Reading about bands I have never heard of...

Rickert, T & Salvo, M. "The distributed Gesamptkunstwerk: Sound, worlding, and new media culture"
McKee, H. "Sound matters: Notes toward the analysis and design of sound in multimodal webtexts"
Rickert, T. & Salvo, M. "And they had Pro Tools"

Technology is great, except when it isn't. The latest version of Firefox keeps becoming non-responsive on my mac (and of course it is the mac's own fault, I am sure. And my fault by extension for owning a mac). And some of the formatting functionality on blogger does not seem to work with Safari. (Edited to add: Different computer, now I can add formatting)

So,

Where to begin?

Let me start by saying that I am not culturally literate enough (or in the right literacy) to fully appreciate these articles. I have heard of Wagner, mostly from the lovely Bugs Bunny short. And Sonic Youth had a cover of a Carpenter's song on the Juno soundtrack. Flaming Lips, however, is far from my understanding.

I thought that Rickert and Salvo's discussion of Garage Band was interesting. In the past, no one expected mixing tools to be intuitive or easy. No one but a real geek could love a mixing board. Garage Band, though, by positioning itself as an instrument is now competing with a guitar rather than competing with the sound equipment.

One definition that Rickert and Salvo used that I have heard used differently is prosumer. They say that "Prosumer refers to the erosion of the difference between a consumer and a producer" (And They Had). I have heard that term, probably in terms of photography, meaning products that blur the line between consumer models and professional models (like a Canon Rebel or a low-end EOS). And Photoshop-- always Photoshop.

McKee's article about sound had a section on authority conveyed by voice. My 14 year old daughter participates in National History Day. Her area is group documentary. She always records the narration. The girls really cannot articulate why they have chosen Mea, though. I can. She sounds the most grown-up. Rather than soprano and breathy, she is alto and sustained. And, perhaps most importantly, she only has an accent when she wants to. She spent from the ages of six and ten in central Missouri, which is the American "non-accent." (Sounds almost just like Nebraska and Tom Brokaw).

To me, it is funny that people can "sound" more or less intelligent based not on the words they use, but on linguistic features over which they have little or no control.

Which is not at all what the author is getting at.