If you have a great sonic idea for Sound Scene 2016 please copy and fill out this short form (12 brief questions) and email it to dclisteninglounge at gmail dot com.
Please return it by Feb 24th (That's soon- but its short and light on details). Thank you. 

(The way this process works is that once we have all the ideas submitted (via this form) we will compile them and review them. We will get back to you with any questions or requests we have -to perhaps increase your idea's accessibility for a wider audience of diverse abilities/ages/backgrounds. After that, we'll encourage you to get working on your idea to bring it from idea to reality!  -- though feel free get started right away. Thank you again for helping to make Sound Scene 2016 so creative!)

Please fill out this form for EACH idea you'd like to include in our 2016 event.  (If you have any questions and we can walk you through it.) Due Feb 24th

 The Form:

1)Name/Working Title of installation (this can change later):

2) Name of artist/s producing/creating work

3) 1-2 sentence description of work (keep it brief):

4) Suggested placement in the Hirshhorn Museum (our venue):  EXAMPLE: Does your work sit on a table/floor? If you'd like for it to be located across a variety of places please be specific about your desires.
please note: the Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum has some chairs, tables, couches that we can use. Please use this (no. 4) to talk about your ideal placement for the work.

5) Equipment you plan to bring into the Hirshhorn for this project: (lamp? extension chord? AA batteries? podium? Computers? Speakers? Laptop?)

6) Dimensions of the work: (how big is the work itself. Please give precise measurements of the work that will be displayed and how big your supporting gear i.e. laptop?  will be as well) This is essential.

7) How is this installation powered (if at all):  

8) Is this all-ages friendly or adult only content?

9) How many people can participate/interact with your work at a time?

10) Would you like to request a volunteer watch this installation to be sure that nothing is stolen? (Y/N)

11) Does this installation require someone to instruct/guide people in order for them to participate? (Y/N) (No. of People)

12) How much time does this take for you to install on May 14th? (or May 13th)

THANK YOU

Here is a list of some great audio events happening in March. Please check out all the info and opportunities below. 
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The next DC Listening Lounge will be on Tuesday March 15th.
Hope you will come out to listen. 
(Please see below for highlights from our Feb lounge- offers an audio glimpse of the fun we get up to each month).


On March 15th : Please bring any combination of food, drink, friends  and/or audio to share (please limit clips to under 6 minutes duration). 

When: Tuesday March 15th
Location: Ginger & Teague's house
 A Street NE
When: 7:30pm-10pm
Questions? Please email through this site for details!

Getting there:
Closest metro: Stadium-Armory (10 min walk-use north exit, It has a sign that says "stadium this way")
Closest buses: 
D6, 96/97, B2 all stop a few blocks from the house.
X2 is about a 15 min walk.
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March 22nd our sister group Hear Now presents "Audio in the Streets"  DCLL member Jocelyn Frank presents highlights from her recent experience at the HearSay Festival, an international, community-integrated, audio arts festival in Kilfinane, Ireland.

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A Takoma Radio Show- Yours! 
Want to host your own radio show? Apply to make it a reality. Community radio station Takoma Radio is taking applications. Check out the details here.

Want to support Takoma Radio while scoring some awesome stuff in the process? Attend the station's auction. March 5th. RSVP on the Facebook event page.
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February Highlights (Courtesy of Kyle. Thanks for hosting Kyle and for sharing this recap.)
"We had a great session, and all the bits of audio seemed to flow nicely into one another. The weather turned in our favor, and I think 10 or 11 people were here. 

We started off with Alex. He shared a John Giorno performance of a talking piece called "I Want It, I Don't Got It, and You Cheated Me of It". It was a 25 minute monologue (of which we only listened to about 4) of coherent ranting to comical nonsense, and everything in between. What made it sonically interesting, and more compelling of a message, was that he had recorded a performance of the piece 3 or 4 times over, on top of doing the live reading in front of an audience. So it got hectic but remained comical. Here's the link to that: John Giorno -- "I Don't Need It, I Don't Want It, and You Cheated Me Out Of It" John Giorno -- "I Don't Need It, I Don't Want It, and Yo...View on www.youtube.com

Next, Neal presented a wonderful piece that he "composed" a few years back. As part of some weekly compositional challenge he was a part of, he was given prompts every Thursday and had to have a audio piece completed by the following Monday. This particular prompt was a long written phrase. Neal didn't recall the original phrase, but what he had done with the phrase was he typed it into his computer's equivalent of a Microsoft Sam or some generated voice of that sort. Once he had the recording of his computer reading the text, he entered the text into google talk, and repeated these steps (as best I understand it) until what he was getting out of the google talk was a completely bizarre and mangled version of the original phrase. Combined with some great music also composed under some algorithm, his piece was really intriguing. https://soundcloud.com/vanwinkletunes/lost-in-translation
Then Bond was inspired to play an interesting clip of the Emergency Broadcast Network, a video called "Comply". Provocative looping to create, in Bond's words, Orwellian atmosphere. It's particularly impressive being made in the 90s, prior to easy-to-use-software and youtube, etc. EBN - Comply EBN - Comply View on www.youtube.com

I then put on a contrarily relaxing field recording that I captured on my iPhone from a recent trip to Martinique in the Caribbean. The recording is a five minute walk down a road that paralleled a river, and features a few buzzing bugs and some other critters and sounds. 

Micky then followed up with 3 episodes from his 2 minute podcast series called "Sidewalks". The first featured a scene of shoveling snow, the second was a story being relayed of a friend's sister playing with an earthworm when she was a child, and the third was a recording of children reciting the preamble to the constitution. All really captivating bits of narrative. He's uploading an episode every day this month, and you can find the episodes at sidewalks.xyz. 

Lastly, Teague played a minute long iphone recording of a sound that he first described as a boat at see, but later revealed it was actually just wind rustling a bamboo grove in Koreshan Park in Florida. Don't have a clip!

Anyways, hope this makes you feel like you were here. Hope to see you next time!"

DCLL's "Sound Scene" an interactive audio installation will be Saturday May 14th at the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum. Help plan some cool interactive installations (bring your ideas and motivations- it's coming up fast!)

IDEAS:
Do you have an audio story or game that you'd like to share at our event? A sonic dream project that you have in mind but wish you had a partner to help get the idea off the ground? 
Please REPLY with 1-2 sentences about your idea and we can help you make it happen. (Please send ideas big and small BY FRIDAY Feb 19th)

MEETING:
 Please come by for the next Sound Scene Planning Meeting
Saturday Feb 20th at 4pm-5pm @ Lamont St NW  to pin down a theme for this year's event and talk through some other details like placement of various audio proposals (email us through the web to get more details).

THEMES:
We are brainstorming themes. 
Do any of these sound cool to you? We are aiming for something that is intriguing, playful, all-ages, accessible and makes some reference to audio and (maybe) to being at the Smithsonian this year...

sounds unseen
echo location
tinkering in sound
sculpting sound
((this is art))
sound tracking
fine (tuned) arts
sounds and whispers
sound cast
form and content
play along
play in the waves

reply to this email with your impressions (or other ideas!)

ART:
Do you have visual art skills and want to design this year's Sound Scene poster? (This could be featured on Smithsonian mailing and sign spaces around the city!) This is a great opportunity to get your work out into the public eye! Please reply with "art" as the subject heading. And thanks.

Thanks everyone, 
-DCLL

Please join us for our February DC Listening Lounge
​Tuesday Feb 16th
7:30-10pm
@ Penn St NE 

Need Details? Email DCLL through this site.

Please bring any combination of food, friends, drinks and audio to share. 
Looking forward to listening with you!

Directions/Public transit advice:
Buses run closest 
90,92,93 all run down Florida, the house is a very easy walk from 
the Galludet stop
bus X1 -- take the H & 9th stop
Closest metro line is NoMa/Galludet, which is about 1.4 miles walk to house (25 min).  

Next Lounge
Tuesday Feb 16th
7:30-10pm
@ Penn St NE Washington, DC 20002

Questions? Need Details?  Contact us through this blog.

Please bring any combination of food, friends, drinks and audio to share. 
Looking forward to listening with you!

Directions/Public transit advice:
Buses run closest (90,92,93 all running down Florida, the house is an easy walk from Galludet), 

and the X1(H & 9th would be the recommended stop).

Closest line is NoMa/Galludet, which is about 1.4 miles walk to house (25 min).  

Next Lounge likely Tues Feb 16th 
Details to follow. In the meantime, please enjoy these highlights from January courtesy of Ben P and Jeff D. 

Highlights from the January Lounge
Temps in the 20s did not deter Kyle, Elisa, Suzanne, Tori, Bond, and Ben, from sharing Jeff’s awesome 2nd-story sound design studio in Takoma Park for some aural pleasure. 

Intros were brief and after a short sonic aperitif of John Benjamin’s “I can’t play piano” jazz project, the earnest listening began with one of Jeff’s “neglected children” a delightfully arpeggiated/percussive selection that Jeff explained was a creative offshoot from his scoring of a theatrical presentation of "Holiday Memories by" Truman Capote.  The group wouldn't let Jeff off the hook without playing a bit of the “real” project," which sounded completely different, but did not disappoint.  He revealed that the score was created by “composing over” a stripped-down recording of a1930s gospel song. After more discussion about the challenges associated with sound designing for theatrical/dance projects, Jeff observed that it was a victory when he realized that he had the ability to compose even though “I happen to hate the project that I’m working on.”  

Kyle was up next with a piece the he chose NOT to set up for us.   A sonically sparse clip of softly soaring, tense, prolongednotes, punctuated with sporadic explosions.  He revealed  afterward that it was a 6 minute excerpt from 41 minute project called "Starry Night," a composition by Mazen Kerbaj that involved trumpet playing from a balcony in Beirut during the Israeli bombing of Hezbollah in 2006.  Someone remarked how strange it is that the soundscape of war likely becomes unremarkable to those who have to live with it.  Ben said that it reminded him of the sound design for the recent movie “Under the Skin.”   

Elisa changed the pace a little by sharing a spoken word clip featured on her Smithsonian blogpost that is devoted to the upcoming 2016 Folklife Festival.  The Festival will spotlight the Basque region as well as offer "co-hosted” concerts/presentations devoted to the "Sounds of California.”  

To that end, the sound clip was of a Berkley-based storyteller, Vincent Medina, speaking in the Chochenyo language of the Ohlone Indians.  It was remarked that a lack of understanding of the words didn’t seem to detract. 

The next piece was presented by Alex, with noticeable glee.  He had just discovered tape thought not to exist, for one of his shows from the late 70s, when he was a student host on WBFO Radio, Buffalo.  And indeed his excitement was understandable considering that he is captured interviewing Allen Ginsberg.  The tape included Ginsberg revealing his innermost  thoughts to Alex as well as singing some not-suitable-for-public-radio lyrics while self-accompanying with a mini harmonium.  Congrats Alex.  (Here’s the Link to the Ginsberg Interview – scroll down to
“Reading on Stonewall Nation, WBFO-FM, October 6, 1978”;
http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Ginsberg.php) 

Bond closed out the Lounge with a timely tribute to David Bowie by mining one of Bowie's more obscure works, the “1.Outside” concept album.   Bond shared the spoken word track "Algeria Touchshriek” which included the line “I’m thinking of leasing the room above my shop To a Mr. Walloff Domburg, A reject from the world wide internet.”   

The meeting closed with everyone putting their empty beer bottles on Jeff’s pristine work console and Kyle offering to host the next Lounge.  

Let's listen again in Feb.