Considering the effect of sounds on our psychological wellbeing, both on a personal and universal level, I have set about myself the task of creating a soundscape, passing only sounds that are known as harsh to the human ear through Paulstretch and Granulator, in order to equip myself with a better understanding of how the sounds, tones and timbres chosen in compositions can illicit an emotional response within people, regardless of the musical content, whilst also familiarising myself with these devices.
Over elongated sounds of the screech of a chalkboard and the screams of someone in danger using spectral smoothing I passed discordant violins through the Granulator device, altering the nature of the sound source by changing the spray, volume envelope and grain size parameters. Furthermore, I used a high pitched sine wave to mimic the sound of tinnitus, gradually filtering out the harshness of it all with resonators, reverb and the Auto-filter. What results is an axis of sounds, starting with those that threaten, and ending with those that calm, demonstrating the effect sound has on our emotions.