Author Archives: Rose-Ebony Vargas

Building Contact Microphones.

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Contact microphones are a great way to record sound without picking up any air vibrations. Made using piezo discs (made of brass disc and crystal), they need direct contact with the source of sound to amplify it- or when used experimentally in certain settings, to even hear the sound at all. Contact microphones are a great way of recording acoustic instruments, such as guitar. After building my contact microphone, I used it to record my double bass, which I will go more into depth about later in this post.

By soldering, the piezo discs are attached to a TRS cable. It is very important when putting the mic together, that the connections do not touch each other. If this happens (as it did in my experience), the microphone will not work. Similarly, if the piezo disc becomes damaged, its sensitivity will be decreased, meaning that more gain will be needed to record, or it will no longer pick up sound.

Here is a visual demonstration of how to put together a contact mic:

Once I’d built my mic, I used it to record double bass. I noticed that it was very hard to pick up sound. I realised this was because the piezo disc must’ve been damaged. However, when using an impedance transformer, the “buzz” was reduced, so I was able to turn the gain up, which allowed me to pick up the sound.

Sound Arts in the British Context 1

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Brian Eno would be a key figure to look at when thinking of “generative” creation of sound, which is sound that creates itself. Here is a visual example of Eno’s method, using tapes:

Using just 4 loops, Eno is able to create a piece that is ever changing. “Always the same but always different”.

Brian Eno’s impact of sound arts from the British perspective is significant, as he is regarded the creator of the genre of ambient music. Ambient music, often categorised by its use of nature soundscapes, acoustic instrumentation, and the use of synthesisers, existed in earlier forms since the early twentieth century, with movements such as music concrete embodying the intent that ambient music aims to have. The invention and introduction of synthesisers in the 1970s allowed ambient music to be what it is recognised as today. Though Eno may be regarded as the creator of the genre, I (and he himself) would consider him more of a pioneer; giving reason for the need of ambient music, Eno proposed that music “must be as ignorable as it is interesting”.

Eno’s ideas on generative sound, however, is what I’m most interested in. In an essay taken from his published diary, A Year With Swollen Appendices, Eno describes his use of generative music as making music “with materials and processes [he] specified, but in combinations and interactions which [he] did not”. To me, this speaks to the invention of the world, and God’s role in that; he created us and the world, but what we do is up to us, and uncontrollable by God.

Why this analogy to God is relevant here, is because I’m in the process of creating a project titled Heaven Garde. It is a collaboration with my friend who, previous to this project, has had no experience creating music. The concept of the project is to demonstrate the cycles of life, and eventually, what happens at the end of it; the purpose of the project is to prove that art, in this case music, is one of our, as humans, most innate functions, and that no matter how much the “skill” has been nurtured, we can all create. If I take Eno’s ideas on generative sound and apply them to this project, not only would I be further emphasising the concept of “heaven” and life’s relation to The Creator, but it will be a new and fun technique to experiment with, that might help myself and my friend finish this project with a slight ease.

Sound Works: Brian Eno, Discreet Music (1975)
Sound Artists: Erik Satie, Pierre Schaeffer, Laurie Spiegel

Sonic Doing and Thinking 2: Sound walk.

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Sometimes, I do just shut my eyes whilst walking. It helps when I’m listening to music in headphones to visualise prettier images than our London streets. With this in mind, I was sure the sound walk would be a calming and easy experience for me. However, there is something very different about having to wear a blindfold, and partake in this experience amongst a group of people.

The first location of the sound walk was the underpass by Forest Hill station. It wasn’t a pleasant experience, as the most prominent sounds were the traffic and the train rumble. There were other uncomfortable sounds, such as squeaking gates, clanging bicycle chains, rushed footsteps and train announcements over the station tannoy. Although I still haven’t thought of a concept for the piece I will create for this unit, reflecting now, I’m linking these sounds to my thoughts on expressing the feeling of pain synaesthesia.

The next location was a small alley behind the train platform. The most prominent sound in this space was the sound of multiple messages being announced over different tannoys. I resonated with this sound. The last clear message we heard before taking off our blindfolds was “if you see something suspicious, please report it”, which although is a general TFL message that is announced all the time, as a collective, we felt as though we were the suspicious activity taking place, because of our blindfolds. To me, this highlighted the vulnerability we were all feeling not being able to see our surroundings, and is perhaps something I’d like to capture in a sound I record later.

At the third location, we split into pairs, taking turns to be blindfolded. Whilst I was guiding, I found it difficult to not speak to my partner, as they seemed very untrusting and nervous. I feel as though as a result, the experience was partially ruined for her. I’d love to ask her about this, and perhaps do another walk where we keep in complete silence to compare each experience. Whilst it was my turn to be guided, though there were pretty sounds dipping in and out of earshot (birdsong, whistling, chimes), it was very hard not to focus almost solely on the sound of footsteps, and grass being kicked. As a very rhythmic sound, I feel as though the footsteps on the grass kept me grounded throughout the walk, however it felt very loud in my head which was discomforting. In my head now, an idea is being formed about the relationship between senses of familiarity and comfort.

The final location was Sydenham Hill Wood. Again, like in Horniman Museum Gardens, I found it very difficult not to focus on the sounds of footsteps. I did find it easier to guide my partner without talking, as the longer we walked for, the longer the trust built.

Overall, I feel there were a couple of lessons to be taken away from this experience. I now believe that we as humans need to pay more attention to our surroundings, particularly nature. It is now almost instinct for us to plug in our headphones when going about our daily activities, that our minds aren’t as tuned into and perceptive of the sounds that the world itself creates. With practice, I will be able to hear the little prettier sounds, instead of mainly just my footsteps, on a soundwalk. I wonder how different this experience would be in a setting outside of London, where there are less city sounds, and on ground that isn’t as textured, so the sounds my feet make aren’t as prominent.

Sound Pieces: Annea Lockwood, Burning Piano ; Jose Macabra, Eye of the Beholder
Sound Artists: Francisco Lopez, Chris Watson

Sonic Doing and Thinking 1

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Books That will help me:
– Sonic Experience: A Guide to Everyday Sounds, Augoyard
– Practical Recording Techniques, Bartlett
– Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music, Warner
– Background Noise: Perspectives on Sound, LaBelle
– Spaces Speak, Are You Listening?

We received our assignment brief, to create an original sound composition with a reflective writing piece, due on the 25th of November. I will need to create four internal and four external audio recordings which i can use to create my composition.

TED Talk by Pauline Oliveros: Oliveros spoke about the difference between hearing and listening, a lifelong practice that involves connecting what you hear with your ears to the mind. I loved when she spoke about recording in The Cistern, which taught her the importance of listening, and how space can influence and shape the sound. After watching this TED Talk, I am very interested in listening the the art Oliveros and the musicians alongside her created in The Cictern (Deep Listening by Lapiz Lapuzi).

In the second part of this session, Milo handed out “oblique strategy” cards, which are designed to spark inspiration when at a creative block. My card read “make a blank valuable by putting it in an exquisite frame”, which immediately helped to form ideas of how I could go about creating my composition for my assignment brief. I am going to experiment with working with just drones, and what nature sounds I can use to make it “exquisite”, and hopefully this will help me to create a concept I can express.

I learnt that the basic number system that we use around Europe is called base 10, and is inherited from Arabic culture. The other number system we use in Europe is base 2, also knows as binary. It represents numbers only in 0s and 1s. For example:
– 6 would be represented as 0110
– 7 would be represented as 0111
-5 would be represented as 0101
These would all be known as 4bit information. 5bit information would look like:
– 10 represented as 01010
– 9 represented as 01001.
A CPU (Central Processing Unit) works in binary, so this is key information to build an actual understanding of bit depth, and sample rate, which affect the quality of recordings and production.

The hardware environment is anything physical, external that we use to create sounds and music. This can include the apple “ecosystem”, interfaces, monitors, etc.
The software environment is anything we can use to create inside of the system, which is a large range of different tools for different purpose. Being introduced to the wide range of software available at UAL, I am now aware that music can be created through code (Arduino, Super Collider, Wave Agent), and that I do not need to stick to the linear constraints of Logic when using new DAWs (Ableton Live, Pro-Tools).

My main takeaway from this session was my interest in the cistern. When Pauline Oliveros spoke about its ability to shape the composition she created, it made me think; how can I create or find a space with similar abilities to the cistern? For a long while now I’ve had a creative block, but perhaps in an environment where the sound is being nurtured for me, it will be easier to start creating again. When researching into cisterns, it came as a surprise to me that their intended use is to store and catch water. With this in mind, I am going to look for settings that have an intended purpose of something that helps us as humans (like with the cistern), and see how being and recording in that environment can help me to create again.

Introduction to Sound Arts

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Ontology: what is there? what exists?
Epistemology: How we go about knowing.

The big questions we were introduced to today were:
– What is sound art? Where does it happen? Who consumes it? Who produces it? How? Where? Why?
– How does it relate to other forms of listening and sound making?

Although these are questions we will never be able to define definitively, we started to think about how we can collectively define “sound art”. The two ideas I resonated with were:
– an expression of a concept through sound. Because of this, unlike music, sound art is not created with the intention of being pleasing to the ears, but rather to allow the listener to grasp the intended emotion and effect of the piece of art.
– sound that engages other senses than the ears; this could link closely to the condition synaesthesia, which for some can be a pleasing experience, and sound art can be a vessel for those without the condition to experience a similar sense.

Thinking on the idea of synaesthesia, I thought about my own experiences of pain synaesthesia, which isn’t pleasant at all. When describing the sensations and how disabling this can be for me sometimes, I’m not often understood. Perhaps, creating a piece of sound art, I will finally be able to communicate this experience. I would like to research into sound creating physical pain, as if this is a possibility, it is something I would like to experiment with.

Sound Works: Peter Vogel, Sound of Shadows.
Books: Rachel Mundy, Animal Musicalities: Birds, Beasts and Evolutionary Listening.