blending different sounds into one perception

[AccuTron]

Something happened that I found amusing and mildly intriguing.  It reminded me of something similar from a couple of years ago, both while online gaming.

 

Tonight I had Pandora playing while online multiplayer shooter gaming.  (UberStrike on Steam.)  There is a modern gatling gun type which has a unique continual sound.  It was on my team, I could hear its intermittent bursts of fire someplace down the cyber-hallway, and I was in a furious melee which demanded my close attention.

 

Pandora had been playing "Summer In The City" by Lovin' Spoonful.  At one break in the vocals, city sound effects are brought in, including a jackhammer.  The jackhammer and the gatling gun sound almost identical.

 

With my attention focused close in, the music and something down the game hall became peripheral.  My ears blended the sounds, and for a few moments, I had a vague mental image of someone shooting a cyber jackhammer down the hallway.  In a few more moments, I chuckled to realize what had happened.

 

 

Some time ago, I was in a good furious game, where avatars flung about like jackals crossed with hummingbirds, chased by fiery rockets.  I had FireSign Theater playing background.  

 

As I jumped up to a high cyber-tower, I looked upwards to see an attractive cyber sky, dark of night, filled with stars and celestial wonder.  

 

At that moment, the FireSign recording sent a loud group of jets across my real world room in a low altitude audio flyby, like at a US Memorial Day event.  I instinctively looked for those 1960's vinyl jets in that 2010's imaginary sky.  A moment later I realized what I'd done, amused.

 

 

You ever do anything like that?

[luxfelix]

Indeed, I am a sound designer. 

 

Among the many uses of sounds, guiding one's perception is a key part of storytelling in games/animations/films (etc.).

[AccuTron]

A sound designer?  (He writes as "An American In Paris" blares loudly in the room.)  

Hm.  Hmmm.  Hmm, hmm, hmm.  (I'm aware of how "soundy" pure text can be.)

 

Many reactions at once, plus one that arrived later.

 

I described above random events which blurred together perfectly.  You blend by intent.  Those things I described, do they remind you of any particular sound structures that you've made?

 

There is a comic video clip which I love:  TheTreatyOfWestphalia  History buffs will like it, and so will everyone else.  I also saw a clip of the outtakes of the making of this video.  It made me realize how much refinement went into timing, inflection, etc.  Verbal sound editing.  This one has my personal five stars for applied talent.

 

 

 

I made a note to write that earlier today, just now getting around to it.  In between, I had a superb bicycle ride.  Great workout with breaks and food, perfect sky, mountains, felt really really good getting home.  

 

In that state of biological perfection, I entered a happy state of scientific wonder, and following the footsteps of Newton, Einstein, and Darwin (or perhaps some of their more distant cousins), had An Insight.

 

I first thought of it as a new topic, but aha, it has to do with sound, so here it is:

 

The mostly joke, but not entirely, proposal is that "France will always tend toward socialism because of it's use of it's own language."

 

I love language.  YouTube with a language that I don't understand, no subtitles, is bliss.  Hungarian on YouTube is good.  Russian.  Almost any British.  As an aside, what languages do you think are "cool languages"?

 

French is cool.  One notable thing about French that I don't think other languages do as wantonly -- given my limited knowledge -- is the non-pronounciation of letters in a word.  In French it's often the trailing letters.  An average French paragraph, if spoken, doesn't use many of the letters that are printed.  What percentage?  10, 20, 25%?

 

That's Socialism.  The letters don't do any work, but get credit for showing up anyway.  I think it's throughout the language, plus or minus a region.  Does that transfer into other types of thinking?

 

Of course, National Socialism was really keen on syllables, my theory seemingly going down in flames reich there.  But is there a sliver of truth to it?  Does speaking a language like that reflect a mental aspect?

 

I'm reminded of the Immortals' language in the movie Zardoz.  This futuristically refined language was used by people, who as immortals, already knew each other, and the nuance of everything else, so well, that the spoken language was down to a fraction of the sounds we now use.  Like a mumble.

[luxfelix]

I have a sneaking suspicion that you are an avid reader and would enjoy "Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages" by Guy Deutscher [link] which delves into the very topic of linguistic thought-pattern influence. 

 

I had an opportunity to attend a talk by the creator of the Dothraki language for Game of Thrones, David J. Peterson, and found his description of his method for constructing languages a great companion to Deutscher's book.

 

The process of recording Foley, performing sounds to picture with props, seems to fit that description. In manipulating props for an animated short, I was able to create a non-literal yet descriptive sound for one of the main characters.