Recital 2020: Scores~

For my recital this year I've decided to take the whole immersive nature of spatial music and attempt to make a "world". There were a few ways I tried to do this:

1. 3D developmental 'form' : I noticed while I was making my sound diaries last semester that the things you hear change depending on your movement through a space. I feel that this is big enough that I could have based a whole recital on it alone however I thought it would be more fun to do it the way I have. I made 4 stereo tracks that change slightly (mostly in timbre) so as you walk through, you'll (hopefully) experience different sounds. I wanted this to emulate the experience of a world. I'm a bit worried about the sub taking over everything though because unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to test it in the space earlier in the semester but since it's all individual tracks I think I can just turn the bass down if I need to on the night.

2. Drawings as scores: I started with some vague drawings to guide my creation, kind of panoramic style. These became more and more refined the more I worked on them. From then I improvised ideas and feelings based off the structure I could see - it was a very physical kind of process where I would see something in the structure and then try to create that using sound. So the sound becomes kind of sculptural, if you will. I zeroed in on 1 specific place called Lucifer's Penthouse - it is the final, most powerful Spire (there are 4).

3. Other tidbits/world building: There is a whole creation story and elemental characteristics attached to the Spires (the spiritual places in this world). These places are the first thing I've worked on; the rest of the world is currently empty but creativity is a process and I'm sure it will develop over time if I keep working on it. I really wanted to thoroughly develop this section first for the purpose of making these tracks.

Recording The Guitar Amp

I used the first score I made to guide my recording of the base sound which is (still) guitar amp. I used the treble, bass, gain and overdrive dials to create the different intensities in the actual recording. For the stalactites & stalagmites section I recorded touching the guitar lead which is something I actually did for the boom like effects in You're Too Cold To Me (from the Subtractive Studies I did in semester 1). I think it has been one of the most effective sections of the track, although I've only heard it through headphones and a 5.1 system so it might be completely different in the real set-up. I hope it won't be a complete flop but I suppose there's always a risk of that if you don't test it out first! (My bad).

Original Draft Scores

So, these are what I originally did. They were just rough sketches but I didn't end up using them as I wanted to zero in on the Spires specifically so that it was less broad/more thoroughly developed. I had to start somewhere though and I think this has enough material for me to continue building from after the recital is done.

The Spires

These are what I ended up using, there are 4 spires actually and you can see them in more detail here. Below is the development of Lucifer's Penthouse (my actual recital track).

Other Ways I Visualised What I wanted The Sound To Be :)

I also had a couple of diagram-like visualisations which helped me translate how I was thinking about some of the images and the 3D development.