Month: June 2022

When working on my sound piece I harshly learn that using the best foundations would enhance your quality of results. Throughout I tried to juggle with unstable software that only caused bigger issues. With crashes that would delete work and save work no opening, it slowed down my creative process. This stumped my creativity in many places and would not allow me to flow as artistically as I wanted to. With delays in opening, it created barriers around the ideas in my head towards the physical process of me creating a new sound. I know that with a more stable foundation I will be able to create stronger work with a more fluid and dynamic sound.

As well as computer issues I believe that using other sonic devices such as field records, instruments, and synths would allow me fewer crashes on my computer. It would initiate more room and storage physically on the computer while allowing me to find new creative techniques for the future.

To conclude despite the financial side I do believe investing in good software allows for a better creative outcome and a long-lined of artistic fluidity.

On reflection, I truly enjoyed creating this piece. I allowed myself to evaluate how I could break barriers of generic clichés while also creating something that I believe is true to self. The ideas I created came across well sonically however I wish that I would include new methods for innovation and creation. Despite trying a synth I stayed with a complete analogue creative process. I would like to expand my knowledge on learning to play synthesisers as I believe it would enhance and widen my knowledge of new sonic sounds. Although I believe I broke stern types I believe by not including other devices to create my piece I have formed self-made barriers around myself. Experimenting with new synths would allow me to unlock ideas artistically that I hadn’t been able to before.

Finally, I hope to use a field recorder within my next creative process. Having used these in the past I felt that it allowed me to create something even more personal. If I went back and recreated my work I would use field recorded sounds and play with their elastic properties. I find that using self-made recordings enables you to get an exact sonic representation of what you wanted while opening up a personal side of the composer to the audience.

When creating my sound piece I wanted veery intention to be focused on the electronic sonic approach. To create a modernised version of a realistic dream I felt was only true due to the advancements around us. As I began this I started by using a Korg Minilogue Polyphonic Analogue Synth. However, I found that I had not yet mastered enough techniques to create exactly what I wanted to produce. Despite this, I found that I was able to make tones that I could easily manipulate and copy through MIDI. The sounds inspired me to create a selection of soft sounds layered over the top of harsher sounds alongside drum beats. This combination indicated the chaos in which personally I feel when inducing a dream. I found that the synthesiser helped me experience juxtaposing sounds which inspired me to later create mixtures of emotive motifs within my piece of work.

Finally, despite the fact I was inspired to create an immersive experience piece; I take a high interest in creating sound for the screen. With this motif in mind, I was intrigued to play certain sound effects of my piece over variations of videos based on dreams that I had found. I stumbled over a video named ‘Liquid Landscapes VHS Visuals Rip’ which I found had a similar rhythm and exaggerations to my sound. Accents with the movie mirrored sound effects I had made. With this in mind, I finally decided to present my piece in collaboration with the movie I had found. Both complimented each other well and it felt only right to show something alongside my sound piece.

My end goal for the piece was to create a realistic perception of how we hear our dreams. It was important to me to represent the juxtaposition between asleep and awake and how the same sounds around us can be heard differently and change depending on what state you are in.

I wanted the piece to be entirely immersive. After researching certain types of immersive sound art I took inspiration from Doron Sadja a sound artist from Berlin. His Colour Field immersion experience inspired me to entail this theme throughout my piece. I want the sound to feel like a physical experience for the listener as well as a sonic one.

By including realistic sound effects and transitions into different sounds I made this seem slow but almost ‘falling like’ experience from one state to another. I hope to present my piece of work one day in a similar way to Doron’s ‘Colour Field’ work where the listeners are blindfolded while certain light projects onto their faces. This way despite their eyes being closed they may see some light which will indicate a dream. Similarly, like Doron, I wanted to include a wide range of suggested modern technology. To break stereotypes of ‘dreamy’ music I hoped to include modernised sounds such as synth sounds and midi instruments. This would suggest new technological aesthetics. I believe that this is a truer perception of what humans hear today with a constant surrounding of technology in our lives giving a more realistic effect.

To create an immersive sonic experience I wanted the listener to believe that they were dipping in and out of consciousness. This meant the piece I was creating had to be as realistic and true to form as possible. To begin this process of realism I began by collecting samples of sounds which I thought would be ‘typical environmental sounds’ when asleep. However, as this process went on I found certain sounds to be rather cliché. Typically when people are sleeping the soundings tend to be silent. This ruined the realistic effect I wanted to create, and it drove the focus away from the state of dreaming. As I reflected on this more I chose to steer away from the simple state of sleeping and create it as if the person had fallen asleep on the sofa. This way it means that the state of sleep was unintentional; meaning their environment would have more sonic sounds happening around them. By doing this I could incorporate certain sounds such as the TV and contrast this from awake to asleep. After I had found certain samples decided to elasticity the properties and add several effects to the various sounds. Stretching the length and gaining it allowed me to alter what was once before my perception of reality. It highlighted typical characteristics of dreaming sonically, and how we hear sounds differently when asleep.

After researching the layers of dreams I came across an article by Eric Meyer (a classical musician) who asked the question “what do dreams sound like”. This grabbed my attention; frequently we ask ourselves what we saw in our dreams not what we heard. This quickly became the stimuli for my piece, so I began to create a selection of sounds that I thought represented what I could hear. 

It intrigued me how environmental sounds that surround us when sleeping can be heard differently in our heads when dreaming compared to when they do awake. To represent this I wanted to include sonic sounds that both suggest a state of sleep and consciousness to provide a juxtaposition between the two. 

When I googled sound pieces based on dreams it felt extremely limited. The options of choice instantly became very classical based primarily using woodwind instruments such as flutes. Despite these floaty melodies certainly sending us humans into a relaxed and tranquil state I did not think that this was a true representation. I wanted to include modern methods such as MIDI, Synthesisers, and certain software to arrange samples into what I believe to be the sonic representation of ‘dreaming’.

I hope to produce a modern piece of sound that truly represents the layers of dreaming and chaos that our brains entail when asleep.