Author: Theo Power

This is my script proposal written about how I would go about creating an audio paper about noise pollution. This was written many weeks ago but thought it would be good to upload it here as you can see many of these ideas translate into the final product of my audio paper.

Today is the day before the hand-in, we had a class crit today where we got to showcase our work and gather feedback. My piece’s feedback was positive, and I got some good constructive feedback on changes I could make to my piece. One was to change the voice of the text to speech midway through the piece to keep the listener engaged which was a good idea. They also said that a British voice could be a good idea, as on tube lines they use a mixture of voices and because the text to speech during the first half is an authoritative figure it could be interesting to switch that stance during the second half.

I was also told that the ending could be more interesting if I put my perspective on it, and how ironic it is that as sound artists we are trained to listen carefully to the sounds around us, even though that sound is causing damage to our ears. I was also told that we should add a reference in our piece, so I thought using the reference from the world health organisation about the health effects would be suitable. I decided to use a different male voice representing me and talking from my point of view, meanwhile, the rest of the paper is spoken more like a doctor. I thought this would be an interesting way to point out that we are all somewhat guilty of noise pollution, and that it is somewhat ironic and hypocritical of me to be talking about it. But this whole paper got me to learn how bad noise pollution is.

I tried to add a screenshot of what my Ableton session looked like with all the finished edits but I had some issues with the screenshot deleting my post when added. So here is a link to it

I am very happy with the feedback and think it improved my work, it was very exciting to see everyone else’s hard work and it was very inspiring. This has been a very interesting course to work on and gave me some much-needed context on what an audio paper actually is. This is something I would love to come back to later on in my career, as I think it is a good way to tell a story in a format that is quite unusual.

Elephant and Castle construction/roundabout

This was where I first recorded the sound for this project, I started by taking a Zoom H5 to the construction site across the street from LCC and I started recording the construction. I did not want to look too obvious when recording, so I recorded primally from behind the walls they had covering up the site. I figured out they had metal grates at the bottom of the wall that had a clearer sound of the site so I kneeled down to capture these sounds. I did a couple long recordings from around the construction site, to gather as much sound as I could.

On the way to and from LCC I was also recording the sounds of the roundabout with my field recorder, which provided me with some great sounds of cars racing by, and an ambulance siren which you can hear early on in the piece. I managed to capture the sound of someone whistling, and people talking far in the distance.

The London Underground

My first recordings were captured on my phone from a journey I had from London Bridge to Paddington Station. I did have my field recorder with me but it was out of charge, so I had to use my phone. The phone recording came in handy, as they are heard a lot throughout the piece. I EQ’d the sounds, and ran them through reverb and MISHBY (a broken tape machine plug in). Some of these tube recordings were also transposed down, to add more variety in sound and frequency.

I did end up being able to record with the Zoom H5 on the way back on the tube a few days later, I gathered some really good recordings on this which have also been used in the final piece alongside the phone recordings. I did not have enough space to attach the holder for the field recorder so I had to hold it in my hands due to the tube being full of people. Hearing the difference these recording formats have was a really fun experiment which happened purely by accident. The lofi, raw recordings from the iPhone made for a nice quality which worked in the piece’s favour. Meanwhile, the clarity of the field recorder added some much-needed clearness to the piece. This is something I will continue to experiment with in the future. In my blog ‘Creating The Audio Paper’ you can hear what the raw iPhone recording sounds like, and then what it sounds like processed through effects.

When planning how I was going to create the audio paper, I had to figure out what DAW I was going to edit, record, and mix on. I thought about using Logic Pro X and Pro Tools, but I have neither of those on personal computers and wouldn’t have the opportunity to experiment as much if I had to come into the university to edit, record and mix. Because I would only have so much time to use the computers. I landed on using Ableton, as I own it on my own computers, and it lets you freely experiment while doing that on logic or pro tools is more difficult as they are not built to experiment as freely as Ableton is.

With that chosen, the next thing was to lay out the track. I decided to start the track with a 15-second silence, and then the sounds start slowly creeping in over the piece. The way I composed this piece was as one big crescendo, having the sounds slowly work their way into the piece. Then finish with another 15-second silence, to realise how loud these sounds are. This use of silence was inspired by John Cage’s 4’33, which you can read more in-depth about my other blog here.

The way this piece is constructed is to start with the construction and roundabout noises, so the way I compiled them was to start with one noise that fades in, and then slowly fade in other construction and roundabout noise. I used minimal effects on these sounds, I used Valhalla supermassive as a reverb on some of the construction sounds to add a nice space to the sounds. But I didn’t use reverb on all the tracks, as it would become muddy, and take away from the rawness of these sounds that I wanted to capture. I used MISHBY which is a destroyed tape machine plug in on one of the construction noises that fades in and out pretty quickly. Overall the use of effects on this part of the track is kept to a minimum. I found this a challenge because I am someone who is constantly using and customising effects in my pieces but I felt it would be inappropriate in this context.

I talked about my use of the text to speech and what effects I used on it in another blog post which you can read here, so I will not be talking about that in this blog post.

After the noises of the construction and the Elephant and Castle roundabout, we start hearing the tube. I started bringing in the tube sounds while the construction noises were fading out, so the sound keeps on building up and there is a seamless transition from one sound to the other. I experimented with using a period of silence between the construction and tube noises, but I found the piece lost its momentum and feels like it was being restarted, which is not what I wanted.

The sound of the tube uses more effects to help with the crescendo of the track and to also affect some of the sounds in the raw audio. For example, you can hear people speaking and rustling coats and food packets. I wanted to use effects to be able to still hear this somewhat but have it hard to tell what they’re speaking about or what the sound of rustling is. I used a mixture of transposition, reverb, and MISHBY to detune the sounds slightly near the end of the piece. Here is the sound of a raw recording of the tube captured on my phone, and here is that recording after being run through MISHBY, Reverb and being transposed down

When it came to ending the track it was hard to avoid it being somewhat abrupt. Especially when you’re dealing with a noisy ending that is supposed to stop quickly. I feel that it is always going to be abrupt when dealing with that. The best way to make it feel abrupt but in a good context is to make sure the sound at the end has been playing for a bit so it feels like it should end, and not just have the sound play once or twice and then stop it. Having the sound repeat and build in volume and distortion makes the abrupt ending feel satisfying. The piece ends with another 15-second silence, to be used as a reflection of how noise pollution could be affecting you. Below is a link to the most recent version of my audio paper, we have a class crit soon so I expect there will be some feedback that I can work on.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VujX_7ISf7xq165ZyaeGdyYV6f73qezP/view?usp=share_link

Below is my promotional paragraph for my audio paper

Noise pollution plagues London, why should it matter to you? Composed by sound artist Theo Power, City Of Sickness is a sonic telling of noise pollution and how it affects London and its residents. Walking through construction sites, roundabouts, and the London underground, Power shows you why noise pollution is more dangerous than you may think. Power walks you through how noise pollution affects everyday people, disadvantaged people, and people with disabilities, with a satirical take at fearmongering by using text-to-speech and scientific facts. Noise pollution is a scary subject, City Of Sickness shows us the harsh reality of that.

I plan to release this audio paper on my Soundcloud page. I created a Soundcloud page recently to keep a backlog of my university projects, demos, and experiments. I thought it would be a good way to keep a catalogue of my work to show people and to also pump out consistent work.

Hong-Kai Wang is a multidisciplinary artist who works across the fields of performance art, teaching, publishing, and creating exhibitions.

They talked about their process of creating and building a space to build an exhibition in, and the collaborative effort it was to build this space. They talked about the sound they played in this space, which is a combination of both a script of spoken word and field recordings that are heavily based on nature. They read us the script while showing us pictures of the exhibition, the exhibition space looks very industrial, very grey and spaced out, and the pictures were also shot in black and white which adds another layer of this industrial feeling. The script was very hypnotic using lots of repetition of words, “You sing… You sing.. You sing…” this was a really nice way to tell a story. It makes it feel almost dreamlike. This is from their work ‘The Flesh and the Phantom’.

It’s clear from their presentation that they take a lot of inspiration from books, especially books about music and sound and how they might be shown in other cultures. Hong-Kai Wang is from Taiwan and has studied and worked across the globe, so given that experience and what seems like an interest in people, cultures and countries it makes sense this is what some of their work focuses on.

It doesn’t seem Kai Wang associates themselves with sound art explicitly, they seem to work in many other fields which makes it impossible to put a point on what they specifically do. Which made the lecture all the more interesting. Kai – Wang work really relies on people listening and collaboration and open experimentation and rehearsals with people.

Kai-Wang has a beautiful collection of field recordings, they should us a piece called 20 recordings of winds, which was also put in an installation. The recordings were split up into acts recorded from different areas. Act 4 of these field recordings consists of waves, bells and walking on the beach. You can see this is another instance of Kai-Wang being influenced by nature. I really enjoyed how Kai-Wang uses field recordings, in particular wind. The wind recordings were raw but not in a harsh way, it felt very soft and relaxing. Their approach to wind reminds me of David Lynch in the way they use it to their advantage.

They talk about her recordings on Jeju island and how the wind really affected her, and how she can take the recordings, the history of the land, location and themselves and how they can translate it into sound.

www.centreforlondon.org. (n.d.). The sound of cities: noise pollution and why it matters. Available at: https://www.centreforlondon.org/blog/noise-pollution-why-it-matters/.

Tube Noise and vibration short summary of issues raised with … – london . Available at: https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/environment_committee_-_tube_noise_issues_-_summary.pdf

‌William Basinski – The Disintegration Loops. (2014). YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjnAE5go9dI.

www.youtube.com. (n.d.). London Underground ‘MIND THE GAP!’ Loud Message Announcement. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAFktjJIT8I

www.tubenoiseactiongroup.com. (n.d.). TubeNoise. [online] Available at: https://www.tubenoiseactiongroup.com

Jonathan Snipes. (n.d.). Jonathan Snipes. [online] Available at: https://jonat8han.bandcamp.com/

en-gb.facebook.com. (n.d.). Sleepless Brixton. [online] Available at: https://en-gb.facebook.com/SleeplessBrix/

www.youtube.com. (n.d.). Secret Piece. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYAF5Nm2DnM

‌www.youtube.com. (n.d.). SPLP Deep Listening 1: Deep Listening: Pauline Oliveros and the Sonosphere. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qgfgve0quYE.

The difference between hearing and listening | Pauline Oliveros | TEDxIndianapolis. (2015). YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QHfOuRrJB8.

SoundCloud. (n.d.). Theo Power | Deaftapes. [online] Available at: https://soundcloud.com/user-506583101.

‌www.youtube.com. (n.d.). 4’33’’. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrlKxV5KWJo

www.youtube.com. (n.d.). Williams Mix. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AJzuTldFu4

www.youtube.com. (n.d.). Lionel Marchetti – Portrait D’Un Glacier (Alpes, 2173m) (2001) [FULL ALBUM]. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYRuy88plPY

genius.com. (n.d.). ​clipping. – Secret Piece. [online] Available at: https://genius.com/Clipping-secret-piece-lyrics

The Museum of Modern Art. (n.d.). John Cage. 4’33″ (In Proportional Notation). 1952/1953 | MoMA. [online] Available at: https://www.moma.org/collection/works/163616.

Landmark Chambers | Barristers Chambers London. (2020). Disabilities and noise nuisance. [online] Available at: https://www.landmarkchambers.co.uk/disabilities-and-noise-nuisance/ [Accessed 7 Dec. 2022].

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After my finishing my draft of my instructional score I revisited it to see what could be fixed. In my blog where I talk about the first draft I talk about my use of spoken word and poetry, this is still very much the case but in my final script, I included more facts and tried to write it in a poetic way. What I did not like about my original script is that it came across a bit needlessly edgy and less informative about what noise pollution actually is. It came across like I was fear-mongering which is not want I wanted, I still want my piece to be a bit scary as it is a scary subject. As you can see above the eeriness is still intact but padded out with more tasteful facts and information.

I decided during the process of making the audio paper to use text-to-speech for the voice. I came up with this idea by thinking of sampling information videos about noise pollution as the speech but thought while writing the script I could have more creative freedom with what was said in my own writing. The inspiration for using text-to-speech came from hearing informational videos where a very robotic voice is telling you this information. It feels like this technique is used to scare people and dehumanise the video by using a voice that is imitating what a human sounds like. I thought this piece could use text-to-speech to somewhat satirise the fearmongering tactics used by these types of corporations but also tell the facts at the same time. These types of informative videos use information that is extreme to catch your attention, so I thought it could be interesting to use that in the piece. For example, I talk about how illness caused by noise pollution could lead to your death if left untreated, it is true. But is hyperbole, this was inspired by the concept of satirising the fearmongering tactics of those types of videos.

For the effect of the voice, I will be using plug-in called MISHBY (which is an acronym for Maybe I Shouldn’t Have Built You). MISHBY is a destroyed tape machine that specialises in distortion, glitching, detuning and decoding. I don’t want to warp the voice too much but want to use this effect too much but subtly use it to distort the text to speech.

The use of text-to-speech altered the way my script was written, as while I was playing my original script through the text-to-speech, I realised lots of issues with the way the script was written. The way it was structured seemed too short and there was not enough information in the script. My original script was also inconsistent in how it was written, jumping back and forward between spoken word and fact. It felt too sudden and abrupt. All of this made me more aware of how I was going to edit my script and rewrite parts of it.

Here is what the text-to-speech sounded like with no effects, this is what is sounds like after being processed by MISHBY, and Valhalla Supermassive (Reverb).

I also wanted to talk in my script about noise and disability. I work as a carer for young adults with special needs when I am back home. Lots of the young adults I worked with had sensory issues, lots of them to do with sound. We had noise-cancelling headphones for situations where loud noises are present. Sudden exposition to loud noise for a lot of these young adults can make them frightened and can lead to dangerous situations with the young adult. This is something that I personally do not see being written about and want to see more inclusion when it comes to disabilities of all types.

The use of text-to-speech may seem as a cop-out to some, as I do not have to worry about recording my own voice. But that is very much not the case, I have an artistic reason to be using text-to-speech and have provided the context behind why I chose to use it.

This week we visited the Sound Archive held at the British Library. Once we all arrived at the British Museum we were taken to a room with a presentation prepared for us. The presentation took us through recording and sound formats throughout history. From Wax Cylinders to magnetic tape, to minidisc, to digital we were told about the creation of these devices and how they were used. Our presenter had a table full of these sound devices, they had wax cylinders, reel-to-reel tapes, minidiscs and cassette tapes.

Throughout the presentation, he showed us how these devices on the table worked or showed us a piece of equipment that matches what the presentation was showing us at that time. For example, we were shown what a blank unrecorded wax cylinder looks like, and how the grooves would be formed when recorded onto the cylinder.

The presentation went in order of time, so we went from the very first recording device which was the phonautograph, the phonautograph was created in 1857. This device has a cone and a diaphragm, the cone would take in the vibrations and with the differing air pressure would move the stylus and diaphragm of the phonautograph. The soundwaves would be scratched onto paper by the needle, and the paper was coated in soot to make the sound waves readable.

My personal favourite time period was the tape era, which began in 1935. I work a lot with tape, in particular cassettes and tape loops in my own work so this piqued my interest. Our presenter ran through reel-to-reel tape, which is something I have never worked with, and they also had reel-to-reel tape that we could hold at the end of the presentation. We were taught that some of these reel-to-reel tapes were made with different materials, which has caused a lot of these tapes to deteriorate over the years. This is also affected by the conditions you store your tape in. This tape deterioration can be used to an artist’s advantage, with William Basinski doing this with his Disintegration Loops series. In which he records a slowly decaying reel-to-reel loop.

He also talked about cassettes and the invention of the PCM Betamax/VHS which were also on the table. This was really fascinating to see the progression from reel-to-reel tapes in 1935 to having a portable cassette tape that you can listen to in either a stereo sound system or walkman (which were not invented till 1979 by Sony).

After the presentation half of us went down into the archives and the other half stayed upstairs, I stayed upstairs and got to have a more in-detail look at the equipment but I had to leave before I could visit the archive downstairs which is a shame. Being able to actually hold the equipment was an incredible experience. Our presenter let us pick up the equipment and look at it, he was talking us through some of the equipment in more detail and answered any questions we had.

Our presenter walked us through some other sound recordings and showed us some work created by the author William S. Burroughs. Burroughs was a famous author and artist who was famous for his nonlinear, postmodern, and surreal works of writing that talk about a wide array of ideas and subjects, like sexuality and drugs. His work is very polarising and experimental, it also is semi semiautobiographical as he struggled with Heroin addiction for years, this was also during his writing process. During the 1960s Burroughs lived in London moving in and out of hotels and still struggling with his Heroin addiction. He recorded a variety of reel-to-reel experiments which were played for us, these recordings consisted of vocal manipulation and feedback. This led me down a rabbit hole of researching Burroughs as a sound artist and found he had some sound releases under his belt.

One of these works is being curated alongside Genesis P-Orridge and Peter Christopherson of Throbbing Gristle fame. The album Nothing Here Now But The Recordings is compiled of Field Recordings, heavily edited vocal passages and throat recordings which are mixed together in a very jarring and unsettling way by P-Orridge and Christopherson. I wouldn’t have learnt any of this if it weren’t for the presentation so I am very thankful for this trip and all the valuable information I learnt.