Soundscape

Artist Statement

This soundscape is composed to bring the audience through a personal take on a typical bus ride, conveying an emotional journey. The soundscape starts with boarding of the bus and ends off alighting the bus – like having a beginning and end to every story. There are 3 events that take place during the bus ride – A noisy environment, a missed opportunity and being lost in thoughts. This soundscape expresses a dialogue between the external factors of the environment (Objective Sound) and internal thoughts of an individual (Subjective Sound). The sense of depth is subjective as every individual has different take on what sounds he/she wants to focus on. Notice the difference and contrast of the 7 categories of sound in the soundscape. Each element is portrayed as a contrasting comparison and a transiting process.

Concept Development, Research, Film/Artist Reference, and Challenges

I was inspired by Hildegard Westerkamp’s Talking Rain and Zul Mahmod’s contemporary genre and experimental edge. I was interested in experimenting in foley techniques, to create sounds from different mediums. Thus, sparking the idea of dialogue between Objective Sound and Subjective Sound.

Some of my initial ideas included journey on the train, journey in a car, state of mind in a quiet place and physiological factors like being famished. However, I feel that there is more interaction and variation in a bus ride compared to being on a train. There is more external factors and dynamism if one was to be on a bus ride.

Thus, I recorded an audio clip of a bus ride as the background, experimented with foley – heartbeat using a towel, and created the ambient sound of thoughts using synthesiser in Logic Pro.

As I do not have much experience with Audio Engineering, I had to experiment with the vast amount of controls in Logic Pro. When I was editing the heartbeat sound, I had to experiment with the EQ of the flapping towel sound. I do not have a music background, hence, coming up with the ambient sound of thoughts was tricky as I do not know how to pick the notes in a chord to harmonise them.