Volume 37, September 2015, Pages 73–89
Abstract
Given
the increased attention to working with sound in multimodal and
multimedia compositions, this essay summarizes current pedagogical
research and scholarly conversations and then argues for more attention
to the work of Canadian pianist and recording artist Glenn Gould, who
was amongst the foremost artists of his time in critically thinking
about and productively expanding the possibilities of sound recording
and manipulation. Gould's own voice is a key feature of many of his
recordings, and his brilliant radio documentaries serve as challenging
models for what contemporary compositionists might do with sound and
voice in the teaching of multimodal composing. Indeed, Gould anticipated
so much contemporary media production, particularly a “do-it-yourself”
aesthetic, from which we can still learn. Moreover, as Gould was
primarily a musician and sound artist, his insights into and practice
with working with sound and voice treat both sound and voice as their
own material media; they are not, for Gould, metaphors and stand-ins for
textual meaning making and, as such, his work might inform a multimodal
compositional pedagogy that takes seriously the particular affordances
of sound and voice. Attention to such work might help us consider what
can be done with sound and voice in the production of multimedia “texts”
where sound and voice act beyond the textual—not just as metaphors for
textual meaning making, but as materialities with their own particular
rhetorical and affective affordances and dimensions.
Keywords
- Multimodality;
- Sound;
- Sound recording;
- Sound and Materiality;
- Glenn Gould;
- Radio documentary;
- Sound essay
Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Jonathan Alexander
is Professor of English at the University of California, Irvine, where
he has served as Campus Writing Coordinator, director of the Center for
Excellence in Writing & Communication, and chair of the Department
of Gender and Sexuality Studies.
