Listening to More Than Sounds JULIA KURSELL

This paper examines the “Berliner Phonogramm-Archiv,” founded in after 1900 as part of the Institute of Psychology, University of Berlin. The Phonogramm-Archiv was connected to the emergence of several new disciplines and research domains, including experimental phonetics, Gestalt theory, music psychology, and comparative musicology. Of the archive’s 30,000 phonographic recordings, some one hundred were made for experimental purposes. One of them in particular, containing a moment of near silence, serves as a point of departure for relating these disciplines to the sound archive as a new technology and research tool. The barely audible sounds on this cylinder challenge phonographic recording as a technical device, and recall Carl Stumpf’s inquiry into cognitive predispositions in listeners. Whispered vowels delineate the limitations of that research and of the archive itself. The paper investigates how new research methodologies emerged out of the gap between recorded items and their various interpretations in different disciplines.

DOI: 10.1353/tech.2019.0063

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Text
Stumpf, Carl. 1926. Die Sprachlaute. Experimentell-Phonetische Untersuchungen. Berlin: Julius Springer.
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Stumpf, Carl. (1910) 1910. “Geschichte Der Königlichen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Zu Berlin”. Max Lenz, 202-207. http://vlp.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/index_html.
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“Tonwalze 4”. 1916. http://vlp.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/library/data/lit38894?
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Grimme, Hubert. 1924. “Zeitschrift Für Semitistik Und Verwandte Gebiete”. Deutsche Gesellschaft 3. http://menadoc.bibliothek.uni-halle.de/dmg/periodical/titleinfo/116934.
Audio
n.d. “Whispered Vowels: Experimental Cylinder From The Berliner Phonogramm-Archiv”. Phonogramm Arch iv.
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“Die Sprachlaute”. 1926. Springer. http://vlp.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/sites/data?id=sit37.
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Stumpf, Carl. n.d. “Stumpf Papers: [Stumpf, Carl] [Folder] Hauptversuche Mit Von Hornbostel Und Wertheimer [Envelope] 17. Phonogr. Versuche”. http://vlp.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/library/data/lit38891.
Text
Stumpf, Carl. n.d. “Carl Stumpf Papers – Untitled Manuscript ”. http://vlp.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/library/data/lit38876/index_html?pn=9&ws=1.5.
In document content:

„When I met Abraham on the street and wanted to demonstrate the whispered A to him, it turned out to be a c!  At home I did further research: when whispering with a forced sound, there is a different position [of the vocal tract], the soft palate is impeded and in fact an as3, b3, even c4 can result, thus not c3. That it is a c4 can be seen if one articulates œ immediately before or after, this is lower. When I whisper comfortably, I receive f3.“

 

Available at: http://vlp.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/library/data/lit38876/index_html?pn=9&ws=1.5

Image
Stumpf, Carl. 1926. “Die Sprachlaute: Experimentell-Phonetische Untersuchungen Nebst Einem Anhang Über Instrumental-Klänge.”. Berlin. http://vlp.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/library/data/lit38891/index_html?pn=2.
Audio
Stumpf, Carl, and Berliner Phonogramm Archiv. 1916. “Stumpf, Carl. 1916. [Vowel Experiments 4]”. http://vlp.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/library/data/lit38897.