— Week 18 —
The Voice
In this lesson, we explored different approaches and techniques when working with the human voice. I don’t personally have a lot of experience working with vocals in my work, though I do have quite a lot of experience working with vocalists as I used to conduct choirs. It was very interesting to learn about vocal techniques beyond ones used in singing.
— Week 20 —
Psychoacoustics
- All the sound that humans perceive is psychoacoustic; from the moment sound goes through the ears it is no longer a physical thing, but rather a complete matter of perception
- This means that absolutely everything we hear is, by nature, different to how it actually sounds, attributable to each individual’s own peculiarities of perception, as well as the humanly limitations of hearing
Glossary
Misophonia – a condition in which individuals experience intense anger and disgust when they are confronted with sounds made by other human beings. (Schröder, A., Vulink, N. & Denys, D.)
Hyperacusis – when everyday sounds seem much louder than they should. (NHS Website)
Phonophobia – a persistent, abnormal, and unwarranted fear of sound. Often, these are normal environmental sounds (e.g., traffic, kitchen sounds, doors closing, or even loud speech) that cannot under any circumstances be damaging. (Zamzil Amin Asha’ari, Nora Mat Zain, Ailin Razalia, NCBI Website)
Sonophobia – an unusual fear of loud noises
Ligyrophobia – ” “
— Week 21 —
Graphic Scores
Today, we explored a more visual way to create sonic art; graphic scoring. Popularized in the 1950s, graphic scoring is the depiction of music through visual notation that is different to traditional scoring, which in my opinion, can lead to very interesting unconventional work.
Although my attempt at creating a graphic score was done in an (obviously) lighthearted and non-serious manner, I did find that through this exercise (as well as looking at and performing other people’s graphic scores), I was able to further explore the concept of subjective perception. Within a discussion regarding my score amongst my peers after the exercise, I found that there was quite a bit of dispute regarding what each ‘symbol’ on my score represented. However, there were a couple people who knew exactly which sounds I had in mind when drawing these symbols, which I found extremely interesting.
— Week 22 —
DIY Cultures
Avant-Garde
- Promotes the defiance of tradition where boundaries are pushed and non-conformity is encouraged.
- Draws the mainstream towards it
- The name comes from the word Vanguard- The leading part of an advancing group of soldiers
Underground
• Promotes the defiance of tradition, though in a different way to avant-garde, because rather than drawing the mainstream towards it, it generally makes an attempt to only exist outside the mainstream.
- Could be considered more exploratory, or less ‘consumable’, and therefore making less money
Previous to this lesson, I had not put much thought into which DIY culture I connected with the most, though now, I feel like someone who resonates more with being labeled as avant-garde rather than underground, it was very interesting to learn and think about where I stood.
— Week 22, cont. —
Development
CREATIVE PROJECT BRAINSTORM
What are my favorite avant-garde//underground features in music that I’d like to feature in my piece?
- Rhapsodic (informal structure); I feel like there is a major hole that is missing in contemporary music, and that’s rhapsodic club music. A few ideas I have are inconsistent phrase lengths and tempo changes
- I love when club music producers use sounds and instruments from their respective (traditional) cultures, because it re-contextualizes sounds that are already unique into a more contemporary setting
- One of my favorite things about underground music is how utterly noisy and ‘messy’ it can be sometimes, especially with genres like gabber, hardcore, and hardstyle.
To achieve my desired outcome, I’ve gathered some samples of traditional Peking opera, linking to the first topic discussed in this unit; voice. As my I am of Chinese descent, I felt that it was appropriate to use an ancient practice of vocalization deriving from China. I have also gathered some sounds of traditional Chinese percussion, typically used in percussion ensembles. To juxtapose with the very organic and raw sounds of traditional Chinese percussion, I have also begun to digitally synthesize a collection of metallic hits, as well as some kick drums influenced by both 90s and modern hardcore/gabber.
— Week 23 —
Afterthoughts // Reflection
Having finished my piece, I can proudly say that I’ve captured the exact atmosphere I sought and included all of the features I wanted to include. I found myself dragging inspiration from artists like TSVI, who makes downtempo club music/industrial soundscapes, 33EMYBW, who makes experimental club music with lots of Chinese percussion, and Osheyack, who makes quite raw and organic sounding hard-dance.
I began my piece with an atmospheric downtempo section, where I layered very metallic and digital synths and dark soundscapes on top of occasional & sporadic raw drum patterns. The piece then progresses into its main section, where numerous layers of Chinese percussion are layered over a hardcore-style beat. Rather than using any synths as a lead as would be commonly done, I used a recorded clip of an erhu mimicking a bird chirp as a lead. The piece shortly breaks into chaos as it transforms into a more modern approach to gabber, with a heavily distorted kick and strums of a guzheng used as additional texturizing. Finally, the tempo once again changes- This time into 203bpm, where I produced the main kick rhythms in half time, but had all the other elements of the track in double time, creating an energy that’s almost confusing for the listener.
I feel that with my piece, it was created with the intention of listening rather than depicting a certain story, however, I do feel like it does depict a sonic journey of some sort, as the structural elements of the piece change so frequently that it almost keeps the listener on their toes at all times. I’m very satisfied with how my piece turned out and I have definitely learned a lot that I would like to apply into my personal practice.
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Element 2: Individual Sound Work
Synthesis
In a lesson on creative synthesis, we were given a full walkthrough on subtractive synthesis. I’ve always had a relative familiarity with synthesis, although I feel that this lesson pushed me to actually be more engaging with it and spend more time with it to achieve desired sounds and effects. While playing with the synth, I stumbled across a sound that to me sounded very metallic when played in higher pitches. I achieved this with a combination of detuning, addition of noise, a low-pass filter, and ring modulation.
Recent Influence
I’ve found myself going to quite a lot of hardcore/gabber nights recently and thinking to myself: “how could I make this music more interesting?” So in thinking of what makes music interesting to me, the things I thought of were textures/heavy layering, contrasting noises (digital & organic noises juxtaposed together), and combining old-school & new-school elements of music together. However, if I was going to be making a hardcore track, what typical characteristics of hardcore would I have in my final piece that would retain the essence of the music? What comes to mind is high tempos, repetition, heavy bass, cheesy vocals, and usually quite industrial timbres.
Making a Sound Bank
To gather all of the noises, textures, and sounds that I wanted to put in my piece, I firstly revisited the metallic noise I made with subtractive synthesis. I’d put it into an arpeggiator to create a metallic percussion pattern, reminiscent of ambient percussion used in modern industrial techno. The kick was relatively simple, the kick was made out of two different kicks I’d previously made on ES2 in Logic. One kick was not distorted but had quite a big ‘rumble’, achieved with a HPF & 1/8 dotted note delay. The other was a much more punchy and distorted gabber kick, made from a square wave rather than a sine like the other one. I’d also gathered various organic percussive noises like coins rattling, stomping on the ground in various places, and even distorting & microsampling my own voice to use as percussion. And to gather cheesy vocal samples to use, I downloaded the Jungle-Jungle sample pack, a staple of bedroom dance-music producers.