Week Four
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).
