24046602's blog

Author: Josh Knight

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Creative Sound Project E1

Rorys Workshop *

What we did

Today we had a workshop with Rory, I like his workshops because of the creative freedom he gives to us. He had a big pallet on the floor and told us to make instruments to attach to it.

I sorted by making a spring instrument, by drilling screws into pieces of wood I made a funny sounding noise. This was interesting experience because of the unusual noised that could come from just a few things.

The Zane Knight guitar

Later on in the lecture I saw that there where tuning pegs for a guitar and decided to try and make a simplistic instruments that could have pitch, we where able to drill in the pegs into the wood. After we attached it to a long string from an old guitar then turn the pegs. The gutter didn’t have a neck with frets that where long enough to play chords but we used a violin string on them to create a unique sound.

How it applied to our creative radio project

It was eye opening to see how easy it is to make an instrument and attach a compressed mic to it to create a sound. I think we want to use this in our radio project as it’s able to make drone sound effects. After the lecture we ran the contact mic the gutter strings where near and got some fascinating noises.

Instrument creation

Looking further into instrument creation I like the idea of making a guitar from scratch, it’s an inspiring project that could be implemented into my art to create something individualist.

Leo Fender (1909-1995)

There are some obvious music instrument pioneers like Leo Fender (1909-1995) who created the Fender guitar, which was revolutionary at the time as it was easier to play than the current electric guitars available to play at the time due to their short necks.

Christiana Kubisch (1948)

She made an instrument that uses headphones to convert electromagnetic sound into audio signals. Her exhibition “electrical walks” (2007) lets people walk through and hear all the hidden electrical currents coming from different things.

Its relation to radiophonic art

The main benefit of creating new instruments for radiophonic art is the possibility of not using traditional tools. The abstract nature of radiophonic art means that creating something that hanse been seen or heard of before is of great significance. Its good to reimagine what sound can be when wanting to create something new to our ears, creating musical instruments is changes the traditional channels of media.

References

France, P. (n.d.). 8 Things You Might Not Know About Leo Fender. [online] www.fender.com. Available at: https://www.fender.com/articles/behind-the-scenes/8-things-you-might-not-know-about-leo-fender.

Kubisch, C. (n.d.). Electrical Walks. [online] christina kubisch. Available at: https://christinakubisch.de/electrical-walks.

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Creative Sound Project E1

Radiophonic art case study *

Radiophonic art

Radiophonic art is an innovative form of artistic expression through the medium of radio. It’s a platform for artistic expression and contemporary arts through broadcasting and radio.

Case study: Daphne Oram “The lost world” (1965)

Daphne Oram (1925-2003) is one of the central figures for the development of British experimental music, she was also known for founding the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in 1958. She mainly used tape manipulation in her art, creating a new form of sound synthesis at the time.

The creation of “The Lost World”:

Oram’s “The Lost World” was first broadcasted in 1965 by the BBC. It was one of her earliest works to explore radio as an art form, merging narrative elements with interesting tape manipulation.

When Oram created “The lost word” (1965), when she was working at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, which was becoming a new space for experimenting with new ways to produce and broadcast contemporary sound. “The Lost World” (1965) was a sonic experiment that utilised tape loops, environmental sounds and electronic manipulation to create a narrative in a non linear way.

The impact it had

The reception it had on its original release was one of innovation, something of this magnitude had been attempted before this. Her music created and influenced electronic musicians and contemporary sound musicians. This piece expanded the idea of electronic music as an art form.

Musical techniques

Layering – By layering several natural and synthetic sounds Oram was able to portray the feeling of “The Lost World“(1965)

Tape manipulation – Oram famously used tape manipulation in her work, this was an early age of music concrete music

Conclusion

 While much of Oram’s work remained under-appreciated during her lifetime, her contributions to the world of electronic music and sound art where massive. “The Lost World” (1965) stands as an example of experimental sound design in creating immersive experiences on the radio. Today, Oram’s work continue to inspire artists exploring the world of sound art, technology, and storytelling.

References

-Grierson, M. (2015) Daphne Oram Collection, Goldsmiths, University of London. Available at: https://www.gold.ac.uk/ems/oram/ (Accessed: 16 March 2025). 

-Goldsmiths University (2017) Electronic Music Pioneer, Daphne Oram. Available at: https://www.daphneoram.org/ (Accessed: 16 March 2025). 

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Creative Sound Project E1

Sonic narrative *

The human voice

The human voices importance to radiophonic art plays a big role. The main features of the human voice in radio art are that it carries the meaning and emotional dissonance to emphasis the meaning of a script. The voice is an art form beyond written words, it can carry the rhythm of a piece or provide the art with some identity and context.

An example of an artist that uses the human voice as an art form or medium is Laurie Anderson (1947) she is seen as the queen of voice-as-art, she likes to layer spoken word over different effects and vocoders to blur the line of human and machine. her work in “United States Live” (1984) pushes this idea of playing with layers and repetition to evoke an sense of sonic theatre.

Music as a bed

Using music as a bed is a common technique used in radio phonic art to sit underneath the voice as a sonic layer to create atmosphere or as an emotional guide. Music can change the shape of the listeners emotional state, it emphasises us the listen to the voice making it an important tool for story telling.

Music can also provide the listener with context where there are no visuals, it helps the listener orient themselves into time, place and mood. An example of an artist who uses sound as a bed is Chris Watson (1953), who was one the worlds most acclaimed recording artists. His focus is on wildlife, he uses ambient and natural sounds to bed his artwork into. “Glastonbury Ocean Landscape” (2019) shows his attention to using nature sounds that he collects on his field recorder. His distinctive taste of nature bring forth a surreal landscape for the listener.

Eds Thoughts

-Bing Crosby was the only person that has an Egfar tape recorder lifted from German army, he used tape recorders to present his radio show across America abolishing time zones. he could show anyone

-The giutair could also abolish time zones because of its PORTABLILTY, you can take it anywhere on your back and record it, showing anyone anywhere, its weightlessness.

-Collapse of space, can show other people your music anywhere at anytime. ITS WEIGHTLESS

-Radio emphases liveness, with radio your dealing with duration, our programme will slot into this on going programme

-When does an event become an object? Podcasts appears as a recording, radio is more of an event that’s constantly changing that you tap into rather than seeking out something

-The flapping of the cloth as the sounds of the fire. What does the sound effect do, what can it tell us?

-An overstated sound effect shows accomatic space (non visual) we must over state as we have no gestural content. We are all blind!

-The accusmatic space is not completely a blank void is not nothing. There is an archtecual environment with sound as we percieve sound as highs and lows. We have an environment

-We engineer this experience we live in, rely on our instinct as sound designs and artists

Reflections

Reflecting on my own personal work, I realise the intimacy that the human voice carries. How do I want my listener to feel when they listen to my piece? There are ways that we can drawer the listener in, to make them feel part of the journey. Delivery of the voice is something that I want to look at, rerecording vocals in different expressions to change the way my work feels.

Voice is the embodied sound within radio, it grounds the piece in the human aspect of my work. It doesn’t matter who is saying but it will always make the artwork more human.

Looking into music as a bed, the sounds we decide to use for a piece with carry the undercurrent of emotion next to the voice. It can guide the listener in a more subtle way so we can connect the different elements together.

References

BBC (2024). Episode One: The Real World. [online] BBC Radio 1. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0025tzx [Accessed 8 Apr. 2025].

Collins, P. (2019). Chris Watson. [online] Chris Watson. Available at: https://chriswatson.net [Accessed 8 Apr. 2025].

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Creative Sound Project E1

Foley tutorial with Ed Baxter *

Tutorial

I had some time to think about what sort of sounds I wanted to explore sonically during this tutorial with Ed Baxter on foley, we hired out the foley studio in UAL and learnt the ins and outs, specifically on the process of creating noise for visual cues. Getting used to using the studio, I had a go at being the sound technician for it which was a good experience. We tried to make fire noises as a group, using only two bed sheets and some plastic wrappers. We also attempted to make the sound of someone getting hit with a hammer using a watermelon. and a blunt object.

The ‘fire noise’

We teamed up and attempted to make a synthetic fire noise using two bed sheets for the hum of the fire, different crackly plastics for the sticks burning along with other small fabrics for the randomised movement of the fire. The difficulty with this task was getting it to sound natural, as humans we try to create patterns within our day to day life so it was hard to break from that mould.

This task turned out to be a lot more challenging than originally expected, finding the right rhythm was difficult but it put things into perspective when making foley. We ended up with a some what good attempt at fire noise after a few tries. I have had technical difficulties accessing the files for this recording process currently.

The world of foley

Looking deeper into the world of foley, various artist such as Ron Geeson (1943) who has been involved in films such as Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971) and Ghost Story (1974). He’s known for his scoring of films in a unique electro grove way, incorporating motions of jazz and classical and his incredible work of foley. He work in foley was seen as a new start to cinema at the time, with his films been credited for their audio accomplishments.

 Kate Hopkins (1982) share the views on the creative tough of foley. They believe that creating foley isn’t about making the sound realistic, but actually trying to match a sound to the thought of the image, thus making the process a more individual and creative process. Kate has done Foley for many nature documentaries such as Frozen Planet (2022) and Our Planet (2019), showing the power of good foley in real time.

Looking into my own work, I want to take inspiration from people in the field. I listened to a podcast with Ruth Sulivan (1914) and it was interesting to hear her say that making sound effects is like being a composer, because you need a timeline to portray a feeling. This made me reflect on the possible creativity I have over my own sound FX.

It’s obvious now that sound effects are there to attract atmosphere, not to show reality. It’s not important to reproduce sounds not as they are heard but how they are imagined. Going into my own work I now realise that I need to think about the detail and demeanour of actor or objects to best portray synthetic sounds.

The importance of Foley in radiophonic artwork

Foley plays a huge part in the world of radiophonic art as it adds an often surreal layer of sound that can change the listener perception. The correct use of foley can shape narratives without the use of the voice, it can be an effective tool for story telling without speaking a single word, which is a powerful tool in radiophonic artwork.

References

Geeson, R. (2025). Ron Geesin – Home. [online] Rongeesin.com. Available at: https://www.rongeesin.com [Accessed 8 Apr. 2025].

Clifton Web Design (2019). Kate Hopkins – Wounded Buffalo Sound Studios. [online] Woundedbuffalo.co.uk. Available at: https://woundedbuffalo.co.uk/people/kate-hopkins/ [Accessed 8 Apr. 2025].

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Creative Sound Project E1

Creative sound project introductions *

Introduction with Ed Baxter

In this introduction lecture we went over the unit and what we would be studying. Ed talked about himself, he is the co founder of Resonance FM and Resonance Radio Extra. Resonance FM is the UK only 24/7 online digital broadcasting platform that focuses on sound art and experimental music.

Resonance Extra

https://extra.resonance.fm/about

Resonance extra focus on experimental sounds, radio art and other contemporary music forms. It’s interesting to see a platform where up and coming sound artists can showcase their work, plus it provides a hub for artists to review each other works.

Ed went on to talk about how time management is import on this course, and also good if your looking to go into radio. “Even when in a band you need all your band mates to come in on time.”

(Resonance FM)(Resonance Radio Extra)

Quotes from ED

“Gestures in performance are the guitarist sticking his tongue out when playing his riff, the drummer rocking his head back and forth when counting his cue in. We dot exactly understand these gestures as the audience.”

“Pictures are more clear on radio as one of the senses (visual) is removed, we all see something different in our individual minds eye, everyone is blind listening to the radio.”

It was informative to learn about the creativity and aesthetic quality that comes with working in radio. I took some good notes into preparing for the hand in on the assignment brief, it was interesting to hear some examples from Ed time working in radio.

Could I see myself working in radio?

Sounds in radio

  • Instruments
  • Static
  • Poetry
  • Singing
  • Phones
  • Voice overs
  • Silence
  • Animals
  • Music
  • Films
  • Books
  • Live ands

How do I as an artist making my own radio make sense of these sounds how does this speak to the internal monologue of the listener?

John Cages “Radio Music” (1957)

This piece by John Cage, pioneered radio art ay the time of its realise. He uses chance and probability in his piece with different frequencies that played on the radio. This was groundbreaking at the time as no one had attempted to try realising contemporary musical forms on the radio. This speaks to the internal dialogue of this listener in an attempted to confuse or evoke a feeling of the listener.

Group work

We need a leader of a group, we all need to agree to create a goal of a radio station show, who is a readable leader. We decided to choose Zain as a group leader, this was an interesting experience as we didn’t know who to choose.

We talked about some possibilities of what sort of work we could produce. Chance music, as seen in John Cages radio art. We want a story line, maybe chance through a script with no clear aim. I really the idea of not having a clear goal when listening to our piece, it would be nice to leave the interpretation to the listener.

We could talk about the constant information we are fed through phone, radio tv and social media but eventually stumbled upon probability and chance as the main focus of our art.

Rules of the radio

Avoid profanity on radio

Do not make personal comments on personal figures

Avoid anything you think is offensive

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Sonic thinking and Doing

Granular Sythasis

What is it?

Its a sampling technuiqe that splits up sampler into grains. Which are typically 5 to 200 miliseconds, you can sythasise new sounds.

The idea behind granular synthesis dates all the way back to 1946, when Hungarian-British engineer and physicist Dennis Gabor conceptualized the idea that you could create new sounds out of microsound particles.

Heres a sample I have brefore I used Abletons Granular 3 plug in.

And heres the same sample after I tweaked the audio with granular sythasis.

You can clearly notice the difference of granular engineering as the sample get broken up into smaller individual parts and put back together again.

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Introduction to Sound Arts

Trevor Wishart

Week 7

–Start reading Sonic Arts from Trevor Wishart and pick a line that you found the most interesting. Try to add your thoughts to it (such as why it resonates with you or if you don’t agree, form discussions).–

talks about lattice structure of music form as classic notes and pitches.


“Music as an alternative mode of communication, however, has always threatened the hegemony of writing and the resultant dominance of the scribehood’s world-view.”

I do agree and say that music is most definatly a form of communication. However, I dont beieve it has changed the scribe’s dominance. People do have free will and listen to music that suits their peronallity or social standing. Research shows that people with higher social orientation tend to gravitate towards music that portrays themes of power and sucsses.

In a social context, I believe music as a means of signalling someones social and power position rather than changing it.

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Introduction to Sound Arts

Reflective writing with Milo

Week 7

Context

This week has been more productive for me. I have been putting a lot of my attention into the idea for my final soundscape. I have also have been looking for a job and have trail shift on Saturday so this week has been very productive for me.

I planned to start on my reflecting writing so I can focus more on my creative slide of the work. What I did was I started listening Clams Casino who uses samples in a way that is appealing to my practice. I researched into computer voices and how many we hear everyday. I made some really good samples using old voicemails from my phone and using them in my sound scape.

I did well at getting a final idea for my creative soundscape, I have a clear goal now and I know what I need to do and want it to sound like. I excelled at making a template on Ableton and started to organise the sounds in my DAW. I can improve upon the reflective writing part of my hand in that need some attention.

Next I plan to find similar soundscapes made up of samples and voicemails and or familiar voices. I want to research into some sampling techniques and how I can use my own samples in my music or practice. I plan to make more techniques into Ableton for my final work. I plan to write a draft for my reflective writing and to get some ideas down about what I want to write about.

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Sonic thinking and Doing

Reflective writing w Milo

Week 6

Context:

This week I missed the Monday afternoon session about extended microphones techniques which put me in a state of confusion. Yesterday I went to a friends house and started to learn about some of the hardware you can use to create sound which was productive. I am still trying to download Ableton for my Mac so I can start to do some work at home. Did a live recording DJ set and got a gig with the same people again.

I planned to:

Book about a field recorder and continue to record sounds which I’m going to do today so can record sounds over the weekend. I wanted to read something off the reading list on the Library website. Plus continue to learn Ableton at home on my Mac and start to get used to it.

Reflection:

I did well at learning some hardware techniques at my mates house and that was very progressive to my knowledge. I did all the appropriate reading for Annies lesson and was well informed own the discussion points. Did a live mixing DJ set which was super fun, I really enjoyed the live sampling aspect of it.

Next I plan to:

Listen to some pieces on phone calls and the voice over the phone as that’s what intend to use in my work. To research some Ableton techniques further. To start to make my own compositions at home with mixing and mastering. To play more hardware through my software at home and play around with it. To write my plan for the reflective writing task.

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Introduction to Sound Arts

Reflections on Graeme Miller’s Linked

week 5

This week we went to Leytonstone to look at Graeme Miller’s execution about the rehousing project that made over 500 people homeless. He used sound broadcasts to portray the people who used to live there, by following a map you can tap into these transitions and listen to the stories of the people who lived there.

My reflections

I thought it was a very moving work, the voices you hear on the broadcast are very ghost like which I thought to be almost creepy. I really liked the way you could hear the voices of the old residents over the sound of the motorway that made people loose their homes. It feels like it’s a forgotten piece of the past and gives people a voice for the people who used to lived there.

On top of this the people in these audio signals are reflecting on the objects around them that still exist today. I gave me a sense of reality to the situation that happened and gives these voices a visual sense which brings them even more to life.

The people who walk past you during this sound experience gives you a strange livelihood to the people that live there. It gave the walk more depth and giving into this harsh reality of the unpleasant history of this place.

It made me think about my own work, this idea of personal digital signals in a beatuful prospect for my own work. I have decided to record the voicemails on my phone as a peice of personailty captured in recording.