Month: October 2021

Today in our studio praxis lecture, we got instruments and connected the cables up the mixing desk and then through into Ableton.

Cai brought a no-input mixer and the sounds were immense for sound design. I want to try by myself no-input mixing as it seems fascinating.
I didn’t bring an instrument although I should have brought my sp404sx. I was hesitant to bring it as it’s not an instrument. I do use it as an instrument but it requires sounds to work. So I was unsure of using it, but now it could have been a cool effects unit to go through in between the mixer and the interface.

We started with a jam in general and like how Dean said the instruments seemed to have taken dominance over the over things, and how they lead the improvisation. Once they started creating a rhythm or the drums came involved the other things would follow.

Then we did a second take and this time gave every group a time to solo and then go through the others and then combine.

We discussed at the end our ideas and thoughts.

I had thoughts about improvisation in general and how it was interesting that we had set mind states about how we wanted to work, as soon as we look at these instruments or foley sounds. Our brain wants to create patterns, find a meaning or a possible thing to catch onto, perhaps a state of safety. I also felt that people’s personalities came across or at least how they were feeling when performing, as it was an abstract performance without a definitive structure we were free to do as we wished. Some people were more boisterous than others, I felt this can reflect how we are feeling that day or about performing in front of others.

I also thought back to the storm exercise, and how when creating my part of the piece. I had already started playing chords with the synthesizers I was designing. Almost as if my ritual was in place. I believe it can hold someone back from exploring new avenues when doing this. I felt similar today about the use of instruments. Indeed beautiful and fascinating how the players combined the harmonies and keys & tones. It felt again like they had predetermined ideas of how they wanted/were going to use their instruments. Joshua came out with a good point about how limiting his instrument the guitar felt once he tried taking it out of context. I felt he was correct. It is interesting how we need perspective on things and sometimes it takes us doing the unknown to acquire these.

In context to my assignment. I think this has made me want to collaborate or at least get some artists to play improvised work towards a visual piece of my choice. I want to experiment with this.

After recording our sounds we then uploaded all our recordings into our shared folder onto the google drive. We discussed how we would approach the collaboration. I decided to contrast the recordings after listening to their field recordings. We discussed how even though there was a lot of difference there was more similarities within the recordings. I found that if i blended these and created a narrative it would create a diverse soundscape.

Here is the outcome.

Dereck De Abreu Coelho Same But Different,

When thinking about the idea for my Sound envelope idea I looked back to our sessions discussing what the common themes were between the field recordings. For me what stood out was the similarities between both places, being Hong Kong & London. When listening back to the participants recordings I felt at times that the recordings contrasted well when combined. I decided to use different recordings from specific areas together to create a narrative. Guiding you through parks, busy streets & markets. Finishing with river and ocean recordings.

Before setting out to my field recording session i decided to write down several locations before hand to think about what i was going to record and more importantly what my sonic landscape was. I also felt like i should share specific sonic soundscapes that are different to Hong Kong. Literally a gift, like a tourist adventure in sound to share with them.

When recording after initially beginning with the locations i planned, i found myself cycling with the recorder and letting my ears lead me to the sounds i found attractive. Or had some sort of quality that made it i wanted to capture it. These were some of the outcomes.

I felt really happy with the outcome. I think the varied recordings and not all of them could fit into this blog post has built an immersive soundscape of my soundscapes.

I signed up for a collaborative project with students from hong kong called sound envelope. In our first session to discuss the idea of what sound envelope is, lead by Ryo Ikeshiro (SoundLab, School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong).

The idea of sound envelope was inspired by chinese culture. When it’s someones birthday or they’ve achieved something you offer them an envelope. Which usually has money inside. Ryo wanted to continue this gift sharing idea but for soundscapes and field recordings. London and Hong Hong which are two cities that have had a lot of history together culturally.

Our task was to record field recordings around our city of things we found were our sonic landscapes. and then create a piece to reflect/contrast the Hong Kong recordings to our own or perhaps not.

In milos lecture we were handed a card from his Oblique Strategies deck and mine said “Do Nothing”. I find this interesting as i feel i usually end up not necessarily doing nothing but feeling distracted.

My work ethic is going extremely fanatic and obsessed and working overtime until i complete the project and then extreme downtime to let living and life influence me. “Do Nothing” can be interpreted in a way as i do not often do nothing. As even going on my phone, or watching a movie to relax isn’t nothing but a semi conscious aware state.

I find in todays modern age we have machines and programs/apps designed to soak our attention span. To make us constantly feel like we’re missing out or need to check on what’s going on. I think i will try to schedule in some time to do nothing. To walk in the park and lie down and just listen to my environment.

I read the article on the discussion of this movie. What really stood out to me was a few things, number one was. The removal of the voice of “god”, the voice overs we usually receive in documentary type pieces that almost remove us from immersion. This tends to as written “creates a less than centred objectifying gaze on migrants ” Which i found interesting as well. To think that instead of seeing it as an observational video we feel like we are on this journey with the migrants. Instead of this over seeing god watching down. Again another technique that can do a lot to the visuals.

After reading this article from Brett Ashleigh where she notes her thoughts about the techniques and approaches towards the sound design and story telling used in “We Need to Talk About Kevin”. I found it interesting how she mentions the decisions with the stems was to split up the the story to the audio. That they all worked together separately, the music/score, sound effects, and dialogue.

The narrative spoken with separate mediums working divorced from each other as Brett says is a new way of communicating story. As is two messages are happening at once. The use of acousmatic sounds to convey a feminine message isn’t something i was aware of but it does make sense. To not rely on on language to convey the message.

Helen Cixous’s revolutionary treatise The Laugh of the Medusa introduced the theory of l’ecriture féminine says Brett. Feminine cinematic art has the ability to display a narrative that depends on emotional and affective techniques rather than those based in language.

I think this technique is really interesting, i’ve always known that sound/music can effect the viewers perception but i never thought it in a patriarchal sense. I guess male and female humans have a different way of embracing their sonic landscapes and it wouldn’t make sense for the movie to depict the trauma the mother is going through with the same techniques used for a male leading movie. This blog post has made me think about sound techniques to convey story differently than before. I never thought to think about conveying the thoughts of character on screen from their specific POV (point of view) soundscape experience.