How to {listen}
We hear sound. We listen to music.
At SAF, we do both.
Taking a cue from our previous newsletter on “how – to”, this week we find ourselves locked down with “How to Listen”. Our love affair with sound began in the 2018 edition listening to sounds in our heads, quite literally.
Now one wonders the difference between sound and music. It’s the same difference as hearing and listening; you dismiss the former but pay attention to the latter. To dissociate this difference between music and sound, we extended ‘listening’ to include and interpret sound in all its various approaches.
Because each memory has a soundtrack of its own, this week we want you to pay attention to that one memory in your head. Nod away to the longest love affair you’ve had with sound and music.
Until the next week, leaving you with some love in this lockdown.
#serendipityconversations
As we increasingly rely on ourselves for sustenance, "how-to" videos, tutorials, and stories have gained prominence on the web. We extend the idea of care, sharing, and reliance that motivates these practices to the world of art, as we enter the minds, processes, and strategies used by curators, artists, and experts to bring their visions to life. Each week we approach a new "how-to": exploring the complexities of art through approachable, close-to-life conversations.
A World of Sound
A session on the history of sound, the part it has played in the evolution of society, the technologies around it, and its role in our future. Topics will include new technologies and visualisation of sound and artificial intelligence, as well as sound art in the 20th century.
Watch the talk on Facebook
Listening to the Small Things
When we listen to a piece of music, we tend to hear the more obvious areas of artistic communication. If it is a vocal driven track, i.e. a song, then we are listening to the song, the voice, the melody, the lyrics, and the rhythm. But there are lots of little things inside any piece of music, which may be considered as sound. It could be a small bell, a restrained percussion instrument playing in the background which we subconsciously imbibe and react to, but which doesn’t pop up in our consciousness, so we don’t factor that as a sound that influenced our listening. Learning to listen is an art in itself. This extends to conversations as well; we often miss out on the small things which would otherwise appear as subtexts in a conversation. Often, the accent, the slight modulation in the tone of the voice of the person we are listening to, can give away much more information if we listen to these things closely. It’s the same with music; it’s also the accents, the voice, the instruments, the rhythm, and the modulations which give away anecdotal information.
Bickram Ghosh will be discussing these small, subtle elements that form the structural basis of a piece of music, bringing to our attention those wonderful little nuances in the world of music.
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Electronic Music: Beyond Hedonism
All art is inspired by circumstances, consequences, real life events - Electronic Music was also born and celebrated for the same reasons. This session attempts to retrace Electronic Music's origins and how it traveled the world, taking various shapes and forms. While highlighting its versatile cultural relevance, we also touch upon certain elements that allow it to flourish, such as the technology involved, the creation process, the artists, socio-cultural influences, and its growth as an art and a business. The session will conclude with an assessment of the Electronic Music Scene in India.
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Revealing the Inaudible: Sonic Meditations
Floy Krouchi works with sound as a phenomenon in its multiple dimensions: physical, plastic, instrumental, abstract, radiophonic. She uses the vibratory and invisible qualities of this medium as a metaphor of unrevealed aspects of reality, questioning perceptions and creating disruptions in space and time. This session will aim at discussing Floy’s sound practice through her latest projects and the experience of lockdown we commonly shared. A few sonic examples and live manipulations will be part of the experience.
In Floy's pieces, sound and silence often form an anthropological disposition to collect, investigate and reorganise fragments of reality and identities through orality. Listening is considered as a practice of resistance - to impose upon the productivity of time, visual saturation, and short attention spans. Lately, she is investigating the relationship between technology, magic, and the techniques of the avant garde (such as cut ups and surrealism).
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#SAFthrowback
This week, we revisit three sound projects. The Sonic City installation showcased at SAF 2017, was conceptulized and curated by Shubha Mudgal. It was designed as an experiential journey through the aural landscape of contemporary Delhi, replete with both the cacophony as well as the profound beauty of music and natural sounds.
The Museum of Sounds in My Head, curated by Sneha Khanwalkar for SAF 2018, was a series of sonic experiments by people who ‘think’ about music and have a relationship with it. Aimed at triggering the senses and altering the way we listen, the museum was fragmented into various sound spaces that were immersive and surreal.
At SAF 2019, Sound Interventions, also curated by Sneha Khanwalkar, showcased sound interruptions scattered around various Festival venues, ranging from performative to experiential, instinctive to intentional, organic to some very ‘technically sound’ works of art, for audiences to explore and experience.
P.S. Out of the Blue
Hello again! This lockdown has presented us with enough opportunities to pause and listen – not only to the finer sounds of nature, but also pay a little more attention to our inner selves, and the daily sounds that surround us. So much so that Drew Daniels had invited submissions of everyday sounds to create the Quarantine Supercut. If you are a geek for 90s sounds, then the Museum of Endangered Sounds is sure to blow your mind. Do send Brendan, the creator, some sounds that he can add to his collection.
They say the heart of the ocean is a quiet place. Why not dive deep down and see for yourself, or watch enthralling marine life at the Monterey Bay Aquarium via a live Cam.
From a place of no sound, we thought you may like to watch a short film by D.A.D.D.Y on a soundtrack for a life gone terrible awry.
Till travel doesn’t resume, there is no harm in listening to a playlist that will take you on a road trip to Tokyo or help you drift off to the sounds of whale songs. As for us, we will be trying these fun recipes by our favorite comics and watching some fabulous performances as part of NCPA at Home!
Until next week there’s lots to explore, so dive in!
#SAFthrowback | Serendipity Soundscapes
Often called the passion project of Serendipity Arts Foundation, Serendipity Soundscapes is a collection of diverse musicians immersed in experimenting with melodies, genres, and words.
During SAF 2018, The Maverick Playlist presented a myriad of original compositions by Shubha Mudgal and Aneesh Pradhan, with traditional as well as newly composed lyrics. The musical structures included elements from Hindustani, jazz, blues, rock, electronic music, among others.
In its second edition, Serendipity Soundscapes took it up a notch. In the powerful voice of legendary singer Shubha Mudgal, the tracks ranged from finding new love to love lost and love rediscovered, beautifully capturing Dil Ki Baatein – Affairs of the Heart in Song. Enjoy these songs below, whether it is your first time listening, or if you are playing these on repeat.
Reading and Resources Library
From our Archives
This week we present an exclusive peek into an upcoming essay by Gautam Pemmaraju on “Sound Interventions”—a project curated by Sneha Khanwalkar at Serendipity Arts Festival 2019. The essay will be published as part of Projects/Processes 2019.
From the Internet
From the interwebs, we bring to you -
The bizarre appeal of an awful music album by Vox;
A deep-dive into the emergence, history, and habitus of electronic music.
We Love Panjim!
Join Buland Shukla as he gives us a brief history of vinyl records and the technology behind it, as well the current context of the medium. He will also talk about how to handle vinyls, and the best method of storing, playing, and managing collections, as well as the kind of equipment required. Buland will touch upon the difference between analog and digital music with a brief description of the concept of critical listening. He will also talk about future prospects of vinyl as a medium, and how it supports the artists directly, as well as the idea behind listening to music on a physical medium.
Join us on Saturday, May 29rd, 6:00 PM IST on Instagram Live
Online Courses
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Serendipity Grants
The Serendipity Grants 2020 - 2021, the second scheme of grants aims to create sustainable knowledge networks to promote inquiry into contemporary art practices, and build a framework for supporting the arts community. The grant seeks to support innovative research initiatives by individual researchers, and the creation of a new body of work in Theatre that will contribute to the discourse around performing and visual arts in South Asia.