As technology continues to evolve, so does a person’s ability to learn and understand the world around them. In the article, “The Movement of Air, the Breath of Meaning: Aurality and Multimodal Composing,” Selfe discusses the importance of teaching not just through writing and speech, but also with sound. Education in the eighteenth century centered around oral learning – preparing students for public speaking. This would prepare the male children for futures roles as ministers or politicians. Once the industrial revolution brought about innovations like the printing press, the written word became just as important. Selfe would like teachers to utilize “multiple modalities.”
What comes to mind during these readings is that people learn in different ways. I, personally, am more of a visual learner. It helps to be shown something or to watch something. Learning by listening takes more effort for me. Selfe understands that everyone is unique in how they retain information, and this idea of educating by speech, written word, and sound is a logical and practical approach to communicating ideas. As important as it may be to incorporate sound to education, I am not entirely sure I am someone who would benefit.
In “Sonic Rhetoric as Resonance,” Hocks and Comstock discuss the practice of composing sound and how computers allow for students to appreciate the resonance, or the impact of shifting vibrations, registering frequencies, tones, and cadence. As technology has allowed, the written word can be interpreted through sound, and presented through podcasts, voiceovers, and other “sonic arts.”
I thought the study or experiment with how students responded to certain kinds of music was interesting. Specifically, they refer to one individual who disapproved of the sound of an acoustic guitar because the sound of this instrument automatically linked their recognition to country music. Cultural and social environment will play a significant role in how people associate musical sounds in relation to genre.
This article also references Selfe’s text, in that it discusses the sound of speech. There is so much more texture to a word when it is spoken. Speaking and hearing give life and “breath” to words, as opposed to if they are read in silence. The article discusses three modes of listening: causal, semantic, and reduced, and even more fascinating, an assignment that requires students to compile a playlist of sounds that are part of their daily life. Referred to as “audiography,” or “reduced composing,” this incites a person to pay attention to how they hear or understand basic everyday sounds in their life.