Performance Concept

The concept of my final performance is my first day at Holderness. I remember being 14 years old, driving north to school. It was my first experience at boarding school. I remember feeling extremely nervous, because the entire situation came very abruptly. I never planned on attending a boarding school, but after I won the USASA national championship, my mom and dad realized Holderness would be the best place for me to find success academically and athletically. This event is significant to me because not students throughout the country attend boarding school for all four years of high school. It is very common for students to repeat this freshmen or sophomore year at a boarding school, so they have matured a little before leaving home.

Every college student remembers the first at school. For many, it is very emotional because they are being dropped off by their parents, and won’t see them for awhile. However, my first day at college could not have been easier, because I had been going through this experience for four years. The transition was extremely easy. A few emotions I hope to instill on my audience is the excitement of their first day of college, but having that feeling at the age of 14. At the age of 14, I was much more nervous to be dropped off at school. I want to invoke the emotion of going to a new place, and not knowing anyone. Every student remembers meeting his or her roommate, but I was assigned a roommate I had previously known. I immediately lost the excitement of meeting a new person that I would be living with for the year.

I feel an effective way to instill these emotions on the audience is by having everyone close their eyes and really focus on that first day of college. I want everyone to feel that excitement and nervousness. Then I want to combine that emotion and confusion into a high school setting, of a 14 year old. I could also find sounds of students moving into the dorms to help instill the emotion of moving into a dorm. Overall, I want the audience to feel the nervousness and excitement of that first day of college, but adding the confusion and eagerness of the first day of high school.

Performance Concept

The experience I want to recreate for this final performance is my high school graduation. This event is significant to me because it represents an important milestone in my life, as well as on my path to college and becoming an adult.     

The senses I want to engage are auditory, visual, and tactile. To engage the auditory senses, I was thinking I could read a graduation speech that was a cut n' mix of another well-known graduation speech- Steve Jobs' 2005 speech at Stanford, or David Foster Wallace's 2005 speech at Kenyon College, for example- or a cut n' mix of some inspirational quotes. I could play "Pomp and Circumstance" quietly in the background, too. I was also thinking I could play a slideshow of pictures from my own graduation, in order to engage the visual senses. Finally, to engage the tactile senses, I want to recreate a mock graduation ceremony, where I would have the class line up and come to the podium. I could hand each of them a flower or a fake diploma, which, when everyone had gone through the line, they could all throw up in the air like graduation caps to symbolize their own "graduation." The aspect of the performance I want to focus on the most, as well as what I most want the audience to get out of this, is the significance of the graduation ceremony as an important milestone in every young person's life. I also want to make the performance fun, as a sort of celebration, so to balance the two out, I thought that if I made the speech and ceremony serious, I could pass out cake- which would also incorporate the sense of taste- for everyone to eat at the end.

In terms of the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of each, I think one downside to me giving a "graduation speech" is that it might get a little boring for the audience. In order to keep the audience engaged and alert, I should try to keep it short, sweet, and to-the-point, so probably around 2 1/2 minutes or under, since I also need time for the graduation "ceremony." For the slideshow of pictures from my own graduation in the background, I think it'd be a kind of cool visual for looking back on where I was then compared to where I am now, and it might inspire the audience to do some reflecting on their own graduation. A downside to this, though, would be that the added visual element would detract from the message I'm trying to get across in my speech. I think what would really help my audience to get the most out of this performance and what would help truly recreate the experience would be the mock graduation ceremony. I think it could be kind of fun in a nostalgic way for everybody, plus it would help liven up the performance so it's not just me standing up there and talking. The only drawback would be that it might put me over the time limit for my performance, but if I keep the speech short, or maybe cut it out entirely and just do the ceremony, it should work. Finally, I really like the cake at the end, just as another way to make my performance feel more like an actual graduation and a celebration, but again, time might be an issue, and I wouldn't want people to be so distracted by eating the cake that they would forget the real point and message behind my performance, or not pay attention to the next one! 

Analyze

       The first video is an argument between my mum and me. Comparing to my mum in this case, I hold my voice lower. I think it’s because I’m the one who know this issue about and tried to persuade someone, keep my voice lower will help me to hold my authority. My voice pitch is around to 60, but my mum is around 70. I guess it’s because my mum don’t understand my college well. The most interesting thing is when I think I was out of control a little bit, but my voice is still stay in the same pitch but much louder. And my voice is much louder than my mum actually, my loudness is around -9 to -16, but my mum just stay under -13. I think it’s still because of the confidence. I strongly believe in my opinion, however my mum don’t quite understand those staff of the college. Another reason is my mum was always asking questions in this case, that makes her voice pitch is much higher than usual.

       Another one is I was chatting with my friends in his apartment. It seems like my voice is going even lower than I talked to my mum. My voice was staying around 58. And the loudness is lower than the first one and even the noisiness is much lower. I think maybe is just a normal conversation with my friends and it’s not that important to me. However the arguing with my mum will affect my next quarter so it’s important. And the pitch, loudness, and noisiness are much higher.

voice recognition

I could not get my recording to convert to a wave file and work with the program but when listening to my two different recording I could hear a difference in my voice. My first recording was talking to my sister. In this recording my voice went up and down more then in my second recording which was of my presentation for a different class. My pitch was higher when talking to my sister then during the presentation. I think because I was more excited to talk to my sister then reading a presentation in front of a class. Also for the presentation I was probably talking with a lower voice to be able to talk louder in front of the class and sound more authoritative and with my sister I was more animated. 

In class write up

I am comparing my conversation with a woman at the museum with my friend’s conversation with a friend of ours (Elena). My conversation was with a woman working at the front desk of the Museum of Contemporary Art. The context of my conversation with the woman at the museum was basically paying the entrance fee to get into the museum; in addition she gave me information on other services they offered (price of ticket, directions, exhibits open, etc.). The context of Abby’s conversation with her friend (Elena) was about a project. Abby was explaining a project to Elena (recording our voices for this assignment). Elena simply responds to this and asks Abby questions, meanwhile Elena doesn’t know that Abby is recording their conversation.

In the conversation with the woman at the front desk of the museum, my average pitch of my voice was 60.21 and average loudness was -25.34. Abby’s average pitch was 64.23 and average loudness -17.02. This conversation is different from Abby’s conversation with her friend because I was talking to someone I had never met before so my voice was much higher than it usually is. However, Abby’s voice was much lower than it usually is because she was explaining a project and answering questions (more dominant role in the conversation).  Her conversation was a little more serious than mine, which may have been the cause of her voice to be lower.

The average pitch of the woman at the front desk was 62.31 and her average loudness was -20.33. This may have been because I was closer to the microphone compared to the employee. Her pitch stayed pretty much the same throughout the conversation because she deals with talking to new people everyday so she was very comfortable. The employee had a more submissive role in the conversation, she had more authority and experience talking to people coming to the museum everyday. The average pitch of the Abby’s friend (Elena) was 62.20 and her average loudness was -15.23. This may be because they are close friends and the topic of the conversation. Her average loudness might be low due to the fact that the microphone was closer to Abby compared to Elena. 

Voice Analysis

I analyzed talking to my close friend Diana and both of our pitches were averaged at 63. To me this says that we view each other as equals and that there was no one who was showing authority over one another. However, the conversation that we were having was about a topic that did not involve an authoritative position. We were talking about our RA’s name and how we kept forgetting his name at the beginning of the year. Our pitches might have been similar, but the noisiness and loudness shifted greatly. When Diana and I spoke about figuring out Julian’s real name we would kind of scream in happiness (our loudest was -18.9), I think we scream laughing because we are hilarious… So our volume did differ greatly, thus this made our noisiness vary the lowest was .765 and our highest was .811.

The second voice analysis I did was ordering food.  When I first ordered my food I think I was a little uncertain, so my voice was lower at 61, then as I continued to order my voice became a little bit higher at 65, I think this occurred because I was trying to sound friendly and nice, because after all I was asking him to make me food. The loudness of my voice and the waiters voice were even throughout the exchange of conversation, the only time the loudness changed was when I thanked him, I think I did this because it gave me the last and FINAL word, ending the conversation.

sound

My first sound is talk to my friend about the final week and what he will do in the winter vacation. The pitch at first is low like 59 and than goes up to 63, and the highest pitch comes to 104. I think it is because at first we talked bout the final exam, and we really feel tired about it, so it does not bring us a lot of interest, however, when the topic change to the travel, pitch goes up. The loud is about -23 which is really low, because of the microphone is not really good. The noisiness is about 0.45, which I think it is because we do not always have the change in pitch. It is kind of stable.
Another sound is about my friend who talk to his mom. the pitch is also near 63, the pitch of my friend is like 59 but his mom's is about 68 sometime goes to 70. I think that do not only means the pitch of women's is higher than men's, however, his mom have more power in the talk. There is an interesting thing that once my friend is argue with his mom, the loudness goes up but the pitch does not move that much, I think he  has a really low voice. The loudness is about -14, I think it is because my friend really try to control his voice. So because he try to control himself, the noisiness is 0.53 which I think it is stable.

Conversation Analysis

I noticed the context of my two conversations were quite different in the sense that with one I lead the conversation. While in the other conversation I found myself doing more listening with one word remarks. Just by listening to the raw recording I noticed that my tone of voice differed across the two conversations. The first person I recorded was my dad where I did more listening to his recent story and the overall tone stayed very calm and low, with the exception of some laughter. This resulted in my voice quickly rising and then suddenly lowering. With the second conversation involving my roommate I had to lead the conversation and ask questions in which I would follow a majority of time with laughter. This accounted for the higher pitch in my voice analysis. I think it would be interesting to analyze my voice when it comes to talking to more of a stranger rather than people I know, like my dad and roommate.

Both of my conversations took place on the premises of Deli Zone, Denver's home for legendary New-York subs; however, the roles I assumed in each differ greatly.  In one, I was speaking to a customer, taking his order, exchanging pleasantries;  In the other, I was on a break, shooting-the-proverbial-shit with a coworker.  I could tell, without even consulting the numbers, I equipped a lower pitch when talking to the customers than when I spoke to by buddy.  In fact, the average pitches differed by nearly two and one half levels.  It was hard to get levels on the customer's voice, considering my placement-of-my-recording-device-close-enough-to-capture-the-exchange-yet-hidden-enough-to-avoid-detection-by-the-hands-of-my-ignorant-customer, but my coworker, during our conversation used a voice with pitch levels analogous to mine (he was also singing-at-times, which reflected in the data).  Perhaps we were mimicking each other with our higher pitches–I do not know who began the trend.  Also worth noting, the conversation was composed of many questions, explanations, and realizations, which lend to higher pitch levels.  I think the loudness numbers are somewhat unreliable, considering the unequal proximity of the microphone to each of the speakers sound-hole.  I was trying to seem trustworthy to the customer by using a "stronger" (deeper) voice.  I had no need to prove anything to my comrade, so I used a more comfortable, natural, open voice.

Voice Analysis

           The first conversation is with my so called adversary and we talked about playing the NHL video game on Xbox and how i was beating him repeatedly with my superior ability. We also went ton to discuss day light savings briefly and what i was recording this about and for. The second conversation is with my girlfriend where we just speak about our days and class. The average pitch for the first conversation is 62.77 in pitch. The average pitch of the second conversation was 61.79 a little less then the first.  The average pitch of the other persons voice for the first one was 59.02 and he spoke lower then me at most times. The average pitch for the others persons voice was 60.03 and she spoke lower then me except when we spoke about my classes and my interest towards them. I tended to be louder in both conversations while they average a 27.9 loudness. 

          The subjective quartiles that i notice is that i i tend to lead the conversations and is louder and more projecting at points and sometimes they get higher then me depending on the topic of conversation and what is said at the time and what it was regarding. Such as in the first conversation when we talked about playing NHL and how i was up his voice spiked in rebuttal towards my comments. I tended to approach the pitch and loudness of the other person depending on what the conversation lead too. at points the other voice took the opposing role but never out of me feeling un dominate or not ahead in the conversation. The conversations were good, one was more cal my toned then the others. Depending who leads the conversation. The conversations weren’t in any weird or conflicting agreements and it went smoothly and there were higher points depending who was talking and what was being discussed. 

In-Class Write Up: Voice Analysis

In-Class Write Up

I will be comparing my conversation with my peer (my roommate, Elena) and Carly’s conversation with the woman at the museum. The context of my conversation with Elena is simply myself explaining this project (aka having to record our conversation) and her responding and asking questions (she did not know that I was recording). The context of Carly’s conversation with the museum woman was us, (Carly and I) purchasing our tickets to the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art. She asks for change, directions, etc.

The average pitch and loudness of my voice in my conversation with Elena was around 64.23 and the average loudness was -17.02. Whereas Elena’s average pitch was 62.20 and her average loudness was -15.23.

The average pitch and loudness of Carly’s voice in her conversation with the Museum woman was an average pitch of 61.75 and an average loudness -27.34. Whereas the lady at the museum, her average pitch was 62.12 and her average loudness was -20.33.

After taking a moment to listen to the subjective qualities I noticed that when after laughing or something comical occurs in the conversation I can audibly hear a higher pitch/tone in both people’s voice in the conversation (both with superior and peer). Also, something to consider is that naturally the recordings make the person who is recordings (i.e. Carly or I) voice louder because they’re closer to the microphone. It moments of uncertainty or proposing a question, the pitch of the voice seems to increase and loudness of the voice seems to decrease (This is again apparent in both).

I think my voice in the conversation with Elena took a more dominant role solely because of the context of the conversation. I was explaining the content of MY assignment so I was the one more knowledgeable and she was the one asking me questions. Whereas in Carly’s conversation with the museum lady (who was older) she possessed more of a submissive role, this probably is because the woman was of more authority/was more knowledgeable about the museum/paying methods/etc.

Carlos In Class Review

Listening to my recordings, the conversations of both of them were with both of my roommates. However, listening to them, I feel like with one of them I felt like I could play with one of them more than the other one. I feel like that with Griffin, once I heard him opening the door, my voice automatically went up because I was exited that he was in the room. I felt this way because I feel like I can talk to him more about random stuff, where I am joking around and he's joking around with me and were just having a good time. My other roommate, Nathan, I feel as if by listening to the recording, I was more assertive to the way he was talking to me. It felt as if he was talking to me about serious issues that he had going on in the day, and I felt as if this was the time for me to listen rather than just talk all over him and about him. The conversation with him sounded as if I felt that he was looking up to me in a way where I had to be quiet and really open my ears to just listen to him. Both of them are awesome roommates but there is a time to listen and a time to talk, and that definitely can be heard and distinguished through the recording.

In-class write-up: Voice Analysis

In the first conversation, three friends (Lauren, her roommate, and another friend) are being silly and just goofing around, talking in fake British accents, etc. One of the subjective qualities I noticed about the first conversation was that Lauren's voice in particular has a natural, sort of up and down rhythm. There was also a lot of laughter interspersing the conversation. Between the three people talking, they seemed to mimic each other's volume, although each person's pitch differed, as two of the people were girls, and one was a boy. Looking at the pitch graph on the analyzer, the pitch had a  fairly even rhythm  throughout the conversation, although it did rise in some places, too, such as when the friends got excited about something and spoke louder. Although it was hard to discern the pitch of each individual, as they were all talking at the same time and interrupting each other, the average pitch of the conversation was between 63-65. The overall loudness of the conversation stayed pretty consistent throughout, although it did rise a bit as the conversation progressed, spiking at one point when the friends were shouting.

 In the second conversation, Lauren is asking for help on her Chemistry homework at the library.  Lauren used a lot of interjections in the conversation, particularly "Oh!," and every time she did that, her voice rose in pitch and loudness. Lauren's average pitch was 65, and her loudness was at -18. The professor's average pitch was 64, and his loudness was -23. Lauren's voice also fluctuated more as she spoke, while the professor had a  more monotone voice. This difference in loudness illustrates a key gender difference in that males typically have deeper voices than females.

As we can see in these two conversations, voice as a performance tool changes to fit the context of each situation. In a more formal, academic setting, Lauren used a different voice-pitch and loudness- than she did in a more relaxed, informal setting. The context of the conversation itself was shaped by the setting of the conversation, too. A more serious, academic setting calls for a similar use of vocals; you wouldn't shout or laugh in the library, for example. Similarly, among friends in a relaxed setting such as a dorm room, you are comfortable to use a fuller range of vocals to more clearly and freely express yourself to your friends.

While drunk the pitch of the man was far greater. The average pitch was near 65-66 while intoxicated. He swore a lot more and allowed reason to prevail not feeling. Not only was the pitch greater the average loudness was around -17,-18. My average pitch during the conversation while my friend was drunk was around 63.01; as well as an average volume of -18 all the way up to -22. Even though I recorded a larger volume amount than my friend I still believe he was louder. The low frequency that my voice puts off makes programs like this raise the volume because of the wavelength of the sound waves my voice makes. The average pitch of my friend when he was sober was 62-64, with a loudness of 17.02. Even thought the program said the volume was the same in both conversations, I still believe he was louder. He was far claimer when he was sober and was not as repetitive in the morning compared to when he was drunk. My pitch was much higher the morning after compared to the night before.