MD6402 Experimental Audio - Lauren Samuels

Week 5 we looked into potential ideas for our final audio pieces. We looked into ideas that we should apply into out final ideas. In our soundscapes, we want to unfold a plot just as they do in films, any changes made to our audio is considered a change of state and is called modulation which is the change of one state of being to another. Looking at what could be considered bipolar sounds are sounds that are the polar opposite of one another. Examples of bipolar sounds include: Close/Open Rough/Smooth Empty/Full Near/Far Dry/Wet We also considered the 8 point story arc which could be useful to our pieces of audio but isn't necessarily something we have to follow, it may, however, help us to build a narrative to follow so it will flow better. 8 point story arc 1. Stasis - starting point/circumstance 2. Trigger - The element that starts the story beyond the control of the stasis 3. Quest - A reaction to the trigger 4. Suprise - Obstacles/complication 5. Cr...

For our fourth week, we picked up where we left off from our third. We listened to all our pieces on loneliness/desolation discussed them. We went on to look deeper into what a desolate and lonely place sounds like. One single sound along with reverb can describe a sense of emptiness around the sound source. The reverb would be altered to act as an echo to give the sense that you're in a large empty room. We continued to recap a lot of stuff from week three which was useful to fully understand what we last learnt such as biophonies, anthraphonies and geophonies. We also looked back over semiotics of sound which is the meaning that a certain sound can convey to an audience based on experience. We further progressed to look at the dynamics of the sound. The dynamics are the movement of objects and the forces that drive that movement. The dynamics work alongside the semiotics. Our task this week was to pick three attributes from a selection. We had to use these attributes to cre...

To start the third week we looked at the semiotics of sound. The semiotics of a sound is the chain of meaning behind a sound. An example of this we looked at was the sound of a smoke alarm. When a smoke alarm goes off we think smoke, smoke conveys there must be fire and from fire, we make the decision to run away. Through cultural code, we have invested this particular sound with a meaning, Similar to the context behind voices cultural experience leads us to explicitly interpret a sound. Three keywords were also the topic of this week 3 lecture: Biophonies  - Non - human sounds produced by living organisms in a specific environment. e.g. land, sea, air etc. Biophonies are affected by temporal/locational factors. Anthraphonies - The actions/movement of artificial objects e.g. machinery, bells, cars etc. Geophonies - Sounds produced by natural agents e.g. rain, avalanches, volcanoes, thunderstorms etc. There are of course sounds that don't fit in to these categori...

In week 2 we looked at Voices in audio. We looked at how specific sounds can change the idea of what environment the audio piece is taking place in. Reading and interpreting pictures in to sound is something else that we looked at or giving the sound a picture to relate to. Both of these regardless of which way round can give a piece of audio or an image context. "...sounds linked to people, objects, and actions/environments that can be fleshed out with sonic ambience... clues to emotions of the scene... moments of dramatic transition" Sonnenschein, 2001 The above quote sums up what it is to give context to an audio piece. With voices this could be something as simple as using a person with a British accent in an audio piece would give the context that the setting on the piece is in England.  Something that we have strongly focussed on is that voices should not be telling the story through voice over. We ideally want to use sounds that deliver the emotions, ...

The first week of our experimental audio lectures we looked at trademark sounds, which are sounds that are known for a particular location or area. Using photos with no sound context we discussed what sounds could potentially fit into the image which allowed us to come up with a variety of ideas about what could possibly be heard from the pictures. We were tasked with going to a location and listening out for the sounds with a partner in which my partner and I were given a location just outside of uni which surrounded the university halls and the main outside area. The sounds we heard were: Leaves Rustling Cars People Talking Birds Walking on gravel Wind Branches Music Doors opening and closing Bikes Clothes material Squirrels Explicit - Explicit sounds are the trademark sounds of a location or era etc. They're most likely sounds that are common and you'll hear in every day. Explicit sounds can also be a character in a piece as there might be a specific voice th...