Following on from my research into Musique Concrete, I had a lecture on creative sound that focused on capturing the voice in interesting ways. By combining these recordings with sound manipulation devices and layering on Ableton, this allowed me to practically experiment with many of the ideas that Schaeffer’s work encompassed, working with several techniques, some of which I had used before, yet with a renewed mindset on the expansiveness of sound. With only an SM57 at hand I was limited to its cardioid nature, yet testing this in different ways gave me a greater understanding of its polar pattern’s reaction to distance and material when recording my voice.
Whilst Musique Concrete typically labels music as a byproduct of experimentation with sound, I decided to instead incorporate elements of it into a musical context, keeping melody and rhythm as the focus. Composing only using sounds from my vocal chords as the raw material, these experimentations directed my composition style in a different way to which I would normally approach it, resulting in surprisingly interesting musical products.
In the first instance I created the harmonical backbone by layering these recordings in an instrument rack, mapping each sound to various sections of midi keys. Changing the pitch, reversing the samples and mapping the volume and frequencies of specific layers in the rack to macros I automated these qualities with the intention of creating some level of musical cohesiveness. The random nature of these recordings meant that the rhythms produced were unlike much of the musical work I usually end up creating.
In the second instance I placed more importance on sound manipulation by using automation on the Sampler’ LFOs to oscillate the pitch of certain recordings, whilst also using the loop length and rate as mod destinations in order to also automate these. I used delay for further rhythmic content and warping, cutting and rearranging, and crossfading the recordings also helped glue the material together in a way that stayed true to my aesthetic principles.
This has been a very insightful practical experience into how experimentation with sound can leave the creator somewhat at the mercy of their material’s properties, unassumingly leading them to exciting discoveries and new ideas.