Category: INDEPENDENT SOUND RESEARCH

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EL 1 Portfolio

SOUND RESEARCH: CRISTOBAL TAPIA DE VEER (UTOPIA)

I recently watched the 2013 drama Utopia. A show about conspiracy, engineered reality and humanity turned mechanical. The whole show has a very uncomfortable undertone, like nothing is what it seems, that everything that happens is part of some kind of plan. Some characters are convinced from an early age that they can do whatever they want because they are but a tiny blip in history, they become mechanical in their actions, with no thought of morality. 

This theme of engineered reality and this feeling of constant discomfort is potently expressed in the soundtrack created by Cristobal Tapia De Veer. He achieves this through manipulating samples of organic sounds such as birds or human breathing.

In the pursuit of texture, Cristobal avoids samples that he describes as too clean, pure or sterile. Instead he looks for samples from vinyls, then ‘disrespects’ or ‘tortures’ them with compression, bit crushers etc. He describes it as making them ‘textural, grainy, dirty, flawed, alive.’ He then slows down the sample, this makes the ultra fast moving waves perceivable, as rhythm. Cristobal samples a very small part of the audio file and loops it, giving it infinite sustain. He describes hidden rhythms ‘in the DNA’ of a sound. Using these dirty, rhythmic, alive sounds, Cristobal creates haunting scores that feel unsettling, alive but not quite organic. A frankensteins monster or a score. 

Cristobal Tapia De Veer created a soundtrack that perfectly complimented the show, in context and tone. I hope to bring this kind of ingenuity to my practice, considering how you can reflect the story and tone of a piece of media in the tools and auditory material you use. Manipulating samples to mould them into something new, finding texture in sound through disrespecting and torturing it. 

Using Cristobal’s techniques listed above, I created a piece of music in the style of Utopia.

I started with a sample of a male owl from the BBC sound library, I chose an owl because their call tends to hold a note. I then increased the gain, decreased the bit resolution, and selected a small part of the audio file. I played a melody on the lower notes on the keyboard, this gave the notes a gritty texture, the note slightly wavered giving it a natural but eerie sound.

I then took a sample of myself singing a note with an ă pronunciation, I repeated the process I did for the owl sample but played it only slightly under the original pitch. I liked how it sounded almost right/natural but not quite. I played the main melody with this instrument. The main melody was supported by a sample of myself singing a higher note with an ŏ pronunciation, chorus and reverb was then added to this sample and it was placed low in the mix.

I then recorded myself breathing out, I reversed the sample then vocoded it. This resulted in a rhythmic, almost human sound. I also recorded a sample of my neighbours builders hammering something, I think it sounds like a clock that doesn’t keep time which adds to the uneasy tone I’m aiming for. For the introduction I layered three samples of birds chirping, I then vocoded it and only played the vocoded part. On top of this I added a very quiet melody using the instrument made from my voice. I used two reversed samples of myself saying something to transition into the main melodies. I recorded an egg shaker, doubled the speed of the recording and added a tremolo to it, this made a very dry percussive sound that had movement, almost like an insect moving its wings. I used a recording of myself very lightly coughing to contrast the unnatural vocoded inward breath, this is intended throw the listener into a rhythm that is very suddenly interrupted by the chorus coming in a beat early. In the chorus, I used a sample of native American people shouting and screaming, it had a slight rhythmic quality and was melodically chaotic.

If I were to do this again I would increase the tempo to make the piece more intense, also I would more clearly plan out the layers of the piece, background foreground etc…

My piece:

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SOUNDGRAIN EXPERIMENTATION

Soundgrain is a software with which you can automate granular sound synthesis. Im sure that there are many ways to use this software, but the first thing I wanted to do was explore the human voice. I imported an audio file of me singing a constant falsetto note and started experimenting. The first thing I noticed was the fluidity of the sounds, the sound would glide smoothly between high and low frequencies. I think this is the strongest aspect of the software, typically as a producer or sound artist I find myself using a keyboard as the controller for my synthesis, which limits you to specific notes (with the minor deviation using a mod wheel). Whilst using this software I found myself relying solely on my ear to find the right frequencies to use and to find harmony between frequencies, this was a new and welcome method of sound creation.

Another benefit of the software is the ability to select very small parts of the audio file to loop indefinitely, this creates a constant drone with the timbre of a human voice. I see this as a very natural familiar sound being used in a way that doesn’t make sense in its original context, whilst retaining its organic properties, an impossible organic sound. With this technique you could create electroacoustic compositions that retain an intrinsic human organic quality.

The result of the experimentation:

Percussion is made from breaths, hitting my fist on my chest, a bass drum, a snare, a very short snippet of someone speaking, and an off set tremolo applied to a recording of wind.

The chords are played by a prophet V soft synth and 2 ebow guitar tracks. The low synth is an audio track of the sound grain synthesis with a side chained noise gate applied.

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SOUND RESEARCH: SOUND THERAPY

Tibetan Singing Bowls and Vibroacoustic Therapy

Tibetan Singing Bowls/ Standing Bells

Tibetan singing bowls are metal bowls used by Tibetan monks in spiritual ceremonies, they are usually made from a combination of alloy metals. The bowls produce sound when someone strikes it, or when a mallet is rubbed in a circular motion around the outside rim, this produces a consistent sustained tone. 

There is evidence to suggest that these metal ‘standing’ bells originated from the Shang Dynasty in China (16th-11th Centuries BCE), they are believed to have developed from grain measures. Singing Bowls are used in prayer chants in Buddhist and Taoist practices. The bowls are also used as a meditational tool, as they produce sustained consistent tones that are pleasing to hear. The singing bowl can be found in temples all over Asia, and is used for spiritual and ceremonial purposes. The bowls have been adopted in the West as a sound therapy tool, and have been shrouded in mystery and legend. Stories of secret alloys, monks chanting as they are being made and hammer marks representing mantras recited are all fictitious and probably originated to sell them to uninformed buyers. They are made with bronze by metal smiths.

I am not interested in the Western mystical side of Tibetan singing bowls, relating them to Chakras and energy fields. I am interested in the fact that for thousands of years humans have been attracted to sustained consistent tones, and that these are predominantly found in places of worship or meditation. I think the question I am interested in is, Why do long consistent tones relax humans? And there is evidence to suggest that this is the case. An observational study on the effect of singing bowl mediation on moods published in 2016 found that 60 minutes of sound meditation using Tibetan singing bowls reduced depression, anxiety and tension in people of ages ranging from 21-77. Strangely they found that previous experience with singing bowls effected the results of the study. Specifically they found a significant change in the mean tension sub-scale from baseline to post meditation for participants between the ages of 40-59 who had no previous experience with singing bowl meditation. 

Although there is no clear explanation as to why this happens, there is a theory that includes the potential effects of binaural beats. Binaural beats are when the right ear and left ear receive slightly different frequencies, the brain processes this information to perceive it as one single note, it is believed by advocates of this therapy that this process can cause relaxation, reduce stress and anxiety, and induce deeper sleep. However, research into the effectiveness of binaural beat therapy is inconclusive and it is not recognised as a part of standard care for any condition. 

Vibroacoustic Therapy Chair

During research on singing bowls I came across vibroacoustic therapy. This is a practice created by a Norwegian man named Olay Skille in 1968. Vibroacoustic therapy is the practice of applying vibrations directly to the body in the form of low frequency (between 30Hz and 120Hz) sinus tones in combination with selected music.’ The impulses emitted by the vibroacoustic equipment are perceived not only through acoustical receptors in the body, but through vibrotactile receptors.

Some observed positive effects on patients symptoms are as follows:

Autism- Contact-defying autistic children would become so engaged with the sensation of vibration, that they would permit people to give them more physical contact than in other situations.

Rett Syndrome- Some symptoms of Rett syndrome are unusual repetitive jerking movements of the muscles, irritability, stress and difficulty sleeping. Skille found that during vibroacoustic therapy, people with this condition would be able to sleep, and he noted a muscle relaxing effect.

Cerebral Palsy- A significant reduction in spasms.

Insomnia- Sufferers of insomnia often fall asleep during vibroacoustic therapy, also the duration of sleep would be longer than normally experienced.

Circulatory deficiencies- People with this condition have found effective relief through vibroacoutsisc therapy as the vibrations encourage circulation in the body.

I have only provided 5 examples but the list is 24 items long. I think the medical use of sound is very interesting, and I would like to explore the idea of inducing relaxation through sound, and how this could be used as a compositional tool. I think I will keep Olay Skille’s three ‘universals’ of therapeutic use of vibrational sounds in mind when making a piece of sound art.

1). High pitch (high Hz values) gives stress; low pitch (low Hz) induces relaxation.

2). Rhythmically strong music increases energy; rhythmically neutral music decreases energy.

3). Loud music (low dB values-high amplitude) activates; soft music (high dB values-low amplitude) pacifies.

Bibliography:

Goldsby, T., Goldsby, M., McWalters, M. and Mills, P., 2016. Effects of Singing Bowl Sound Meditation on Mood, Tension, and Well-being: An Observational Study. Journal of Evidence-Based Complementary & Alternative Medicine, 22(3), pp.401-406 [Accessed 17 January 2021]

Soundtravels.co.uk. 2021. Singing Bowls – Separating Truth From Myth. [online] Available at: < https://www.soundtravels.co.uk/a-Singing_Bowls__Separating_Truth_from_Myth-732.aspx > [Accessed 17 January 2021].

Medicalnewstoday.com. 2021. Binaural Beats Therapy: Benefits And How They Work. [online] Available at: <https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/320019> [Accessed 17 January 2021].

Olav Skille, VibroAcoustic Therapy, Music Therapy, Volume 8, Issue 1, 1989, Pages 61–77, https://doi-org.arts.idm.oclc.org/10.1093/mt/8.1.61 [Accessed 17 January 2021]

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SOUND RESEARCH: WAVES, FREQUENCY AND THE EAR

 Sound:

Sound is a longitudinal wave through particles in an environment (Longitudinal meaning the direction of the waves’ oscillation is the same as the direction of travel). Sound waves are produced when the vibration of an object sets the particles of a medium in motion. Sound waves cause air to compress and expand, resulting in areas of high and low pressure. The movement of particles determines the frequency and amplitude of a sound. Frequency is determined by the rate of movement of particles. Amplitude is determined by the displacement of the particles, the larger the displacement, the more pressure can be found in the bunching of particles, resulting in a louder sound. 

Frequency: 

Frequency is the number of waves (also referred to as cycles) that pass a fixed point in a given amount of time, for example cycles per second. Frequency is measured in hertz. Hertz can be described as the number of waves that pass a fixed point per second, so one hertz is one cycle per second. Frequency can be displayed on a spectrogram. The y-axis is the value of the frequency, the x-axis is time. Volume is displayed though colour, in this spectrogram the dynamics of the frequencies are displayed with yellow, meaning loud, the quieter frequencies shown in red and blue, then to black meaning silence. Spectrograms can be used as a tool to understand timbre (the quality of a sound). Different sources of sounds have different timbres as a result of overtones. Most things vibrate at more than one frequency, overtones are the frequencies that are found above the fundamental pitch. Changes in overtones can be caused by the dynamics of a sound. If a sound has very few overtones it’s described as dark whereas if it has lots of overtones it’s described as bright. An octave is double the frequency of the fundamental pitch. 

 Anatomy of the ear:

Sound waves are directed into the ear canal by the outer ear, the sound waves then travel through the ear canal to the eardrum. The fluctuations of pressure in the air cause the ear drum to move back and forth. This then causes three tiny bones in the middle ear to move, setting the fluid in the inner ear in motion. Hair cells can be found in the inner ear, the movement in the fluid causes them to bend, they then convert this movement into electrical impulses which are then received by the brain. Hair cells further into the inner ear receive higher frequencies, as higher frequencies travel further in fluid.