Sonic Doing & Thinking

— Week 1 —

Ontology

Ontology is a philosophical sector which explores notions such as reality, being, becoming, and existence. Entailing questions revolving around how entities are grouped into basic categories, it also explores the variety of fundamental levels in which said entities exist.

Epistemology

Epistemology is the theory of knowledge, particularly exploring its scope, validity, and methods, as well as the difference between opinion and belief.

— Week 2 —

Off Site Soundwalk

On a trip to Forest Hill, we were introduced to the activity of soundwalking, which as defined by Hildegard Westerkamp is “… any excursion whose main purpose is listening to the environment.” While on this excursion, we were constantly in different areas and sceneries with blindfolds on, completely immersed in and focused on sound in our surroundings. Below is an unedited copy of my notes from the day, listing the location and exercise, followed by a few bullet points on what I observed.

Tunnel, standing still with blindfold

• chains in the distance, high frequencies resonated the most and were the most audible, cut through the low traffic hums
• walls rumbling as the train passed over 
• crinkling plastic
• cars passing by making a reverb through the tunnel 
• bike chains clicking 
• reverb dampened a bit as larger groups of people walked through the center of the tunnel

Besides Train Tracks, standing still with blindfold 

• low frequencies of passing trains didn’t feel as heavy 
• distant hissing 
• very distant traffic 

Blindfolded Walk #1, through museum and park, guided by friend

• could hear when walking underneath things
• could hear by dragging my feet on the ground if there were people/poles nearby; footsteps sounded different when closer to objects 

Blindfolded Walk #2, through forest, guided by friend

• much harder to determine what surroundings are like when there’s more silence
• felt like less of an open space because objects felt significantly closer, felt less of a point of reference

Blindfolded Walk #3, through forest, guided by friend

• with more sounds coming from both the left and right ears, scenery was much more easy to mentally paint out 

– Week 9 –

Element 1; A Brief Reflection

In my time gathering field recordings for the hand-in, before I knew what I wanted my project to be about, I came to the realization that utilizing more humanly, organic noises in my piece would be of my interest as it occurred to me that something could be quite haunting about the distortion of something quite natural and familiar. My mind immediately traveled to the concept of dissociation and derealization; two things that many people have dealt with as a trauma response. I immediately began to develop ideas at a rapid pace and collected my own experiences with these feelings as well as other people’s to influence how I approached the project; as I wanted to make the piece more objective than a piece exclusively about my own personal experiences. Gathering all these ideas helped me formulate what to include in the project and how to structure it, for example, I knew I wanted there to be very little contrast in dynamics, as well as minimal variation in noise/sample usage, to mimic the haunting iterative ‘stuckness’ that people often feel in these mental states. The final piece only ended up consisting of 7 tracks; 4 field recordings and 3 synthesized noises, most of the ‘movement’ in the piece comes directly from the automation of volume, reverb, delay, equalization, and ring modulation. I am quite satisfied with how my piece came out and I look forward to what I can achieve in the future!

Element 2 Notes

– Week 11 –

“The pictures are better on radio”

In my opinion, this statement refers to how immersive radio can be, and how sound can depict certain atmospheres that (literal) pictures and visuals cannot. Sound as a medium, to me, provokes a higher level of mental stimulation, as the aforementioned ‘pictures’ can only be created by the listeners’ own interpretation, each unique interpretation reliant on every individual’s imagination, creativity, and past experiences. Speaking about radio specifically, it has evolved past exclusively broadcasting music and has branched out into things such as podcasts, sound arts, and everything in between- broadening the horizons of what radio once was, and now showcasing almost anything that includes sound.

– Week 12 –

“Foley is a unique sound effect technique that involves creating and “performing” everyday sounds for movies and television shows. Foley artists create these sounds in a recording studio during post-production, in synchrony with the picture, to enhance the quality of the audio.” (Masterclass Website)

Foley Examples:

• Coconuts can be used to make the sound of horse(s) galloping
• Frying bacon can emulate rain noises
• Breaking celery can emulate the sound of breaking bones
• Staple guns can emulate gunshots
• Crinkling cellophane can emulate the sound of a campfire

– Week 13 –

With the theme of the Element 2 hand-in being “A Dream”, dreams not being something I experience much of, I feel like I could take this opportunity to create something completely fictional with no limits, as I don’t necessarily have the most real-world experience with dreams. I’ve also been thinking that creating something more lighthearted for this project might be fun as I’m very (and almost too) often trying to create something incredibly meaningful and ‘deep’.