Soundscape: Swan Song

The day was Wednesday, and the time had come for another meeting at the Shed. Luckily, when I turned up late to the meeting (oops!), the boys were just waiting for their food to arrive, whilst drinking cocktails, so I hadn’t really missed much, even if they did spend the next twenty-something minutes trying to convince me our soundscape was now called something along the lines of “Ballad of the Peacock”, but luckily I knew they were kidding. Finally our food arrived (I joined the crew in ordering one of the £1.99 meals, after stupidly spending rather a lot on a tuna melt the week before) and we were, for once, silent.

After filling our bellies and quenching our thirst, we got on with the meeting and, no surprises when I say, it was still called “Swan Song”. We listened to a few more sound ideas, and chose which sections each of us would be covering when delivering our presentation. It was quite a simple task, considering we’d all kind of focused on particular tasks anyway (I was given the task to discuss the research that we’d done; the geek inside me roared with joy). We decided that we would spend the following week before we once again met to individually create scripts, each one lasting between forty and fifty seconds (roughly), but during the meeting, we wrote our introductory and conclusive scripts. Basically, we decided our introductory slide was the time to “geek out”, as it was, and brag about what we had each put into the project. Of course, we experienced the hilarity that erupted when, during the introductory slide planning, we each introduced ourselves with “Hi, I’m _____…” and it very nearly resembled an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting…

We also finalised our self-composed brief; this being important as it will now dictate our soundscape, as our final idea must fit this brief. We left the meeting, each with the task to continue our personal research, and write our loose scripts for our presentation in week 7.

As part of my continual research towards this project, I found a particularly interesting website about Psychoacoustics and meditation music. It explains that Psychoacoustics is the science that deals with the perception of hearing and sensations produced by sound. Below is a passage I found particularly interesting from the site:

The fundamental reason why we enjoy listening to music is because it is mood altering. Music can stimulate or sooth you. It can relieve stress and it can induce stress. It can elevate you or depress you.

Music can be extremely powerful in this regard. The tones, textures, melodies, harmonies and the tempo of a piece of music can affect you psychologically, emotionally and even physically.

Have you ever been so touched by a beautiful piece of music that you cried? Have you ever cringed at the sound of fingernails being dragged down a chalkboard? Most people answer “yes” to both of these questions.

So if sound can have such a strong effect on us, then how can we use this to our advantage? What can the study of psychoacoustics tell us about the most effective types of music and sounds for meditation and deep relaxation?

–  Dr Christopher Lloyd Clarke from www.The-Guided-Meditation-Site.com , http://www.the-guided-meditation-site.com/psychoacoustics

 

Ps, Sorry this blog post is slightly late, I have been moving house and have had no internet and very little time!

 

Vashti

As another week has gone by, we ofcourse started in The Shed with a drink and a slap up meal =p.  We then all departed to go to Max’s house.

We arrived and had a bit of a recap discussion before Timmie unveiled the finished powerpoint for the presentation, it was the most beautiful thing any of us had ever seen.  With that done and out of the way we moved onto current events, having a discussion about what sounds we had recorded and plans to record more, we also talked further about the meditation research we had done and Vashti got us listening to some clips.

After we had got some work done we had a little play on Max’s IPad, we got some instruments up and made a few jingles, Timmie may have got a little carried away on the IPad haha.  But it was all good, and we finished up the meeting with ideas of what we would do and we were about ready for the presentation.

Josh

So as another weeks goes by another trip to the Shed is in order but contray to previous weeks this vist is rather brief,(well as brief as it takes to get a couple of drinks in of of course),for this meeting we all took a visit up to Timmie’s house.

 

This meeting was about working on our Powerpoint presentation. This I must say went rather well for we all knew the points that we needed to include, thanks to our meeting last week. This meant that we finished in no time just allowing Timmie a week or so to add some visual flares to the slideshow. All of this quick yet efficient work meant that we all had plenty of time to enjoy Dominoes which of course was awesome.

 

It was after all the pizza eating and Dominoes appreciation that we decided on what we will be doing next week. Which is after the normal trip to the Shed, we will all be heading to my house, where we shall be working on what we will all be saying at the presentation. And Hey if im lucky we might even get more Dominoes.

 

I’m not really sure what was better this week, either the knowledge that our group are all getting on and doing work, or Dominoes Dominator pizza base. But either way I’m looking forward to next week.

 

 

 

Max

 

Ok so this meeting took place in the Shed (again) on October 3rd, BUT this time was different as we all had direction with what we were saying. No pints were consumed this time, just lemonade, coffee, and hot chocolates, (heavy night last night?).

This meeting was all about planning our presentation, this was going to be real easy as we already knew what our soundscape was going to be, so all we had to do was decide what information would go into our presentation.

This is what each slide will be:

Intro – how we came up with the idea

Research

Sound Ideas

How we came up with ideas

Techniques

I don’t know what it is, but our group has definitely got a good thing going, everything seems so seamless with us!!!

At some point throughout our meeting Vashti’s order of curly fries and mushy peas arrived…strange you say? That’s what the rest of us thought until we tried it, trust me, it’s good 🙂

It was after this that it was agreed each meeting must include food, so next meeting will be at my place in the Junxion, (but we’ll start at the Shed), and we will be having dominoes ^.^

 

Timmie

On Wednesday 26th September, Timmie, Josh, Max, and myself, met for our initial meeting regarding our first soundscape project. We settled down with our pints, and let the creative juices flow, and the outcome is what I am going to present to you today.

Before we really began, we decided every team needed a good strong name. After much deliberation, most of which discussing whether the plural of “mongoose” is “mongeese” or “mongooses”, we settled on “Fighting Mongooses” , and then after a few more important points (“Rule number one: we must only meet in pubs” and “You drink lager? But you’re a girl!”) we began sharing ideas that we could work on to create our masterpiece… ahem… Soundscape, I mean.

We drew up a list of ideas, mainly one word or phrase that any of us thought would be a good sound to include, or a good general idea. Timmie kicked things off by saying we should record the wind, and swan song, which we all liked the idea of, particularly the idea of swan song, as a recording, and as a title. From this stemmed many ideas; we could record the sound of water, or the sound of animals. We could record a day in Lincoln (swans are a massive part of any university student’s life, for some reason). We liked the idea of trees, leaves and bushes, and the noises they made in the wind. And of course, what audio-based idea would be complete without suggesting a visit to the cathedral and recording the bells?!

After piecing together the sort of samples and ideas that we wanted to include, we all came to the decision that we would attempt to create a reflective soundscape; perhaps one that would be suitable for one to meditate to. From the ideas that we drew up, and the sounds that we liked, we realized that we could create a strong soundscape based on reflection and relaxation.  We left the initial meeting with a provisional idea, and a good one at that. Who knows, it may be subject to change in the next week or so, but for now this is the idea that we intend to build upon.

The phrase “Swan Song” refers to a farewell, or final appearance, due to the symbolism created by the old belief that a swan sings only one beautiful song during it’s lifetime; right before it’s death. This symbolism, and poetic idea, could potentially heavily influence our soundscape, as reflection stems from an idea that one can reflect upon.

 

The silver Swan, who, living, had no Note, 
when Death approached, unlocked her silent throat. 
Leaning her breast upon the reedy shore, 
thus sang her first and last, and sang no more: 
“Farewell, all joys! O Death, come close mine eyes! 
More Geese than Swans now live, more Fools than Wise”. – The Silver Swan by Orlando Gibbons

http://www.litscape.com/author/Alfred_Lord_Tennyson/The_Dying_Swan.html – The Dying Swan by Tennison