christi denton
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biography
c.v. english (pdf)
see also chaikana.org |
I really like the sound of computers, because they help me think... If I can't hear some sort of noise while I am studying, I can't work. The best way for me to get work done is to sit at the computer and type for awhile, and then go back to the work that needs to be done. I don't think that it's just the humming of the computer, but also the sound of the keys clicking. Maybe I could get the same amount of work done if I sat in a computer lab, and listened to the people around me work. There are two places that I can not study at all. One is my office, and one is the library. Both have florescent lights. Both sets of florescent lights squeal. I can get work done in both the places. I just can't remember what I have done afterwards. I feel panicked and rushed when working with high squealing noises. I think that I get a lot done because I am rushed. Noises that are too high bother me. I really hate piccolos, soprano saxes, piccolo trumpets, and violins They always sound way too sharp to me- and I have a pretty good ear. I can tune anything below the octave above middle C. If it's above that, it's sharp. I don't like hearing things that I think are out of tune, if I'm not expecting it. In tune? What does that mean? When I was younger I always wanted to have perfect pitch. What do people with perfect pitch hear that I don't hear? I don't really understand it anymore.. if you have perfect pitch, is your ear tuned to Equal Temperament? Just Intonation? Meantone? what? How can you switch back and forth? 440 A changes all the time, how do people with perfect pitch account for that? People who live in other areas of the world where another tuning, say, pentatonic tuning is the norm; do they have perfect pentatonic pitch? If things are silent, I get worried. I think that it has something to do with Disney movies as a kid. You know that if the birds aren't chirping, something bad is going to happen. If the normal everyday background noise that we always listen to isn't happening, what evil creature is stalking us? I have decided that, more than anything, I want to learn overtone singing.... Maybe part of the reason that I can't stand high notes is that they have fewer overtones. My teapot is broken. That is another sound that I really like. It isn't really a teapot, but one of those pots that you can heat water in- and then, when it's heated up, it turns off, and then, if you don't turn it off, when it cools back down, it turns back on. I rarely make a pot of tea with it, mostly, I just turn it on. I tend to leave on, when I go someplace... and then, at night, when I've climbed into bed, and am just about to drift off to sleep, it will turn back on, and it will hiss and bubble and gurgle, and make all the other noises that seem so quiet in the middle of the day, and so bizarre in the middle of the night. Right now, I am writing at my Aunt's house. There is a dog in the house, and it is barking. Loudly. My cousin's daughter is yelling, because she just got back from a camping trip, and my parents are trying to remove a tick from her head. My aunt is trying to quiet the dog, which is running around, and her dog collar is jangling. There is a movie playing in the background, and a CD player playing Barbra Streisand blaring in my cousin's room. It definitely sounds like any holiday that involves my family My freshman year, a friend and I were discussing composers, especially the composition majors at Mills. At first, we thought that we had it figured out. It seemed that we liked the female composers, and disliked the male composers. This seemed odd to both of us, and so I made quite an attempt to figure out what was the difference between male and female composers. I didn't discover anything. Last year (my sophomore year) I was in a class taught by Christian Wolff. Most of the composition majors at Mills were in it. He gave us an assignment to realize a score that was mostly lines and circles, and boxes, and had no directions. We divided up into several groups. One group brought in a lot of electronic stuff, took a long time to set up, and then played very loudly. The noises that they were producing seemed to have nothing to do with the score. The noises that they were making seemed to have nothing to do with each other. Nothing worked together. When they were done, they were very proud, and showed off their equipment, and explained how they made the various noises. Some people make music for other people to listen to, and some people make music for everyone to listen to. There is a difference with making a noise because it is interesting to you, and you want to share it, and making a noise so that people will think that you are cool for knowing how to make that noise. It was exactly the difference that my friend and I had seen my freshman year, I just hadn't been able to put it into words. I think now that there are quite a few music composition majors at Mills that fall into the category of making music not for themselves, but to show off. And those students happen to be mostly male. And those students seem to try to make a bigger deal out of themselves, so they are noticed more, even though they are worse composers. My mom is an artist. She majored in anatomy in college. I have a friend who is colorblind, and he sees red, as being gray. But how does he know that that's true? Maybe he sees gray as being red. And how do we know what colors are what? Is my perception of orange different than other people's perception of orange? I asked my mother. She said that I was right, people viewed colors differently. I have a crooked nose, and I can't really smell anything. So, I asked the doctor if different people's perception of smells were different... And he said that he thought that they were. So now I want to know... Do sounds sound different to different people? Not just because of ear training, but if someone else could hear exactly what we were hearing, would they hear something else? I have a fish tank. I can't sleep without it on My dorm is pretty quiet, but if someone is playing the piano in the entry way, it echoes up into my room. I think that I am the only person who can hear the piano- I am directly above it, and sometimes students play music in the middle of the night. I never go downstairs, and ask them to not play, because I figure that they need to. I don't think anyone else ever quiets them down. The sound of the piano is neat because it is not a good piano. It is awful. The strings are broken, and it is out of tune. Some notes echo forever, and other notes sound like there is something resting on the strings. The room that it is in also echoes- not just the piano, but also any sound made in the room, anyone moving, talking whispering, dropping something. I like echoes. When I was younger, I noticed that whenever my mother heard me practicing my instrument, she would ask me to do the dishes. That's probably why I quit playing as much. During the spring, there are frogs in the pond next to the music department. Every year, someone has a concert that has recordings of the frogs in the pond. Mills wants to move the Dance Department over to where the frog pond is. I will miss them. The wheelchair lift in one of the buildings on campus plays music, so that you know that it is approaching, and will get out of the way. It plays a short melody, over and over again. The melody is little 'bing' noises. You can hear it all over the building. I think someone needs to reprogram it to play something, anything else. I compose to get rid of stress. I listen to music to get rid of stress. If I am thinking about the way that things sound, I am not thinking about my math homework, how I am going to pay for college, or the paper that is due next week. Right now, I am listening to the heater instead of writing this paper. The heater is much less stressful. |
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