(sound) demonstrations: how sound operates and transmits meaning in demonstrations and has agency for social change. check out ‘air horn orchestra’ where people gather in front of governmental buildings/people and play airhorns together for several hours. also consider silent marches – the first being in 1917 where people of colour demonstrated against their treatment by police in New York. also Madres de la Plaza de Mayo in Argentina which is 2 generations long now and is called grandmothers now. consider what is intimate and what is larger scale. consider who is making the sound – what do we hear, who decides what we hear and how we hear it? is it a collective exercise or an individual? these are factors to consider when thinking about sound. demonstrations take up a large space in life/culture. consider the demonstration is not just those who participate but those who are passers-by, the police, the buildings reflecting sound etc – a concurrent sound event yet becomes a uniform one sound event when taken together. one aspect of demonstration sound is that this is never synchronised. the sounds at the start/front trickle down to the middle and end and so gets delayed and out of step – making a complex sound event, which also alters into concurrent sound events when the chanting comes together.
fan culture: this sound event shares some components as demonstrations but are also very different. there can be spontaneous outbursts of sound and energy like a demonstration. there can be choreographed and consorted sounds and a dialogue between the two. they develop their own codes and can become rituals of collective sound production. often these rituals are not sound based but are rhythmical and so are part of the sound event.
fan culture examples –
icelandic clapping: developed during football 2016 games where clapping was used to motivate the team – slow first and getting faster. the waiting to clap became the strength of unity in these sound events. adopted by other clubs as a way of conveying support.
key rattling: began in Austria, an old tradition of anti-facist demonstration – a means of expressing dissention. now the Austrians rattle keys at difficult points ion football games to show support.
rapid clapping: this clapping begins at the last 15 mins of a game, at first slow clapping and disorganised but soon becomes faster and synchronised together, this ten goes back to the slow clapping as a cycle for 15 mins. this is now a ritual for the opponents also.
club songs: live Liverpool’s ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ originally from a Broadway musical then covered by the pacemakers -started out as fans unofficially singing it at games to then it becoming the official song of their team. a German team also took up this song and when they played each other the singing was extensive in duration and delayed the team coming out to play.
a hybrid example: fan culture of sport mixing with the fan culture of rick and roll. the song of Pink Floyd’s song Fearless integrates ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’. ritualistic sound events like these are rhythmic and orchestrated – rules are adhered to in their performance.
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