to follow a sound through spaceif it has some starts and stops (as wordshave). For the most effective sense ofmovement, the room should be as quietas possible, the frequency of the tone ashigh as possible, the sound line asbroken as possible and the sound as softas possible. But every piece and everyspace provides different reasons to usedifferent sounds. The intent or subjectof a piece and the circumstances of itsexhibition dictate the details. In a largeenough space, if I really spread out thespeakers, I can use a low and loudsound and still make it move.

Solving the acoustic problems re-lated to exhibition is a major factor inwhether or not a work is correctly per-ceived or even perceived at all. Thisproblem matters so much that it hasdictated the course of all my changes inphysical construction. My early pieceswere made of drywall because they wereintended to be like intrinsic parts of the

rooms. There were two or three experi-ences in which attempts to lower thereverberation ime of gallery spaces wereof dubious utility. Instead, I began to useincreasingly sound-absorbent materialsin the pieces themselves. For example,MourningPiece see Fig. 2) was made outof drywall but The Keeper see Fig. 3) wasmade out of insulation board [9].

The large scale of the sound draw-ings made them difficult to move. In-stallations had required a team of as-sistants. Since The Keeper, have made

all my pieces in units small enough forme to lift and move myself. Makingseparate parts of a piece easier to moveand store has resulted in a major con-ceptual transition from works that aresite-specific, integral parts of the galleryenvironment, to works that are com-plete in themselves.

Fig. 5. Resurrection, crylic on wood and insulation board and electronics, 60 x 90 x 60 in,1981. Installation view: California State University, Dominguez Hills, 1981. A trapezoidwas drawn out over 10 forms by the movement of a B-flat tone that traveled from point 1through point 5. The tone continued to move as long as a viewer remained in the surround-ing space.

positions.In 7he Pilgrim I concentrated fore-

most on the sound. First, with pencil onpaper, I drew out the overall sound


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To NextVCA nput

Fig. 6. Diagram of Michael Sabo's switching circuits. This system consists of a trigger(usually an ultrasonic sensor), a solid-state 555 timer, a ramp and volume control, a voltage-controlled amplifier and speaker amplifiers. Controls for all parameters are accessible.The speakers can operate sequentially, singly or in any combination with one another.

COLLABORATION-ASPECIAL WAY TO WORK

Certainly my work is my own. Much ofit does not include any special audiotechnology and therefore does not in-volve lengthy collaborations, but mydrawings made with moving soundpoints have been the result of a unionof efforts. In my first encounterswith electronic ideas and materials, en-counters made possible by a collabora-

tor, I experienced fear, wonder andawe-wanting this technology and in-venting needs for it.

When the first electronic systemmade for me was completed, it was clearthat the strange piece of machinery wasa work of art in its own right. The finalpiece in which it was used is analogousto a body designed and made mostly byme but with 'internal organs' made byanother person-a very unusual kind ofartwork. It was hard for me to under-stand how this could be my art. From

that moment, my own process in work-ing with other people, like the pro-cesses of other artists working with sci-entists or technicians, has been a matterof great interest and concern to me.

Mycollaboration with William Kings-bury, the builder of my first, second andthird electronic systems, was exciting,encouraging and rewarding. This part-nership also made the exhibition aspectof the work easier and pushed it aheadmore quickly; and because I am a shyand lonely person, I appreciated the

company. However, I was forced toshare my artistic thinking with another

person while it was still in its mostfragile, formative stages, adding risk tobasic conceptions. Six years of workingso closely exhausted both of our ener-gies. Somehow, my artistic visionbecame subordinate to the drive toinvent electronic systems that wouldgive me the same drawing conveniencewith sound as that of a pencil on paper.Valuable as such inventions have been,technical innovation could not be thedriving force for my work. Creating an

environment in which a difficult emo-tional issue could be experienced andunderstood was really the matter of im-portance. Concentrating too much onthe electronics of a piece was detrimen-tal to the art, and when this disappeared,a consummate work of electronic artis-try became empty technology.

I began a collaboration with anotherindividual on a very different basis thanthat with Kingsbury. Robert Reite, atalented electronics designer and anengineer for a radio station in Los An-geles, designed and built my fourthelectronic system. By the time we met,my knowledge and experience had ad-vanced sufficiently to enable me to askfor certain specific components. He wasnot a collaborator; he simply provided

what was requested and then steppedaway. This was incalculably beneficialfor me in learning to use the medium.Working alone was deeply satisfying-until another opportunity for exhib-iting came up. I found this frighteningwithout the enthusiasm of a partnerand not as rewarding or as generous tothe audience as such difficult workneeds to be. For these reasons, I begana collaboration with Michael Sabo, thebuilder of my fifth and current system(see Fig. 6). However, after two shows

together, the responsibilities of exhibi-tions have again tested the merits ofcollaboration.

CONCLUSION

The building of electronic systems fordrawing with sound has not been easy,though in this process it has been easyto get lost in human relationships.Sound has indeed provided a perform-ancelike, present-time quality to mywork, but I now see that my sound draw-ings remain as symbolic and allegoricalas any painting. Although I tried toescape from meaning into formalism,aesthetics and tangible reality, the funof layers of meaning, under the mini-malist veneer, emerged and won. I findmyself involved in a process of recogniz-ing and then constructing mysteries out

Fig. 7. Diagram of The Pilgrim. A sound line traveled from left to right through eightpastel-colored forms.

28 Wolff Drawing with Sound



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of emotions. These installation myster-ies come complete with clues and, be-cause they are artworks, with numerousand personal conclusions and answersabout their meaning and intent. A greatpart of myjoy as an artist has come fromthe many different ways in which theviewers get the points of my work.

I have taken electronics classes andwish for self-reliance, but I now wishequally hard for the kind of collabora-

tion that launched me into sound worksin the first place. I am still not able todesign my own circuits, so I must matchmy needs with a technician who seeks toshare this kind of expertise with an artist.

In my view, if a work is to be art andnot just decoration, it must heal a sickfeeling, mend what is broken, alleviatepain, identify purpose or open a crackof understanding in a wall of bewilder-ment. A work of art should serve as acharm against suffering. Drawing is myjoy because, by the act and by the result,

I can, for myself and for others, accom-plish some of the above sometimes.

References and Notes1. Bruce Nauman exhibited a piece that involveda recorded speaking voice in a show of installationworks at the Los Angeles Institute of ContemporaryArt in Los Angeles, September 1975. Three monthslater I saw a show called 'Sounds' at the NewportHarbor Art Museum, Newport Beach, CA, 8December 1975-11January 1976. It featured soundor sound-inclusive works by Michael Brewster,Michael McMillan, Carl Cheng and Eric Orr.

2. The High Priestess is one of two representationsof female divinity in the Tarot. One of her jobs isto keep and dispense instinctual knowledge. SeePaul Foster Case, The Tarot, A Key othe Wisdom ftheAges (Richmond, VA: Macoy, 1947).

3. In speaking of structure and formal structure, Iwas dealing in part with the issue of formalism,which commonly means representing the formalaspects of a subject irrespective of its subject con-

tent ; Mervyn Levy, ed., The PocketDictionary fArtTerms Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Society,1964) p. 49.

4. I wanted fully drawn lines such as Sol LeWittmight do with arcs and grids in ink on paper. SeeSol LeWitt, Arcs, rom Corners nd Sides, Circles ndGrids and All Their Combinations Bern, Switzerland:Kunsthalle Bern and Paul Bianchini, 1972).

5. Work with moving sound lines gave me room tomake use of familiar visual traditions and readysymbolism.

6. In the Tarot, the number 10 is linked with theidea of the ending of a cycle and implies the begin-ning of a new cycle. B-flat is the tone associated withthe number 10. See Case [2] p. 120.

7. In my current system, controls for all parametersare accessible, and the system can be used with anyaudio source. The volume and fade-in/out of anycontinuous sound can be directly controlled byhand. Speaker outlets can operate sequentially,singly or in any combination with one another.

8. The sound phrase was composed on a digital,programmable algorithm synthesizer, the YamahaDX21 set to the 'voices' channel. A Commodore 64computer with MIDI interface was used to hold thesound on a sequencer. The sound was recordedfrom the sequencer onto a conventional continu-ous cassette tape used with a tape player connectedto the electronic switching circuits.

9. Insulation board is lighter in weight and more

sound absorbent. It still looks like a wall but, mostexciting esthetically, it is like a thick, rigid piece ofpaper.

10. Michael Rettinger, Acoustics, Room Design andNoise (New York: Chemical Publishing Co., 1968)p. 91.

11. Alexander Efron, Exploring Sound (New York:Hayden, 1969) p. 19.

12. Rettinger [10].

13. Efron [11 ] pp. 22-23.

14. Case [2] pp. 2-3.

Glossarydifferential volume control-a single control thatvaries two different volume controls so that whenone is all the way on, the other is all the way off.When it is in the middle, both controls are onequally.

insulation of sound-the separation or attenuation

of air-borne sound between two points in space[10]. On reaching the boundary between twodifferent media, sound may be reflected, trans-mitted or absorbed [11 . I use sound board (insu-lation board) and fiberglass blanket to absorbsound in the directions I do not want it to travel. Byleaving certain openings, I allow the sound to travelfreely in one direction.

isolation of sound-the separation or attenuationof solid-borne sounds like those caused by me-chanical vibrations in solids [12].

reverberation-reverberations or multiple echoesare produced when a sound source is located be-

tween two parallel sound-reflecting surfaces,just asmultiple images occur when a light source is lo-cated between two parallel mirrors. Echoes arereflected sound heard apart from the originalsound. Reverberation time t is the time requiredfor the intensity of the first sound to decrease to/l.oow.ooof its original value [13]. If t is great, the

original sound will last a relatively long time andresult in an overlapping and masking of soundwaves, which are heard as a smeared, confusedversion of the sound. If t is small, the room seemsto be 'dead'; the sound has to be rather loud totravel very far.

spectral components-the spectrum of harmoniccomponents in a tone.

stepping system (switching system)-an electronic

system that controls the timing and output of agroup of loudspeakers.

Tarot-a body of 78 mythic images presented inthe form of a deck of cards. The deck is a pictorialtextbook derived from the mythic histories of theFar East, including India, the various Mediter-ranean cultures and the Celtic cultures of Europeand the British Isles. The cabalistic system of num-bers and letters serves as the basic structure inalmost all versions. Specific images have variedfrom one deck to another [ 14].

virtual sound source-a place that sounds as if itcontained the source of a tone when in fact thereis nothing there.

word study-my personal term, meaning a draw-ing with a phrase or sentence as the image. Themajority of my word studies consisted of 8 to 16words written or printed by hand on paper. Theyranged in size from 22 x 24 in to 36 x 40 in. Mostof them were drawn with ink or pencil over a palecolored, air-brush-sprayed surface, and they in-cluded lines or rules drawn with colored pencils.


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1575465drawing with sound.pdf

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