https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ru2cTjl540FFu81IsY5GBQpljobLEvg6

Previous to the class Sonic Materialities I had little sound or sound manipulation experience.  Throughout my degree I have continuously struggled with the concept of sound and effectively implementing it into my other various projects throughout the course. Taking the sonic materialities studio will hopefully allow me to hone in on skills I am yet to develop and create a safe place for me to understand how to use sound. 

The assignment was to create and produce an audio collage or a soundscape. What better way to begin this challenge other than learning a bit about the history, of soundscape and how sound works. Pierre Schaeffer is understood as one of leading professionals and composers that created the what is referred to as today as a soundscape. In 1948 Schaeffer produced the piece ‘Etude aux chemins de fer’,  this music concrete was a combination of train sounds. For the assignment audio collage I took the idea of taking ordinary sounds like tapping away at a bin and creating a soundscape, exploring the idea that everyday surroundings are possibly something musical.

The elements I chose to work with during this project were items around RMIT university. I chose to use a bin and a board as my entire sound piece and tap or scratch on these items to create different sounds. Taking into account Michel Chion’s 3 modes of listening I was able first casually listen to the objects I was using and recognise that the sounds origin. Through editing on audition i was able to make these sounds into a soundscape. As i am very new to the whole sound thing i decided the most editing i was going to do was to cut and control where i placed each sound piece. I was able to loop some of my sounds to create a form of a song. 

during editing i found it really difficult to navigate the software, i gave up a few times even after watching and rewatching youtube tutorials on how to use it. Out of everything i have encountered during my degree this subject has definitely been the most complex so far. I have realised during this process that sound and editing in general is extremely hard for me to grasp. I plan to focus on it more in the hopes of getting more confident with the whole thing.

Im hoping that throughout this subject i am able to develop more skills, i feel at them moment that i have a lot of work to do especially in audition and learning how to navigate using all of the softwares tools.

The screenshot above is during the editing process of the soundscape.