Ears Have Walls by Steven Connor Essay

Writer and composer, Aaron Copland, in his book, “How We Listen,” divides listening into three planes: the sensuous, the expressive and the sheerly musical. Copland argues throughout the work that “[listeners] can deepen [their] understanding of music only by being a more conscious and aware listener.” (Copland, 15) Copland’s strategy of breaking the text up with the three planes of listening helps the reader understand his message in a more complete way.

In the variety of occasions we tend to listen in a different way and process the sounds that reach us in a different manner. Our main purpose can be to obtain information, engage in a conversation, or just enjoy the sounds we hear (Types of Listening). In the book ‘In Silence: Lectures and Writings’ John Cage argues that we hear mostly noise, which disturbs us when we ignore it and we find it fascinating if we listen to it. Also according to Cage when we make music we just organize the sound, combining different noises from the surroundings, manipulating their frequencies and creating rhythms. (Cage, J. 1961)

The Smallest Choice can have the Biggest Consequences: A New Critical Analysis of A Sound

Sensory appeals to sound and vision are used to engage the reader’s senses and emphasize the tones throughout the story. One interesting and prevalent sensory appeal used is the element of sound. Firstly, the sensory appeal to sound is evident in Part One when the character Winston questions the Party’s truthfulness.

I thought that Silent Ears, Silent Heart was an excellent book. It really gave you a full prospective of what a family and a person has to go through living a life without being able to hear sound it also helps you realize what someone has to go through that can’t hear what is going on around them. The book starts off with a couple named the Clines there’s Mr. Cline who is Jack who runs his own multimillion dollar business in a glass production. His dream is to have his son at his side and follow in his footsteps and run the family business someday. Then there’s Mrs. Cline who is Margret who is a stay at home wife that is waiting the arrival of their child.

Before entering the exhibition the viewer is introduced to an energetic video montage of all the works with a sound created by Kevin J. Simon. This fast pace hip-hop sounding song at first seems very out of place from the work, but after listening to it for some time you do hear

Rather than a musical composition or visual installation, the work 4’33’’ is a concept in art history. Therefore, I think there is no need to separate music and visual art. To be honest, 4’33’’ is the silence within 4’33’’ that presents ideas to the audience. Cage

sound, and even escape from our blue marble, to head for the unknowns of the

Along with background music, sound effects play more of a role on the way we feel than many moviegoers think, and "although the function of sound effects is primarily atmospheric, they can also be precise sources of meaning in film" (Giannetti, 225). When the

Mounted sculptures sat as still as stone atop the shiny wooden floors, while self-portraits and clay figures decorated the tall, white walls of the gallery. Walk around for a bit and you would catch a mother’s stern warning to her child to absolutely not touch anything (though the large, partitioned room did resemble a modern-day cave of wonders). And among

“The most exciting moment is the moment when I add the sound… At this moment, I tremble.” (Akira Kurosawa) Sound is arguably the most important concept in cinema studies, being there ever since the beginnings. It can radically change the way a motion picture is looked at and it can render what the director may sometimes find hard to depict using only his camera. Looking upon silent cinema one discovers an era which wasn’t at all silent, but rich in sound of different forms, from the simple narration of the images shown on screen, accompanied by a piano, to the complex score later composed specifically for that film. An example of that complex score is shown in Sunrise, a film by F.W. Murnau, which lies at the border between silent cinema and sound cinema. Considered to be one of the first films with an actual score, Sunrise is a great example of the multitude of dimensions and effects sound can have.

The heavy sounds of an epic orchestral piece vibrated through the tiny speakers before I could stop them. The sudden blast had almost caused an emotional meltdown, my sensitive hearing not quite accustomed to the barrage, but I fought through the cacophonous pain and found Good Vibrations.

Another aspect of sound in this film was how it affected the story. By using sound dramatically in certain parts and not using it at all in other parts, sound gave this story an entity of its own. For example, during long stretches of film with mostly dialogue, there was no music played in the background, only a phone ringing in the distance, or the men's voices during their deliberation. These long silences also took place during editing shots of the town and images that surrounded this German city. This dramatic difference in sound was a revelation of how mood can be made by images and sound put together to make an incredible component.

It is within this framework that I consider important to study the way in which sound is

converts sound waves in the air, to nerve impulses which are sent to the brain,