Same Song - Different Sound

I love this video by "the Wikisinger" showing one song sung in a variety of different spaces.  It underscores the immense effect that architecture has on shaping sound and experience.

"With “no artificial reverb added,” Müllner demonstrates how much environment contributes to the quality of what we hear with a montage of sound and video clips from several—very aesthetically pleasing—locations. In each place, Müllner sings the same strange song: in a tunnel, an attic, a field before an oil derricks, the nave of a cathedral, and an anechoic chamber—which resembles the interior of an alien spacecraft and produces no reflections whatsoever. Sometimes the effect is subtle, inviting you to lean in and listen more closely; sometimes it’s outsized and operatic."  (July 17th, 2015 on OpenCulture.com)

Read the whole article here: http://www.openculture.com/2015/07/the-same-song-sung-in-15-places.html

Watch the video here: 
the Wikisinger from Touché Videoproduktion on Vimeo.

Reminds me of the piece I recorded in 2011 called MBTA Journey.  Listen here:

Deafness and Spatial Experience

Emergencies written by Charlotte Vetter Gulick. (Book 2 of The Gulick Hygiene Series)
Original copyright 1909 by Luther H. Gulick, published by Ginn & Company.

For a while now I have been interested in the impact of blindness on one’s experience of space. Stemming from that, I have lately been thinking about the way in which someone who is deaf experiences the world and navigates their environment. I would be interested to know more about how the removal of aural information affects the perception of space, and whether there is a significant impact at all considering the visual sense is still intact. As is expected, each sense has its own limitations, however I would imagine that a consequence of deafness is that it brings awareness specifically to the limitations of vision and is therefore invaluable to investigate.

Of course the visual field is limited in scope as a result of our eyes residing on one side of our heads. Because we can’t see behind us, the perceptible environment is only that which is facing us. This is one area in which our auditory sense has an advantage. As John Hull points out,

“The view looking that way is quite different from the view looking this way. It is not like that with sound. New noises do not come to my attention as I turn my head around....Perhaps there is some slight shading of quality, but the acoustic world is mainly independent of my movement.” (pg 83, Touching the Rock)

Considering one of the main limitations of the visual sense is that it does not provide information regarding the urgency and proximity of motion as directly as the auditory sense could, it seems there would be a certain stillness to space when experienced without the sounds of activity and action that take place within a given environment. Again, speaking from the perspective of being blind, John Hull observes,

“The intermittent nature of the acoustic world is one of its most striking features. In contrast, the perceived world is stable and continuous” (pg 83, Touching the Rock)