Category: Introduction to Sound Arts

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.

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.

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.

Week 4

Hildegarde Westercamp

After to listening to this sound walk it really inspired me. She’s doing a voice over on a beach, she tell a story about the animals and things she can hear in the background. She used foley to portray things w aren’t suppose to hear. Like the scallops moving on the rock front. I really liked the way she talks about these sounds as her “dreams”. It has given me some insight into what I would like to do for my final year piece.

It’s a nice way of showing sounds that the human can’t usually pick up on, a deeper insight into what certain things should sound like. It really reminds me of the David Attenborough documentaries.

Week 4 independent study

Rhizome relates to a network of multiplicities that are not arborescent or tree like. The art that comes from rhizome lacks structure and it has no beginning and end. It relates to post-modernism because of its anti-form and playful schematics and it breaks from modernisms purposeful design.

Rhizome interested me because i like the contrast of binarise and linarism which relates to a pair of contrasting opposites. Also how the free form art looks on the page and a story with no end.

This piece interested me initially because of the lack of tone or pitch in the singer who is seen throughout the piece. Its interesting to see the unconventional and unrythmic tones that are at use. Its quite jarring to listen and at times it was intense and scary. It really peaked my interest because of its intense and emotional context.

The context behind this peice is that Schoenberg wanted to portray a story told from a concentration camp in Warsaw in the second world war from the perspective of the prisoners that where being held there. He wanted the singer not to use and type of pitch and the german officers where represnted by the jarring orchestral sound pallet. Which explains the jarring and sharp tones that are used in the piece.

Arnold Schoenberg started the serialism movement and his work A Survivor from Warsaw is a great example of the change in the tonal centre in the twentieth century which was seen in the modernism movement at this time.

• Soundscape – The definition is a piece of music based on its musical components. What it means to me is a big breakdown of a piece of sound to see the different components at play.
• Site – The definition is a place where something is. To me site is means something personal to each person depending on how the place makes you feel. History and nostagia play a big part in what you are creating and what it means to you
• Sample – The definition is to extract a piece from a recording and re-use it in a new piece of music. To me it means to capture a relationship between our music and our daily life and implementing that into our work