Category: ALL POSTS

Listening– Soundscapes, audiences and stories (Harrison)

It is good practice for a sound designer to engage in daily deep listening, the real world is our reference. Harrison uses the analogy of a chef, knowing what each ingredient can bring to a dish, we have an indefinite number of ingredients at hand, we must know their purpose and the consequences of combination. Once you have a good grasp on listening, and a knowledge of these ingredient’s purposes, we can start to compose based not the emotion/narrative of a scene.

There are three categories of soundscapes defined by R. Murray Schafer:

• Earth (Wind, earthquakes, waterfalls)
• Non-human life (Birds, insects, wolves howling)
• Humanity (Industry, Walla, Machinery)

This is a framework that allows us to analyse each layer of sound in the soundscape, always in terms of how they relate to us as we as humans are the audience. Each category of sound holds implications and information, that when combined can shift meanings and create interesting narratives.

It is a valuable practice to chart day to day sounds and the emotions they evoke. Contextual meaning and sonic quality are equally as emotionally influential. We must, as sound designers, have a solid knowledge of what sounds represent, what information they convey. Harrison uses the example of the noises at a dinner table conveying how delicious the meal is, something otherwise un-transmittable.

We are constantly processing sound, it’s built into our being. The sounds we don’t consciously listen to still effect us emotionally and narratively. ‘Manipulating this background sound is the key to sound design’(Harrison). One example of this is the use of very low frequency rumbles in horror films, this evokes uncertainty and the felt presence of unknown entities at work, and perhaps the feeling that the situation is about to take a turn for the worse. This sound is felt as well as heard, permeating the body resulting in a very physical fear response. This reaction is possibly linked to an evolutionary reaction to earthquakes. Rumbles mean danger. All the time the audience are unaware that they are being influenced by sound.

These sounds do not, however, exist in isolation. You must consider the wider context in which the sound is situated. One sound can have multiple meanings depending on the context. An example of this is the sound of knives being sharpened, in a hibachi grill it might induce hunger and anticipation of a nice meal, in a slasher horror… not so much.

I will be engaging in deep listening, charting sounds as a reference for soundscape design and considering emotional influence.

I engaged with this process briefly last week, my project is based on a mountainside that descends into a garden. I went on a hike to a place with no other people and not many animals, and listened for reference. Unfortunately I didn’t have a recorder on hand.

Bibliography-

Harrison, T. (2022) Sound design for film. The Crowood Press.

Setting– Ambience, immersion and sense of place (Harrison)

Ambience or atmospheres are what make up a films ‘setting’, this is the sense of time and space the story takes place in. Everything in film is constructed, the near constant challenge of the practice is presenting the work as ‘real’. An audience will only accept and follow a story if it takes place in a realistic space, there are some exceptions in the case of experimental film but generally an accurate presentation of space and time is necessary for immersion. I use the term immersion in the sense of sustaining the suspension of disbelief.

Film sound settings can be divided into two categories, beds and details. Beds are the very quiet blanket sounds that fill a space, a general wash of noise. The primary bed used in most films are room tones, this is quiet hum of an empty room, sometimes described as ‘dead air’. This very minimal sound is ripe for emotional expression, different tones express different feelings. It’s even possible to harmonise multiple room tones, perhaps layered dissonantly for disconcerting scenes. Details are the events that take place in the space, this might be a clock chiming, a dog barking or a car driving past. All of these sounds carry vital information about the space, they provide a narrative for the environment making it more believable and textured. These sounds can also provide the audience with information regarding time, horse and carts could indicate a specific era.

Setting can act as a character, specific sounds can trigger emotions in characters and reference earlier narrative points. Each detail in the soundscape is an opportunity for narrative engagement.

Ambience also provides film with a sense of continuity between shots, the sound construction is not contained within the picture. It is a space conceptualised by the designer, therefore the designer must add not only the sounds that are onscreen, but the sounds that might exist offscreen. This is extension. Extension can be used as a compositional device, removing the outer world to focus on the narrative.

The most important things to consider from this research are:

• Accurate field recordings (Era/space)
• Accurate/Immersive stereo spread
• Extension beyond the screen
• Identifying events

Prototype experimentation: Session 1

I managed to acquire some metal from Goldsmith’s university, choosing long thick pieces with the aim of having a lower and wider resonant frequency range. We started by grinding the sharp edges off the pieces to make them safe, then we drilled holes as a means to hang them. The heaviest piece was too thick to drill through, so we welded two hooks on.

I chose to use a larger transducer for more volume, the downside of which was the suction cup was too large for the beams, so I had to tape the speakers on. I don’t think this was the most effective method. I’ve found the struggle with this method of sound is balancing the strength of the connection (between the speaker and material) and the damping of the resonance that occurs through attachment. Im considering trying a g clamp next as they are metal and hopefully won’t dampen the sound.

My original plan was to have two beams working in stereo, but after having trouble with syncing the two transducers, and lack of volume, I decided to stick to one beam. I found the material influenced the sound a lot, and the input sound of an E-bow on a metal guitar string suited the timbre. In the interest of time I decided to play a recording I made a few weeks earlier with about 4 harmonies, luckily I had many different versions with some other instrument such as synthesisers, granulated vocal recordings and electric guitar. This gave me a better understanding of how to compose the arrangement, how certain instruments resonated with the material and what worked well when combined.

A drawback I discovered while using this method is that it’s very hard to achieve a decent volume, to solve this I decided to record the sound using a zoom Hn5 held very close to the beam. I found that the the sound drastically changed depending on where I placed the mic, I could change the amount of low end by moving the mic. Towards the end of the session I found this to be the best position, it gave me the most ‘material’ in the sound:

Through this method I could also experiment with swinging the beam to bring a more dynamic spatialisation to the recording.

I realised that the input files had too much reverb applied and the identity of the material was getting lost. Removing all of the reverb resulted in a very empty sound, and was not what I set out for so I gradually added small amounts of reverb until I found a middle ground.

Retrospectively I realised I misunderstood the order of these manipulations. My first mistake was having all 4 harmonies play at the same time through one beam, I feel this loses a lot of the detail I could have harvested from the material had it been layered. My second mistake was applying the reverb first. No reverb sounded empty to me because I was listening to the whole composition through the material, giving me the expectation of a finished piece. I believe the better method would be to record each harmony separately through the material, I can then combine these recordings in the DAW and recreate the digital landscape’s structure. These recordings can then have reverb added as a last measure to contextualise them in the mountainside.

Revised order of process:

• Record harmonies separately with no reverb
• Create the soundscape in the DAW
• Add these recordings in the space with Gain adjustment for distance
• Add a Convolution reverb to contextualise the recordings in a realistic space.

I spent the last portion of the session crudely putting together a soundscape comprised of a few woodland recordings found on BBC library, a chain recording I conducted in the performance lab quickly and a wind track. I then layered a few of the recordings from this experiment to see how they fit together. I believe it is a proof of concept, however the harmonic metal moans need to be separated and contextualised in the digital space.

Materialism in sound art

My practice and research is stems from the idea of the ‘material’ in sound art, through this practice we can achieve more immersive, diegesis focused cinematic scores. The principal movement that pathed the way for this practice is music concrete, pioneered by Schaeffer and Henry. Music concrete is composition using non-musical sounds, by considering the various qualities inherent in everyday sounds (pitch, length, percussion, timbre) you can layer and arrange these elements into a piece of music.

Acousmatic music developed out of music concrete, a complete decontextualisation of the sounds used for composition, the only matter of concern is the final noise rather than the source. This form of music is a subversion of our natural cause and effect method of listening. We analyse our environment for many reasons, to orient yourself or determine whether danger is present. We listen to a sound and immediately attach the source. Acousmatic music removes the source, and forces the audience to listen to these sounds in a musical way. I believe that it is impossible to completely remove context, the psychoacoustic and psychological elements at play mean that the audience will most likely be able to recognise elements of the noise. Either the audience can recognise the origin of the sound (such as the door and the sigh) or if the noise has been manipulated beyond recognition, the material remains. The sound of wood, metal or stone will remain recognisable.

I would like to take this methodology and approach to music making, and apply it to my project in a slightly different way. I would like to play music through a material using a transducer and record it’s vibrations in a space, this way I will achieve musical expression while maintaining the material identity. Hopefully this will result in a more believable sound than if I were to synthesise a metallic cello per say, at least this is what Mark Mangini’s postulations on psychoacoustic qualities of real recordings being more immersive lead me to believe. (DUNE research)

ANIMISM/RESONANCE

Animism is an anthropological term that refers to an ideology found in many spiritualities. It’s the concept that people, animals, geographical and natural phenomenon are all connected by an individual spirit they all possess.

You can find elements of animism as early as Plato, as in his 380BC writings ‘Republic’ he refers to the souls of people and cities. Animus Mundi (world soul) was a commonly held concept among Ancient Greek philosophers. The concept is now however associated with primitive cultures due to 18th century ethnocentrism, specifically the work of Sir Edward Burnett Tylor and his book ‘Primitive Cultures’.

The Siberian Eveny culture engage in a form of animism in which the animals that they hunt are seen as ‘master parents’ to humans. The animal’s parental responsibility is a sacrifice, however this sacrifice can only happen if a certain hierarchy is reached in which the human must eat them to survive. There is a respect there that is not present in western tradition, the hunter exclaims after the kill “you came to me out of your own free will, please have pity on us and do not harm us”.

I believe that a parallel can be drawn between animism and resonance. Every object will emit a natural frequency when struck, if this frequency is exerted on the object, a compounding of waves occurs and the natural vibrations are amplified. For example a glass may have a natural frequency of 575Hz, if the glass has minimal imperfections and a speaker is playing 575Hz next to the object, the glass will vibrate at this frequency. It is possible to shatter the glass through these means.

Resonance can be seen as a force individual to each object, that allows for an interplay between inanimate things. This phenomenon also allows for interplay between object and human, as seen in the case of the millennium bridge.

On June 10th 2000, the millennium bridge was opened to the public. In order to avoid spoiling the view of the Thames and St Pauls cathedral, the architects refused to design the bridge with any tall support struts. Instead they opted for a horizontal suspension bridge, an impressive feat of engineering with a small oversight. The engineers forgot to account for the slight horizontal sway that occurs in a human’s walk. By coincidence the natural frequency of the bridge was equal to the frequency of the horizontal sway of a human’s gate. When this slight swaying is multiplied by the large amounts of foot traffic, the people amplified the frequency and the bridge wobbled quite drastically. This resulted in the bridge being closed, multiple foot traffic tests being conducted and eventually the implementation of dampeners on the suspension cables. Like putting a sock in a guitar bridge.

There is an interplay between human and object due to resonant frequencies, I would like to explore this further for this project. I believe respecting and working with the resonant identity of each object might result in interesting sonic performances whilst also respecting the content of the narrative.

Perkins, M., 2022. What Is Animism?. [online] Learn Religions. Available at: <https://www.learnreligions.com/what-is-animism-4588366> [Accessed 27 September 2022].

Swancutt, K., 2022. Animism. [online] Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Available at: <https://www.anthroencyclopedia.com/entry/animism> [Accessed 27 September 2022].

BYJUS. 2022. Resonance – Definition, Examples & Resonant Frequency With Formula. [online] Available at: <https://byjus.com/physics/resonance/> [Accessed 28 September 2022].

Strogatz, S., 2022. [online] Available at: <https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/11/051103080801.htm> [Accessed 28 September 2022].

HESAPIA

Ive been given the opportunity to collaborate with a third year fine art student from Goldsmiths. Using software such as Unreal engine and cinema 4D they create intricate digital worlds, steeped in philosophical detail with narratives inspired by the likes of Carl Yung, Joseph Campbell and Religious texts.

The project is titled ‘Hesapia’. This is a fabricated word derived from the word ‘He Sapa’, a Native American Lakota word meaning ‘Black Ridge’. This refers to a mountain range that is believed to be the centre of the universe for the Lakota Sioux, and the origin of many Native American peoples. This land was later commandeered by western expansion and became part of the Dakota territory.

Eunjo, my collaborator has drawn a parallel with He Sapa and the Garden of Eden. In her eyes, the Garden of Eden is a false narrative, the snake (representing nature) is vilified, as too is womanhood. The real Garden of Eden (or paradise) is more that of He Sapa, a balance of person and nature, life and death being appreciated in the same respect. A subversion of the typical western ideals of Anthropocentrism. This subversion is extended beyond the idea of anthropocentrism, to a balance of good, evil, creation and destruction. This is inspired by the works of Carl Yung, in which he denounces the idea of the dichotomy of good and evil, two forces that are in constant conflict and are incapable of harmonisation.

‘Hesapia’ will take on the form of an animated short film, with the potential of being transformed into an interactive space or game. The film will include many characters, representing various elements of philosophical writings, performing symbolic actions. Ultimately, the project is a reimagining of the Garden of Eden, one which represents and reflects with more accuracy the human condition and the relationships between humanity, object and nature.

I believe that this project is ripe for sonic exploration, it offers opportunity to experiment not only with sound design methodologies, but with contextual reflection within the sound world. I’m drawn to this project specifically because it is a perfect space for me to continue the practice I developed over the last two years, diegetic/soundscape composition. The philosophical and narrative substance allows for emotional exploration within the musical side of the sound design, and world building nature of her practice gives me insight into material from which to perform the composition.

Bibliography:

An Interview/meeting conducted with the artist in which we discussed the general overview of the project. Conducted 26th September 2022

Estes, N., 2022. Go back to where you come from, the Trump fans yelled. But “we came from there!”. [online] Mother Jones. Available at: <https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2021/01/the-battle-for-the-black-hills/> [Accessed 27 September 2022].

Magazine, B., 2022. Paha Sapa – The Black Hills – Black Hills Visitor. [online] Black Hills Visitor. Available at: <https://blackhillsvisitor.com/learn/paha-sapa-the-black-hills/> [Accessed 27 September 2022].

Definition of my practice

The central area of praxis for my prototype is soundscape composition as a means to bring musicality to diegetic sounds in cinema, either through utilising material as a reverberant body or manipulating field recordings.

I am interested in this practice as it provides a challenge to scoring for cinema, that will in theory create an immersive musical experience based in environmental sound. By exploring this practice, i will gain an in depth understanding of how cinematic sound interweaves both music and representational sound. I will better understand the levels of abstraction on the spectrum of synchresis.

The physical representation of this exploration will be an approximately 8 minute score for an animation, comprised of hyper-realistic soundscapes gradually oscillating in and out of musical abstraction.

Sources that might be useful for this research are:

• Soundscape Composers
• Music Concrete Composers
• Cinematic Sound designers
• Writings on Cinematic Synchresis