CLASS NOTES
Sound design, production design and non-fiction, story and meaning are all linked with CHANGE.
The importance of change, we notice when something as changes and conflict.
With sound textures- people start tuning, so we need an aural change for story and meaning to shift for realisation, for a message.
Friction between to spaces.
Framework, like a song, start, you deviate and then you come back to it.
Orchestration:
the ensemble you are working with, the ‘voices’ and ‘instruments’
-how is the story shared between the instruments (Just another fish story- overlapping, who carries what part)
Timbre:
The tone colour
-inflections of voice, movements, location, mediation, tone of the voice
Sonic density:
Describes how thick or sparse the sound is. Can’t change loud to soft but you can change the feel- great substitute
Shifting these densities create movement and change, rise in tension, confusion, activity follows a build in sonic density
Texture:
preset of sonic density
Polyphony: many voices- all voices are equal
Monophony: single naked voice
homophony and monody: voice and accompaniment- slave to the voice, secondary
Counterpoint and trio: two or three equal voices, bouncing off eachother, equal in dominance (voice talking to sound effect, instrument, not two voices necessarily like in an interview-duo)
Range:
Distance between the lowest sound that we hear and the highest sound that we hear
wide range makes things feel big and shifting range give a sense of rising and falling
Frequencies- giving each ‘voice’ a place
Articulation and Decay
Describes the way a sound starts and ends
Rhythm and Pace
Sonic Frame Work-
What are the central sounds, what is the focus of your work, what are the key character roles, what is possible/impossible?- voice from the past, we know to accept it.
Setting diegetic and non-diegetic elements
Phrasing- group material into meaningful chunks
writing- a clause, sentence, paragraph, section
cinema- beat, scene section, act
Transitions and Modulations
-material that separates the chunks and units
short montage, music break, break to location, sfx
-types of cuts
segue (one element stops, like a CUT in cinema)
Crossfade- overlaps as one element fades out and the next fades in
Fade- first element fades to silence before the next ones comes in
Theme and variation
Set up normality- a theme represents something (person, place, idea)- you vary it to indicate different inflections
Music- punctuation and structures
Don’t put it over everything- when it comes in and when it goes out
Music as a force for good- audio lecture in drive***
KB blog- finding music
Production Management
List of all the sounds, events and people you want to record
Be pushy and put yourself out there
Give yourself a contingency plan
A RECCI- listen to the sounds before you go record so you know exactly what you need on the day!!
Find the nub of the story which is the hardest part!
Listening:
Jad Abumrad -“Music: A force for good (and sometimes evil).”
I really liked this podcast, firstly because he didn’t go in saying “this is right, I’m right, this is what you need to do and if you don’t, you will fail at life”. It was more of a conversational style, as he spoke about the importance of music, and more importantly, the how what and why of music. When to use it, how to use it, what type to use etc…
It is something I have never really considered, I know music is a good “filler”, but with the example he gave for one of his peices for RadioLab for the fireflies. It was beautifully interweaved, came in at an appropriate time and did not take away from the story. Even with the narration. It lifted the piece and gave it a real softness. Just from a simple musical underscore.
“Music can lift a dreary voice or sink an entire piece, connect listeners to the emotional life of a story or leave them feeling manipulated – and pissed about it” – Jad Abumrad
– A really helpful piece to consider for the use of music.
Readings:
Kitchen Sisters (2010)- ‘Talking to Strangers’.
The Kitchen Sisters, who I became acquainted with their 1979 ‘Tupperware’ story (which I found highly amusing), tell of their relationship and how they can best orchestrate and interview.
They speak about getting over the hurdle of not knowing each other, which i find really hard as my fear of judgment gets in the way.
One sentence they say, and something I really truly believe in, is that everyone is sitting on an incredible story, and one, if documented for hours and hours- going down multiple paths and getting off track, could be a beautiful piece. This is what I am hoping to focus my major assignment on, this idea of just listening and letting an incredible story tell itself.
Life is short. Tape is cheap. Really compelling radio doesn’t usually come from tiny slivers of sound. It comes because people got comfortable and spilled the beans or told a long, involved story. Good radio often takes more time than you think it should. We ask people to sing, let them laugh, and we sit quietly through their pauses. You never know.” – The Kitchen Sisters
“The power of listening, of talking to strangers until they are no longer strangers, of passing on wisdom and humor and knowledge and music, of adding the voices of people whose stories aren’t usually part of the national conversation, of creating something haunting and beautiful together, gets us every time.”- The Kitchen Sisters