Sound Theory

This week, our course work covers sound and "How Does an Audience Hear?" lead by Ross Brown. Upon initially reading the email, which announced what we were in for, I felt at a bit of a loss, because although I am exposed to sound in my everyday life, I have not had the experience of working with it in a technical sense.
I thought to myself that perhaps I was actually missing sound in my everyday life. Just like every other person on the train, I had my earbuds shoved in my ear, not able to really experience what was happening around me. I found that I was in a bubble. So as an experiment to myself, I spent the weekend without them, and made a point to find the noises that I'd never heard before in surroundings that seemed somewhat familiar. Everything caught my ear: the click of a high heel on concrete as opposed to asphalt, an airplane flying low over the buildings, the music coming from other people's mp3 players, even the wind blowing paper against a fence as a train whirled by. It was a unique experience, that after doing the reading for the course, began to make me think about sound in performance.
We've become a society based on remaining and keeping to ourselves so much, that often times, we do not take the time to "stop and smell the roses".
John Collins, Scott Gibbons, and Paul Arditti all got me thinking in a new direction. Sound can in fact be "part of the fabric"(John Collins) of a production, not to be seen as something separate from, but part of the living environment of theatre.
I feel that even if a piece is not necessarily a known noise, say it is a more abstract sound, that it can be organic and grown organically from the theatre environment and the collaboration of the actors and the technicians as actors. Sound should not be viewed as a cold entity of hisses and pops and a door opening, but should be treated as if another actor is on the stage. This of course comes with living in the moment and a kinesthetic awareness that the sound isn't there to support the actor, the actor is there to support the sound.
I'm sure I'll have more on this tomorrow, seeing as today was only day one of a five day lecture series.