CC1 - Project - Musique Concréte

The CC project this semester is to compose a music based on the idea of musique concrete. I decided to compose a fairly simple piece. This piece is based on the French baroque overture form with slow-fast-slow (contrary to the Italian fast-slow-fast overture). But because of the length allowed, I only did the condensed overture, with slow and fast (although the end is slightly slow because of the nature of the music).

The first section utilises drones (produced by a washing machine) and short and snappy sounds. It is in itself binary in the forum (A-BA'). The fugal section of the overture (the fast section) is actually canonic. Using a stereo recorded foosball match, the stereo left and right are separated into two files and their entries are canonic.

The B section builds up as there are more and more sound and it also calms down as less and less sound are heard (as they have already completed their cycle as some hasn't).

I did not do much sound editing because I wanted it to sound more natural. A section is edited more with delays and time stretch and EQ-ing. But B section is almost not edited at all to give the natural foosball sound.

Documentations. French Overture - Sound file. Score.

AA Project - Recording

The final project for this semester is to record a band. I recorded the band that plays in my church and a song that a friend of mine wrote/arranged for this band. We were originally recording another song by another person, but she was too busy to finish the song.

The recording session was on 16th June and all went well in the set up until I tried to connect the input through the wallbay. After 3 hours of setting up and trying to find out how it should be done properly, we started recording.

There weren't much problem after the gains were set (although the gains had to be set really low because of clipping). Mic placements were not so good because I could hear so much spills from the other parts of the drums.

Mixing it and producing it is even harder, only then I realised that I should have made sure that everything was recorded right before I left, since none of them can re-record again (too busy with work).

Overall, this gave me a really great experience albeit all the mess involved. I am interested in recording a better and more organised project in the future.

Documentations. The Power is Broken - Song.