My Music, My Study

Throughout the first semester of my second year's academic voyage, there has been a whole range of technical innovations, pioneering artists and an entire scope of production methods explored. Whether it was the history of how genres were made through the decades or an outlook on designing audio for a more cinematic experience: all the covered topics have informed my work in new directions and shaped my creative thinking on music. Throughout this contextualization, I will be highlighting how these movements and their respectable pioneers influenced me and comparing them to my work.

 

         For our Music Production work with Tony, we were divided into groups and instructed to create a three-track EP that combines two genres previously unpaired; for this, we chose the Lo-fi and Industrial music genres. Theming our project to convey a sense of the economic crisis that is global warming we found that these genres contrast well to purvey a sense of unease. We focused on the contemporary form of Lo-fi music more akin to modern Hip-hop due to their similarities. J Dilla and Nujabes, two producers well-known for sampling in their music and its influence on the Lo-fi culture today, served as my primary inspiration for what I wished to be implemented within the song I was to produce. I was however unfamiliar with lo-fi music creation due to my musical background being in more psychedelic and punk styles. However, I found myself more akin to the electro-industrial elements we focused upon found in bands such as Nine Inch Nails and Rammstein.

 

In one chapter of Tricia Rose’s “Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America Music/culture”; she talks about the significance of the sonic forces within sampling. Rose explains how they can be attributed to Rap (and subsequently derivative rhythmic genres like hip-hop & lo-fi) as an outgrowth of black cultural traditions. “Rap's black sonic forces are very much an outgrowth of black cultural traditions, the post-industrial transformation of urban life, and the contemporary technological terrain. Many of its musical practitioners were trained to repair and maintain new technologies for the privileged but have instead used these technologies as primary tools for alternative cultural expression.” (Rose, 1994) Sampling has become a core component within the production of both lo-fi and industrial music to sonically convey elements of their cultural aesthetics as well as its introduction of sounds uncommonly heard within other genres of music. In this manner, I believe I have obtained a level of comprehension regarding the origins of the genre's organisation of harmony vs rhythm and the application of these genres in the music I composed for this project.

 

With each of our group members specialising in different areas of the music production process, we felt our dynamic worked well for the task at hand. Where I had earlier on been a driving force to arrange our concept in a presentation to the other groups, I had now found myself less able to contribute, taking time off due to personal reasons. This inadvertently left the group constricted in its process to complete the necessary tasks at hand. To overcome this, I was able to refocus on creating our second track “Ignoring The Problem” and record several sounds that could be processed for use within other tracks. This gave us the ability to subsequently plan the finishing touches to our project with little resistance and converge to mix and finalise the overall flow of the tracks on time.

 

We showcased our work at the Student Union bar on campus at the weekly open mic night. This was greeted with little attention to our performance yet inadvertently helped us all conquer our reservations about hearing our productions in a live environment. From the feedback, we were given by the audience that was attentive during our set, we understood that it was received well for its use of dynamics and contrasting motifs. To further obtain a better dialogue within a live setting, I believe it would be best to host our event for our Music Production classes of all years as I feel we were overlooked due to other performances being musicians and live bands. Overall, I do feel this was a great learning experience of how to produce music for a live event.

 

I feel this module taught me a range of production techniques for composing music not akin to my conventual inclination. This has been beneficial in understanding a better in-depth usage of samples within tracks through the application of sounds found in other genres of music. My main takeaway from this project is that I have been able to develop my capability to work collaboratively with individuals who specialise in different genres and therefore expand my skillset in music production. Although the genres we picked are in high contrast to each other, I feel that this project has the potential moving forwards to be refined in a more comprehensive way to compose a new and exciting subgenre of its own.

 

In our Sound Design module, we were required to submit a proposal for the following semester outlining the work we wished to produce as we began to look at implementing production techniques for Dolby 5.1 surround sound. We were required to produce two distinct pieces of art, one linear and one non-linear which I chose to centre on two different audio design implementations based around Dungeons & Dragons. The proposal was then finalised and was added to prior work on our website, which included a rough outline of both works. This was accompanied by our production logs, and other resources we had been developing during pre-production. This included a prior task of designing audio for an advert for Vue cinema where I worked with Pavel.

 

For my linear work, I found a clip on YouTube taken from episode eighty-one of Critical Roll’s first campaign titled “What Lies Beneath the Surface | Critical Role: VOX MACHINA | Episode 81” (Critical Roll, 2017). I proceeded to use this clip as I remember watching the show when originally aired and have always enjoyed how the narration of the story can be all that is needed to purvey emotions within the scene. In this clip, we see one of the characters (Grog as played by Travis Willingham) first encounter an extraordinarily powerful item known as the “Deck of Many things. “Each card has a different effect: either amazing and great or immensely destructive. The cards are split about 50/50 between good and awful, and it is widely regarded as one of the most powerful artefacts in Dungeons & Dragons.” (Wiki, No Date) With this clip, I aim to enhance the scene through the production of high-end sound effects and table music by combining the development of Tafelmusik from the 16th to 18th centuries with Foley and digital sounds reminiscent of Hollywood blockbuster movies.

 

Similar to my linear work, I wish to modify this task to my non-linear by creating an adaptive sound library for use during a session of Dungeons & Dragons. Unlike a soundboard made to emphasise basic reactions within the game, I aim to enhance the player's relationship within the setting of the world through the use of the 5.1 Dolby Atmos. Placing the tabletop at the centre of the sound system and giving the players the ability to implement effects during their playthrough, I wish to study the relationship of their engagement in the world. The actions made within the game will also enable the narrator/Dungeon master (DM) to activate appropriate changes to the environment, which will be augmented by the music I compose and the sound effects I generate using foley and sound manipulation. With the composition of both my pieces of work, I will draw more from a post-Beethoven sense of music writing reminiscent of Eric Satie’s “Gymnopédie”. This will defer from what has become more of a standard through the production of film and TV where I will try to create a more impressionistic sense of music as I begin to look further into the composition of meta music.

 

The Vue commercial was set as a pre-production project to allow us to experiment with Foley, sound design and adaptive music whilst beginning to think about Dolby Atmos 5.1. As I found myself without a partner, with the selection being a class I was unable to attend, I proceeded to contact my classmate Pavel for a chance to work with someone new. So that we kept on top of the short time we had to design the project, we communicated through Discord and got straight to work. Setting certain areas we would each focus on meant that we could then come together and design the soundscape together. Taking inspiration from Brian Eno’s ambient works, we wanted to keep the progression less limited by the constraints of the beat and focus more on the time changes of the scene set by our cue sheet. Although I found we worked together as a team, we were, however, constrained by our use of different DAWs which meant each component we worked on had to be finished to a degree before being bounced out for transference to be added to the assemblage.

 

         With the progression of learning through my Sound Design modules, I have found myself more drawn to learning new techniques and processes for sound manipulation and their application within media. With my recent research into Dolby Atmos 5.1, I feel I have a better understanding of the post-production that is utilised in higher fidelity audio recordings and their correlation to evoke effects and affects within the audience. Although I feel this module has been more about the preparation for next term, it has allowed me to research and develop my skills through the pre-production task, and the importance of time management to ensure the quality of the mix is to a professional standard.

 

This year I began a new module for Sound & Music in Games where we individually were set the task to implement our sound into a prefabricated scene using Unity. The scene was devoid of all sound and our task was to create both atmospheric and any contextual sounds we wished to add through the use of assets. As this was a brand new programme to all of us, we were instructed on a multitude of ways that sounds can be triggered, blended, and even isolated to help create an in-depth design. Though this was our main goal we were also spurred on to take research into our own hands and explore online to add other dynamics to better represent how we felt we could adapt the gameplay for more interesting applications of sound.

 

         When using the absence of sound in areas around my scene I wanted to still make sure that what could be heard evoked emotion through its manipulation of sound. As a rebuttal to the distorted sound of your own footsteps across the lake, a fractured and distant echo of your own voice pierces through the fog as you move slowly closer to the shoreline. As discussed with Jeremy, even when not making music our senses are tuned to an ineffable effect. Shelly Trower’s “Senses of Vibration: A History of the Pleasure and Pain of Sound” (Trower, 2012) talks about how we come to understand the acoustics of a sound (given in this term by a poet) can be used to rile such strong emotion that it could be compared to a man with a power like a politician or a doctor to a patient. To this degree manipulating the tonality and vibration heard by the player provokes certain emotions, which I found to be helpful in setting the tone for my game.

 

         This module has by far been the most exciting to learn about as the development of tone within a 3D space can change so drastically depending on harmonics, placement and implementation through visuals and cues. Although I have found this the hardest to achieve my respected outcome, this has been more due to the unfamiliarity of the software and its built-in mixer. I found the experience enlightening on the effort and dedication also used to create sound and music for games as a gamer myself. With the use of my sound design techniques with Gordon utilised in this project, I look forward to what may come next.

 

As I look back at my first term this year, I feel I have developed more through the projects than I expected not only as a music producer but as a sound engineer. How the utilisation of tone and its sonic form can be harnessed to reflect emotion in the audience and how a better understanding of what sounds to use can change those feelings. With this, I wish to explore the relationship between the artist and audience more in the way it can convey not only the feelings of the scene but also a better understanding of the emotions of the characters.

 

Works Cited

Rose, T., 1994. Black noise: Rap music and black culture in contemporary america..

s.l.:Middletown: Wesleyan University Press.

 

Deck of many things (no date) Critical Role Wiki.

Available at: https://criticalrole.fandom.com/wiki/Deck_of_Many_Things?so=search

(Accessed: December 15, 2022).

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What Lies Beneath the Surface | Critical Role: VOX MACHINA | Episode 81 (2017) YouTube.

Available at: https://youtu.be/um3mkvNmDPY

Accessed: December 15, 2022).

​

Trower, S. (2012) Senses of vibration a history of the pleasure and pain of sound.

New York: Continuum.