Possible elements for manipulation
Ability to manipulate vs keeping original quality of sound.
Ability to manipulate as melody = conceivable range of frequency created by sound object.
When analysing sounds for use of melody, we must first analyse their conceivable range of frequency. A pencil on paper has a range of conceivable frequency after which it becomes no longer believable to the audience.
It might also be useful to understand the natural envelope of the sounds, if one were to put a slow attack on a slamming door it would defeat the natural sound of the action. I think only through trial and error I will find that breaking point of manipulation and mimetic continuity. I don’t want to restrict myself to the world of mimetic sound but I do think a certain level of continuity must be maintained in order to keep the audience immersed. Perhaps drastic manipulations with immersion might be made possible through careful structuring of gradual increasing manipulation. Howard Ashman’s musical theatre inspired philosophy must be kept in mind, gradual seamless transitions from differing levels of emotional intensity.
This issue is best defined, I believe, by Martin Stig Anderson in one of his lectures in which he displays a graph explaining the spectrum from soundscape composition to acousmatic music.
Sounscape composition —————————————-Acousmatic music
Contextual immersion —- Abstract middle ground —- Complete abstraction
Close audiovisual correspondence — Remote audiovisual correspondence
Martin Stig Anderson Lecture
Martin Stig Anderson begins his lecture by reading a couple of reviews people had written about his work on the 2010 game ‘Limbo’. As you can see the reviews are completely polarised as to whether there is music in the game. Music can be much more than rhythm, harmony and melody. Ambient and environmental noises are the feature of the show.
Anderson lays the foundation of his practice with the definition of music as ‘organised sound’, then going on to talk about Pierre Schaeffer’s music concrete. There must, however, be a distinction between soundscape composition and music concrete, although they are essentially the same practice there is an important varying factor. In the practice of soundscape composition, ‘the original sounds must stay recognisable and the listeners contextual and symbolic associations should be invoked’. – Barry Truax
Soundscape composition exists on a spectrum with music concrete, between contextual immersion, abstracted middle ground and absolute abstraction. Music concrete is the movement from a abstracted middle ground to absolute abstraction, and soundscape composition a movement from contextual immersion to abstracted middle ground.
A technique Anderson uses to merge orchestral elements into the diegesis of the film is spectral interpolation, for the game limbo he did this with an orchestral recording and a recording of a foundry. ‘It retains the nuances of the orchestral but its not really there at the same time’. This was for one of many rotating rooms in the game. The second was a room of circular saws, for this he used a recording of a bowed cymbal, yet again he interpolated the orchestral sound with this recording. This results in a diegetic sound with complete contextual immersion, which contains harmonic/melodic qualities. Anderson uses source filtering and convulsion techniques to merge the two audio files.