As I’ve been doing my essay, I’ve been learning more about different field recording practices and sort of deciding how I should do my own piece. As I’m currently unsure where I stand with it, I’m keen to use old analogue equipment but the eBay listings are very expensive and I’m not sure how I want to do this, so it kind of feels like I’m back at the drawing board.
When doing research for my essay which is around field recording practice I came across Peter Cusack and his work Sounds From Dangerous Places. His book simply asks the question “What can we learn by listening to the sounds of dangerous places?” it touches on places in the world that are home to extreme and hostile conditions, pollution, social injustice, military or geopolitical. I read his book alongside the two CDs of audio.
The Cd when loaded came with photos of the locations and the sounds. Peter speaks in the first section about Chornobyl and his experience visiting and understanding the disaster. He speaks on the damage it caused people, and that society should be worried about powerful technology such as nuclear reactors in case an accident happens like this one, how do gauge the positives to negatives? He speaks on the politics of the area, the comparisons with other nuclear disasters such as Fukushima, and the idea that a nuclear future isn’t safe for us. He also finishes his essay with a clear and beautiful quote, he coins the term sonic journalism. The idea of sonic journalism for Cusack is.
“Sonic Journalism is based on the idea that all sound, including non-speech, gives information about places and events and that careful listening provides valuable insights different from, but complementary to, visual images and language. This does not exclude speech but readdresses the balance towards the relevance of other sounds. In practice, field recordings become the means to achieve this. Recordings can, of course, be used in many ways. In my view, sonic journalism occurs when field recordings are allowed adequate space and time to be heard in their own right when the focus is on their original factual and emotional content, and when they are valued for what they are rather than as source material for further work as is often the case in around art or music. Sonic journalism can be specifically created or can refer to these qualities in recordings originally made for other purposes.”
Peter Cusack, Sounds from Dangerous Places
I found this whole idea of sonic journalism and using sound alongside other mediums really interesting as an artist myself. I’m curious about how I can potentially use sonic journalism in a piece of work, and how other mediums can benefit the use of sound in some way? I then went along with the book and started listening to the CD alongside the photography and explanation of the places.
The CD companies texts and photos in the book, some of my favourite sounds within it were.
2. Ferris Wheel, Pripyat, the sound of the Ferris wheel creaking and standing in the wind, recorded with a contact mic attached to the frame.
3. Power cable crackle, recording the energy going into the exclusion zone to still run the old nuclear reactor, showcasing how this area isn’t as absent as some think.
6. Cuckoo and radiometer, I found this juxtaposition between nature and the radiometer so powerful, the idea that death is being measured to see how dangerous the area is, alongside nature always prevailing in these circumstances.
8. People, where should I look for you? In a poem recorded of a local in the area, she speaks about her love for the area, nature and the sadness of leaving.
The second part of the book is titled Caspian Oil and Uk Sites, he speaks that his trip to Bibi Heybat in Azerbaijan sparked his idea for this project and lead him to look at current UK sites as well as Chornobyl. He says something that strikes me as important “I also visited UK sites where, on a smaller but still significant scale, sound indicates not only environmental dynamics but, sometimes, the responses of people involved.”
It also continues to other Uk sites such as Sellafield a huge nuclear plant. Cusack speaks on how he was searched twice while recording for these sounds and makes a comparison with the sound of nuclear power plants as the sound of authority in our society. “constantly present-unchanging, featureless, soulless, utterly authoritarian and rarely touched by the small sounds of life.
I’ve found his work so powerful in understanding specific issues, I’m interested perhaps if I could do sonic journalism for my practical element as well. I think his ideas of recording these places really touched me and my mentality with sound and political stance. Some of these recordings have really spoken to me, and the power that sound can transmit through them. I also admire his idea of letting the sounds do the work, that sonic journalism isn’t perhaps the idea to record sounds to use for another piece of art but for the sounds themselves to be listened to and understood as recordings themselves. I want to look a bit more into other works of Peter Cusack If possible. I also perhaps want to visit the same sites in the UK, maybe not all but the closest sites and experience it for myself, see if the locations have changed and see if I can create an updated version. I do however speculate that this will take a lot of time and i only have two weeks and a few days until the hand in.
I’ve carried on researching more recorders and recording equipment. As it currently stands my idea is to take a day trip to a forest close by (unsure of the location where yet) and record the environment using an analogue recorder. I’m interested in how equipment can dictate or perhaps influence our usage of it and how we record and interact with our sonic environment. I wanted to film a short nature film with Super 8, 2-3 minutes, as there is no sound recorded through it, and continue to record the environment with sound and create a beautiful short film. Something so meditative about the sounds of nature and the combination of sound and film can really take off from each other. As even political groups such as Ultra Red when recording protests on to CDs add a short text to explain the situation as it needs context sometimes for the audio to really shape and have meaning I believe it can be the same with visuals attached.
The first recorder I looked into was the Sony TCD5M
First released in 1979 it’s still one of the best cassette field recorders to this date, its sturdy made of high lasting materials and records in multiple tape types, and has Dolby b noise reduction. I was interested in how field recordists used condenser microphones in the past, as this machine didn’t include it. I’ve come to find out a lot of older microphones had batteries inside you could change and replace such as the Sony ECM-MS907 which is a stereo condenser microphone. The only downside of this machine is the rarity and stupid prices of £1000+, I’m hoping to find one around £200-250 price point if possible.
The next thing I did was start googling field recording cassette, and other key terms as I knew at this point the best place to find guidance was old forums where people are still discussing these things. I managed to find one where everyone started giving advice to this user asking about using a cassette field recorder in new york for sound effects and a lot of people were dismissing him. One recommended a Marantz PMD430 – CP430 one was used for USA other for Europe. He said he used to use them on set back in the day when he worked in the film industry. He spoke bout the handy 3 heads this machine has which allows you to hear the recording while it’s recording. Very handy for monitoring the actual tape instead of the input when field recording, a lot of machines don’t have this which makes the Marantz CP430 very useful. The only downside is that there isnt an XLR input just 1/4 Inch. Although converters could work, and i could use external mics with there own power source.
Marantz CP430
I tried finding a few on Ebay and i’m unsucessful for finding one around my price range. Which lead me to read on further and research more into it.
The Uher 4000 was BBC stock recorders for years and it’s very trustworth for what i need it for, Except no 1/4 inch inputs, just DIN inputs which is annoying unless i find the correct mics. Again i want to record to tape for the fact i cant record hours and hours of recordings, i want the limited recording abilities to push me to listen more to my enviroment than to record anything just because i have an SD card loaded in. I decided that any reel to reel recorders would be out of the question as they’re incredibly heavy and perhaps to inconvinient for me.
This is the first post towards my practical element explaining where I currently stand with this second section. I initially and still am doing research towards my essay which I have written 2000 words. I have established after a tutorial that perhaps it’s a vague essay speaking about a lot of field recording practices. I should instead focus on the two practices that really talk to me.
There has been a lot of research on my practical element which I wish to discuss here. Initially when being told about the two-part hand in I decided that field recordings were a practice I was into a lot, the aural cultures hand in my audio paper spoke around field recordings and sound designing cities and the possibilities that lay within this. I thought it would be interesting to research field recording practice and then let the essay dictate the practical element. I am now finding myself at a crossroads where I feel they should grow together instead of one dictating the other.
My initial ideas came from reading In The FieldThe Art of Field Recording and reading about all the varied practices amongst these practitioners. One that stood out the most was Annea Lockwood and the interview curated by Cathy Lane. She speaks on her project A Sound Map Of the Hudson River where she travelled along this river recording the river and all its beauty. I then listened to her work on youtube and I was fascinated by the differences in the river and the context explained by her. I was also interested in her use of equipment, something I hadn’t really thought about. I have been using Sound Devices Mix Pre 10 recorder and high tech microphones such as the Sennheiser 416 from the university for my own recordings.
I typically use more vintage or analogue equipment for my own practice in music outside of university and when Annea spoke about her using an Uher tape machine and wishing for a Nagra tape machine, which I’d used in the composition lab and heard many others using it for the first field recordings in films. I was curious about the use of whether analogue equipment or obsolete equipment is still relevant in this day and age. Annea spoke on using a Nakamichi Cassette deck and a Sony TCD5M. So I wanted to carry on my research into obsolete/vintage field recorders and what they offered.
I’ve written a rough first draft introduction that will definitely change, i wanted to write this as when i stated a few posts earlier. I really want the essay to feed into my practical element and i find the more i reflect on it the more i can create ideas for my sound piece.
Historically our way of understanding our environment and the issues in our society have been largely through sight, facts and statistics. Some scholars have even gone on to say our society is ocular-centric. The Sound Arts field is constantly pushing the ideas that sound and listening is critical to understanding our environment from a different perspective. “Our ears don’t have eyelids” An idea spoken by “insert name here” that unlike sight we are constantly processing sound without at times being aware. Our ears are always waiting for cues to respond to. Field recording as a practice has also largely increased throughout the years, where as in the past recording outside of a studio context was bulky, heavy, and very inconvenient with equipment such as the Nagra tape reel to reel machine it wasn’t viable for the common person to afford such equipment as it was terribly expensive. This made the privilege of recording very high and people didn’t have a lot of access to them. Moving on towards the modern day, 2022. We now have phones that can record better than the past equipment could, longer battery life on our recorders, even new equipment such as Sound devices mix pre 6 and Zoom F8N that now record up to 32 bit 192khz means that there is huge accessibility for recordings. This has meant many sound artists now use this for capturing audio to understand our environment, for political messages, to understand the ecology of our environments and other aspects. This essay will begin by speaking on the idea of why field recordings are even important? How is listening different to other senses and why is worth using our ears to understand our environment separately and combined with other senses. Then it will lead into Sound walks / Sound mapping, speaking on how artists use field recordings as a way of situating themselves in their environments, how sound walks and mapping can help us understand and learn from environments when we are just able to listen to, what are the strengths and weaknesses? Further more an analysis of Red a political group who uses field recordings to expose political issues within our society facing discrimination, racism and sexism and how sound can expose that. Chapter four will focus on science and how we can use field recordings as a tool to learn, with equipment such as the hydrophone. Chapter five ecological sound arts and field recording uses in this field. And finally chapter six sonic journalism. Then this essay will conclude on why field recording practices are important for us to have a different perspective on our environment
The next book I’ve chosen that I’ve read through is titled On Listening by Angus Carlyle and Cathy Lane. On listening is a collection of essays speaking about listening as a practice and how it can be used in context. The important part that this book tries to communicate is the connection between the scholarly activity of research and writing with the experimental practical element that sound has.
The essays contained in this book all bring together opinions and research into areas that combine both elements. Concentrating on listening and field recordings as a practice and how they can connect us with the environment is a strong element in these short essays. The book has four sections, the first being listening perspectives, which touches on the idea that listening is an active experience and that simply changing our awareness of what we are hearing can alter our perspective on what we hear. In the second section, listening places. Speaks on the idea of the different experiences we can have within spaces, and that spaces are just as important as the sound itself, one essay even argues that the space is the sound as without space sound cannot exist. Thirdly listening to self and others, a combination of the both can create a unified idea of our surroundings and each other.
Hollie Buhagiar is a multi award-winning Gibraltarian composer based in London, who specialises in crafting bespoke scores for film, TV and Games. She has worked on a plethora of projects for shorts, feature length films and series alongside Grammy and Academy Award winning engineers in the finest studios across London. Graduating from Leeds College of Music with first-class honours in Music production, Hollie continued on to complete a Masters at the National Film and Television School.
Throughout her career she has been hailed for her unique and varied sonic palette as well as her ability to create fascinating scores that approach traditional composition from a new and exciting perspective. Hollie’s experience spans worldwide and includes work for the likes of Amazon,Sky, Channel 4, BFI, NOWNESS, Creative England, Tate, The Guardian, Film London, VICE and BBC. Her projects have received critical acclaim winning various prestigious awards, these include a Porsche Award, a Gold British Arrow and the McLaren Award for Best British Animation, as well as being a two time Unity Awards nominee. She was also honoured with Gibraltar’s first ever Extraordinary Achievement Award for her work in the arts.
Poles Apart
After reading her bio I’m a bit confused as to whether she’s a sound designer or a music/score composer. When watching her portfolio I first approached Poles Apart as the animation interested me. The sound design is great, I listened to the bear’s sound effects and foley and it was really well created. As well as this the music in the background of the video. A simple guitar arpeggiated alongside haunting vocals really stood out. I do think this was her inclusion in this as she comes from a music background.
In The Grass
I now hopefully have realised that she is the one creating mainly the scores. This track over the video is very similar in terms of vocal performance to the first Animated video. Again great vocals and I’m really impressed with her tone and pitch, alongside the production. I’d be interested to know how she got into doing this work.
Astilbe – Hollie Buhagiar
I listened to this video on his Portfolio page. I assume she composed and wrote the song. I don’t see her in the actual video, but I can gather that this is her work. it’s very well composed, and the music theory is also really done well.
Post Lecture Reflection
Hollie begins by speaking about her practice, she works in Film, TV, theatre and games, as a composer and occasionally session vocalist. She grew up in Gibraltar and there was a thriving music scene but no film or games industry. There aren’t many compositional opportunities where she grew up and In Gibraltar, she specialised in performance studies and music. Through that, she then went to Leeds College of music and studied music production. It wasn’t just for film it was for numerous genres of music. In her first year, she decided to try film, it was the most foreign thing for her and she had never thought of it as a career path. She tried it and it became a lightbulb moment. It became really obvious to her once she realised her mother was a painter and no wonder she ended up making music for visuals.
Then for her final year, she created an album of library music which she then used to apply to the national film and tv school. As soon as she started studying at NFTS she was working part-time alongside it. And by the time she graduated she went straight into full-time work, and she finds herself lucky to have a very smooth experience from student to professional life and finds it lucky to find great creatives to network and collaborate with as it’s hard to find that. Since then she’s been working full time in the industry.
She’s had the privilege of working with numerous companies and even been part of projects that have won awards such as Gold British arrow win and animation that won a BAFTA.
She recently scored a documentary film. It’s a film about an old man who thinks he’s found treasure based on the text of Dantes inferno. He leads himself to Iceland to try and find the treasure and the film takes us deeper into trying to understand what is this treasure? The movie is set in Italy and Iceland and is set between old and modern. There are so many musical genres and styles in this she says. Musically she started when the brief was very vague and had a synopsis. The narrative is so influential of itself that she came up with a lot of different ideas and that was used in the final film in its form. She used everything in the pieces, vocals, pianos, violins, and chants. She used a flute player’s improvisation in a score as well that they stumble upon in the documentary.
She then shows us a piece she made for the Tate installation. Musically she feels it gave a good gauge for the style of the piece. This piece is very different to the first one, in the sense that it has this style throughout and it’s a different approach. In this, the music is supporting the visuals whereas in finding fool the music is the main object at times. They wanted to keep it very organic and the visuals sort of demand it. The music was clean, very organic, predominantly live instruments and sweet. Tapping into this wonderful and peaceful quality that Billie has in her presence and in the way that she speaks. This was an installation piece but it was just a video played in the Tate, she feels that in the documentary, balancing the dialogue and music is heavily important. She finds it easy to over-bake it and be heavy-handed. She found herself really taking time to understand each shot and in-between dialogue the music was key to be there and it also needed to allow space for the audience to just sit with the piece. She created textures that sit under the dialogue and they sit and support but do not distract. Adding pace and momentum to make sure it doesn’t get repetitive. Most of the instruments arrive and stay for a while, she sees them as textural waves of instruments and sounds throughout the dialogue that creates this energy that isn’t too distracting from what she’s saying. And it’s a fine line.
For the next clip, she wanted the listener to feel like they were in a gladiator fight. There were shouts, and a clink of armour merged with the epic music surrounding it. Trying to tell this wonderful tale, and also connect to the characters that are playing these games. It was a funny combination of going playful with the visuals and reducing to the wonderful people that play the games. They made bold music for it, a honky tonk piano style piece, another one was a big band brassy piece that was really energetic. It’s always great when the soundtrack runs across something that is cohesive and runs along with other things in the film.
She now moves on to fiction, it’s a coming of age romantic thriller piece. The score plays with diegetic and non-diegetic themes. Sometimes the actions of the actors are in the score. This film is really fun, really stylised and experimental, especially the music. In the build-up towards the end of the clip, the highest emotional peak of the film. The music is very abstract and it’s been brought up to that point. She worked alongside the sound designer quite intensely and they wanted to create a world that was unified. So they really played in how they could make this world fluid, and intense and she had a lot of things swelling and haze the character through the music and composition. She felt this was a great example of how to use your voice in a more abstract form in the soundtrack. The soundtrack at the end is heard at the very start, foreshadowing the end. And the idea of reincarnation was prominent in the film and this way the music/film had a loop.
I found Hollie’s work to be very professional, thoughtful and captivating. Her techniques and thought process demonstrated was very demonstrating for us students and I believe it helped me understand more of how it works in her industry.
Felisha Ledesma is a Berlin-based sound artist and musician. Ledesma co-founded and directed S1, a project space that hosted experimental music, performance and visual art as well as being the headquarters for the Synth Library – a lending library for electronic music equipment.
Most recently Felisha conceptualized a synthesizer, AMQR, together with instrument designer Ess Mattisson which was used on Ledesma’s releases for labels Ecstatic Recordings and Enmossed x Psychic Liberation. This collaboration led to the formation of Fors, a music technology project creating software instruments.
S1 SYNTH LIBRARY
Alongside Alissa Derubeis, Felisha Ledesma created a synth library within the S1 building. Felisha felt like synthesisers in general weren’t very accessible and had a high entry point in terms of cost when starting. S1 runs monthly introduction lessons on how to use the synthesisers one for everything and another for non-binary and women. Felisha felt that after seeing synthesisers in person and others using it she wanted to try them for herself and found it difficult to access the equipment. The synth library is meant to be a space for everyone to attempt to learn and use the synths. I find this sort of mentality really great for bringing people together and allowing others without the privilege to use these synthesisers.
Fors
Fors is a plugin company created by Felisha alongside Ess Mattisson. Felisha’s role is Concepts & Projects and Ess does Design & Development. When searching the website I found it to be very sleek and professional. I see that they make Instruments for MAX on Ableton. I was interested to actually see what these instruments were so I looked a bit more into it.
They have an instrument called Superberry. It’s inspired by memories of their favourite melodramatic trance melodies. I found it well made but perhaps the sounds a bit basic. I’ve never designed a synth or a plugin so I don’t have the knowledge to criticise but I felt a bit underwhelmed.
Chiral is another Synthesiser. I haven’t used this synth but the interface looks more playful than the last which would help someone that’s new to this. I listened to the sounds and they’re much better than Superberry. I did find the sounds to be a bit clean and digital sounding. I prefer the analogue dirty sounds that other synths offer.
Romb is an audio effect which is reverb. Very nice interface and lovely sounding reverb. It has a really good size aspect and interface that helps you understand what is going on. Recommended as it’s free as well!
Post Lecture Reflection
S1 was a huge 35,000 square foot building under a pharmacy and Felisha had done things before but this was one of the turning points of her career. She feels this was the start of how she came to be the artist she is now.
She started doing a lot of projects in the space since they received it in 2014. In the first show, they projected lights and visuals onto paper walls. She didn’t really question what running a space meant, and what she wanted to accomplish. She just did it, as as soon as they got the space it started instantly. She relates her twenties as a snowball gaining momentum. Not really asking questions. At first in the beginning, it was mainly visual arts within the space.
S1 hosted parties and events as well, the downstairs was a basement with no windows or air for the performers. They had lights that shined on the stairs to create an experience that you are entering the space. They also hosted generative pieces in the space and the sensors and sound that were created were affected by the user in the space.
Running the space was part of her practice, doing her own work wasn’t part of her practice outside the space. And S1 allowed her to figure out how to present her work.
They also started a synth library. It was a space within the space, someone came to S1 and had an idea that if they own synths and didn’t use them that much why not share? She wanted people that used S1 to have a space to use these instruments. Alyssa was like I can get donations and create our own modular synths to create these instruments for the library. It launched in 2016, the way it worked is you can come in for a workshop and understand a little about how the gear works. And then you can sign up for library hours, a facilitator in there would donate their time to help you or you can use the gear and record. This started changing the way S1 was showcasing art. For better or worse it became less of the like project focused art show. But more a communal experience and artists would utilise the synth library.
In 2016 ghost ship was a warehouse which had a show, and 36 people died. A lot of her friends escaped and others died in this event. This time became a very different period for her but she kept going and moving. It was a terrible time, and it really changed the art community forever and she doesn’t believe anything will be the same after that, her friend that was the headliner lived with her and he was so traumatised and getting sued by peoples families because of what had happened.
She also did collaborations with MOOG and other businesses. Although she isn’t pro-capitalist she’s seen other artists benefit from this arrangement with businesses so she learnt to let some things go as it benefits others.
There isn’t an archive of S1 online and she’s working on it. Doing this presentation for us has brought back a lot of memories for her. Including remembering people that were involved in S1 and she’s proud to figure out how to do it with no budget and its how she’ll always work. She will make things work no matter what. Shes very proud of S1.
Around 2018 she wasn’t doing or releasing records, but more collaborations. For example, Keyon gaskin is a dancer. She curated an event alongside Keyon. It was basically a really loud noise set. She was creating the foundations and allowing Keyon to explore his own space within the set. She continues to say this is something she loves to do, to create the foundations for other people to do their thing.
After she left S1 she thought about how she can still contribute without getting burnt out. She ended up donating her synthesisers to create a feminist synth library. S1 has since become mainly around lending machines.
She ended up going on tour around Europe and doing gigs and releasing music. She ended up moving to Berlin and got into a graduate degree and didn’t enjoy it. She then got cancer and it really shifted the way she thought about her life, and now she had death on her mind. She then decided to concentrate on what she likes to do rather than the expectations of herself and the people around her. Forgive herself more and be a little more patient. She decided to quit school and be in her body and quit and give herself time to heal. And then it became a weird anxiety loop of doing nothing and second-guessing herself.
She then left school and started collaborating with artists she loves.
ASMR was heavily inspired within her practice and not using the voice. She released a Cassette tape on her favourite label.
She then went on to release Fringe on ecstatic recordings. 2021. Her second project.
She went on to date someone who worked at Electron which is a synth company in Sweden. They started speaking bout the perfect synth. And her boyfriend and herself created a synth around her decision of what a perfect synth for her would be.
They then created a synth called super berry. An emo trance synth, she isn’t good at coding or max for live so she simply helps with the decision making of the app.
They released it without knowing what would happen. They released it and a lot of people enjoyed listening and using the synths. She’s excited to see what happens next with it. She gets to use, and conceptualise these synths. Talk about how they could be used, play with them live so for her it’s the best of everything. When they started they weren’t sure how experimental they could get with their design. Could they use symbols for their things, and they tried out, and it did really well and this gave her confidence they can get really weird with it and expand in lots of different ways. She feels ready to see what else can happen.
I found Felisha’s presentation to be thoroughly inspiring. How a DIY space can come together to create something powerful, a safe space. Allow access to expensive synths, curate projects, show art, create culture and give back is inspiring. It’s something I’m heavily into, not for profit organisations that don’t use culture and scenes or ideas for extreme profit. I also found the syth/plugins she creates with her boyfriend to be something motivating. She doesn’t get involved in the development but the ideas towards it. Something I wish to try one day!
Lindsay is an award-winning British composer combining traditional practices with experimental techniques. She utilises her skills as a performer and her experience with music technology to create visceral, emotional and enigmatic scores for all genres of visual media. She recently scored the feature documentary Adventures of Joan Collins; the independent drama Things Unsaid; and the HBO/BBC documentary The Mystery of D.B. Cooper with Tim Atack. Her music for Mudlarks starring Mirren Mack (Sex Education) was recently nominated for Best Score at the British Short Film Awards. Her advertising work includes the British Airways ‘Take Off to the People and Places You Love’ campaign, Rightmove’s ‘The Renter’ and Hewlett Packard’s ‘Orchestra’, winning Bronze at the 2021 LIA Awards. She is currently working on a television drama series set to be broadcast next year; an upcoming documentary for the BBC; and her next EP of original material.
Mudlarks
I watched the tease for Mudlarks as I couldn’t find a link for it anywhere to watch the whole thing. The music used in this short trailer I assume is Lindsay’s work. It’s very haunting and I find it suits the theme of the film very well which is dark. drones enter towards the end as the clip gets darker themed. A song which began peaceful ends in a chaotic noise enhanced piece. I enjoy this work.
British Airways Advertising Campaign
I felt it was interesting to see a visiting practitioner that is in the commercial field of sound design and scoring. I felt I wanted to listen to her production work and analyse or see what she does differently to her more artistic film work. Short but sweet this piece was a remix of the song British Airways uses usually in their adverts and other video clips. I found she did a great job on this and it’s nice to see other artists doing side hustles.
Post Lecture Reflection
Lindsay grew up playing the viola in an orchestra, singing in bands. Playing bass as a kid and a teenager. She studied music technology as her undergraduate. She then went on to do an MA for film and tv. Graduated in 2017 and started working as an assistant for other composers. The misery of DB Cooper, mudlarks and lines are things she’s recently composed.
From assisting she’s gone on to music editing. She’s always been working as a composer or trying to get into that. Doing short films, documentaries etc.
She worked on a feature documentary, Mystery of D.B. Cooper. A feature-length documentary she worked on. Directed by John Dower. The documentary was about the obsessions on the crime, not who D.B. Cooper was but around the culture of this obsession of the crime, rather than being a detective and figuring out what happened. The story was told with archival clips and reenactments of characters of first-person testimonials. A few people were interviewed, the flight crew, the people who thought they knew who actually did it. It has an overarching 1970s vibe, The director wanted quirky Fargo to the score. Some 1970s music, some modern. Most of the scores were written in the box. With sample libraries, alongside Logic Pro X.
She started the score with stereotypical of 70s stuff, wah wah guitar. Heist movie-style music with flute and more, as well as modern score. When creating a score she starts with mapping out points in the footage she wanted to mark. Example shot of the plane. The rest of the queue she just follows the points she wants to hit, which will enhance the story on.
She also decided to put a key change, which is a well-known technique. You repeat the same material but a minor third higher than the previous key to create a sense of urgency to show that something different is happening without creating something new in the compostion.
One of the characters in this documentary Jerry Thomas was specifically interesting to her compositionally as he didn’t have any interest in the real identity of DB Cooper. He believed that he had died and never survived the crash from falling out of a plane. And the music was directly different to the other characters because of this. She originally created a slower tune with more going on. She then shows us version two, which is more plucked and playful. The director didn’t want you to feel sorry for Jerry but to understand the isolation he has and the director wanted it to feel more isolating instead of quirky.
She says she uses video sync instead of importing sounds into her logic project. She doesn’t use templates to create her scores, she prefers starting from blank and building up as she goes along. She really enjoys the one or two day process of finding all the sounds she wants to use. And think of interesting or creative sounds that fit characters. So she creates things and ideas as she goes along.
She used the flute to highlight points in the doc when D.B. Cooper came in. Harking to that 70s vibe in a different way. Sounds you can reuse, and sounds to use as themes as well, so if she uses a certain synth for one character she wouldn’t use it for another.
When the re-recording mixer, mixes the project. She delivers their mix of the song, and then submits groups of stems for the mixing engineer. She also likes to ask for an AIF file from the editor as she can see what they’ve done on the audio.
Mudlarks is the next project. Two girls who are homeless and living on the side of the Thames, and have a tent underneath a bridge. They work in shifts to protect the tent and go out and work to find money to survive. One girl is mute and the other is called damsel. One doesn’t come home one night and she’s is torn between going to find her friend or protecting their home. The director and Lindsay spoke a lot on how the score should amplify their friendship and also have a sense of worry and fear, where has she gone? The girl who stayed isn’t the strong one, and you’re not shown what happens to damsel so the music is there to fill in the gaps.
The violin and guitar were the main melodic instruments. She originally wrote something folkier and a lot faster but she wanted to strip it back a bit and wanted to add more mystery, who is this girl what does she do? So the main melodic instrument alongside the piano textures and the vocal textures. Gestured ideas aswell that come in at a specific moment. She created this piano texture that felt shimmery. She also used the original demo the director had created as the imagination for what he wanted her to produce. They wanted a bedroom style vibe of the music
She then showed us her project for the song, she got a friend of hers to play the guitar parts and they used the really long introduction until the lead up where the girls are dancing to change the warmth around a new day, the friendliness that they have together. The first part is dark and mysterious and the introduction to the other girl is warmer and lighter with the music. They rely on each other to survive. She added some viola and violin and she used the original drum programming from garage band and enhanced it a little bit more. And also electric guitar to make it edgier in the chorus.
Working in film and tv in the last five years, and then the covid pandemic and she had no other jobs so she started making music, she thought she would try and see what would happen. She created a few songs and decided to make three instrumental tracks and one vocal. She found herself really enjoying it, and is palling a series of EPs in this format. Each track had a theme during the lockdown, She had her own studio, her own space whereas when she was in London she was working in her bedroom and never leaving that space. She was thinking about how an exile could be a good thing. She not in these four walls for every act.
I found Lindsays lecture really useful at showcasing the possibilities of how to acquire a job in your selected field when you graduate university. The Q&A was insightful into the process of locating an entry level job and how to navigate the process.
Pamela Z is a composer/performer and media artist who works primarily with voice, live electronic processing, sampled sound, and video. A pioneer of live digital looping techniques, she processes her voice in real time to create dense, complex sonic layers. Her solo works combine experimental extended vocal techniques, operatic bel canto, found objects, text, digital processing, and wireless MIDI controllers that allow her to manipulate sound with physical gestures. In addition to her solo work, she has been commissioned to compose scores for dance, theatre, film, and chamber ensembles including Kronos Quartet, Eighth Blackbird, the Bang on a Can All Stars, Ethel, and San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. Her interdisciplinary performance works have been presented at venues including The Kitchen (NY), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (SF), REDCAT (LA), and MCA (Chicago), and her installations have been presented at such exhibition spaces as the Whitney (NY), the Diözesanmuseum (Cologne), and the Krannert (IL). Pamela Z has toured extensively throughout the US, Europe, and Japan. She’s a recipient of numerous awards including the Rome Prize, United States Artists, a Robert Rauschenberg Foundation residency, the Guggenheim, the Doris Duke Artist Impact Award, Herb Alpert Award, an Ars Electronica honorable mention, and the NEA Japan/US Friendship Commission Fellowship. She holds a music degree from the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Sonic Gestures
This installation was a 360 degrees video experience with multi-channel audio. The piece uses the space as an interactive experience for the visitor. The description didn’t speak on the meaning behind this and I’m definitely impressed technically by the work presented to her. I do wish I could receive an explanation and perhaps in the lecture I will. I’m wondering how the 360 video sync was done. Did they start the video at the exact same time? This is an interesting thought into the production that does give me questions.
The audio for this was layered collaged sounds, whispers and speaking. It definitely relates well to the visuals going on. Again I find sometimes with these works that it’s challenging to understand, although I know it’s not the point. But to enjoy it for what it is, which I definitely do.
Echolocation
https://pamela-z.bandcamp.com/album/echolocation
This was a re-release of an album Pamela made in 1988. This was at a time when Pamela was playing music at a local radio station. Spanning from the Ramones to Pauline Oliveros. She then decided to create something that situated herself within what she loved listening to. She started playing around with tape and a delay pedal and this was what was created. I listened to the first song Echolocation. I found it very abstract, with the delays creating a rhythmic pattern within it. I can see why the digital delay pedal was important for her work. I also listened to Two Black Rubber Raincoats and it had similar production techniques to the first song Echolocation. The rhythmic vocals as an instrument, then with a lead vocal singing over the top. I listened to the rest and the contrast between more commercial pop 80s sounding music and the more abstract ones were great and I enjoyed In The Other World the most out of them all.
In this short interview, Pamela reveals her ideas about using her voice live. She tries to use language people recognise and then take it out of context to create new meanings. She says she enjoys looping, sampling and taking a recorded vocal she has into a different context. To make the listener perhaps at first understand what is going on, to know the word she is saying but after a short while it’s flipped out of context to create something new. She also created a 1hr radio mix in which I listened to a few songs. I can see how she situates herself within her field. I always find it interesting when I don’t necessarily understand a scene or musical genre then when revealed to more artists within that field I can gain a greater understanding of how it works.
Post Lecture Reflection
Pamela begins by speaking that she was initially a musical artist and now it’s changed towards more as a composer and sound artist. She says she is more known for her voice composition and her use of wireless midi controllers. Live processing and looping, she creates performance work that is rhythmic and abstract sometimes in nature.
Pamela begins to show an extract of her performance, She uses the theremin it seems and sings in a similar way that opera singers do. It’s very ethereal and her hands seem to be conducting the sound. The looped voices create a rhythm and then she seems to solo over them. She also is reading a book while she does her performances. As well as in another context using the sound of water and looped life into her performance. She appears to have an electronic device on her hand on the other side of her palm. That I assume controls the wireless midi modulation she speaks about. She seems to be triggering samples with her hands to imitate a typewriter.
She considers her instrument to be her voice and this is the instrument that she uses. She’s been composing since the 1980s and the tools have changed since back then. When she first started to do what she does now she used to use specific devices such as outboard rack-mountable samplers and effects units. With a mixer on the top. It was heavy and impractical.
She finally decided in 1999 to port all the functions to software. With Maxmsp she started creating patches to create a software creation of the hardware rack she created. The patch was long and complicated due to code and she had to create it all herself and she managed. Over time the technological upgrade became difficult as she had to change versions and this meant issues with Mac OS and other software to make sure everything worked together.
The way she works with voice and electronics are constantly evolving with tools and technology but has remained quite similar over the years. She works with delay since the first original performance she made. When everyone was using hardware she was amassing lots of black boxes. The analogue delay machines were different every day. The delay wouldn’t always be at the time she set. It changed a lot when using software and computers. It became more accurate and more specific.
Her pieces tend to be short, 4-5 minutes. But over the years with her theatre and compositional pieces. It made her think about making pieces over a whole performance in a more modular way. She made a piece of being a foreigner in a place you live. It involved her and two other dancers. Then she made other large scale performance works, in 2010 she made one called baggage allowance. The concept of literal and metaphorical baggage. The most ambitious work she made to that date. It included a performance and a gallery exhibition with objects and sound and an online website exhibition. It was mainly available in flash programming and this has become ancient architecture.
She then shows us an excerpt of the baggage allowance performance in New York. The music is a performance with her looping her voice. Alongside a video that plays, describing the baggage people carry in their luggage. She brings out her suitcases, to show the baggage we carry, onto the stage.
In her other installation, the first thing the audience would be confronted with when entering the gallery was an X-ray and the public would have to put their luggage through the x-ray and certain objects would appear that she coded. Either a gun, a bird, a heart. Inside their bag, it would appear to have these objects inside.
She also created a screen within the other luggage trunk. And when you opened a draw it would trigger samples and sounds as well as an image with the screen. the items within the luggage and different objects would view on the screen and then you would hear the sounds associated with the object.
Another piece was called Suitcase. It was probably her favourite although not that complex it was one that was very effective for people. Either charming or kind of creepy and she believed that it was based on the scale. A small suitcase 24 inches wide. A full-grown woman was asleep inside of it and when you walked past you could see a full-grown woman in there. There would be whispers of her voice recorded within the installation of this woman asleep and this would freak people out.
In 2007 she was commissioned for a new media gallery to create an immersive setup. In a room that was 36ft long. With ten frame locked channels. With HD screens edge to edge. 16 channels of surround audio. Something site-specific for that room. An eighteen-minute loop, of her singing and time-stretched hand claps. And a chattery section with her, not a smartphone she owned. She also made a piece called the long URL.
The piece went dormant because there wasn’t another gallery that could serve the piece in a gallery. In 2019 this was shown in two other galleries. So although her work over the years has had some presence in the visual arts. It’s not so much a shift but an expansion. But although this is broadening, in her practice the sound is always the centre point.
When she starts any of her work the first thing she does is record interviews with a number of people. She uses the interview material for inspiration for her work and to compose. Pamela then shows us an excerpt from memory trace (2012) It was an interview of people saying they can’t remember and she loops up the voices into a rhythmic piece.
She also involves herself in producing for a string quartet. She uses video as a graphic score for the string quartet. On the tv behind them. The idea was for the string quartet to continue the score despite all these distractions and interruptions. The players are sort of forced to shift their attention and multitask their way through the piece.
She has also composed scores for dance and film throughout her career. Creating numerous sound pieces for interpretive dances. Because of covid, her reality of physical pieces and installations changed, and she made more of an incentive towards studio practice. She was able to do one of which was a new record which was released last year called A Secret Code. It’s been years since she’d had a cd release. The last time was in 2004.
She wanted to do performances that were more towards the idea of a different performance when doing them online. Instead of being a shadow of what we were used to. To have a show that will use the idea of online live streaming to its advantage. Using projected videos and video feedback loops. And the intimacy that a webcam gives.
Overall I was very surprised by Pamela’s lecture. I did go in thinking it would be very Avangard and hard to wrap my head around her work, similar to a few others in the past. But I decided to take the parts I found interesting. Her use of the midi controller she has built and designed. The adaptability within her performances, and the multidisciplinary approach she has when doing her work, for others and different art fields. For example theatre and film.
It states the war is not against noise, this was against a musical genre. Using sound bombs is a paradox to silence the people who make the noise.
It relates to the idea that sonic control is a priveledge and a way of silencing minorities. With techniques such as music players, smartphones and noise cancelling headphones. These are ways of cloaking their environments to not hear the suffering of others in their view. This definitely relates back to the Ultra Red – How to Hear in Common text that speaks on listening as a group and how important that is. When using this technology how can one truly listen?
The writer speaks on the video that was shown of the police entering the favelas and taking down the party. They use specific techniques in first-person shooter games and Hollywood action films to create a sense of playfulness and skewered opinion towards the police being correct in the video. To suggest that the police are in the right when engaging with the public attending these parties. That the police are the heroes and the people attending are criminals.
The police use stun grenades which go up to 180 decibels, as I wrote in my audio paper last term this is incredibly harmful! Anything above 90db is seriously bad for hearing damage. The idea that these tools are non-lethal in my opinion is ridiculous. This also shows the ocularcentrism of our society that thinks sound bombs are non-lethal.
The sonic presence of black people in Brazil and in this specific context is considered violence and the police demand silence from their parties and their voices. This is also something the Ultra-red text touches on by saying that silence = death. In this very context, the police are killing the people maybe not literally but metaphorically they are taking away their voice. They have to remain silent or be beaten and killed.
This text demonstrates that it is easier for a sound bomb to reclaim space than for a black person to do the same.
