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Final

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Final Assignment

After some mixing, balancing out frequencies where needed, although leaving most raw for the pure chaos, I also added in a self recorded cough in slight resemblance of the main melody motif through the latter half, with the idea that the illness has fully transmitted. 

I have also just realised today, albeit too late, that my simple extension was only until Sunday, when I assumed it was until today due to previous experiences of it being two weekdays, although Damian specifically mentioned. Somewhat silly of me, but I can’t really do much about it.

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Knives are out

As if full circle (although not really since it wasn’t really the very beginning of my journey), I thought I needed some more variey, and the first thing I could think of nearing conclusion and climax other than blaring brass which didn’t sound fitting in my head but strings - especially staccato, like that from the soundtracks of Knives Out - strong strokes and chords.

However, in doing so, I also felt I needed to move the chaotic coughs into more unified strength as these strings were introduced. Due to a lowering of texture, I brought back the glockenspiel.

Other changes included reversed coughing in sampler for extra layers in chaos.

Also in the first section I self-recorded more whispering for specific phrases that made sense such as “he’s got it”, “surely not”, “what’s wrong with him”, cut and overlapped quite randomly. I got quite lazy just used touch automation since the section was quite short, rather than LFO with the panning, as if people were whispering all around, and sometimes even in your own ear.

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Building tension

Worked more on the melody inspired by Carl Vine’s thumper in the second section after the heartbeat coughs. This time, I overlapped with further composition, with 2 to 3 cross rhythms providing the building chaos, and different registers, although the lower were the main focus, so I made sure the higher registers were faint.

 Tried overlapping with fine tuning for more buildup as I did with the glockenspiel in the first section but quality of sound deteriorated this way and it sounded almost robotic.

Also overlapped different coughs from the sample with different LFOs such as volume to build different entries.

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Making up ground

Damian has kindly given me a simple extension, but in the meantime, I have made up some ground on the melodies before.

Added several automations to smooth things out, such as on the reverb of the tricough so it doesn’t end so abruptly on the third cough.

The technical loss may have been a blessing in disguise, because I took a more streamlined approach to the glockenspiel to just repeat the same thing, with dissonance coming from learning to slightly fine tune doubled melodies out of tune, and panning slightly for more atmosphere.

Most importantly though, I learnt to use LFOs, experimenting with some, although the most effective being done on the heartbeat coughs. I had to decide between Step fx and Modulator in logic, but chose the later, when I realised how to change audio files into MIDI by bouncing in place, and then putting it into a sampler.

Furthermore, added some ambience through compressing whispering and muttering in background. Also, inspired by the common bass tremolos in horror movies, I thought to use the clearing throat, pitched way down using both tremolo and space designer (reverse) plugins.

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Technical Failure

Was already quite frustrated having failed at making the words including “so many” and “too long” work (couldn’t cut them out of the phrases like “too long a speech” without the separate words being unrecognisable). Then my laptop decides to crash. I guess I need to save more frequently.

In this session, I had mostly experimented, (but recorded a lot of ideas) with the aforementioned melody as inspiration - I chose to use piano as a starting point since it was used already, but also stuck with it since it sounds sinister enough, while still providing rhythmic basis due to percussiveness that fits the ideas. I also made one of the crisper coughs into a heartbeat like sound similar to those in cartoonish horror scenarios, which I thought perfect leading into a section where the fear of contracting COVID had settled in, and hence the sound could work as a double entendre.

I also experimented with  glockenspiel melodies. I did luckily take a screenshot with the intention of showing how I overlapped quite random rhythms and notes, although it did sound a tad too messy.

Unluckily, it won’t be easy replicating directly.

I have asked for a simple extension, we’ll see if it is accepted.

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Melodic idea

While contemplating how to create that eerie atmosphere, I remembered the Australian pieces I played for HSC Music 2 by Carl Vine. Specifically short story began quite impressionistically. 

I tried to replicate that rhythm with three coughs I thought fitted well together, adding reverb and EQ to fill up space. 

Furthermore, I remembered the throwaway melody from the conclusion of Thumper, a very rhythmic piece, that I thought I might be able to use as inspiration for a wacky melodic idea to overlap and build.

At about 1:45 is the only place it appears.

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Direction and Artistic Vision

Today’s seminar on using ‘algorithmic’ composing processes, including the use of LFOs, meant to me I wouldn’t have to focus too much on having an abundance of content, rather let generation do most of development, which would then be at the centre of my piece.

Hence an idea formed - an idea of growing chaos, telling a story of COVID outbreak. Structurally, it would go something like this:

1. Someone has COVID (Coughing)

2. light, but tense bells like many horror themes for the mystery and uneasy fear of the person with COVID

3. Builds through whispers of the crowd, develops through computer generation/LFO

4. Then coughs develop into everyone coughing

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Horrific research

I’ve tried, and am at a complete dead end on where to start, so I did some research into some well known and obscure horror/eerie soundtracks. Here are a few I might use elements of. 

I liked how the glockenspiel/bells here resonate and overlap in a messy way - fits what I think I’ll try to do in my ‘first’ melodic part.

I noticed there’s a panned percussive sound that bears resemblance to coughing. It goes through the track almost the whole way through while it builds. 

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Josh Frydenberg coughing in parliament

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A revelation

COVID 

Hard to find anything positive about the virus these days, but it has given me a Eureka moment. There I was thinking about how I could find something similar to, but having more interesting content than the whispering example in class, and then it hit me. Coughing.

I remembered seeing a clip of Josh Frydenberg coughing in parliament before getting COVID, so I went and found it, and it sounds very promising. The 20 second clip I will probably be using is below.

I’ve already cut them up and lebelled them into what I think are quiet useful sounds.

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Possible routes

After some thinking, possible influenced by Tuesday’s tutorial task or my recent binge in horror movies, I feel like I might want to try my hand at making a horror soundtrack, possibly from eerie silence. I’ve composed classically for high school tasks, and recently in IDMT made songs leaning into the hip hop genre so this will be quite different from any of my past experiences.

One source of inspiration immediately leapt into my head, although I’m not terribly sure why, but the majority of the knives out soundtracks are quite mysterious, but jagged in a way that I’d think might suit the vibe of a track along these lines.

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Class inspiration

Damian’s lecture today was specifically tailored to this first assignment, and how to find inspiration from short samples. One of the tutorial tasks was particularly interesting: using charcoal to visualise an idea. Combined with a student’s previous comment on using silence, as a sample, I thought about how the whispery Japanese sample could be pitched and almost rotated, with the fuzzy silence acting as background but also tense breaks. I’m not sure whether this will be used at all, but it’s a start.

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Advanced Digital Music Techniques Creative Assignment 1

Hello all. This will be my blog for the creative process of the first assignment.