Tag: The Sounds of Theatre

This is my second and final part of assignment three as well as my 24 hour folio; my studio based piece, for which I decided to create a short (very short) radio play, with a little help from my playwright friend, Yuki Iwama.

 A short fictional radio drama about the way we each lose a piece of ourselves to the other in marriage, and how that affects the children we inevitably create.

Written and Performed by: Yuki Iwama

Direction and Sound Design by: Alaine Thompson

Featuring sound effects from the following:
. Mike Koenig, ‘Crisp Ocean Waves’, available at SoundBible.com.
. Zarabadeu, ‘Heart Beat’, available at SoundBible.com.
. Jamius, ‘SnakeAttackVerbPuls’, available at freesound.org.
. alienxxx, ‘creaking_floor_upstairs’, available at freesound.org.
(All under CC BY 3.0.)

For this piece I chose to collaborate with an emerging writer in order to produce a sound work of her piece. While this sounded like a good idea in the beginning stages of this assignment, and actually did turn out to be a really great piece that I’m really proud of, I found myself wishing I’d had more time to spend with the piece, to digest it and really get to know the ideas in depth so I could explore it more on an in depth level rather than a literal, surface level through the sound design. In hindsight I would’ve worked out the material earlier in order to produce sounds on a more emotional than literal level.

While reading through the piece and speaking to the writer about the kinds of emotions she felt and what she was trying to get across, I got the sense that the piece was a very anxious and intense piece. This anxiety layered throughout not only the writing but the pacing and rhythm of the performance, cued me to layer in a sound I found through the viewing of a recent modern play, ‘Death and the Maiden’ for which the sound design seemed to only be this hollow, echoing, white noise that came in and key harrowing and alienating points. I used this same sound to draw focus and build this feeling of anxiety and alienation inherently present throughout the piece. This sound, while being naturally discordant, also created a nice eb and flow to the piece.

This alienation was also inspired by the theatre technique known as the ‘theatre of cruelty’ which employs a heavy assault on the senses in order to alienate the audience and bring across the point the play is trying to make. I feel both the constant flow of white noise as well as the foley recorded and sourced create an uncomfortable atmosphere, really assaulting the ear drums.

Also, for the match lighting and wave foley sounds in particular, they were first used literally as a kind of atmos and then used in a more metaphorical way to create a mood out of context, as opposed to a space linked to the memory in the words. This was interesting as the same sound created an entirely new and almost haunting effect. This wasn’t really inspired by a particular radio feature, more a large combination of every radio feature we’ve listened to in class as well as the ones that I’ve listened to in my own time, as it is an effective technique to shift the mood in the piece whilst also allowing the listener to remember what exactly you are shifting from, creating a discordant and alienating break through slight variation.

I feel that both of these pieces for project three have really explored the way in which sounds have important connotative values and shape our understanding more than we realise, and while I do feel that I explored this idea well in this brief, I really want to explore it more and see how I can create a narrative in a more connotative way, leaving it up to interpretation and using cues to create a space.

For our third assignment we had to create two additional pieces for our ’24 Hour’ folio, this time focusing on field and studio sound production. The following is my take on an experimental field piece; ” Life is Theatre”.

A three act short experimental sound piece featuring the serendipitous moments of beauty, pain, conflict and sorrow found in our everyday lives.

Featuring Vivaldi’s ‘Spring Allegro’ as performed by John Harrison with the Wichita State University Chamber Players, available from the free music archive.
Under CC BY SA.

For this piece I really wanted to get across the way in which a theatre piece emotionally evolves over a period of time, essentially each definitive and distinct act of the play. Due to the nature of the piece, using a wide variety of sounds to produce a steady emotional progression, there had to be a great deal of control over the sounds I recorded and used, their timbre in particular, in order to create the desired effect. To do this I mapped out the progression I wanted the piece to take and brainstormed sounds I thought had the right kind of timbre for that section.

The section I had the most trouble finding sounds for was the climactic section, as this required the largest variation in both amount and timbre. However, I feel that I managed to gather enough variations in timbre through my sounds, as the progression in this sequence is like a parabola and eases the listener in.

As the piece is about “the theatre of life” I decided to layer classical music at all of the major sections, as classical music gives an air of theatre, as it is often associated with the theatrical, extravagant and high culture nature of theatre. I used Vivaldi’s ‘Spring Allegro’ to represent the ‘happy bubble’ section at the beginning, birds still heard over the top to emphasise that the sound of birds chirping and other such small moments in life are what inspire such theatrical and musical pieces. Beethoven’s ‘Corolian Overture’ is layered in towards the end of the climactic sequence, to emphasise the hectic and theatrical nature of the climax, timing sounds to the notes towards the end. And a tuning fork is used after the hollow, reverbed, echoing field sound (the point of sadness after the climax) to give the idea of remembrance and moving on, as the piece then returns to the exposition sounds of the footsteps, the birds and the public transport, only this time, instead of a train, it is a tram, and instead of concrete they are walking on gravel. The piece ends the same way it began, with the orchestra tuning up, ready to go again.

I was inspired in part by the way the Kitchen Sisters create their pieces, such as ‘Tupperware’, and the way director Robert Altman created his films, both layering sound upon sound so they are fighting each other to be heard, forcing the audience to pick what they hear instead of delivering valuable information. This instead creates a mood and a presence, using voice and sound for their musical and lyrical qualities.

I was also inspired by ‘Desert Mischief’ by Kerry Fletcher, the smooth transitions and lyrical nature of the field sounds used helped me to envision my own piece and the way that I could possibly match, mix and pair varying sounds together to both create a narrative as well as a flowing emotional composition.

For my second piece in my ’24 Hour’ folio, I chose to go to Fortyfivedownstairs and interview the artistic director there: Mary Lou Jelbart.

In the space she helped mold and shape, Mary Lou Jelbart, the artistic director of fortyfivedownstairs, an independent, not-for-profit theatre and gallery space in Melbourne’s CBD, shares what she prizes most, as well as some hard truths, about the business she fell in love with so long ago and has stayed involved in for so many more reasons.

Through this piece I really wanted to create a space and draw the listener into that space, as, as we discussed in class, the listener can perceive even the smallest auditory cue, such as the sound a tram makes when it turns a corner or stops, the sound the lights make when the green man starts walking or even a construction site. Because of these auditory cues I decided to record my walk, or at least small sections of my walk towards and down into the space in order to recreate that walk and atmosphere for the listener, allowing them to imagine the same space that Mary Lou and so many (myself included) have come to love. While I used this at the beginning to help establish place, using classical music to give the air of theatre once in the space, I continued the classical music at the end, creating a sort of wistfulness, and then suddenly the classical piano fades out to be replaced by the sound of the lights as you wait to cross. This sound takes over and becomes very alienating as you wait for the green man to appear, and when he does you know it’s time to go home (as this same sound was used at the beginning of the piece, symbolising the sound coming full circle). This full circle of sound, to me shows the true finite nature of theatre, as it only exists in that one moment in that single space, as it does at Fortyfivedownstairs, and then it doesn’t exist anymore and you go home.

I also used a piece of classical piano throughout to add breath to and bring focus to certain parts of the piece. I got the idea to use a piece of classical music from one of the interviews in “The Letter S” as they layered classical piano underneath it simply for textural reasons. However, I feel adding the classical piano adds an air off high culture, which theatre naturally has, but also adds a sadness to it as, as the interview progresses more is revealed about the hard truths and realities of the world of theatre, and the divide of ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture is no longer what matters.

While this piece was broadly about theatre, in terms of the questions I asked, I managed to find chunks of interview that related specifically to place as well as theatre itself, allowing for the piece to become routed in its ultimate focus.

Through the process of creating this piece I feel I have learnt a lot more about how to cleanly cut audio in Adobe Audition, as well as how to create flow and ‘breath’ for a piece.

For our second assignment we had to choose a location as an inspiration for a ’24 Hour’ folio. For my location I chose Fortyfivedownstairs, an independent theatre in Flinders Lane that I regularly volunteer at and has been open and producing works with emerging and established artists since 2002. Since this folio’s location is meant to simply inspire our pieces, my pieces are centered around the concept of theatre, which I’ll admit is a little broad, but I feel as though I at least managed to capture some of it:

Theatre is a finite medium, it only exists in that singular space, in that one moment and then it’s gone. It has an unequivocal way of inspiring its audience through evoking not only powerful and enveloping emotions, but life changing thoughts as well.

I seek to find the essence of theatre’s vivid image, through the interviews of Mary Lou Jelbart, Philippa Jelbart and Sophie Kahl,all intricate parts of the creative team at the independent, not-for-profit, theatre and gallery space – fortyfivedownstairs.

In creating this piece I was really inspired by the pieces ‘Poetry Texas’ (Pejk Malinovski), ‘The Letter S’ (Chris Brookes), ‘Tupperware’ (The Kitchen Sisters) and ‘If’ (Sherre DeLys and John Jacobs).

I tried to create observations like those of Malinovski in ‘Poetry Texas’, and while they were of a different style, I feel that my musings did add another dimension and layer to the piece, allowing for the audience to develop new thoughts.

Both ‘The Letter S’ and ‘If’ use the voice of the producer heavily through actors as well as through creating phrases relevant to the material and separate to narration, observations and interviews. This use of unique statements repeated throughout ‘The Letter S’ to give a different meaning, such as “are we on the air?” and the use of unique sounds created by the young girl in ‘If’ really create and add new sound textures that add meaning as the piece progresses. I tried to do something similar through my use of acting exercises, such as tongue twisters, constantly repeated underneath the sections of interview, and then faded to silence at the point in the interviews where focus was needed most. I also tried to make the tongue twisters relevant to the content of the interview, such as the tone and the literal words in “she sells sea shells by the sea shore” relating to no one donating any money to the performers in the ballet performance.

I also drew inspiration from ‘Tupperware’ as I layered the tongue twisters underneath the interviews with no music or other sounds, just voice on voice, trying to really get across the intangible feeling that theatre creates.

I started the piece with a quote from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, which I feel sums up the finite nature of theatre. For this piece I really wanted to play with focus, so I made this section silent to make it prominent, bringing in the tongue twister over the last word “nothing”, emphasising the words own innateness. For each interview I layered in an acting exercise underneath and faded it out as the interviewees description reached its peak. The first two chunks of interview relate to each other well, as they both speak about the emotional vividness of theatre, but the third chunk speaks of a performance which is instead more ideological as the interviewee talks about how theatre may be enriching for the audience, but those who create it get very little in return. This then connects to the ending of the piece, another acting exercise, vowels being shouted out, layered over with “Do, Re, me” allowing the audience to ponder whether or not acting is the ultimate form of selfishness or selflessness. The final quote, “Exit, pursued by a bear.” reiterates this idea, as it allows the listener to ponder whether it is simply a stage direction or whether the audience is the bear.

During the creation of this piece I quickly learnt about how to clean up a sound file (wind noise) and how not to (handling noise masking audio). I have learnt a lot more about sound frequency and cleaning audio through the process of making this piece. I also feel that my recording skills have improved, as I went into the multi-track studio to record all of my material other than interviews.