For my final I had to design sound for the show 'Legends'.
What made this specific project difficult was the fact that there was no initial script and the cast had to develop one within the rehearsal process.
After a few meetings it became clear that there were gonna be two definitive settings: an urban one and one that had to do with each specific legend. The director asked specifically for sounds that could help paint each setting as there were no major scenic shifts.
At this point we decided that each urban setting should have traffic and such city scape ambient sounds flowing through the scene. This was the easiest part to build.
When it came time to find an ambient sound for the legends, I went blank. But then i just started searching freesound and all those web sites for different tribal/ african sounds that I thought might lead me in a more narrow direction.
In these searches I came across the Kalimba and absolutely fell in love. The sound that this specific instrument made was perfect for transforming an audience into a fairytale type of place.
So having this specific sound in mind I then searched for songs for this instrument. I came across some, but not necessarily enough to be ambient for the seven legends.
It was in a youtube search that I actually found all the ambient tracks that were perfect for the legends. Some were made by the Kalimba and the others by similar instruments.
It is hard to explain how I chose each ambient track for the legends, but basically when I listened to the tracks I tuned into what emotions the music evoked from me and married that to the emotions we wanted each legend to evoke from the audience.
In the end i felt as though it was a great success as the actors as well as the audience felt completely transformed with the music and said it added a deeper dimension to the entire story.
I also felt that I gave the director what she wanted in terms of sound that reinforced the acting and that did not detract from the major action on stage.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Monday, December 8, 2008
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Shamar's Final Presentation
An Eaoh in the Fibonacci Sequence Starring Burroughs
Fibonacci sequence
A sequence of numbers, such as 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 ... , in which each successive number is equal to the sum of the two preceding numbers. Many shapes occurring in nature, such as certain spirals, have proportions that can be described in terms of the Fibonacci sequence.
Inspirations:
Iannis Xenakis - Metastasis, Mycenae Alpha
Xenakis pioneered electronic, computer music, the application of mathematics, statistics, and physics to music and music theory, and the integration of sound and architecture. He used techniques related to probability theory, stochastic processes, statistics, statistical mechanics, group theory, game theory, set theory, and other branches of mathematics and physics in his compositions. He integrated music with architecture, designing music for pre-existing spaces, and designing spaces to be integrated with specific music compositions and performances. He integrated both with political commentary. He viewed compositions as reification and formal structures of abstract ideas, not as ends, to be later incorporated into families of compositions, "a form of composition which is not the object in itself, but an idea in itself, that is to say, the beginnings of a family of compositions." - Wikipedia
"By 1979, he had devised a computer system called UPIC, which could translate graphical images into musical results, wrote Andrew Hugill in 2008.[16] "Xenakis had originally trained as an architect, so some of his drawings, which he called 'arborescences', resembled both organic forms and architectural structures." These drawings' various curves and lines that could be interpreted by UPIC as real time instructions for the sound synthesis process. The drawing is, thus, rendered into a composition. Mycenae-Alpha was the first of these pieces he created using UPIC as it was being perfected. - Wikipedia
Terry Riley - He said that music was a way for him to know more about himself in relation to the Universe. He saw music as a path for self realization.
Brian Eno - He noted that he was often lead to decisions that he wouldn't have permitted, decisions that would have been against good taste, had he not given himself a set of guidelines to follow.
"I look at the variety of the world of organisims and so on and instead of saying each one of these is an entirely separate phenomenon, I say that each one of these is the product of quite a small number of forces and constraints reconfiguring in different ways. So, the basic thought of how the Universe is made can run through into how I decide to make music."
William Burroughs - Cut-up technique - He cut up text and then re-arranged it to create new text.
DJ Spooky - Culture as a re-mix.
-----------
"A human-machine symbiosis."
"The technician and the programmer are the new artists in the age of technology."
Process
Set Parameters:
The composition will make use of the Fibonacci Sequence 1,1,2,3,5,8 and it's reverse 8,5,3,2,1,1. So the entire sequence will read 1,1,2,3,5,8,8,5,3,2,1,1. Before abstracting the piece, everthing will be based on this foundation.
Everthing except two sound files, that of Burroughs and the sped up version of the same, will be made out of only one sound that will be changed in a variety of ways - Eaoh.
Burroughs words will also be cut up based on the sequence.
1 word, 1 word, 2 words, 3 words, 5 words, 8 words etc... I, I, I think, I think the...
Once the foundation is established out of abstracted Eaoh files, begin abstracting the piece even further by moving different Fibonacci Sequences around, speeding them up, slowing them down.
Fibonacci sequence
A sequence of numbers, such as 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 ... , in which each successive number is equal to the sum of the two preceding numbers. Many shapes occurring in nature, such as certain spirals, have proportions that can be described in terms of the Fibonacci sequence.
Inspirations:
Iannis Xenakis - Metastasis, Mycenae Alpha
Xenakis pioneered electronic, computer music, the application of mathematics, statistics, and physics to music and music theory, and the integration of sound and architecture. He used techniques related to probability theory, stochastic processes, statistics, statistical mechanics, group theory, game theory, set theory, and other branches of mathematics and physics in his compositions. He integrated music with architecture, designing music for pre-existing spaces, and designing spaces to be integrated with specific music compositions and performances. He integrated both with political commentary. He viewed compositions as reification and formal structures of abstract ideas, not as ends, to be later incorporated into families of compositions, "a form of composition which is not the object in itself, but an idea in itself, that is to say, the beginnings of a family of compositions." - Wikipedia
"By 1979, he had devised a computer system called UPIC, which could translate graphical images into musical results, wrote Andrew Hugill in 2008.[16] "Xenakis had originally trained as an architect, so some of his drawings, which he called 'arborescences', resembled both organic forms and architectural structures." These drawings' various curves and lines that could be interpreted by UPIC as real time instructions for the sound synthesis process. The drawing is, thus, rendered into a composition. Mycenae-Alpha was the first of these pieces he created using UPIC as it was being perfected. - Wikipedia
Terry Riley - He said that music was a way for him to know more about himself in relation to the Universe. He saw music as a path for self realization.
Brian Eno - He noted that he was often lead to decisions that he wouldn't have permitted, decisions that would have been against good taste, had he not given himself a set of guidelines to follow.
"I look at the variety of the world of organisims and so on and instead of saying each one of these is an entirely separate phenomenon, I say that each one of these is the product of quite a small number of forces and constraints reconfiguring in different ways. So, the basic thought of how the Universe is made can run through into how I decide to make music."
William Burroughs - Cut-up technique - He cut up text and then re-arranged it to create new text.
DJ Spooky - Culture as a re-mix.
-----------
"A human-machine symbiosis."
"The technician and the programmer are the new artists in the age of technology."
Process
Set Parameters:
The composition will make use of the Fibonacci Sequence 1,1,2,3,5,8 and it's reverse 8,5,3,2,1,1. So the entire sequence will read 1,1,2,3,5,8,8,5,3,2,1,1. Before abstracting the piece, everthing will be based on this foundation.
Everthing except two sound files, that of Burroughs and the sped up version of the same, will be made out of only one sound that will be changed in a variety of ways - Eaoh.
Burroughs words will also be cut up based on the sequence.
1 word, 1 word, 2 words, 3 words, 5 words, 8 words etc... I, I, I think, I think the...
Once the foundation is established out of abstracted Eaoh files, begin abstracting the piece even further by moving different Fibonacci Sequences around, speeding them up, slowing them down.
My Final Project
This last project I made is great. I thought about what kind of music I want in my background if I were in a movie. I also included ambiance within this sound piece, in other sound pieces I have not included ambiance. And then I layered different sound pieces on top. One technique I used was taking the same wav file and then on the two different pieces I added different effects to the separate tracks, which completely changed them into different sounds. Then they would be going at the same BPM. I tried taking a track and making the BPM of the one track half of what the entire song was set at, 135, but it didn't work. I started with "Off with your head," because I'm obsessed with stupid sound bytes at the beginning of songs. I guess the intermission of the song is the Hindu chants. The progression goes from a modern Jazz feel which I wanted to go for by adding trumpets, and then it goes to hip hop beat.
Enjoy, Thanks for listening
Enjoy, Thanks for listening
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