So just how malleable is sound?

 

Studio Noise Manipulated (Death of a Soundcard)

This is an experiment in how malleable sound is today with the use of digital processing. You hear the source content briefly at the start, noise and hum coming from a dying soundcard. That sound is split into narrow bands using a filter bank and each band is then processed differently. As there was a hum element in the original sound it was easy to derive a pitched sound and then further pitch and frequency shift the results.

Spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/2FLG6BH3G5xEM6rEXVxNiY?si=KJG90zY-ToizLslTtEi2GA

Bandcamp Free download https://markdaltongriffiths.bandcamp.com/track/death-of-a-soundcard

 

Murmuration

 

 Now up on Bandcamp as a free download, "Murmuration". Link to Bandcamp

Murmuration is a term applied to flocks of European Starlings that swarm in the autumn/ winter in great swirling masses before rooting. This is often seen on marshland over reed beds and there can be 100,000 birds in the flock. After twisting to and fro the birds suddenly dip into the reeds and disappear for the night.

The piece tries to evoke the still isolation of the marshes with soft sine tones that build to complex tone clusters. The sound of the flock was created in two ways, very fast and dense undulating passages that actually contain tiny snippets of birdsong and a textural element built from many digital oscillators.

Although these flocks are huge, they are smaller than in the past. In the UK starling population has dropped by 80%.   

 

 

Head Noise

The basic material for “Head Noise” came from a set of “private utterances”. The sort of thing no one else hears, a sort of internal monologue of whistles, sighs and breath. The wet clicking and “Ss” are the audio left overs from “tidying up” a piece for spoken word. I used software to find sibilance and mouth pops, but instead of deleting them I kept them and discarded the actual spoken text.

Head Noise on Bandcamp (free download)

Head Noise on Spotify

 

Last of her kind & Modular Studies Volume One

 

I've been slightly remiss in not updating the blog. "Last of her kind" has been released as a free download on Bandcamp, streaming on Spotify, Amazon, Apple Music etc.

"Last of her kind" is based on a number of field recordings I made of working steam trains at an outdoor railway museum. I wanted to create the piece using the sorts of music concrete methods used during the heyday / end of the steam train era in the UK to anchor the work in the late 50s/60s technique wise. I used reverb, reversed sounds, filtered and slowed/ repitched the sounds. In the early 60s in the UK steam trains were being replaced and additionally there was a massive reduction in the rail network. So "Last of her Kind" ends mournfully as the steam engine seems to reflects on her soon to come demise.

Bandcamp

https://markdaltongriffiths.bandcamp.com/track/last-of-her-kind

Spotify

https://open.spotify.com/trac/22cR8pF1UkTSAFa9nqD45L?si=mWWUYykZSVSAH4A-uFAsfg

Additionally I made some changes to "Modular Studies Volume One" and re-issued it

Bandcamp

https://markdaltongriffiths.bandcamp.com/album/modular-studies-volume-one-2020-edition

Spotify

https://open.spotify.com/album/4QbGmTphnsbvtFC3ZkGJeC?si=hwWnjUuBSoa4eYIAIh87iA

Sonification: Catch frequency for five species of Nocta

This piece is based on sonification, turning data into sound. In the same way that people turn data into pictures (a simple example would be a graph) to better understand that data rather than staring at a table of numbers, data can also be turned into sound to gain insights. This particular piece was created by five species of Yellow Underwing moths (Nocta species). I run a catch and release moth programme at home, I took the 2019 data from the nightly catches and assigned the number of moths caught to the appropriate note in a scale (ie higher moths resulted in a higher pitch), while the timing relates to the date of the catch. It starts with a single species and then repeats as further species are added represented by a different instrument. There is a short section using the grandest instrumentation which represents the data for the Least Yellow Underwing which made the fewest visits. I made a very few “musical decisions” in removing a couple of days where I didn’t run the trapping programme. No moths were harmed in the production of this track.

The track is here: Bandcamp for Mark Dalton Griffiths

Now on Spotify

https://open.spotify.com/album/1kZWQSiksZrOqBGn7GYgld?si=4bbBJeCNS2GrMSCuhWkRRQ

Thanks to the Electronic Music Philosophy group and in particular “Skoddie Autumn Altair” for setting the challenge that led to the creation of this track (I had to look up Sonification). To hear some “proper” experimental music go here: https://electronicmusicphilosophy.bandcamp.com/

Inside / Outside in a time of affliction (Covid 19)

Another Covid 19 inspired track. Recorded in April 2020 during the UKs lockdown in response to the Covid 19 pandemic. Only 1.30mins long it contrasts the outpourings of the internet in terms of news broadcasts and the now largely human noise free outside. You literally hear the sound of the birds & the bees. Nature carries on regardless.

https://markdaltongriffiths.bandcamp.com/track/inside-outside-in-a-time-of-affliction-covid-19