Bedroom-Amtrack Train Set

In this recording, I was trying to capture the sounds of a person through my friend and I playing video games. You can hear laughter, talking, and sighing throughout the piece, symbolizing much of what a person would do while playing video games. In the background, you will hear sounds such as keys jingling, coke cans being slammed on the table, and video game controllers. My intention for this piece was to capture a person while playing video games with a friend.

Person-(Playing Video Games)

In this audio, I wanted to capture the idea of "presence" through someone walking outside in the backyard. As you can hear in the audio, you will hear sounds like the wind, leaves rustling, music playing faintly in the background, construction workers, sighing, and cars passing by. You will hear that in the first couple of second it's silent. I wanted to let an audience imagine someone walking outside from the inside of the house. You will hear in the first couple of seconds at the beginning me opening the door. You can also imagine someone walking around doing multiple chores, such as: trimming trees, adjusting chairs, and putting the trash away. Just to name a few. With quarantine happening, there isn't a lot to do so I decided to actually provide audio of what it sounds like from my perspective to do chores outside. I moved the microphone everywhere I went.

Presence- My Backyard

The sounds captured in this recording were recorded from my balcony that is attached to my room. Out of the four recordings I recorded so far, this has been the most difficult. It was a little difficult to find organic sounds since I live next to a really busy street. For example, there are a lot of cars whizzing by or construction workers trimming trees. Although I could have driven somewhere, the nearest hiking trail that is open and quiet is about thirty-five to forty minutes away. The morning's in my neighborhood are the quietest and less busy. As the day progresses, that's when obnoxious things start to happen. In the background, you can hear birds chirping, leaves rustling, and the wind blowing. Cars occasionally rolled by so I had to re-record every time this happened. It didn't bother me but it was tricky. With quarantine happening, there were not a lot of options as to where I can record these sound since a lot of parks and hiking trails were closed. This weeks activity really got me to enjoy the quiet and peaceful atmosphere.

Organic Space- My Balcony

My idea of a man-made sound is pretty obvious as you can tell by listening to the audio. I wasn't going for anything too extreme or hard that would make the recording process hard. I used the sound of cars because I was able to access it pretty quickly and they are the loudest man-made sound in my city, besides airplanes buzzing over my house. I wanted to get out and go somewhere new. The process of finding a space was hard since not enough cars were out on the streets. In this recording, I wanted to capture the sounds of cars entering the freeway entrance since I know the sounds are massive and loud. The only problem was finding a comfortable spot to record. I was able to park in a parking lot that was empty due to restaurants being closed. No one was around and didn't find any annoying background sounds that would disturb this process. I placed the computer in the back of my car and recorded. You will be able to hear different cars zipping by. There might be a long pause towards the end because cars are waiting at a red light.

Man-Made Space- Parking Lot/Freeway Entrance

In this recording, I chose to record the pipe underneath my sink. In the picture, the pipe is in the cabinet directly underneath the sink. What can you hear is the sound of water gushing down. At certain points, you can hear the timbre/dynamic of the water flowing through the pipe change due to less water in the sink. It is almost like a gurgling type of sound. The computer was unable to fully fit underneath in the cabinet, which would have helped cut the background sounds of the water turning on. I had to adjust the flow of water so that the audio could pick up sounds of water through the microphones. I was thankful that my computer caught most of the sounds because I know sometimes the water can be very quiet.

Hidden Sound/Space- (Sinks Pipe)

In this recording, the background sounds that you hear are distant airplanes hovering over, people jogging along the street, birds chirping in the trees, and cars zipping by. I think the most noticeable sound is the cars because of how loud and close they are to my balcony. The foreground sounds that you hear is the music playing from my iPhone, me cracking my knuckles, sniffling, and sounds of me trying to move my computer around. At times, the cars and other background sounds can sometimes cancel out the music, especially at the beginning. My phones speaker was right next to the computers speaker. I had to adjust the volume of the music at the beginning of this recording due to the cars being too loud.

Foreground Vs. Background- (My Balcony)

In this recording, I wanted this idea of "intervention" to be of somebody walking into my room when I am not in it. This would mean that my room is super quiet, especially when it is night time. I do live close to a busy street where there are bicyclists and runners passing by. Usually when I am away at school, my mom always cleans up the room once in a while. So I tried mimicking the different sounds of her trying to adjust things or clean. You will hear the sounds of cabinets closing, drawers opening, an xbox being turned on, pictures being adjusted on the walls, papers being filed, and the bed comforters being moved. What I tried doing to make it sound like a quiet room being intervened was not make any sounds for the first and last ten seconds of the audio and then after the first ten seconds start making noises. The quiet room is being "intervened" by my mom, pretending to be me, entering the room and trying to clean it up.

Blake Danner