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Finally getting around to actually posting my assignments for the week. First one I’m doing this week is the the Reverse Audio Quiz, where I have to reverse a song and give hints as to what song it is. It’s pretty self-explanatory, really.

I spent a while looking through the songs I have on my computer to try to find a good one to use, since I don’t want to choose something so obscure that no one would have any idea what it was. I eventually decided to change the assignment a little bit and reversed two songs to use in this little quiz. To do this, I just used Audacity. Both of the songs actually ended up with portions that are pretty much unchanged from the originals when reversed, which is pretty neat. Here they are:

And the three hints:

1. They’re the first songs off the first and last EP, respectively, by the same band.
2. They were released 15 years apart.
3. If you take the first word of each EP’s title, you end up with “The Future”.

Lastly, the answers:

1. Gur Zbqrea Ntr
2. Qent Dhrra

To get the actual answers, just put them through a ROT13 cypher. That should make them legible again!

Just kidding. Only one reverse. In this case, the reversing of a song, and the opportunity for readers to guess what it is.

Link to Assignment: http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/reverse-audio-quiz-2/

Stars: 3.5

Process: Upon reading this assignment, I launched again into Spotify. I didn’t want to reverse anything too weird, as the goal of this game is to have something guessable, but I didn’t want to mess with anything that would be too easily recognizable. I’ll do my best to describe the process while omitting the name of the song. After obtaining the mp3, I launched into Adobe Audition. Upon realizing I don’t know Audition all that well, I took to the internet, which gave me answers. After listening to it, a good part of me loves it. I didn’t anticipate the brass to turn out the way it did, but it does make sense given the conic nature of brass instruments’ sound.

Tyler Gimple Has Come Unstuck in Time

Reverse Audio Quiz: 3.5 Stars

I have always been fascinated by TIME. Does Time really matter? Speaking of time… What is it exactly? In modern physics time is no more than a spatial dimension that is no different from up or left. It is explained as numbers and some other hieroglyphics that are only understood by those fluent in math. In mathematics, time is an exotic R4 is a differentiable manifold that is homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic to the Euclidean space R4. Oh now I get it… might as well have told me that in Ukranian. Would have made the same amount of sense.

Can you believe that guy Einstein. He turned the world upside down when he wrote in his 1920 manuscript defining General Relativity that “Every reference-body has its own particular time; unless we are told the reference-body to which the statement of time refers, there is no meaning in a statement of the time of an event.”

Here we see a Stereographic projection of a Clifford torus, which is the set of points (cos(a), sin(a), cos(b), sin(b)), which is a subset of the 3-sphere. This has to do with time somehow… So it goes. ???, ?????????, ? ????????? ?????, ?????? ???? ???????? — ?? ???????? ??????? ????? ???????? ?? ?????? ?? ????????? ?? ??????? ???????? — ?????????? ???????. If you didn’t understand that second part particularly well, that actually was Ukrainian so don’t feel bad.

You may be wondering where the title came from, but then again you might not be. Anyway for the viewers in the former group here is the genesis of the title. One of my favorite books is the anti-war novel Slaughterhouse-Five, which is an anti-war protest of the fire-bombing of Dresden during the Second World War. In this book, Kurt Vonnegut is telling us how crazy and disjointed the world at war had become by distorting space and time itself. The famous line, “Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time” is a focal point of the story.  He becomes “unstuck” at the moment he is captured,  taken as a prisoner of war and confined to a slaughterhouse, and starts having flashbacks and flash forwards to other phases of his life. The human mind depends on the arrow of time moving in only one direction and we are disoriented and confused when that arrow of time becomes unhinged. And that’s where the title comes from… so it goes. 

Salvadore Dali and Einstein agreed that we don’t really know what time is, however Dali expressed this in art and Einstein expressed it with math equations.

You’ll notice (if you haven’t lost interest before you listen to the audio file) that I quote Omar Khayyám, “The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.” I kinda like the guy.

Why time? Why 24 hours in a day 7 days per week 30 days per month except the months that don’t have 30 days and why 365 days per year except the years that don’t have 365 days. Why do we measure time by the duration of a rock spinning and orbiting a ball of burning fire? So… we have something (I guess it’s a thing, but that’s another conversation) that we can’t explain and it controls us, defines us, rules us, is us. Why does it go forwards? Well then again what is forwards in a spatial dimension that can’t be explained except by homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic spaces? What happens if time goes backwards? Well our music would be backwards too.

Finally I’m getting to the assignment, took me a lot of time didn’t it? You’ll notice (Dr. Polack) that the assignment itself is more than literally interpreting the assignment by playing a song backwards. I kind of thought it was more novel or even opposite interpretation of the assignment, and even justified in write up, showing experimentation with special features/techniques of tools; fine attention to media assemblage, graphic details, transitions, and sound levels.

The song you are guessing begins at the 3:03 mark.

Now it’s your turn for some action. Below are the hints for the song. Having a hard time reading it? Well time doesn’t always go forwards you know…

1. .poem a as written Originally.
2.  .total verses 4 Has
3.  .Bowl Super The and Finals NBA the in victories championship their before immediately song this to listened Manning Peyton and Bryant Kobe Both

After you have thought about which song this is, leave a comment of your guess. Then see if you were right by clicking this link, Answer to the Quiz!

Make a guess. I knew you had it in you!

Tutorial and References on answer page.

Tags: AudioAssignments, AudioAssignments1332

For the Audio assignment this week I struggled. First I downloaded Audacity because most assignments had it in the description. I then chose Audio Assignments 1446 Favorite Song as the assignment I was going to attempt. Attempt being the keyword.

I pick a song and and followed these instructions. They gave the reader a step by step way to remove lyrics. I followed them and it muted the lyrics but they were not fully erased. I tried on multiple songs all ending the same way the vocals were just muted. Here is one of the many songs I tried it on.  After hours of struggle I decided to try something different.

The next assignment I chose was the Reverse Audio Quiz Audio Assignments 1332. I uploaded a track onto Audacity and followed these instructions. I was able to do this one!!!!!  Because I was able to do this one I did two different songs. So here is your quiz can you guess these two songs? They are in reverse. Hint the titles are clues!

1. R and R
2. How Many Ways

The task: Take an audio file and reverse it. Then, give three clues as to what the song is and see who is the first to correctly identify the song.

Clues:

1. This is a children’s song/nursery rhyme.
2. It can be played as a children’s game.
3. It is often the tune played when you crank a Jack in the Box.

***Warning: if you read beyond this point, the name of the tune will be revealed!***

If you want to hear the song in its original condition, click here.

I choose to use this song because I am currently working in a daycare and alllllllll of the songs stuck in my head are kids’ songs. I also wanted to choose a song that I felt was pretty well known so that (hopefully!) people would be able to identify it! Pop goes the Weasel is a favorite of the kids and they LOVE to sing it! I hope it is stuck in your head for much less time than it is stuck in mine!

How it was made:

First, I found a karaoke version of the song on Youtube.

Then, I used a website that converts the sound from the video into an mp3 file.

In order to use this site, simply copy and paste in the YouTube link and click convert video. The mp3 file will download to your computer.

I imported this mp3 file into Audacity by going to File>Import>Audio.

Next, I reversed the audio by goring to Effect>Reverse.

Then, I saved the new audio file and uploaded it to SoundCloud.

I chose to complete the Reverse Audio Quiz assignment worth 3.5 stars. http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/reverse-audio-quiz-2/

I thought it’d be interesting to reverse a song and hear what the track sounded like. I used the Audacity program. With a little clicking around, I figured out how to reverse the mp3 file. The result is below:

Figuring out the song shouldn’t be too hard. Three hints used to figure out the song are: I believe the song has recently begun to be played on the radio. The song is a track by Yo Gotti. The beat to the intro and the outro of the song in the reversed and normal versions are pretty similar.

Overall, this assignment was a pretty easy 3.5 stars. It didn’t take up much time and was interesting. I’d recommend it to any other ds106ers out there.

This audio assignment was worth three and a half stars contributing to the total 8 stars worth of audio assignments we had to complete this week. I chose to complete this assignment because I thought it seemed like a pretty fun idea. When songs come on the radio I like to guess what their title could be. So, I thought it would be extra challenging if someone had to guess a song if it was playing in reverse.

In order to complete this assignment I used the audio editing software called audacity. I imported the song I had chosen. I then used the select tool to highlight the file. Once the file was highlighted I was able to apply certain effects to make the song reversed. I was surprised at how different the song sounds in reverse. I found this assignment to be very useful because it allowed me to continue to work with audacity and learn how to create new and different effects.

Here are my three clues to this song:
1. It was the theme song for a major sporting event held in 2010.
2. It is a pop song.
3. It is a blend of Colombian rhythm and traditional African music

So here it is! Good luck!