Experimenting with Sound

Sound is an essential element of visual communication, especially with the moving image. In addition to the vocal and sound effects soundtracks, the musical soundtrack is heavily leveraged. Music is so all-pervading in these media that we frequently become unaware of its presence or the emotional effect that it is having.

Musical movie soundtracks enhance the narrative in many ways. Skillful use of music can create atmosphere, drama, clarification of relationships, a sense of space and time, social/cultural and geographic references, and more (Hoffman, 2012).  

Music has also been utilised to complement the still image. Russian photographer Alexey Titarenko cites classical music as an influence on his practice. When exhibiting his work “City of Shadows”, a series of long exposure photographs created in St Petersburgh during the fall of the Soviet Union, the music of, Shostakovich’s 2nd Cello Concerto and his 13th Symphony are played as accompaniment. (Titarenko, n.d.)

Inspired by this approach I have regularly created slideshows of my work, applying a musical accompaniment to support the narrative and atmosphere of the images.

For this exercise I took inspiration from Burton and Nitta’s series Food Fictions, Course 4: Stellar's Meat. In this moving image work much of the imagery is in first person, looking out to sea. The imagery plays a supporting role to the soundtrack rather than vice-versa. The messaging is conducted through the soundtrack which includes sound effects and a vocal track. I intended to recreate this using a similar setting but using a still image throughout the duration of the clip.

I created several clips of waves breaking on the shore at Cowes beach. The beach is fine shingle, and I find the resulting sound to be very relaxing.  Because the lapping of the waves was not rhythmic enough, due to the passing of boats and ferries which disrupted the rhythm, I created multiple layers of the sounds and overlayed them to create a more musical sound.

Apple GarageBand screen

I overlayed the wave sounds with an instrumental music track “Transparencias” from Adobe Stock. This was a piano work that I felt complimented the brightness and mood of the water. I chose a tempo of 120 bpm for the music as this felt right for the relaxed mood that I wanted to create.

To this background, I added two vocal clips of me reading stanzas of the poem Don’t Quit, by Edgar A. Guest. The poem, written by Guest in 1912 implores the reader/listener to “not quit” in the face of adversity. The pace of the poem suited the background soundtrack with little editing. I included just two stanzas from the entire poem because I wanted a piece that was less than one minute.

I used Apple’s GarageBand software to compile my sound work, this seemed appropriate as it is a free piece of software that comes pre-installed on every iMac computer and has sufficient functionality for my needs. I learned how to use the package by playing with the controls until I had acquired a reasonable understanding

GarageBand allowed me to layer and mix tracks, create custom fades at any point in the track, and the adjust tempo, tone, and duration of each clip. Once completed I exported the soundtrack for future import into Adobe Premier Rush, to add it to a still image that I captured whilst visiting the beach earlier that day to record the waves.

Adobe Premier Rush Screen

I exported the final piece to YouTube, which I used as a repository, to where I could provide links from other applications. I feel that the result met my expectations for my first attempt at creating a soundtrack. The complexity of mixed music, voice, and soundtrack is pleasing and an improvement upon what is achievable with the tools offered by social media app providers.

The final piece

BURTON, M., M. NITTA, n.d. Projects by Michael Burton & Michiko Nitta [Viewed 15/10/2024]. Available from: https://www.burtonnitta.co.uk/index.html

HOFFMAN, R., 2021. What is the Function of Film Music [viewed 22/10/2024]. Available from: https://www.robin-hoffmann.com/tutorials/what-is-the-function-of-film-music/

TITARENKO, A., n.d. City of Shadows [viewed 22/10/2024]. Available from: https://www.alexeytitarenko.com/#/cityofshadows/