Blog Post 2

1.
Signal - The concept of signal traveling through cables from instruments or microphones and coming out a loudspeaker or accomplishing any other task is fascinating to me. It took me a long time to really grasp how signal traveling along fixed paths worked because for some reason to me at first it seemed like a very abstract idea. The coolest part about signal for me, and the reason why I understand it now is the fact that it essentially travels in a straight line that connects many different components of a system that relies on some sort of electric current. This is at least how I conceptualize it. For a long time when people talked about "signal" to me, it seemed like this foreign, made up, intangible force. Now I feel like it is part of my "secret language" vocabulary from becoming familiar with it over the years.

Phasing - Phasing is a concept that every human interacts with and is an expert at discerning differences in. We all are able to detect tiny differences in timing of sounds (phase differences) due to the way our heads and ears are shaped and how sound is filtered by this anatomy. This is an odd concept to hear defined in words at first because we deal with it all day every day and do not necessarily meditate on it constantly.

Frequency - I use this term way too often and do not consider that it may be a part of a concept that is hard to grasp at first. In really pared down terms, frequency can describe the rate of vibration of things to produce pitch. Sounds that we hear are made up of many different frequencies. Frequency is important to me because it helps me describe the content of specific sounds

2.
Producer - This term holds way too much weight to me. In my mind it means many different things to many different people. I feel like some people when they hear the word "producer" think of a DJ, or of a person sitting in their bedroom in front of a computer, or of a ghost-writer. While these are not all false definitions of a modern-day music producer, the term means so much more to me. I think of a producer as being a composer, recording engineer, musician, technician, psychologist. A lot of people as me if I am studying in school to be a producer. While many of the definitions of a producer in my mind match what some of my interests are and what I am studying in school sometimes, the question makes me uncomfortable and I tend to redefine the term to whoever is asking. It is both a too broad and too limiting term at the same time.