Free as a noise
Brief
The piece is a soundscape composition. We use the sound(noises) collected from industrial areas in Hong Kong to compose a soundscape consisting of two parts.
Theme and Concept
The idea is to explore how different sonic images can be created using sound materials that are not usually appreciated. We often have a bias toward the sound of an area. The library would be quiet and soft; the industrial area would be noisy and aggressive. A part of the project is to break away from this bias and see the material
solely as sound without the causes instead of treating it as noise from the industrial area. Through this perspective, we hope to see more possibilities in the composition.
How we forget the causality of city noises in this project is through reduced listening(Cueva, 2016). We did not keep any record of the sound sources, so our recreation of the soundscape is mostly blinded and only focused on the auditory characteristics of a sound.
Music itch, usually known as earworm, is a phenomenon that looped segments of sound that is stuck in one’s brain (The Harvard Gazette, 2023). With this idea, we expect to use repeating sonic elements to lead our ears to interpret sounds as musical elements. We hope it will make our project more melodic compared to merely a
soundscape. The repeat of the sounds acts as an anchor for the listener to follow.
Work Process
Audio recording set up
We collected sounds from the Hong Kong International Terminals and the industrial area in Kwai Fong. We expected to collect most of the useful sound from the terminals. However, as the area was blocked by a fence and we did not have permission to get in, we could not get close enough to most of the sound sources.
Even though we already use a shotgun mic to capture the sound, its quality is not ideal. It lacks depth, and there are lots of acoustic noises. We shifted our focus to the industrial area of Kwai Fong. We were able to capture more interesting sounds in that area.
We aim to compose the soundscape gradually in a more melodic way. The beginning of the work is filled with an aggressive and tense style of sound, then it gradually softens and contains more musical elements through the production and mixings. It goes from a more structured piece with some more significant rhythm and designed
transition to a composition that is more abstract, musical, and immersive.
Workflow
Since our work requires lots of post-production of the sound, we tend to use a more familiar DAW (Logic Pro) first to deal with most of the sound production in only mono mode. After we finished the sound production, we exported every track and placed it in different positions in Reaper with IEM plugins.
Thoughts and Reflection
We agree it is an interesting trial. We rarely make “music” without using any instrument. We get to have a chance to interlace different DAWS for a more complex production. It is also the first time we play with ambisonics. We agree that we can do better for sound design in this aspect. We lack experience and practice, so we can only do some basic panning. This is an area in which we both can be more creative.
References
Cueva, K. (2016, December 4). Learning how to listen: Chion’s 3 modes of listening.
kelseycueva. https://kelseycueva.wordpress.com/2016/09/12/learning-how-to-listen-
chions-3-modes-of-listening/
The Harvard Gazette. (2023, January 30). Harvard scientist on why that song is stuck in your
head. Harvard Gazette. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/12/harvard-
scientist-on-why-that-song-is-stuck-in-your-head/