Sound Exercises


My first musical composition.
19/9/2019

I have to admit to finding it quite hard to create during class. I suspect this has a lot ot do with the fact it’s so late at night, and having been at uni working, and studying since 9 am my ADHD brain packs up. So I came home and opened up Mix Craft Pro Studio, which is the music suite my sister, a high school music teacher suggested I try as an alternative to the program that is only available on macs (sinceI have a PC at home). Well, after an hour of listening to music clips, and trying to apply what I had read in the first chapter of the book  Sonic Art, An Introduction to Electroacoustic Composition by Adrian Moore I came up with the following short composition. My first. While it’s not Beethoven or  Lorde, I had fun while I created this and am left enthused to create more experiments with sound.


My Second Musical Composition
20/9/19

I’m feeling a little ‘can’t stop/won’t stop’ I’m not really certain what I’m doing, just playing tracks and putting together what sounds good to my ears. This weekend my sister is going to show me how to connect our keyboard to my computer so I can create my own musical loops.

 


New Zealand Tourism Soundscape
21/9/19

Well, I think it’s safe to say that NZ Tourism won’t be knocking on my door anytime soon! However, I did enjoy putting this together. I worked on this Saturday night, after getting home from my families house. Tomorrow I am going to have a play with FL Studios, as my sister showed me some compositions that her high school students have created using it. She also said she makes her students create their own musical loops. since I am not sure how up to par my piano and guitar playing is I will have to feel my way forward with this one.

Voice over only
Script

Kia Ora!
Welcome to the land of the long white cloud,
where a bottle-green sea laps at both white and black sand.
A land where you can explore middle earth and wine and dine the most beautiful views known to mankind.
Where a city culture is always a stone throw away, a land where city and nature coexist side by side.
And mountain glaciers breathe with the earth.
A land where you can embrace our indigenous Maori culture.
A land that is 100% pure, this is our land, this is New Zealand.

I am continuing to use Mixcraft Pro at home, as I have it on hand, it turns out to have a lot more functionality than I first expected. Below are some screenshots of the process.

Editing the audio
Editing the audio

City Soundscape
23/9/19

Today we went down to Queen street to capture sounds from the city with the intent of creating a cityscape. I captured sounds such as the Clock chiming at the Art Museum, birds flapping their wings, the sound of air conditioning units on the street, the pedestrian crossing, people walking on the street, buses and cars, and much more.

Here is my first short attempt at creating a city soundscape inspired musical composition. I am planning to develop this further after reading this weeks article on Immersive Sound: The art and science of binaural and multi-channel audio and how to recreate soundscapes using a layered multidisciplinary approach. Taking into account how loud, far away, and what the sound is bouncing off before reaching the ears.

Screenshot from Cityscape
Screenshot from Cityscape
Screenshot from Cityscape
Screenshot from Cityscape

City Soundscape 2, and Midi Exercise
30/09/19

We got to plug the keyboards into the computer today and make our own sound loops. I really enjoyed this and was surprised at how easy it was! I created some drum sounds overlaying it with some other sounds from the Cinematic tab.

Midi keyboard
Midi keyboard
Screen Shot on screen midi keyboard
Screen Shot on screen midi keyboard
Screenshot on inputted sound beats
Screenshot on inputted sound beats

For some reason, the screenshots I took didn’t save, so when I”m back in the Soundlab i will open the Logic Pro file and take some more. I mixed together my midi music loops with some of the city sounds that I had recorded. I used the hum of the air conditioning and the sounds of the bus and street. Below are two sound files. One with just the sounds I created with the midi and one with the cityscape sounds mixed in.