Lucretia is a multi-panel film created by film maker Trisha McCrae. The film is intended to be displayed using three separate screens, showing different sections of the film simultaneously. However, due to the technical complexities of implementing this, my presentation will display all three sections on one large screen. Work will continue on the project after the submission of this module and hopefully the multi-screen aspect will be realised. The sound is also multi-channel, and the speaker set-up has been designed to work with the final three panel idea.

The two diagrams below show the eventual set-up of screens and speakers, however the actual set-up for demonstration purposes for this module is a single screen (in position of the centre screen) with the speakers in the same positions as shown in the diagrams.

Diagram 1
Diagram 2

My involvement in the project was creating all music and sound design and then mixing this over four channels. Although the three panels of film are visually contrasting, they are coherent in terms of narrative and theme. The film tells the story of Lucretia, for information on the history of the story click here. The music and sound therefore has to represent the contrasting visuals and make obvious links with the corresponding panel, but also be coherent with the other panels creating an overall musical narrative for the film. The three panels primarily display the following ideas, but there are moments when the ideas switch which panel they are shown on.

Left panel – Puppet rape scene

Centre panel – Objects, abstract

Right panel – Live actress, suicide scene

The prince within the puppet rape scene, is represented by animal sounds, primarily dog growls suggesting the savage, primitive nature of his actions. These sounds have been pitch-shifted to very low frequencies, converting the animal references to more demonic ideas. These sounds are coupled with the contrasting, softer and more innocent breathing and struggles of Lucretia. However, at times more euphoric vocal sounds are used, creating an uncertainty of whether she is in distress or not (an idea which is represented visually as well).

The centre panels objects are coupled with simple sonic representations often directly following the musical ideas within the right panel. The silk shown at the start of the film is represented by solo piano, playing a melody over the harmonic constructions of the right panels music. The relationship here was based on my immediate reaction of what sonically represents the pure and simple material, perhaps symbolising innocence. The swinging donkey is represented by a direct rhythmic and expected audio-visual relationship, while the static white horse is coupled with noise and detuned music box sounds. An interesting juxtaposition is created between the noise and the childlike music box notes, once again playing with the contrasting themes of innocence and the sexual taboo.

The right panel primarily features music composed by myself based on the aria “Casta Diva” by Vincenzo Bellini. This music style was requested by the film maker, and in my opinion, a good decision as the graceful nature contradicts the harsh noise and animal sounds within the left panel. The aria creates emotions of sadness but is not entirely negative, suggesting a positive outcome of the suicide. This could be seen as a juxtaposition to the despair displayed by the actress, or a deeper comment on the purpose of the suicide. There is also a simpler, location based relationship between the music and origin of the Lucretia legend.

The mixing of the sound plays an important part to the audio-visual experience. The sounds and music above are panned to the speakers adjacent to the panel (see diagram 1 & 2). More creative use of the sonic space has been used during moments when the ideas within the film switch panels. Notable moments include at 3:15 when the prince can be seen in the right panel, the music is suddenly cut and the low animal growls return prominently. At 3:24, all panels are focused on Lucretia, so the aria slowly fades in and spreads across all speakers.

Overall the project functions as an submersive audio-visual installation, however, due to the film having a narrative, it will not be displayed on a continuous loop. Instead, I propose the film will have regular showings during the presentation, perhaps once every ten minutes. Once the project is finalised, with the inclusion of the three screens and a second part of the film which  plays more with the movement of picture and hence sound, I feel the film will be a very effective spacial audio-visual experience, providing a surround of both sound and visuals.

The Circular Fountain Project: A multi-channel sound study of an urban garden environment.

Aim:
The aim of the project was part technical and part conceptual. The technical aspect being the use of the Zoom H2 quadraphonic recorder. This decision was partly because I had access to a multi-channel recorder and  speaker set-up. However, this then lead to the choice of subject matter, as it was experimentation with the quadraphonic recordings which revealed the interesting sonic properties of the fountain (see previous post Task 2: Bioacoustics Intro for more information). The conceptual aim was to recreate the sonic environment of around the fountain and the surrounding gardens by presenting a variety of recordings, both static and with movement. As mentioned in the post Task 2: Bioacoustics Intro, I tried to find an environment as free from urban noise as possible (such as traffic and human sounds), or what R. Murray Schafer would call a ‘hi-fi soundscape’. ‘The hi-fi soundscape is one in which discrete sounds can be heard clearly because of the low ambient noise level.’ (Schafer 1971, cited in Cox and Warner 2007: 32) Within a city however, this is near impossible to find and in-fact near impossible to find within a heavily urbanised country such as the UK.  I then decided to record around a fountain, which in-itself adds noise to the environment and hence downgrades the recordings further towards the ‘Lo-fi soundscape’ category. ‘In a lo-fi soundscape individual acoustic signals are obscured in an overdense population of sounds. The pellucid sound-a footstep in the snow, a train whistle in the distance or a church bell across the valley-is masked by broad-band noise.’ (Schafer 1971, cited in Cox and Warner 2007: 32-33) So in my recordings, the fountain provides this ‘broad-band’ of noise, perhaps obscuring other sounds. However, this is more the case with the recordings closer to the fountain, while the more distant recordings allow closer focus on other sounds. Having mentioned this, the close recordings of the fountain are intentionally noisy, with a clear focus on the sound of the fountain, and this successfully hides any traffic sounds. Interestingly, other sounds which are usually considered as unwanted noise, now become interesting, as the fountain is so dominant an aeroplane, or vehicle becomes a stand-out sound.

The Four Presentations:
The project features four different presentations in order to try and replicate the sound environment of the botanic gardens. The first presentation is a static study which combines four different recordings from four different positions around the fountain. See figure 1.1 below for for a diagram of the recorder placements.
Fig 1.1 click here

The four position were as close as possible to create a square around the fountain, however due to maintenance work blocking an area of the park, the resultant shape is more narrow and rectangular. The recordings were stereo, not quadraphonic, they were later layered and panned to the four channels creating a 360 degree virtual space of around the fountain. The panning was set according to figure 1.2 below
Fig 1.2 click here

Unfortunately, the four recordings were recorded at separate times, one after the other. To have created a true virtual representation of the area, I would have liked to of recorded all positions at the same time. This would enabled sounds to travel from one position to the other, and hence from one speaker to the next. For example, an aeroplane overhead should sound from all positions (channels) at the same time, yet in my recording, when an aeroplane did indeed pass, it can only be heard from position 4, the rear right channel (this can be heard at 0:30 within the video presentation) . The decision to record separately was due to equipment and the fact that I only have one portable recorder. Even if I did posses four recorders, there would be syncing issues on getting all recorders started at the same time. To successfully record all positions at the same time, a laptop with a multi-channel interface, or a multi-channel portable recording unit along with four external microphones, stands and extensive cabling would be required. The resulting soundscape is however still interesting. An unrealistic virtual space has been created as technically it is like standing at four positions at different times but yet hearing all sounds together. I feel the result still creates a good impression of the area though, it’s more like a snapshot of the acoustics around the fountain. From a more musical point of view, the resultant soundscape creates interest from the differing sounds coming from the different channels. The different angles and heights of the microphone positions has lead to different fountain tones being created in each speaker.

The next presentation is the long walk. For this I walked with the microphone (which had been set to record quadraphonically), along a predetermined path and then repeated in reverse. The purpose of repeating in reverse is so that the front and rear microphones switch, giving a different perspective on the return journey. See figure 2.1 below for a diagram showing the route of the long walk and it’s relation to the first presentations static recording positions.
Fig 2.1 click here

The walk was also recorded with a video camera, and later the quadraphonic recordings from the Zoom unit were superimposed over the video from the mobile phone. The inclusion of the video gives a different dimension to this presentation, as it is the only one of the four which includes video. It’s the opposite to an acousmatic approach as the audience are now presented with an image to associate the sounds with. The walk also takes us away from the fountain, so it’s noise obscuring other sounds is removed to a subtle background hiss. However, the noise of the fountain is soon replaced by traffic sounds and never really progress any further towards a ‘hi-fi soundscape’.

The third presentation is the medium walk. The same approach was taken as with the long walk only with a different path (shown in figure 2.2).
Fig 2.2 click here
The effect of this walk is similar to the long walk, only now the fountain is more focused again, there are however breaks when the tree line blocks the fountain, then bird song and other background sounds become more forefront. As with all the ‘walk’ presentations, the result is a more realistic virtual replication of the sonic environment than the static position presentations. Although our hearing is binaural, and the most accurate way to regenerate what we would hear in the environment would be the use of a binaural head, I feel the use of a quadraphonic recording is a more accurate representation than that of basic two channel stereo recording. This is due to our ears being side mounted, whereas stereo tends to focus from the front, our hearing is quite multi-directional, however less so from behind thanks to our predatory set up. There is a further inaccuracy with the recording position for the walk presentations. The Zoom recorder was held sideways during the walk, so rather than pointing forward like the position of my head, the front channels were in-fact facing sideways either towards or away from the fountain. The reason for this was to ensure the fountain is always in focus, but the down side is an unrealistic listening position. For the long walk however, this has been counteracted with the video also being taken facing the fountain (then switches to the rear), so a much more realistic correlation has been created here.

The final presentation is of two short walks of where the fountain sound is the sole focus. These short walks are more of a spacial experiment than anything else. The difference between the front and rear recordings is vast due to the proximity of the fountain, then the switch in direction is very obvious, and an odd sweep across the speakers is created when the fountain dominance switches from rear to front. See figure 2.3 for the path for the short walks as well as diagram showing the microphone position for all walks.
Fig 2.3 click here

Conclusion:
There are shortfalls with all the presentations, but I feel the combination as a complete project creates a detailed virtual representation of the sound of an urban garden environment. The experimentation with multi-channel recording has lead to some more musical outcomes, as well as helping to create a more realistic sonic image. Small sections of all the presentations have been combined in a demonstration video, which also features images of the recording positions and the figures shown above. This video successfully demonstrates the various approaches I took and I feel lies somewhere between a sonic study and a musical piece.

Bibliography:

Schafer, M (1971) “The Music of the Environment” in Cox C. & D. Warner, eds. (2007) Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music, London & New York: Continuum

Click here for link to my Acoustmatic Transformation task

1. what your objective was in creating the music for your task.

To take a single sound file, with a distinct sound characteristic, and transform this into a large range of sounds, distancing the sound as much as possible from it’s original source. The sound file I used was a recording of two long kazoo notes. I felt it would be challenging to take this distinct and comical sound and transform it into a interesting piece of music.
I also wanted to experiment with the Michael Norris Spectral plug-in tools, as recommended in class.

2. what well known composer’s approach you decided to adopt and how you modified it to suit your piece.

I took acoustmatic transformation techniques similar to what Trevor Wishart pioneered with pieces such as Red Bird (1973-77). ‘The transformations, all from the voice to other sounds, include ‘lis’ (from the work ‘listen’) to birdsong, ‘rea’ (from the word ‘reason’) to animal-sounds…’ (Wishart, 2000). Here Wishart is explaining how all the transformations within Red Bird were from a single sound source; his voice. This is a similar limitation to what I worked with, but in-fact a much smaller range of sounds can be extracted from a single sample of a kazoo, than there is with the voice. This is evident in the type of transformations, in the music. Red Bird features a diverse range of rhythmic and timbrel transformations, where as my piece focuses on drawing out the original sound and layering long tones making a more harmonic outcome. Wishart achieved a similar effect in part 4 of Red Bird at 9:44 where sounds have been slowed down and elongated to create more ambient textures.

3. Note one particular audio technique you applied in this task which you had not applied before.

The main tool I focused on was the ‘spectral blurring’ plug-in. I gave the ‘blur amount’ parameter a very high value (around 95%), this produced a long, reverberant aftermath after hearing the original sound. I then bounced the results and re-inported the audio file into logic. I duplicated this file a few times, changing pitch-shifter values and EQing for each instance creating multiple layers of long, ambient tones. Surprisingly I didn’t use any reverb on these sounds even though they sound incredibly reverberant and distant, this effect is the result of the spectral blurring as well as some delay with large feedback values.

4. Note one particular music technique you learned through doing this task.

I learnt that the layering of many duplications of the original transformation (explained in question 3), but with alterations in pitch, EQ and length, led to a very dense and rich texture being created. Due to the differing lengths of the duplications, this led to the layers fading out at different times and creating an interesting ambience.

5. In your view, how is this task an example of practice as research?

This was an exploration into how one can take a single sample and create an entire piece from this. Spectral effects from a plugin set which I had not used before, helped me discover new and interesting ways in which a single sound can be transformed.

6. Autoevaluation:

70%. The kazoo sample was a challenging, and slightly awkward sound to use as my source material, but it ended up working surprisingly well as it’s breathy characteristics lead to some interesting drone sounds. Overall, I feel the structure is good, with the source sound becoming more and more distance before a brief return to normality at the end. It may be interesting to use these techniques to create a more drawn out drone piece.

Bibliography

Reading

Wishart, T (2000) Computer Sound Transformation: A personal perspective from the U.K. [online] Available at: http://www.trevorwishart.co.uk/transformation.html, last accessed on 07/04/2011.

Listening

Wishart, T (2000) Red Bird, (1977), New York: Electronic Music Foundation Ltd. EMF CD022. Compact Disc, 45:07.

Link to a stereo mix of my sound poem: ‘Seasons SP’… Click Here

1. what your objective was in creating the music for your task

(see previous two posts for more info on my objective)

To create a sound poem which reflects on weather stories in the media. The idea was to start with positive weather statements and gradually progress to more extreme and perhaps over-exaggerated stories. The original plan was to only use recordings collected from various media sources such as the BBC’s website and youtube. However, I found it difficult to find enough material (and most was very poor quality), so I resorted to narrating parts of stories found on news websites myself, and mixing this with the recordings I plundered and sound FX such as rain and thunder.

There was also a spacial concept to the poem, and has been mixed over four channels, with each channel representing a season. Please see the post ‘sound poem: quadraphonic correlation’ for more info and a diagram about this.

2. what well known composer’s approach you decided to adopt and how you modified it to suit your piece.

I listened to work by Paul De Marinis, and although the approach I took was eventually very different to De Marinis compositions, his album Music as a Second Language inspired me to combine speech with other musical sounds. In my piece at about 0:58, a drone is introduced which slowly builds as the statements begin to occur more frequently and their subject matter becomes more extreme. So whereas in De Marinis’ work, where the musical phrases mimics rhythms andpitch of the spoken sounds, in my piece, the musical drone is linked with the subject matter and frequency of spoken phrases.

3. Note one particular audio technique you applied in this task which you had not applied before

This was the first time I had worked with a collage of recordings of spoken phrases as the primary source of material but also it was the first time I had worked with multichannel diffusion. This opened a whole new array of spacial techniques I could try such as 360 degrees automated panning. I however didn’t want to use too much movement across the four channels, instead I wanted to keep the four channels dedicated to the relevant seasons. Some sounds however I could move across all seasons, such as rain, wind and thunder, and it was hear where I experimented with 360 degree movement.

4. Note one particular music technique you learned through doing this task

I learnt that combining many layers of spoken phrases and natural sounds along with a simple synthetic drone, lead to some interesting textures. The spoken sounds layered on top of each other creates complex rhythms, whereas the drone is absent of rhythm so contradicts nicely.

5. In your view, how is this task an example of practice as research?

My sound poem explored a particular subject in the form of weather and peoples reactions to it. This idea was very much emulating other composers of sound poetry who concentrated on political issues, so I researched more into this idea. Also, I explored a new idea to me and that is of spacial mixing, and incorporating sound placement as an important part of my concept.

6. Autoevaluation:

70%: I think the piece is effective, and as well as exploring a subject, it also incorporates spatial elements and a solid structure leading to a satisfying finale. However, some of the recordings used were of low quality, and I think if I was to compose the piece again, I would use only narrations of stories, giving me more control over the tone of the voice. Perhaps the subject matter is a little vague, and although it fits my spatial concept, a stronger political point could perhaps be made by including environmental issues such as global warming etc.

Bibliography

De Marinis, P (1991) Music as a Second Language, New York: Lovely Music, Ltd. LCD 3011 ADD. Compact Disc.

Today I took a trip to the Cambridge University Botanic Gardens for inspiration and ideas for the Bioacoustics task. I wanted to find a location with as little urban sounds as possible, however, even within the large grounds of the gardens, it was impossible to escape road noise (very busy roads surround all sides of the gardens), and also building works that were happening within the grounds on various buildings and paths.

The equipment I took with me to the gardens was a Zoom H2 field recorder (with ‘wind screen’ and tripod base attachments) as well as a good pair of closed-back headphones. The Zoom recorder features 4 built in microphones, allowing for two different stereo mic set-ups or quadraphonic sound capture.

The image below shows my chosen recorder and the mic set-up. The front X-Y pair is at 90 degrees and the rear pair at 120 degrees, giving a wider stereo image.

I was very interested in experimenting with the quadraphonic recording. I had never used all four mics before, and I recently set up quadraphonic monitoring at home. so now’s the perfect time!

The first location I chose to record, I decided that I would incorporate road sounds into it. The location was on a hill, quite close to the road and on the other side a pond. The idea was to have the road behind me, so this would be captured with the rear microphones, and the pond and rest of the gardens in front. There was a bench at the location so I used the tripod base and sat the unit on the bench. The results weren’t terribly interesting as the road was very drone like and was overpowering all the more subtle sounds coming from the pond and gardens. More interest was gained when I walked about with the recorder, foot steps sounded clear and bright on the loose gravel and the turning of the uni made for some interesting spacial effects. An issue with using the quadraphonic recording option is that I can only hear a stereo interpretation through my headphones, only once I have uploaded the files onto my computer at home can I hear the full surround effect.

The next Location I decided to record resulted in some much more interesting results and possibly an idea I will now stick with for the rest of the project. In the centre of the gardens is a circular fountain surrounded by a path and benches. (picture below)

I had the idea of taking a steady walk around the fountain, capturing not only the water sounds, but also little snippets of the conversations of the people on benches on the outer side. I thought this could be a good use of the quadraphonic recording, as I could hold the unit with the front facing the people and the rear facing the fountain. Again, I couldn’t hear the full effect through the headphones, but I could hear some interesting left and right movements as I walked past the benches. Now the really interesting part is when I turn around, now the front and rear mics have switched, and the fountain is predominately being captured by the front and the conversations by the rear. This turning moment when monitoring on my 4 speaker set-up is really nice, a swooping, phasey effect is created as the loud fountain sound switches from back to front.

I have drawn a diagram showing the path of the recording seen below (click to enlarge)…

So the diagram shows the outward journey in green. The recorder was held in the position shown in the diagram at the starting point and throughout the walk. So as you can see there were two turning points, halfway though and at the end.

This visit was intended to be just an experiment, and to get a few recordings just for ideas. But I really like the ‘fountain walk’ and could make a nice project. I have only a short recording of a single walk, so I would like to go back and record a few cycles, perhaps experimenting with mic positioning and different times of day (more/less people).

Below is a diagram planning the correlation of seasons with speakers. Sounds will move from season to season, and some sounds might represent two seasons at the same time, e.g. snow in autumn, or hot weather in spring. So sounds will travel from speaker to speaker, and some sounds might be present in all seasons (all speakers) e.g. rain or thunder.

Just a quick post about an idea I have for this task…

Concept:
A collage of statements regarding the seasons and weather. The four seasons will be represented by it’s own channel (the composition will be quadraphonic). The piece will start with occasional spoken statements sourced from news reports, and other media sources and complimented by non spoken sounds relevant to the season being discussed. As the composition progresses, the statements will become more frequent and extreme in content matter.

Rationale:
In my opinion, Britain seems a little too obsessed with the weather and this isn’t helped by the over-reaction of the media with weather based stories. This subject is particularly fresh in my mind due to the extreme conditions in December 2010. However, the consequences of these conditions I felt were perhaps over exaggerated by the public and the media, and hence this piece is a reaction to this thought.

Now I’ve never done any quadraphonic mixing before, but I now have all the equipment needed, so hopefully this task will be a good practice with specialisation of sound also.

Link to task 2 composition

1. what your objective was in creating the music for your task:

To create a piece similar in structure to Benjamin Brittens ‘Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra’, featuring an introduction section that includes all elements, and then having ‘solo’ sections for each electronic music ingredient. Finally the composition should end with all elements returning. I wanted the composition to also have a narration, and to stick with the theme I wanted this to be computer generated (however, perhaps a computer generated voice is a little out of place considering the time period the composition is emulating).

2. what well known composer’s approach you decided to adopt and how you modified it to suit your piece.

I took inspiration from works by Milton Babbitt and the music created by the RCA synthesiser. The RCA synthesiser was capable of:

• Frequency/tone generation provided by twelve tuning-fork oscillators and
white noise
• Glider and vibrato generator
• Envelope and volume controller
• Timbre controller, including filters
• Program relay for octave settings
• Program relay for frequency settings
• Amplifiers and mixers. (Holmes, 2002)

So, bearing in mind these limitations, I used only simple oscillator units within MaxMSP as my audio sources, and performed only modulations and filtering.

Specific pieces of inspiration were Milton Babbitts Composition for Synthesiser, Occasional Variations and Vareses’ Poem Electronique. I feel my piece has similarities with Babbitts synthesiser music in particular, due to his use of frantic rhythms, which were ever-changing and almost algorithmic in nature, even-though all note values were in-fact carefully chosen manually.

3. Note one particular audio technique you applied in this task which you had not applied before:

Due to the simple and limited nature of sounds I had to use, there wasn’t really any new techniques I used here, but the limitations in themselves became a new technique. Using only basic sine, triangle, square and noise generators made me think of ways in which interest could be obtained from such minimal resources.

4. Note one particular music technique you learned through doing this task:

Randomly generated rhythms were used for the noise element (heard individually at 1:30). There are two noise generators running simultaneously both of which have independent algorithms selecting the rhythm. These are then panned extreme left and right, and when two similar rhythms on each noise generator is choosen, a phasing effect is created (listen to 1:38 for example).

Another technique I implemented was that of manually controlled elements via dials and sliders. Although many of the tones and notes were automatically generated in the piece, I wanted to replicate the more ‘hands-on’ electronic music approach of the 1950′s, where filters etc. were controlled by physical dials, so a more humanised sounds was created. I created a controller ‘main screen’ for my Max patch (see previous post for image), where dynamics, modulation and filtering are controlled by hand (well, mouse actually!).

5. In your view, how is this task an example of practice as research?:

Similar to the previous task, more research has been done on the early limitations of electronic music, and trying to achieve interesting results through using only simple sound generators. Also the use of ‘hand controlled’ dials to perform modulations and filtering, has taught me the advantages of using a more human or performed approach to electronic composition.

6. Autoevaluation: what mark would you give yourself for this task and why:

70%. I feel I have met the criteria of the task well, by replicating the structure and principle of Brittens piece. Also, by using MaxMSP, and starting very much from the ground up, I have fully explored the limitations of which the mid 1950′s practitioners had to work with, and created a piece in which is characteristic of the inspired composers. However, perhaps the use of automatically generated notes and electronically generated voice for naration is out of character of this time.

Written Resources

Holmes, T. (2002) ELECTRONIC AND EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC: Pioneers in Technology and Composition, second edition. London and New York: Routledge

Listening Resources

Babbitt, M. (2003) Occasional Variations (1968-1971), New York: Tzadik. TZ 7088. Compact Disc. 9:54.

Britten, B. (1990) The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, London: The Decca Record Company Limited. 425 659-2. Compact Disc. 16:34.

Within my group, I held responsibility for providing the instrument which produced it’s sound by ‘The disturbance of a column of air (e.g. wind)’. After experimenting with various tubes and pipes, blowing into them, hitting them etc, I wasn’t really satisfied with any of the sounds I was producing. So I had the idea of using an air-bed pump to produce ‘wind’ rather than my mouth. However, simply blowing air through tubes and pipes doesn’t create interesting sound, and I wanted to move away from just replicating a traditional wind instrument like a recorder or flute. I turned to the idea of using water, and I knew that Simon (fellow group member) had a specially made hydro-phone (underwater microphone). At this point I knew that Simon was creating a very metallic instrument, and Dave a more organic, wooden sound. I felt the bubbling sounds produced by my instrument complemented the natural sounds of Dave’s instrument, but not so much Simons. So using a metal container, and using a contact microphone on the bottom of the instrument, gave it a hybrid of natural and urban – metallic sounds.

Instrument Design

I was also the only group member to use electronics. So the two microphones were connected to the audio interface and sent into a Max patch. The patch was simple, offering filtering, reverb and delay controls.

So the above image shows the max patch and sub patches. The two microphones are set up on the main screen (left), and sent to the sup patches. The contact mic signal is sent to a delay, and the hydro-phone signal is sent to a filter. Both these signals are then sent through a reverb with it’s amount controlled by a simple dial on the main screen.

Composition Concept

As a group we felt it was important to have a theme or concept to try and focus our performance. We decided upon a cyclic structure, representing a journey with a definite beginning, middle and end. Our initial idea was to try and create a sonic journey from the city to the coast, gradually shifting from urban to organic sounds. However, we felt we needed to focus this a little, so the final concept was that of a commuter, producing a sonic representation of an urban lifestyle. Right from the start we wanted to avoid a fully scored performance. To me, having a fully determined piece removed some of the spirit of task. Due to our instruments being created from whatever materials we could find, and in a very short time, the very construction of the instruments was improvised, so improvisation seemed appropriate for the performance. However, we took our concept and we created a diagram, which outlined the structure and gave us perfomers instructions from which we improvised.

Below is a computer realised version of our concept diagram that I created…

Link to full size concept diagram

Evaluation

Overall I feel my instrument worked surprisingly well. It was unconventional in it’s methods of sound production, and the combination of electronic and physical sound made for some interesting results. The rumbling drones complimented Simon’s more harsh, aggressive sounds, and Dave’s percussive sounds. I feel the performance went well, especially the final minute, by this time we had gelled, and sounds started to compliment each other. Due to limited practice, the performance did feel a little too improvised, and took a few minuets for the group to start sonically communicating. But this was part of the task, and with only 4 weeks to form a group, build an instrument, compose a piece and perform, improvisation and a fairly random outcome was all in spirit of the task.

Finally, a picture of my ‘water, wind and electronic’ instrument…

This is a more technical post and introduction to this task. The post for assessment will follow…

I wanted to start with really basic tones, to demonstrate in the simplest way the basic ingredients for early electronic composers so I felt Max MSP would be good software to use. So I started with just basic audio units such as cycle~, square~, noise~ etc… Then used some algorithmic devices, and some manual control to perform simple modulations on the sounds.

Here are some pics of my Max patch…

This is the main control screen. All the variables can be controlled from this screen such as filtering for noise, modulation and simple volume controls

These are the synth sub-patches, displaying the technical aspects of the synths.

And finally the voice sub-patch. Simply used to add a computer generated voice to introduce the sections of the composition. The pitch of the voice is algorithmic!