06/05/2022 For this composition, I built upon the Max tutorials by using 8 inputs for frequencies and amplitudes, and experimenting with low and high ranges. My approach to this work was to try to generate many unique sounds while playing with the patch. Then, I would record the most interesting sounding combinations. When assembling the pieces in Audition, I learned that adjusting volume and panning made a significant difference in the experience of the audio. When I close my eyes and listen to the composition, I think about walking outside on a cold and windy day. There is a swarm of bees above me and many icicles hanging from tree branches. The icicles make noises as they fall on the ground.

​ 06/13/2022 When I listened to Chroniques de la lumière (1989) by Dhomont at the CEC Sonus site, I felt like the piece had many layered sound elements in it. This is not really something I did with the first assignment, so I attempted to add more layering of audio with my composition this time. For my assignment, the beginning reminds me of when someone wakes up in the morning and their alarm clock starts sounding, but they are half awake and keep snoozing the alarm, so it keeps playing. I found the decay techniques taught in the tutorial particularly interesting, so that is used heavily in one section of the composition. Finally the ending of my piece reminds me of what a printer sounds like if it is malfunctioning.

​ 06/21/2022 My third composition is using a 14 second clip of birds chirping. I found this clip when I was looking through old voice memos. It was recorded back in 2016, I believe I was visiting a family friend’s house who had two pet parrots. So the chirping is the main noise, but you can also hear some sounds of people inside, like a chair moving, faint conversation, coughing.

My process of building the patch was largely following the tutorials from classes 8-9, experimenting with speed, delay, and pitch, while swapping out different oscillators and scale numbers such as tri~, rect~, cycle~, and saw~.

This time, I was inspired by Pierre Schaeffer’s Etude aux chemins de fer which utilized a train sound modified in many ways. Train sounds feel ordinary and everyday but Schaeffer creates something unique using different speeds and techniques. Thus I thought the natural sound of birds combined with electronic distortion might achieve a similar effect. About 27 seconds into my composition, I use the unmodified original audio clip, and then start incorporating more heavy editing as well as repetition with cut up parts of the clip. While listening I also felt that at sometimes the train was close and sometimes it was far away. I tried to emulate this in my piece by playing with varying levels of volume and panning.

​ 07/02/2022 For the fourth assignment which focused on algorithmic composition, I was initially drawn to the random techniques described as “stochastic” approaches. I was surprised to come across this term in the readings, because previously I had only encountered this concept in finance, where stochastic modelling estimates investment outcomes under different conditions using random variables. This made me realize that randomness is really important in many settings. In the past assignments, I used little to no randomness because I wanted more control over the sounds. However, after listening to works from Xenakis and Truax, I became more interested in hearing what the computer would come up with.

Thus, in the patch, I tried different numerical arguments in the random function, scale, and experimented with methods of changing the time interval using a sequencer. I also wanted to change my approach to composing by limiting the amount of manual edits and focusing on highlighting what randomness could produce. So, instead of recording many different sounds and stitching them together like I had done with previous assignments, my entire composition comes from two recordings only. Rather than arranging tracks inside of Audition to make the piece exciting, I relied more on the different sounds generated while recording in Max. The piece itself is in part inspired by Truax’s Riverrun. I particularly enjoyed how it started off like quiet trickles and gradually ascended into fast moving electronic steps. This was something I tried to embody in my piece as well.

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