The Case Of The Girl In The Purple Hoodie by Erin Davis – 2002

This audio-documentary explores the power of naturalistic sounds and layering. Its sound design is very creative and brilliant. It’s a complex collage of sounds all from two people, Miss Katherine (a young blind girl) and Miss Erin (the creator of the piece and the teacher). Words, sentences, conversations and sounds are repeated throughout the piece to make it sound like a busy conversation darting back and forth and exploring Erin’s use of the steel drum.

Layered in between and underneath the narration is dialogue and words which support what Erin is saying. For example, when Erin states “she is visually impaired, so she can’t actually see me sitting here,” a voice clip of Katherine exclaiming “HELLO?” is played tightly between the narration gaps. This clip is repeated at different volumes throughout the piece where it fits and is relevant. “But she knows I’m here” is layered and crossed-under with Erin saying softly “yes, I’m right here.”

Erin tells a story about meeting and working with Katherine. Different sounds fade in an out, layer on top of one another and interrupt each other. Katherine singing in the foreground “Itsy Bitsy Spider” is layered with Katherine talking about the song softly underneath which then slowly fades out to underneath more narration from Erin. When Erin finishes this, Katherine singing gets louder and once again becomes the foreground sound.

The narration is a much crisper and rounder sound than the conversations, which are slightly softer (but randomly gets louder and softer) and pick up more ambient noise, like the microphone is just placed in the centre of the room and the characters move about as usual.