Week 8: Bob the Builder… here we go!!!
Date: 5th May 2025 (Tuesday)
Time: 4-6pm
Venue: Pats PA11
Easter Break has coming and gone, that’s also means that the deadline of the project is approaching. Therefore, this week is the time for Genie and I to build our sonic world- the compositional aspects of our projects.
Before the construction work, I started the meeting by sharing my thoughts about Elektra after watching the opera and related materials a fortnight ago, which I have already expressed in my previous post. I suggested to her that we should cats and dogs sounds due to the metaphor used the in the start of the opera. I also expressed to her that I am not about the idea as I might be quite distinct from the rest of the materials that we have and somehow doesn’t fit with the rest of the soundscape. Genie agreed that including cats and dogs would be interesting, but she also took the amount of materials that we have got in account. However, as the meeting proceeded, we found as potential solution infusing this concept to the sonic world that we are building. We think that we should make some cats and dogs sound by our voices so that I might able to fuse perfectly with the rest of the material and we agree that we should have a go with it.
Back to the Building work, our approach at this moment is simply through trial and error. We started with the gong, we think that the gong sample might be a good approach in creating a drone. The gong sample also naturally come with a sense of wobbliness itself. It is like waves of sound one another repeatedly. It seems the sound of the gong has already fits in with the affect that Liebestod intended to delivered musically. The gong sound waves interferes and produced some very nice overtones on top it. We cropped fragments from the original sample in creating
Genie and I then worked on layering fragments of Liebestod on top of the gong sound, mainly re-pitching, warping and adding automations, as we would like to preserve the distinct features of the original recording (as Genie is the expert of that so that she is in charge casting her magic on the computer and I was next to her in providing commentary and suggestions for refinement.) I intended to step back a bit to listening more to Genie’s ideas as I think I have a tendency to dominates our discussion sometimes. The alert in me always reminds me of Sawyer’s suggestion of how to build an effective team. One of essential point being listening to others rather than focusing too much time planning our own action (Sawyer, 14). And, I made a good decision this time. Through listening to Genie’s explanation of what on her approach in manipulating and enhancing the track, I feel more involved in the electronic side of the project and I was also very impressed and amazed by the potential of a recording, of how far it can goes with simple electronic manipulations and abstraction. We made some really cool sounding products, but as time goes by, I questioned about whether we should maintain some of the fragment in its primary form. I raised to Genie about my initial doubt and Genie suggested we should intended to fuse the elements together as we somehow do not want to have very distinct elements in the composition that conjoint. Initially agreed to her despite my doubt, I took a moment to review this decision and I have decided that concept of fusion is a more viable option. Material-wise we are pursuing a collage presentation, but technically we can should aim for supplementing each other and woven into a cohensive whole. This kinda of reminds of the concept of “the GenieMichelle+”thing that we mentioned earlier in earlier blog, it’s not two distinctive identity, but a new product.
Genie and I did her trial and error on the combining some electronic manipulated recording of Liebestod and gong sample together. However after around 15 minutes of trying, there are a lot of fascinating sounds coming out from the speaker but it doesn’t seem to me that the stable gong sample has its way to blend with the melodically active waves in Liebestod. There is a voice saying to me that they are not meant to be and the “Agamemnon theme” might be a good call. Therefore I suggested to Genie that we should try and whether it works.
And finally, we did something that we are both pretty impressed with. The Agamemnon calls and gong that sounds so well together. It is uncanny and sinister that gives so a chill and yet harmonically flavourful. We also kept the original melodic shapes as the original affect of the melody fits in the electronically manipulated gong so well and that are musically married together.
I guess the ‘Bobs’ has more building work to do. More to continued….
Reference:
Sawyer, Keith, 2007: Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration. New York: Basic Books
