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ELEMENT 2

‘Analysing Examples’

‘La Grande Bellezza’

Diegetic anchoring of underscore:

The great beauty- The film opens with the sun shining on multiple beautiful landmarks in Rome, tourists take their pictures, locals smoke their cigarettes, all of which underscored by a church bell ringing. The church bells are shortly accompanied by an all female choir chanting harmonies that sound somewhere between apathetic and melancholic. As the opening continues with shots of tourists admiring the beauty of Rome, a solo singer takes the lead with a melancholic passionate melody. This stark contrast between the seemingly eternal beauty of Rome and the melancholic singing is the crux of the film. A surrounding of decadence and beauty, while feeling unfulfilled, unable to reach ‘the great beauty’ in regards to the human condition. With this musical contrast, Paolo Sorrentino was able to set up the concept of the film, and by making the source of the music a diegetic element, the representation of the melancholic humanity (the choir) is made a part of the city itself, the solo vocalist stares out at the beauty as if to have a dialogue with it. 

Delicatessen (1991)

Underscore as a narrative drive:

Delicatessen- Delicatessen is a post apocalyptic black comedy about a butcher who has gained power and influence through selling human meat in a world where protein is scarce. The film explores the dynamic between the butcher, his assistant who is next lined up for the slaughter, the butchers daughter and the people living in his building. There is a scene in which directors Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro use sound as a narrative device to demonstrate the dynamic of the building. 

The scene opens as the butcher is getting intimate with a woman on a very noisy metal spring bed, the subsequent creaking noise echoes through the pipes of the building permeating the residents rooms. First a cellist plays her scales to the tempo of the creaks, then man painting his ceiling matches the tempo, a person inflating a bike tyre, a woman beating a rug and lastly a man working a punching machine. As the creaks rise in tempo, the actions of the residents become comically fast. Sound is acting as a narrative tool to drive the story, both resulting in a comical situation and demonstrating the power dynamics of the household. 

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VISITING PRACTITIONERS

‘Lindsay Wright’

Lindsay Wright is a British composer, her practice involves blending traditional orchestral elements with experimental methodologies.

‘The mystery of D.B. Cooper’-

This documentary focuses on the highjacking of a plane in the 1970’s, the documentary forwent investigating the perpetrator of the crime, rather it highlighted public obsession with the mystery. Lindsay’s brief for the documentary included many different elements, mainly a 70’s theme with modern sections.

Firstly, Wright talks about scoring the cue ‘attention all agents’. This is the moment the FBI agents are notified about the highjacking, moving from footage of police cars racing to the scene onwards to talking head interview elements. The cue begins with a classic 70’s cop drama style intro, with guitars violins and drums, the score then reduces in volume and frequency occupation to pave way for dialogue. These talking head sections were underscored with low frequency synthesisers (bringing in the modern influence) with drums maintaining the narrative intensity/pacing. Lindsay also made use of a key change to provide a sense of urgency and build, in her words an easier way to build tension without actually having to write anything new.

Write tried to give each person being interviewed their own musical identity. She talks about one person having a string belief that DB Cooper did not survive the crash. Scoring this Lindsay tried to give it a more ‘Fargo’ inspired sound, off kilter, curious and sometimes fun. This part of the scoring process highlighted the importance of creating more than one version for cues, as sometimes your scores don’t reflect the directors vision.

Lindsay talks about starting a composition with a few days dedicated to finding the right timbre or sound palette, to find the sonic identity of the piece. Sounds have themes in integral in their timbre, finding a good instrument to attach to a certain element of the narrative is an important part of the process.

‘Mudlarks’-

Mudlarks Is a film about two homeless girls living in a tent besides the thames, during the film one of the girls doesn’t come home from a s shift of finding money/food. The aims of the scoring was to highlight the girls relationship, and the anguish caused by one of their absence. Lindsay tried to capture the vastness of the city whilst also commenting on the intimacy of their relationship. They focused on gestural ideas, and built up textures, each they could reuse later in the film. EQ automation is a useful technique in building gestures, filling out the sound as the score grows. A quality the director wanted from the sound is a homemade feel, which was convenient as the budget only really afforded home studio recording. Lindsay talks about the importance of bringing in tones from the rest of the score into each cue, it gives the whole underscore a fluidity and solid sonic identity.

‘Lines’-

This was Wrights self made EP constructed during the first lockdown, the project was influenced by Patrick Jonsson, Angus McRae and Keaton Henson. Exile was a track inspired by moving from a busy street in south east London to a small town in Cambridgeshire, how moving gave her more space to think and work healthily. Other tracks inspired by peoples resilience to carry on working through the pandemic, also a reflection on some peoples negative experience such as her friend having to see his family though a glass window.

Musical Traits to consider when constructing a piece-

  • Timbre
  • Constant motion
  • Cyclical Layers
  • Texture
  • Rhythm
  • Harmony
  • Instrumentation
  • Structure
  • Slides
  • Bass
  • Space and Depth

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MA COLLABORATION

Initial overview of project/Mechanical bird plan

The majority of the sounds required for the game are foley and ambient sounds, although important these sounds do not, for the most part, lend themselves to creative licence. As this is the case, we have created lists of sounds from the documents provided for us separating or highlighting the creative sounds from the ‘necessary’ sounds. This way we can each take on the responsibility of recording some necessary sound, whilst also having a creative sound to dive into more deeply.

As of today our team has conducted two foley sessions in which we recorded sounds for levels 1 and 2. These mostly included footsteps, interactive sounds such as picking up and opening books and folders, and ambient elements such as typing and chair creaks. With such a large collection of these sounds being required for the game, this foley process is turning out to be repetitive and tedious, therefore I don’t think I will be talking a lot about it, in short the process is record, edit file, send to MA students. Instead I would like to focus this project on the more creative sounds.

I have started with a sound in level 2, the mechanical bird sound. In this level the player is interacting with the space from the perspective of a mechanical bird, so far the size of the bird hasn’t been specified but I’m assuming it’s approximately the size fo a sparrow. The main elements I have to keep in mind whilst creating this sound is the proximity to the character (almost inside the character, as the character is the bird) and the size and weight of the bird (this determines the pitch of the sound and also the frequency of the flaps).

I would also like to make use of a lot of layering with this sound, I think the challenge is going to be seamlessly merging the mechanical with the biological. I believe that the sound of the bird should retain a strong biological essence, as the level is about a fond memory situated in nature, this to me suggests an organic quality to the sound.

This is an extract from my research on Dune in a previous post, I believe it’s relevant here and I plan to do more in depth research into exactly how the ornithopter sound was created.

‘Denis wanted the technology of this world to be grounded, as real as possible, so it didn’t become a distraction from the story. He wanted the audience to embrace the technology spontaneously. An example was the ‘Ornithopter’, it was based on insects, he wanted the vehicle to function like an insect and look like a military vehicle. The sound, Denis said, should be close to the spirit of a helicopter, in the same family but not the same. The sound team used recordings of beetles and other insects to create a helicopter sound with a natural quality. 

Mark Mangini states that we can be more successful in our sound design when we start with natural recordings. He thinks that the reason for this could possibly be that we have a psychoacoustic response telling us that the sound is real, the time arrival to the ear and the acoustic environment in which a sound lives might be a subconscious identifier for reality. Whether this theory is correct or not, I think he is right. The brain responds to natural sounds differently to synthesised sounds, I’ve created synthesisers out of vocal recordings and they are very un-natural as an acoustic sound, but retain an organic natural quality. These natural sound ‘ingredients’ are all in service to quickly and effectively suspend the audiences disbelief. We can present sounds that are decontextualised from what it really is, present them in a new context and your brain doesn’t have to understand what the original sound was it just recognises that it’s real.’

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ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE SENSES

This field of study emerged in the late 80’s, the area of academia posits that senses are culturally conditioned. The values that we attach to sensory perception are not universal, even the number of recognised senses differs around the world.

In Western culture, staring is considered rude. However in some cultures this could be read as respectful. The way we perceive such a simple thing as the direction of someone’s eyes is directly informed by our culture.

Ocularcentrism/Visuocentricim

These terms refer to the cultural prioritisation of the visual.

“Only the briefest survey shows the presence of visual metaphors and meanings.When one solves a problem he has had the requisite insight. Reason is the innerlight. There is a mind’s “eye”. We are enlightened when informed by an answer.Even the lightbulb going on in a cloud over the cartoon character’s head continuesthe linkage of thought with vision.” (Ihde, p8)

Ihde, Don. Listening and Voice: Phenomenologies of Sound. 2nd ed. Albany: StateUniversity of New York Press, 2007.

This prioritisation is evident in our speech, ‘I see’, ‘the whole picture’, ‘thats just hear say’. The latter even expressing a negative connotation, as if sound is not a reliable source. In the history of academia there is a division between higher and lower senses. Higher senses are associated with ‘visions’ or the mind. Lower are associated with smell, touch and taste (Bodily senses). There is a Western hierarchy of the senses.

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SOUND INSTALLATION: GALLERY 46

‘Proposal’

Work type-

Multichannel loudspeaker spatial installation.

Tech Specs-

Definite

  • 4 loudspeaker drivers
  • 4 XLR cables
  • Wall mounts for Loudspeakers
  • Raspberry Pi
  • Soundcard
  • Amplifier
  • Power source

Possible

  • Weather protective casing for loudspeakers

Concept-

The piece will be investigating material audio quality. I have taken Ryoji Ikeda’s concept of hidden worlds and applied them to a different facet of reality. He made binary information audible, I want to make transient audio qualities of materials constant through the use of granular synthesis. In the same way the visual qualities of something (eg. A stone wall) are most often constantly visible, I want to take the audio quality of the object out of potentiality (We can only hear its audio quality when it’s interacted with) and make it continuously perceivable. I want to then install speakers playing the synthesized noises next to their respective materials.

Gallery Location-

Garden (entire or partial depending on other installations)

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SOUND INSTALLATION: GALLERY 46

I’ve drawn out a floor plan of the garden, this way I can plan out the installation considering material. Ive identified 4 materials in the garden:

  • Gravel
  • Stone Wall
  • Plants
  • Metal Fire Pit

I need to go to the location and record these materials being struck/rubbed by a similar material. I will then extend these transient sounds into constant sounds using granular synthesis, I will create approximately 4 distinct versions from each material. I can then merge between these versions to implement variation into the installation and keep the visitor’s attention. These 4 material recordings will be assigned a singular channel each in the multichannel installation. I am debating whether to have one speaker per material or more to create a more immersive experience.

Soundgrain- Software I intend to use

Possible loudspeaker schematics:

1- Minimal

2- Multiple for each material

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SOUND INSTALLATION: GALLERY 46

‘Zimoun’

Zimoun is a Swiss sound artist that creates mostly site specific installations, he utilises motors to rotate everyday objects causing them to emit small sounds. Repeating the technique of rotating an object many times results in a grandiose sound comprised of lots of small sounds. Zimoun uses these sound making objects as an architectural material, shaping audio sculptures and environments, sometimes rooms that the subject can enter engulfing them in the sound. This is similar to Ryoji Ikeda’s installations in the way of surrounding the subject, however Zimoun takes a more physical/material approach both in method of creation and subject matter. This is evident in the naming of his works, naming them only by the materials used to create it.

Zimoun uses minimalistic methods to provoke the objects into audibility, these are objects that usually remain in relative silence when left un-interfered with. The constant movement or interaction with other materials unveils the audio quality of the material, subsequently Zimoun can saturate a large room with the sound of cardboard, or any material he chooses.

I am interested in the audio qualities produced by Zimoun’s works, it’s a constant, rich, textured sound. The listener is presented with a blanket of sound constructed with tiny tiny parts, and those details from the construction remain evident, one can recognise and tune in and out to singular sources. It might be advantageous for me to implement this idea of layering to my piece, it could result in a more textured and information rich sound. However, using multiple interactions with the object simultaneously could detract from the idea of documenting one object, one transient sound extended might conceptually be more compatible with my work. An idea I will definitely be taking into consideration from Zimoun’s works is the approach of ‘sound architecture’, using multiple sound making objects to sculpt sound in space. If I am to install my work in the garden of the gallery I might think of the approach as more of a ‘sound gardening’, using natural materials and turning them into sound making objects with the use of loudspeakers, the piece could be an auditory investigation into the dynamic of natural and man made material in a garden.

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SOUND INSTALLATION: GALLERY 46

‘Initial Ideas: Material and Resonance Identity’

I am interested in themes of material and potentiality. The way we perceive the sounds of objects is mostly a result of stimulation of said object. The sound of a rock is only present when it is hit, or dropped or scraped. There are objects that spend most of their existence only with the potential to make sound. In one of the visiting practitioner lectures, Sam Auinger presented a method of listening in which you take a small pebble and knock it against different materials. If you understand and mitigate variables such as the way you hold the pebble, you are able to listen to the resonance of materials and objects in a more objective way. I think that this might be an interesting concept to explore, perhaps using a technique similar to this in order to present the audio of material in a different way to how we normally perceive them, to bring these objects out of a state of audio potentiality and into a constant representation of their identity.

In regards to method Im drawn to granular synthesis as a way of turning a transient sound into a constant one, while retaining its timbre and identity. I would also like to look into exploring the resonance of materials and ways in which to uncover or present them in the most objective way possible.