Obsessed with Sound
Yeah I know I use the word obsess quite a bit. It’s in my nature I suppose. When it comes to sound though, I think I have something wrong with me. It’s a good wrong though. I mean it allows me to be thinking about structure and time without looking at watch. I don’t like watches, by the way. Time is evil. Time is not our friend. But it is always there, just spinning around and around. My brain likes to pick up little noises and turn them into loops. This becomes my inner clock. I’m always thinking of loops. Loops are everywhere.
I’m also fond of white noise. Fans, air conditioners, buzzing refrigerators—the gamut. After a while I don’t hear white noise anymore, I can start to hear choirs and chants. Hymns and Cellos. It’s all there sitting in the fan. Not sure why that is. But I hear it.
Mix this with a good loop of the drippy drop drip of the kitchen sink and I have myself a symphony in my head.
I read somewhere (I think it was in Saucerful of Secrets) about how after they had completed Atom Heart Mother Pink Floyd was going to make an album consisting of only kitchen appliances and utensils. I think they even made as far as recording some of it. But they scrapped the idea and decided to make Dark Side. Maybe I’m getting the chronology wrong, but that doesn’t matter. What does matter is that there are sources for entertainment that extend way farther than guitars, pianos and synthesizers. Though I am obsessed with that stuff too. Our Earth produces so many wonderful and pleasing sounds. Crickets and June bugs. Leaves blowing in the wind. The ocean. Woodpeckers pecking on a tree. It’s all usable. All sound is usable. Let’s use it.
Sound is everywhere, it’s inevitable. I love it. I think an album could be made with non-instruments and still sound musical and melodious. I’d like to try it one day. In the meantime I will keep my head busy with loops and noises from near and afar.
Latronic,
Dee
I’m also fond of white noise. Fans, air conditioners, buzzing refrigerators—the gamut. After a while I don’t hear white noise anymore, I can start to hear choirs and chants. Hymns and Cellos. It’s all there sitting in the fan. Not sure why that is. But I hear it.
Mix this with a good loop of the drippy drop drip of the kitchen sink and I have myself a symphony in my head.
I read somewhere (I think it was in Saucerful of Secrets) about how after they had completed Atom Heart Mother Pink Floyd was going to make an album consisting of only kitchen appliances and utensils. I think they even made as far as recording some of it. But they scrapped the idea and decided to make Dark Side. Maybe I’m getting the chronology wrong, but that doesn’t matter. What does matter is that there are sources for entertainment that extend way farther than guitars, pianos and synthesizers. Though I am obsessed with that stuff too. Our Earth produces so many wonderful and pleasing sounds. Crickets and June bugs. Leaves blowing in the wind. The ocean. Woodpeckers pecking on a tree. It’s all usable. All sound is usable. Let’s use it.
Sound is everywhere, it’s inevitable. I love it. I think an album could be made with non-instruments and still sound musical and melodious. I’d like to try it one day. In the meantime I will keep my head busy with loops and noises from near and afar.
Latronic,
Dee
posted by DeesKnees at 1:52 PM
3 Comments:
I once heard this recording of a tree growing. the tree's cells absorb water until they burst and make this popping sound, or something like that, and when they sped the recording up it became this really cool angular beat, like a weird ride cymbal pattern.
Brad,
I'd like to respond to your lengthy response. But I'm not sure where to start. Our obessions with sound, I think, are completely different.
Where you are looking for perfection I'm looking for anything that produces a sound. I couldn't disagree with you more about "anybody makeing recordings and pawing them off" (not your words) Hey, look at myspace. Those sounds on there aren't neat and nicely recorded. But to me they are a production of something that wasn't there before. I embrace anybody who has the ablity to make sound and share it with people. We all might not like it, but some will.
I do have a problem with shoddy 70's recordings though, espeically drum sounds. Listen to any Eagles record and I cringe at those carboard boxes that Don Henley his hitting. The guy's a deuchebag anyway.
But, on a more personal level, take the album "And Then There Were Three" by Genesis. Now the content on this album is superb, but the production is a trainwreck. Everything is burried in hum and hiss. Vocals are mixed down too low,keyboards sound over the top. Etc. It's a shame.
I don't have anything else to say today.
Dee
Tone,
Can we do some field recordings with the minidisc and hten pump them through Protools?
That would be sweet.
Dee
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