I. Research & Recording
I wanted multi-layered, dynamic sounds, so I decided to go to a show. I went to African/African-American hair show called <Hair Wars> at MoMA PS1, and recorded seven clips that surmount to 10 minutes. The sounds of the show include a talkative MC, background music, poetry reading, silence, intense experimental music, as well as an interactive, loud audience.
Information about <Hair Wars>: https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/3850
II. Exploration & Experiment
I repeatedly listen to Joe Zawinal‘s <Arrival In New York> for inspiration and reference. I wanted to portray intersection between sound and music just as he had achieved to do.
Visualization of Arrival In New York in Graphs and Notes:
III. Planning & Editing
I listened to all my recordings in order and extracted one essential emotion: excitement. I recalled my experience at the show with that emotion in mind, and realized that my emotion progressed during the experience rather than stay fixed. So I arranged the emotion I want to express in 3 steps: Anticipation – Excitement – Catharsis. I planned to create a musical sound.
IV. Sound
I aimed to make a noise soundwork that has musical elements. I wanted to create beats, crescendos and decrescendos, with different levels and pitches of sounds as the “fill-in”s. I planned to intensify the dense feeling of the sound, so I gradually increased the volumes of most files as the sound proceeds. I put some of the files almost uncut in their lenghth but modified in their duration, so they would steadily add the intensifying feelings to the sound. While some sounds gradually increase, I some more quickly, and some repeates increasing and decreasing, crossing one another and simultaneously taking place in their different modes. Some of the fast-paced, winded sound pieces suddenly enter the sound when the atmosphere is more intensified, adding powerful and loud beats to the track. I didn’t use all my recordings but only three to four of them, so I could create various patterns using the same root, the same original sounds. I maximized the size of the working panel in Premiere, so I could look at the sounds in it’s visual representation. I’d like to improve my sound by smoothing the transitions between different phases. I’d make the entering of the loud sounds more organic and bleneded.
