Constructing my sound piece
Building a soundscape on Adobe Audition
I began the sound piece rather bizarrely with the voice of a women speaking Flemish (Dutch), as the painting is based upon the Flemish folklore- 'Dulle Griet'. I came up with a sentence that i felt best captured the chaos of the painting: "I am looking into the mouth of hell". I translated it from English to Dutch and then generated vocals directly from Audition. I then put an echo and reverb effect onto the voice to make it sound other-worldly and hell-driven. I understand that, to people that don't speak dutch this will just sound like an in-audible murmur but i quite like that in a way. It opens up questions and it sounds demonic in its nature anyway, so is fitting with the painting.
Sounds i recorded:
Outside
Duck squawks
Water ripples
Sand scraping
Stones rubbing
Grass brushing
Tree bark scraping
Squeaking of rides in a play park
Echoes of cars from under a tunnel
Inside
Burps
Mouth noises
Sniffing
Saucepan smashing
Water in water bottle
Typewriter
Door squeaking
Water boiling/bubbling
Hitting cutlery against surfaces
Crumpling of cake packet
Whisk whizzing
Glass bottle blowing
Clanging of chairs
I wanted to get a wide range of weird and wonderful sounds so i could then manipulate them with the effects in audition. I took inspiration from the Beatles and pink Floyd's use of mechanical bird sounds and decided to record some birds of my own. These sounds would represent the mischievous creatures in the background of the painting. I sped up the bird noise track and heightened the pitch to make it more manic. The result of this was that it sounds as if they're laughing, which makes the painting seem even more sinister- like getting pleasure from pain. I also wanted to get some human sounds and try to see how far i could go to manipulate them into something completely alien to us. I placed distortion over the mouth noises and changed the levels so it wasn't too overpowering. There was one point i jumped from my seat in shock because the distortion had made a sound do unapproachable and loud that it was impossible to listen to without tensing up. I placed reverb and echo over the human mouth noises and lowered the pitch to make them sound like they're coming from underground- like they're trapped in a tunnel. That tunnel being the monster in the hills' mouth. The blowing on the glass bottle runs all the way through the sound-scape because it creates a very empty and eerie breathing sound- like the hill is always alive. I placed an echo over this also to make the sound more dominant and i also changed the pitch. I didn't end up using all the sounds i'd recorded simply because i didn't need to. I was able to manipulate everything i had in so many different ways that i didn't actually need that much material. I could've easily added more in but decided to keep it simple as i felt i didn't want any noises to be lost. I put the generated voice at the beginning because i wanted to give this painting a personality. I chose to use a woman's voice because Griet was a name given to any bad-tempered, shrewish woman and Bruegel is therefore making fun of noisy, aggressive women. Dulle Griet appears as a character in Caryl Churchill's play 'Top Girls' (1982). In this, she recounts her invasion of Hell: "I'd had enough, I was mad, I hate the bastards". So, therefore, I thought it seemed fitting to have a lady saying "I am looking into the mouth of Hell".
I am overall happy with how my sound-scape turned out as i feel like it gives that sense of being stuck in a place you don't want to be. It gives that depiction of an eerie, rather hellish atmosphere. However, It did end up being rather rushed and i should have done more research in advance to know the exact sounds i wanted in order to really pull you into the painting. If i were to develop this sound piece, I would collect some harsher sounds and create more of a build up through the piece- like a fight is being anticipated. I enjoyed the project and have learnt a lot about the mixing and manipulation of sounds. I feel rather confident in the use of audition but would also want to go into more depth regarding the software. I definitely feel like i could have explored and abused the software more. I could've looked deeper and really messed with noises- made them almost completely unrecognizable.
I began the sound piece rather bizarrely with the voice of a women speaking Flemish (Dutch), as the painting is based upon the Flemish folklore- 'Dulle Griet'. I came up with a sentence that i felt best captured the chaos of the painting: "I am looking into the mouth of hell". I translated it from English to Dutch and then generated vocals directly from Audition. I then put an echo and reverb effect onto the voice to make it sound other-worldly and hell-driven. I understand that, to people that don't speak dutch this will just sound like an in-audible murmur but i quite like that in a way. It opens up questions and it sounds demonic in its nature anyway, so is fitting with the painting.
Sounds i recorded:
Outside
Duck squawks
Water ripples
Sand scraping
Stones rubbing
Grass brushing
Tree bark scraping
Squeaking of rides in a play park
Echoes of cars from under a tunnel
Inside
Burps
Mouth noises
Sniffing
Saucepan smashing
Water in water bottle
Typewriter
Door squeaking
Water boiling/bubbling
Hitting cutlery against surfaces
Crumpling of cake packet
Whisk whizzing
Glass bottle blowing
Clanging of chairs
I wanted to get a wide range of weird and wonderful sounds so i could then manipulate them with the effects in audition. I took inspiration from the Beatles and pink Floyd's use of mechanical bird sounds and decided to record some birds of my own. These sounds would represent the mischievous creatures in the background of the painting. I sped up the bird noise track and heightened the pitch to make it more manic. The result of this was that it sounds as if they're laughing, which makes the painting seem even more sinister- like getting pleasure from pain. I also wanted to get some human sounds and try to see how far i could go to manipulate them into something completely alien to us. I placed distortion over the mouth noises and changed the levels so it wasn't too overpowering. There was one point i jumped from my seat in shock because the distortion had made a sound do unapproachable and loud that it was impossible to listen to without tensing up. I placed reverb and echo over the human mouth noises and lowered the pitch to make them sound like they're coming from underground- like they're trapped in a tunnel. That tunnel being the monster in the hills' mouth. The blowing on the glass bottle runs all the way through the sound-scape because it creates a very empty and eerie breathing sound- like the hill is always alive. I placed an echo over this also to make the sound more dominant and i also changed the pitch. I didn't end up using all the sounds i'd recorded simply because i didn't need to. I was able to manipulate everything i had in so many different ways that i didn't actually need that much material. I could've easily added more in but decided to keep it simple as i felt i didn't want any noises to be lost. I put the generated voice at the beginning because i wanted to give this painting a personality. I chose to use a woman's voice because Griet was a name given to any bad-tempered, shrewish woman and Bruegel is therefore making fun of noisy, aggressive women. Dulle Griet appears as a character in Caryl Churchill's play 'Top Girls' (1982). In this, she recounts her invasion of Hell: "I'd had enough, I was mad, I hate the bastards". So, therefore, I thought it seemed fitting to have a lady saying "I am looking into the mouth of Hell".
I am overall happy with how my sound-scape turned out as i feel like it gives that sense of being stuck in a place you don't want to be. It gives that depiction of an eerie, rather hellish atmosphere. However, It did end up being rather rushed and i should have done more research in advance to know the exact sounds i wanted in order to really pull you into the painting. If i were to develop this sound piece, I would collect some harsher sounds and create more of a build up through the piece- like a fight is being anticipated. I enjoyed the project and have learnt a lot about the mixing and manipulation of sounds. I feel rather confident in the use of audition but would also want to go into more depth regarding the software. I definitely feel like i could have explored and abused the software more. I could've looked deeper and really messed with noises- made them almost completely unrecognizable.
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