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Description
Sound is all around us, but we give little thought to its invisible influence. Dr. Mack Hagood explores the world of sound studies with the world's most amazing sound scholars, sound artists, and acoustic ecologists.
How are noise-cancelling headphones changing social life? What did silent films sound like? Is listening to audiobooks really reading? How did computers learn to speak? How do race, gender, and disability shape our listening? What do live musicians actually hear in those in-ear monitors? Why does your office sound so bad? What are Sound Art and Radio Art? How do historians study the sounds of the past? Can we enter the sonic perspective of animals?
We've broken down Yoko Ono's scream, John Cage's silence, Houston hip hop, Iranian noise music, the politics of EDM, and audio ink blot tests for blind people. Phantom Power is the podcast that both newcomers and experts in sound studies, sound art, and acoustic ecology listen to--combining intellectual rigor and great audio.
How are noise-cancelling headphones changing social life? What did silent films sound like? Is listening to audiobooks really reading? How did computers learn to speak? How do race, gender, and disability shape our listening? What do live musicians actually hear in those in-ear monitors? Why does your office sound so bad? What are Sound Art and Radio Art? How do historians study the sounds of the past? Can we enter the sonic perspective of animals?
We've broken down Yoko Ono's scream, John Cage's silence, Houston hip hop, Iranian noise music, the politics of EDM, and audio ink blot tests for blind people. Phantom Power is the podcast that both newcomers and experts in sound studies, sound art, and acoustic ecology listen to--combining intellectual rigor and great audio.
65 Episodes
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1Today we discuss how narrative podcasts work, the role they’ve played in American culture and how they’ve shaped our understanding of podcasting as a genre and an industry. Neil Verma’s new book, Narrative Podcasting in an Age of Obsession, offers a … Continue reading →
The post Podcasting’s Obsession with Obsession (Neil Verma) appeared first on Phantom Power.
A new podcast called Lowlines takes us to a New Orleans Second Line, the brass band tradition that comes out of Black funeral processions and social clubs and is known not only for the power of the music but for amazing dancing known as footwork. Continue reading →
The post Second Line: Footwork in New Orleans (Lowlines by Petra Barran) appeared first on Phantom Power.
Dr. Michael Heller examines sonic experiences that go “beyond listening.” Moments when sound overpowers us. When sound is sensed more in our bodies than in our ears. When sound engages in crosstalk with our other senses. Or when it affects us by being inaudible. Continue reading →
The post Beyond Listening: The Hidden Ways Sound Affects Us (Michael Heller) appeared first on Phantom Power.
Feminist sound scholar and musician Marie Thompson is a theorist of noise. She has also been one of the key thinkers in integrating the study of sound with the study of affect. Continue reading →
The post Noise and Affect Theory (Marie Thompson) appeared first on Phantom Power.
Learn how computers learned to speak with computer historian Benjamin Lindquist. Ben tells the the fascinating backstory to HAL 9000 and the strange the analog history of digital computing. Continue reading →
The post From HAL to SIRI: How Computers Learned to Speak (Benjamin Lindquist) appeared first on Phantom Power.
Jane Von Mehren, Senior Partner at Aevitas Creative Management and a former Senior Vice President at Random House, explains how to find a literary agent, how to write a query letter to an agent, and how to craft a book proposal that your agent can shop to publishers. Continue reading →
The post Publishing for Nonfiction Authors (Jane Von Mehren) appeared first on Phantom Power.
Ever wonder who's to blame for the noise and distraction of the open office? Architectural historian Joseph L. Clarke has answers! Theories of acoustic communication accidentally inspired the sonic disaster of the open plan. Continue reading →
The post Noise and Information in the Office (Joseph L. Clarke) appeared first on Phantom Power.
Today we bring you a master class in audiobook narration and acting with acclaimed actor, casting director, audiobook narrator and audiobook director, Robin Miles. Beyond technique, we talk about the audiobook industry and the politics of vocal representation. Continue reading →
The post Robin Miles: Talking Books appeared first on Phantom Power.
Sound and radio scholar Carolyn Birdsall discusses her award-winning book Nazi Soundscapes (AUP, 2012) and her new book, Radiophilia (Bloomsbury, 2023). Continue reading →
The post Radiophilia (Carolyn Birdsall) appeared first on Phantom Power.
Today we share a podcast episode on the visual epistemology of astronomy by our friends at The World According to Sound. What kind of knowledge do we really gain when we look at images from space? Continue reading →
The post Cosmic Visions in Sound appeared first on Phantom Power.
Tinnitus can be annoying, for sure--and for some people it's much worse than annoying--but it also has a lot to say of interest, if we're willing to listen: "Tinnitus has been my guide in sound studies, my Virgil, leading me through a shadow world of sound. It's taught me how high the stakes can be when it comes to the perception and control of sound and it's given me new ways to think about how and why we use media devices." Continue reading →
The post Tinnitus Stories appeared first on Phantom Power.
Warren Zanes talks life as a rocker and writer, his new book on Springsteen's Nebraska, how to weave theory into a great story, and why he narrates his own audiobooks. Continue reading →
The post Warren Zanes: Rockstar Biographer appeared first on Phantom Power.
Elena Razlogova discusses U.S. radio history, audience research, music recommendation and recognition algorithms, and her current book project, which centers on freeform radio station WFMU and the rise of online music. We also talk about Elena’s research strategies as a historian working in the digital age. Continue reading →
The post Making Radio History (Elena Razlogova) appeared first on Phantom Power.
Today we present the first episode of a miniseries on audiobooks by getting into the history and theory of the medium. Audiobooks are having a moment—and it only took them over a century to get here. Dr. Matthew Rubery, a Harvard PhD and Professor of Modern Literature at Queen Mary University of London, pioneered the study of the audiobook, its history, and its affordances in literature. Continue reading →
The post The Audiobook’s Century-Long Overnight Success (Matthew Rubery) appeared first on Phantom Power.
In this brief opener for Season Six of Phantom Power, Mack discusses his new project of writing a trade press book, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Continue reading →
The post Going Public appeared first on Phantom Power.
Amit Pinchevski challenges the notion that echo is mere repetition. Instead, echo is a generative medium. Just as a baby first learns to speak by repeating the sounds of others, a philosophy of echoes reminds us that our own agency and creativity reside in repetitions that respond to the past. Continue reading →
The post A Philosophy of Echoes with Amit Pinchevski appeared first on Phantom Power.
Today we explore the mythology around John Cage’s visit to the anechoic chamber. The chamber was designed to completely eliminate echoes. Ironically, the tale of Cage’s experience in that space has echoed through history, affecting our understanding of silence, sound, and the self. But what do we really know about what happened there? Continue reading →
The post John Cage: Echoes of the Anechoic appeared first on Phantom Power.
Today we hear two scholars reading their recent work on artificial intelligence. Steph Ceraso studies the technology of “voice donation,” which provides AI-created custom voices for people with vocal disabilities. Hussein Boon contemplates the future of AI in music via some very short and thought-provoking fiction tales. And we start off the show with Mack reflecting on how hard the post-shutdown adjustment has been for many of us and how that might be feeding into the current AI hype. Continue reading →
The post Sonic AI: Steph Ceraso & Hussein Boon appeared first on Phantom Power.
Musician and sound artist Brian Harnetty breathes new, musical life into the analog meditations of 60s Catholic mystic Thomas Merton. Continue reading →
The post Words and Silences: The Thomas Merton Hermitage Tapes appeared first on Phantom Power.
Here is a preview of Mack Hagood’s full one hour and forty minute interview with soundscape composer Hildegard Westerkamp, which includes many details and stories we couldn’t fit into the three public episodes we featured her in. If you’re a … Continue reading →
The post Westerkamp: The Unedited Interview [excerpt] appeared first on Phantom Power.
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