Listen to my composition here
I chose to do my first composition in Jesmond Dene, a public park with differing soundscapes to respond to. The park was made a public space in the 19th century, after being a private estate prior to this. There is a play park, a small petting zoo, forest spaces, and a waterfall within the park. On my walk through the park I could hear sounds from bird songs to the water flowing in the waterfall. I chose to record my composition in the forested section of the park; it is quite enclosed and therefore has little natural reverb. The dense trees and foliage absorb a lot of the sounds created and therefore, most sound that I create too.
I chose to respond to the sounds of the forest, the dense trees creates little natural reverb and therefore any sound I create is quite dry. The foliage and trees absorb most of the sound created which creates quite an initiate environment, the space feels quite small despite being a large, outdoor space. I tried responding to the sound in my own time before recording the final version, listening to the different levels of sound I could hear. Despite being further away from traffic, there was an underlying grumble that I could still hear when stood completely still. I could also hear the wind whistling, water flowing, and birds calling.
I tried to use repeated melodies and sounds to imitate the bird calls I could hear, as their songs often use small repetitive melodies. This helps to identify birds, they all have distinct calls, just like humans have unique voices. I used different vowel sounds to imitate the birds, in the future I would like to experiment with this further. Perhaps I could try different percussive sounds; I typically avoid these sounds as they do not sound 'pretty', however, with further development I believe I could improve my variety of sounds and create more interesting compositions.
Just like David Nunn's, Nexus 1, I tried to think about the birds like they were responding to my sound. I am unsure if they were, but call and response felt like a comfortable way to become familiar with responding to my environment. I would like to try this kind of composition in other seasons and weather conditions, this would change the soundscapes even more. For example, the rain would create differing percussive sounds on different surfaces. Or in the peak of summer there would be a larger quantity of animals, creating a wider variety of sounds that I could imitate, possibly even creating my own melodies.
Overall I believe this was a good first attempt at responding to the sounds of a space. The main parts I would like to work on and improve this in the future are structure and to develop my existing ideas further. I did not really think about structure this time around, I simply used repeated rhythm and melody to create my piece. I would intend to bring one or two distinct melodies back throughout the piece, perhaps to show that phrases have finished or begun. I would enjoy trying to find someone to accompany this composition because it would allow voices to create an interesting texture. We would also be able to play with call and response between us.
As I was still adjusting to the process of responding to space, I believe with time I could increase my confidence and creativity with sounding spaces.
