Voice Machines

Voice Machines PDF Author: Bonnie Gordon
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226825159
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 429

Get Book Here

Book Description
An exploration of the castrato as a critical provocation to explore the relationships between sound, music, voice instrument, and machine. Italian courts and churches began employing castrato singers in the late sixteenth century. By the eighteenth century, the singers occupied a celebrity status on the operatic stage. Constructed through surgical alteration and further modified by rigorous training, castrati inhabited human bodies that had been “mechanized” to produce sounds in ways that unmechanized bodies could not. The voices of these technologically enhanced singers, with their unique timbre, range, and strength, contributed to a dramatic expansion of musical vocabulary and prompted new ways of imagining sound, the body, and personhood. Connecting sometimes bizarre snippets of history, this multi-disciplinary book moves backward and forward in time, deliberately troubling the meaning of concepts like “technology” and “human.” Voice Machines attends to the ways that early modern encounters and inventions—including settler colonialism, emergent racialized worldviews, the printing press, gunpowder, and the telescope—participated in making castrati. In Bonnie Gordon’s revealing study, castrati serve as a critical provocation to ask questions about the voice, the limits of the body, and the stories historians tell.

Voice Machines

Voice Machines PDF Author: Bonnie Gordon
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226825159
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 429

Get Book Here

Book Description
An exploration of the castrato as a critical provocation to explore the relationships between sound, music, voice instrument, and machine. Italian courts and churches began employing castrato singers in the late sixteenth century. By the eighteenth century, the singers occupied a celebrity status on the operatic stage. Constructed through surgical alteration and further modified by rigorous training, castrati inhabited human bodies that had been “mechanized” to produce sounds in ways that unmechanized bodies could not. The voices of these technologically enhanced singers, with their unique timbre, range, and strength, contributed to a dramatic expansion of musical vocabulary and prompted new ways of imagining sound, the body, and personhood. Connecting sometimes bizarre snippets of history, this multi-disciplinary book moves backward and forward in time, deliberately troubling the meaning of concepts like “technology” and “human.” Voice Machines attends to the ways that early modern encounters and inventions—including settler colonialism, emergent racialized worldviews, the printing press, gunpowder, and the telescope—participated in making castrati. In Bonnie Gordon’s revealing study, castrati serve as a critical provocation to ask questions about the voice, the limits of the body, and the stories historians tell.

The Voice in the Machine

The Voice in the Machine PDF Author: Roberto Pieraccini
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262016850
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 355

Get Book Here

Book Description
An examination of more than sixty years of successes and failures in developing technologies that allow computers to understand human spoken language. Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey famously featured HAL, a computer with the ability to hold lengthy conversations with his fellow space travelers. More than forty years later, we have advanced computer technology that Kubrick never imagined, but we do not have computers that talk and understand speech as HAL did. Is it a failure of our technology that we have not gotten much further than an automated voice that tells us to "say or press 1"? Or is there something fundamental in human language and speech that we do not yet understand deeply enough to be able to replicate in a computer? In The Voice in the Machine, Roberto Pieraccini examines six decades of work in science and technology to develop computers that can interact with humans using speech and the industry that has arisen around the quest for these technologies. He shows that although the computers today that understand speech may not have HAL's capacity for conversation, they have capabilities that make them usable in many applications today and are on a fast track of improvement and innovation. Pieraccini describes the evolution of speech recognition and speech understanding processes from waveform methods to artificial intelligence approaches to statistical learning and modeling of human speech based on a rigorous mathematical model--specifically, Hidden Markov Models (HMM). He details the development of dialog systems, the ability to produce speech, and the process of bringing talking machines to the market. Finally, he asks a question that only the future can answer: will we end up with HAL-like computers or something completely unexpected?

A Voice in the Box

A Voice in the Box PDF Author: Bob Edwards
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813140455
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 311

Get Book Here

Book Description
The iconic radio personality looks back on his life and career, from his first job at a smalltown Indiana station to his time at NPR and Sirius XM Radio. The host of The Bob Edwards Show and Bob Edwards Weekend on Sirius XM Radio, Bob Edwards became the first radio personality with a large national audience to take his chances in the new field of satellite radio. The programs’ mix of long-form interviews and news documentaries has won many prestigious awards. For thirty years, Louisville native Edwards was the voice of National Public Radio’s daily newsmagazine programs, co-hosting All Things Considered before launching Morning Edition in 1979. These programs built NPR’s national audience while also bringing Edwards to national prominence. In 2004, however, NPR announced that it would be finding a replacement for Edwards, inciting protests from tens of thousands of his fans and controversy among his listeners and fellow broadcasters. Today, Edwards continues to inform the American public with a voice known for its sincerity, intelligence, and wit. In A Voice in the Box: My Life in Radio, Edwards recounts his career as one of the most important figures in modern broadcasting. He describes his road to success on the radio waves, from his early days knocking on station doors during college and working for American Forces Korea Network to his work at NPR and induction into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2004. Edwards tells the story of his exit from NPR and the launch of his new radio ventures on the XM Satellite Radio network. Throughout the book, his sharp observations about the people he interviewed and covered and the colleagues with whom he worked offer a window on forty years of American news and on the evolution of public journalism. A Voice in the Box is an insider’s account of the world of American media and a fascinating, personal narrative from one of the most iconic personalities in radio history. Praise for A Voice in the Box “Edwards knows how to tell a story . . . . On the whole, there is much to learn and enjoy. Edwards shares fascinating details about beginning a career at a tiny station; becoming part of the energetic, excited startup team at NPR; conducting interviews and producing shows; and building a career as a beloved host. He’s forthright about his disappointments, too, including a divorce and the shock of being fired . . . . [A] solidly entertaining book.” —Publishers Weekly “At last, Bob Edwards has told his story. With all the wit, candor, and courage that made his journalism on NPR a favorite of millions across the country and a role model for all of us in public media. This “voice in the box” is good news.” —Bill Moyers “A Voice in the Box is a delight. Bob Edwards has told his story from inside the world of radio that has something for everybody?from the kid’s dream to be on radio to settling some adult’s scores with NPR and being happy now on Sirius XM Radio with many more hours on the radio still to come.” —Jim Lehrer

How Machines Came to Speak

How Machines Came to Speak PDF Author: Jennifer Petersen
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 1478021829
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 164

Get Book Here

Book Description
In How Machines Came to Speak Jennifer Petersen constructs a genealogy of how legal conceptions of “speech” have transformed over the last century in response to new media technologies. Drawing on media and legal history, Petersen shows that the legal category of speech has varied considerably, evolving from a narrow category of oratory and print publication to a broad, abstract conception encompassing expressive nonverbal actions, algorithms, and data. She examines a series of pivotal US court cases in which new media technologies—such as phonographs, radio, film, and computer code—were integral to this shift. In judicial decisions ranging from the determination that silent films were not a form of speech to the expansion of speech rights to include algorithmic outputs, courts understood speech as mediated through technology. Speech thus became disarticulated from individual speakers. By outlining how legal definitions of speech are indelibly dependent on technology, Petersen demonstrates that future innovations such as artificial intelligence will continue to restructure speech law in ways that threaten to protect corporate and institutional forms of speech over the rights and interests of citizens.

The British Trade Journal

The British Trade Journal PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Great Britain
Languages : en
Pages : 494

Get Book Here

Book Description


Assistive devices for severe speech impairments

Assistive devices for severe speech impairments PDF Author:
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 1428923608
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 54

Get Book Here

Book Description


Faustina's Fantastic Friends

Faustina's Fantastic Friends PDF Author: Denvor Fernandez
Publisher: Notion Press
ISBN: 1946436097
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 215

Get Book Here

Book Description
Deep into the depths of the Universe… While threats of galactic wars loom over the world of organisms and the world of spirits,Sinduja, Faustina’s best friend, reveals a secret that changes their lives forever. Welcome to a world of adventure filled with fairies and magicians, dwarfs and giants, aliens and cyborgs, humans and spirits! Welcome to FAUSTINA’S FANTASTIC FRIENDS, a science fiction children’s fantasy!

Thinking Outside the Voice Box

Thinking Outside the Voice Box PDF Author: Bridget Sweet
Publisher:
ISBN: 0190916370
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 225

Get Book Here

Book Description
The changing adolescent voice counts among the most awkward of topics voice teachers and choir directors face. Adolescent voice students already find themselves at a volatile developmental time in their lives, and the stresses and possible embarrassments of unpredictable vocal capabilities make participation in voice-based music an especially fraught event. In this practical teaching guide, author Bridget Sweet encourages a holistic approach to female and male adolescent voice change. Sweet's approach takes full consideration of the body, brain, and auditory system; vocal anatomy and physiology in general, as well as during male and female voice change; and the impact of hormones on the adolescent voice, especially for female singers. Beyond the physical, it also addresses the emotional and psychological components: ideas of resolve and perseverance that are essential to adolescent navigation of voice change; and exploration of portrayals and stereotypes in pop culture that influence how people anticipate voice change experiences for teens and 'tweens, from The Brady Bunch to The Wonder Years to The Simpsons. As a whole, Teaching Outside the Voice Box encourages music educators to more effectively and compassionately assist students through this developmental experience.

Voice Box Stories: Out of the Box, Vol. 1

Voice Box Stories: Out of the Box, Vol. 1 PDF Author: Maureen Muldoon
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 132964722X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 108

Get Book Here

Book Description
Cathy Richardson and Maureen Muldoon are the perfect combination of heart and soul, music and story. Making Voice Box the best night of the month. Check out past shows on gigityTV.comIt's a story, a slam, a song, a serenade. A place to be heard and hear about the human condition. It's the old school front stoop, it's the modern day confessional.Where folks like us, who need to create and come out and connect go to spin and weave and unfurl. To encounter artistry and escape into inspiration. Where a song leads to a story and a story leads to a song and the beat goes on and out and up. Where your feet tap to the rhythm, your head nods in agreement, and your heart pounds in anticipation for the chance to share your voice.

The Australian Musical News

The Australian Musical News PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 736

Get Book Here

Book Description