Week 8
My research into immersive sound has led me to revisit both the work of John Cage and, how soundscape helps drive narrative in movies.
Reading through a collection of Cage’s writings I was thrilled to come across a passage describing how he connected his Silent Piece with being immersed in nature:
“I have spent many pleasant hours in the woods conducting performances of my silent piece, transcriptions, that is, for an audience of myself…” (Cage, 1961 pp. 275-6)
Cage, not having the benefit of modern sound recording equipment, imagines faint, micro sounds: the sounds that insects make in the gills of mushrooms or the dispersing spores might make “gamelan-like sonorities”. He reflects on the opportunity to take these unheard sounds into theatres which, he believes, would make musical performances more interesting.
He goes on to discuss how he hears each sound in an unconnected way, each sound alone, a thought which connects well with my concept of a dawn chorus sound installation
Nerdwriter (2018): analysis and deconstruction of a Spielberg clip from his film Munich. Illustrates how the sound design work of Ben Burtt sets context through the construction of a “bed” of noisy city ambience and then creates tension by using key sounds, “like beads on a wire” such as coins being put into a public phone box and the rotation of the mechanical phone dial. Each sound amplifying the edited close-ups of the photography.
In the last blog I experimented with the tonality of recording wind by mixing multilayers of individually recorded sound. For this week I wanted to experiment with the editing and presentation of a stereo sound.
Using a pair of matched omnidirectional mics, with wind protection, separated by 10 inches on a fixed bar. Mics were placed low to the ground behind high reedy grass to help attenuate the wind. In editing I ensured both tracks were in sync and matched in terms of amplitude and low frequency filtering. Then for export I accentuated the panning of each track either to the left or right speakers. Then added to a short timelapse recorded at the same time.
On reflection the differentiation is from each mic is almost imperceptible- the wind direction was too constant and there was very little other ambient sound to help differentiate the microphone pick up. While happy at the balance of the sound between both speakers I think the same effect could have been achieved as a mono recording. I need to rethink this experiment and consider a better location: perhaps where sound is moving across the face of the two microphones ie from left to right? The Hartside traffic will be a good opportunity.
Remaining tasks for project completion
“Shot” list
- Raven/ Barn Owl
- Rain
- Air traffic
- Hartside road traffic
- Hartside “gathering”
Edit as a composition: 4’33”
Back up- online and hard copies
Challenge from tutor in preparation for the final assignment is to do a public broadcast of this first complete edit and record the audience responses. Given the exploratory nature of this project I think this is an excellent suggestion as, to date, I have no sense of “audience” for this type of work.
Actions
Book studio with sound system
Publicise
Write introduction
Light sticks?
A copy of the completed work, which I have titled “Unsound Mind” along with an account of its performance and audience feedback is recorded on a separate tab “MA Portfolio”.