Archive for May 2011
E/A Major 2
The objective for my task was to transform and manipulate a recorded sound.
A well known composer I listened to is Gyorgy Ligeti and was particularly interested in Lux Aeterna. I loved the way he used one instrument, the voices, and changed them smoothly over time for timbre change rather than melody, harmony or rhythm. I decided to choose one recording, the wind chimes (I thought they sounded beautiful in tone and appreciated how the wind could articulate the velocity) and chose certain effects such as delay, chorus, ringshift, spectral gate and ensemble, being careful not to over do each one so there was a more subtle although definite change throughout parts of the recording. I decided not to go any heavier on dynamics or panning because when I closed my eyes to listen, it was nice to ‘see’ it change staying at one point in my mind.
An audio technique I applied was to not go overboard in effects to look for contrast and stay more subtle and delicate to reflect the audio – delicate wind chimes.
A music technique I learned was that subtle differences can still be just as interesting as one’s that are prominent.
This is practice as research because I have learned from Ligeti a new focus on sound manipulation and took his idea to see what I could develop through it using my own sample and ways of structuring and thinking about effects to use and how strongly.
To evaluate myself, I think this piece achieved what I wanted from the start, one recording manipulated quite subtly and I chose something that I thought sounded wonderful on it’s own to play with, getting a dreamy smooth transition throughout.
Gyorgy Ligeti (1988) Lux Aeterna, Germany: WERGO. WER 60162-50. CD, 9:21.
E/A Major 1
The objective of my major task was to create emotionally contrasting musique concrete.
A well known composer I was inspired by for this was Pierre Schaeffer with Etude Noire. I enjoyed the way there were samples of typical chords that you can imagine conveying certain moods, then industrial sounds underneath with repetition. There were parts of quite smooth atmospheric noises, then suddenly a more prominent gritty or mechanical noise would enter. In my piece, I have taken this on and used the children in the school yard and rain as the emotions, with the drills, bomb and thunder as the contrasting non emotional sounds. My piece conveys aspects of life such as childhood, working, war and horror, nature, memories and anything else one would perceive from my piece in their own way regarding these.
Audio techniques I applied were layering, bouncing/triggering sounds off of one another by introducing them immediately after another in contrast, pan, volume control/fading and reverb.
A musical technique I learned through doing this was to mix completely different sounds together that can still create a certain feel or story, which sparks off the brain into thinking what the purpose behind it is, or how it makes one feel through the contrasts.
This is an example of practice as research because I have gained ideas from composers from all of my tasks so far to be able to think about their ideas and form my own, such as what sounds Schaeffer used, the way he structured them and how it made me feel listening to it, so I could make this piece which reflects my ideas from him so far, but in my own way.
If I am to evaluate myself, I would give this piece a good mark as it can chill me to listen to with the contrasting sounds and moody atmosphere, which is made more effective with my use of panning, fading and sudden cutting in and out of sounds.
Pierre Schaeffer (1990) Etude Noire, France: INA-GRM. ina c 1006-09. CD, 3:58
