Cora's blog

Class notes:

Idea developments:

Up to this point my research still going very complex is because traditionally dance will create for the music but the music doesn’t usually create for the dance, therefore while l was researching for the music l always ending up researching how the dance moves changes instead of the music, which l remember if l would want to research one dependent value you will need to have an independent value, whereas now we have music as our dependent value but the dance couldn’t be the independent value due to its fixed creating process. However, l figured out that I could research how the choreography changed and music changed for the signature choreography in various time periods.   

I have looked through much research and found that the father of hip hop is DJ Kool Herc, he is the lead of hip hop and he has made a big influence on the culture of hip hop including hip hop dance. Especially for hip hop dance, he has made specially dj versions of some hip hop songs, which includes more breakbeats and rhythm foundations, this allows the dancers to showcase their dance skills even more eye-catching, every break makes the movement stand out and allows a bigger impact to be created. Beyond that base, I explored that dance battle is a very good aspect to observe the collaboration between dance and the music. If the dancers are practiced very well, they can collaborate with the music even better as they perform in freestyle, which creates “musicality”. However, in 1970s, historical hip hop culture has just begin, where even the father of hip hop are still exploring, although there are corporations the big picture of hip hop dance dj techniques hasn’t matured.  

Therefore l firstly researched into old school and new school hip hop, l found out that the period develop from oldschool to newschool is a very short of time, around 1970s to 1980s, there was a rapid development in the hip hop culture, but the style and main concept for each dance genre still haven’t change much. But very quickly, they developed from b-boy to locking and to popping and to many new genres that are under hip hop. Thus, l remembered a dance show that l have watched, which is called “street dance of china”, they are a contemporary international dance show that allows many great dancers to compete together. Where in the show they have many dance battles, while l was watching them over again l discovered a creative development on the use of music and how the dancers would collaborate with the music. Instead of only extending the breakbeats, they have added many dj techniques that add in interesting twists and changes and mixings, where it gives many keypoint for the dancers to highlight their dance techniques, however, this also builds more difficulties to test dancer’s flexibility and comprehensiveness.   

In the period Milo shared with us the document of Low end theory, a draft of an audio paper script. In this document, it demonstrates what the script should look like. 

Testing recording:

• experiment how loud and how quiet can l go
• The best distance between the microphone and people
• If l ever fluff or stuttered, l just have to record the sentence again

Definitions:

define the subject specific vocabulary that based on the research 

Project developments:

By the end of the lesson, my project has developed Into specific sections, beginning with introduction and the development of hip hop dance music.  In terms to be clearly present in the audio paper, l have specified a timeline, where each length of the sections could be presented clearly.

Class notes:

Project developments:

This week l have decided my concept and started to finalize my research perspective, l was uncertain and confused on putting the focus on the dance choreography or the music, however there are questions towards both sides. If l’m working on dance choreography how would l present it in an audio paper? And if l’m working on the music, which perspective should l be working with? Should l research on the beat, melodies, rhyme or etc. 

So l began to collect some research and starting to develop my idea.  

• Tutor to provide DAW track-lay example, including voice tracks, ambiences, music, fx, group tracks, channel DSP, master bus processing and marker points. 

Immersive Audio, What, How and Why Now? 

This lesson has shown the meaning of immersive audio. Immersive audio is like a Spatial Audio that creates a realistic and enveloping sound experience for the listener. The goal of immersive audio is to reproduce sound in a way that accurately replicates the way humans perceive sound in the real world, such as a sense of depth, height and spatial positioning. 

It can be created with:

• multi-channel speaker setups
• object-based audio
• spatial audio techniques to position sound sources precisely

It is a 3D sound field, which explores the relationships between sound, space, and the listener’s perception.

For spatial reproduction accuracy: 

• ambisonic recordings (https://rode.com/en/about/news-info/the-beginners-guide-to-ambisonics) 
• playback

(where there can be also research into psychoacoustic manipulation of spatial cues and challenging auditory perception) – How people interact and perceive with the environments, various people might have different habits, but how sound affects them, what are their conditional reflexes?)

Idea developments: 

From this lesson l have understood the concept of immersive media, which is a very visual example of spatialisation in sound art. Where sound designing should be planned within a certain space, what kind of item in the space, and what position of speaker, all of those details will make a huge difference in a sound artwork. Especially for the audience, the location of the speakers of where the sound is transmitted to will make the audience feel a different emotion. Therefore, this problem could be another detail for me to pay attention to for my final sound work. 

Learnings in class: 

What is normative thinking?

Consensus – what many people consider

What do we understand in different years and how does it change, what color, maybe every 10 years a change happens. It could happen due to different regions, their culture, social and political build up.

Exploring ideas: (Possible ideas)

Part 1: reflection

A two mins audio clip: Milo speaking about what he wants to do for today’s class with background noise, but he records this while he takes transportations to go home, which is also before this lesson. 

Second clip is about public speaking: where the voices change from traditionally reading the poetry to electronic voices.   

What do l need is 1. Title 2. Concept 3. Production plan

Part 2: an audible history of sound art

collage and montage: the cut up and merging art)

Audio paper is like sampling and put necessary part together

Idea development: 

Many of my ideas have gained in this class and we have developed our knowledge further for the theories of sound art. 

There is a collaboration album that my friends ask me to join that inspired me with new ideas, their theme is abstract, where I wanted to research about how abstract ideas have developed from historical to contemporary. However, the abstract as a genre in music doesn’t have many research for me to dig into, in the modern days there is a huge twist towards the understanding on abstract, especially in china, people starting to use abstract as a meme, to sarcastically comment on the behaviors that is extremely out of norm, usually to describe crazy and negative items, but it can also be use for event that is funny and creatively out of mind. The main focus with the traditional abstract is the same, however the method of presentation has been totally different. Therefore, it might not be as suitable to be a research project for final presentation, however, if it doesn’t require comparison or evaluation for the historical works then it might be suitable.