Comparative Media Listening Analysis

Assignment 2: Comparative Media Listening Analysis

Suggested length: about 4 pages (1000 words)

Please provide a bibliography for all non-course materials you cite. If you cite course readings, please just provide page numbers in parentheses.

You will choose a song (Stairway to Heaven) of particular significance to you, and then listen to the music on at least two different playback devices (Vinyl v.s any digital playback device of your choice e.g mp3, loudspeakers, subwoofers etc…)

Write a comparative analytical account of your listening experience. What changes do you notice in the music, in the media/format and in the listening spaces as you juxtapose your different listening experiences?

Please refer to ideas and concepts from at least two relevant courses readings in the context of your analysis. Think about how questions of format and playback shape how you listen.

The Helmreich and Henriques pieces are helpful to get an overall orientation to the ways that sound, technology and place all coalescence into a mediated, embodied experience of audio immersion. Blue V and Bull are helpful, too, in terms of thinking through the remediating aspects of mobile listening devices.

Focus on how you pay attention to music differently when you hear it in on different platforms, formats, or technologies? How do your expectations as a listener change? How does your attention change? How finely and closely can you listen? How does what you heard before and what comes after affect how you listen “now” on a particular playback technology? The Katz, Gibson and Corbett readings are most helpful here

Most of your work should be focused on describing and analyzing your listening experiences. What instruments, sounds, samples and effects do you hear in the piece? What kinds of effects do they have on you? What do you associate with the music? What is the vibe, mood or affect? How does your musical taste (and your preference for certain genres) shape how you listen? And finally, how can you use your listening analysis to make comparative claims about how different sound media work

You will be assessed on:
1) your careful descriptive, detailed and analytical accounts on your listening experiences
2) your ability to use the comparative frame to suggest an original conclusion about sound, media, technology and place
3) your clear and accurate connection relevant course readings in the piece

please note that at least two of the course readings attached must be used, although the more the better (so long as the sources are relevant to the analysis being made.

The most important thing is that all the sources are read diligently (research is the most important aspect of this assignment).

Aside from the attached readings, I will be emailing an additional resource titled Vinyl Freak (as it is too large). It is imperative that this source, alongside the two links seen below, are used (in addition to at least two of the formally attached readings) in the analysis as they are extremely relevant to the main argument of the paper.

Differences between analog and digital recordings:

https://www.adorama.com/alc/analog-vs-digital-audio/#:~:text=Digital%20recordings%20tend%20to%20have,bit%20depth%20of%20the%20recording.&text=Analog%20sound%20recordings%20are%20much,recordings%20onto%20vinyl%20or%20tapes.
(make sure to highlight all of the aspects mentioned in this article)

Why analog can sound better than digital:

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/which-sounds-better-analog-or-digital-music/
(take this account of vinyl experience with song by The Beatles, replace with stairway of heaven instead and use as reference for why stairway to heaven would sound better on vinyl)

once again the more sources used the better, but try npt tp get into too much detail so as to fit in as many sources as needed within the ~1000 word limit (+/- 250 words)