Acousmatic Composition

Well it’s been a very busy couple of weeks so this is a combined blog and is probably going to be pretty long…

Over the past few weeks I’ve helped set up the speaker/diffusion rig MANY times. Outside of setting it up in class both Heather and myself have been along to the hall bright and early the last three Monday mornings. Alongside this I was also given the opportunity to assist with the setup in the Mumford for the concert by Nick Collins. This gave me the opportunity to use some equipment I’d not yet encountered and also to see how the layout of the speakers can vary depending on the venue. Overall I now feel that I understand all the different parts of the setup process and I’m feeling a lot more comfortable in using the mixer. (This is something that eight weeks ago I never imagined I’d be saying!)

Last week in class I was given the opportunity to play my first attempt at an acousmatic composition! This was quite a terrifying experience but the feedback I got from the class was very useful and I have since been listening to quite a lot of Steve Reich.

Sketch One

For this piece the strategy I have chosen to follow is to collect sounds of produced on my flute. The main sounds I have used at present are two recordings of my flute keys and the sound of me breathing down my flute.

Sketch One

With this I plan to take on board the feedback I received and have a go at changing the sounds more frequently at the beginning and making better use of the sound that Heather picked up on in the middle of the piece.

I then plan to record a couple more flute sound and shorten some of what I have already in order for them to be included. After this I’ll work on making the structure a little clearer and then I’ll attempt to include some sound automation. (I had a go at this on Monday but I think it’s going to take me a bit of getting used to!)

Sketch Two

As I mentioned in a previous post I plan on making the theme of my second composition a journey of one of my favourite walks from home. This will give me an automatic structure which will be similar to the Arch form favoured by Bartok.

1. Beginning of journey (Sounds: traffic noise, conversation etc.)

2. The ascent (Sounds: footsteps, waterfalls, rocks moving etc.)

3. The top (Sounds: breeze, birdsong etc.)

4. The descent (Sounds: footsteps, waterfalls, rocks moving etc.)

5. The end of the journey (Sounds: traffic, conversation etc.)

As is shown above, the outer and middle two sections will use the same sound sources however in my composition I plan on manipulating them in different ways to provide some contrast but at the same time keeping a sense of unity.

Obviously with being down here in Cambridge I haven’t yet had the opportunity to carry out the walk and record the sounds I will use but I have recorded some similar sounds and used them purely as a compositional exercise. In this I recorded the sounds of traffic, birdsong and running water and sampled some and also used IXI. I then gave myself an hour, as was suggested, to arrange these in logic. I wasn’t too happy with the sound at the end but its something I can learn from so here is my attempt…

Sketch Two

After watching the latest podcast and listening to some amazing work by other students in last weeks class I was inspired to go away and have a go myself. I began by recording some more sounds on my flute and then edited these in logic. For my piece I chose two sounds to use which were my breath in my flute and pressing my flute keys. I then (after digging out my notes from last year!) put these into the EX sampler in Logic and recorded some stuff. I used the same sounds in IXI and the best sound I got was using the Grainbox instrument. 

Heather and myself had booked the recital hall on Monday morning so we had the chance to setup by ourselves and then have a go at some diffusion. This session was really useful because we both had a go at everything to do with the setup and we got a chance to properly have a look at the mixer. 

Hearing what I’d composed through the eight speaker set-up was quite strange and the piece sounded completely different but also a lot better! It highlighted some problems with what I’d done and thanks to some useful comments from Heather I’m going to work on making a few changes to what I’ve done and then work on extending it.

The podcast from last week was all about choosing sound materials and subsequently assembling them. The point was made that sounds should be chosen for a purpose (even if this is only known by the composer) and not just at random. Three ways to approach selecting sounds were then discussed. The first was a method used by John Cage which is to use rules when selecting sounds and place the sounds into categories. The second was to produce a theme for the composition and choose sounds based around this. The final method suggested grouping sounds according to a certain musical sound or element and the example of plucked strings was given.

All these things got me thinking about what approach I would take towards my own composition and the method I felt most drawn too was the idea of a theme. For some reason the first thing that came to mind was one of my favourite walks in the Lake District and I then thought I could maybe incorporate this into a composition with the theme being the journey. My idea was to record the following sounds:

• Footsteps, small rocks moving, water running, snippets of conversation from the other walkers and finally capture the peace at the top, for example birdsong and the breeze.

I thought that when it came to structuring my piece it would begin with the sounds of other walkers and maybe some traffic from the main road. Following this would come the sounds encountered on the ascent such as the running water and the footsteps. The middle section would capture the peacefulness of the tarn and then the last part of the composition would use the same sound sources as the beginning but processed in a different way. This would give a type of arch form to the composition and the listener would hopefully be able to pick up on the idea that they’d gone on a journey. 

After thinking about this for a while I wasn’t totally convinced if the idea would actually work so I began thinking of something I could work on easily in Cambridge. During the podcast, saxophone sounds had been used and this made me think I could possibly create a composition using sounds produced on the woodwind instruments that I have with me in Cambridge. With this in mind I had attempted to record my flute, clarinet and saxophone. I didn’t play regular notes but I recorded things like just playing in the mouthpiece, blowing air down my flute and producing harmonics. Since recording these I’ve been editing them in logic so I have a few different samples but I haven’t yet got round to arranging them in some kind of order. After seeing this weeks podcast I downloaded ixi quarks and played about with some of the instruments demonstrated using a sample of me breathing into my flute. I was quite amazed at how much the sound could be transformed and will definitely use this software when it comes to producing my composition. 

This week, whilst setting up the speakers and the mixer, I learnt that the loom carries all the information with the four mounted speakers being connected to the wall and the four stand alone speakers being connected to the loom. Following this we learnt a little about Francis Dhomont and his work in Canada and the idea of ‘cinema for the ear’.

Each group then discussed and diffused the piece they’d been looking at during the previous week, which included two pieces by Robert Normandeau. Our group had looked at Vox 5 and during the session I had the opportunity to diffuse the whole piece. The things that I learnt and struggled with were:

• Even though I had an idea of the what diffusion techniques I wanted at particular points during the piece, it was still incredibly difficult to move the faders fast enough.
• Trying to remember which fader controls which speaker. Although I identified this before starting the diffusion I found that during the performance there was so much to think about it that it was difficult to use them logically.

The other things I learnt from both my own attempt and other peoples were to think about diagonal movement and occasionally using all speakers at the same time so that the sound isn’t varied.

Since last week I went away and listened to Vox 1. To help me get a better understanding of the piece I produced a sketch of the opening minute and then wrote down a few ideas of how I could diffuse this. (It’s just a rough sketch that helped me get better understanding of the piece).