Final Project

https://soundcloud.com/elizabeth-white-11/a-tour-of-a-familiar-place

For my Final piece, I made an audio tour. My tour is a meditative piece, taking the listener through the imagination. The piece, "A Tour of a Familiar Place" starts with a solo voice reciting a few guidelines to follow during the tour. After that is finished, the listener is requested to close their eyes. Once that has been done, the voice begins to guide people by saying vague descriptions. The descriptions are suppose to help the listener to imagine some place they have been. While this is going on, music is playing to help enhance the performer. The music is set to pan in different directions to lead the listener to different places. The piece ends with the person taking time to appreciate their destination, and opening their eyes when they are ready. The tour was inspired by Alter Bahnhof Video Walk by Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller. After watching that video in class I had decided I wanted to make an audio tour that could be interpreted any way, but like in Cardiff and Miller's piece led you through a fantastic place. I enjoyed the visuals and music of their pieces. I also was inspired by the teachings of feldenkrais. Feldenkrais is suppose to be a meditative teaching that helps one learn about how their body should move. I took the mood of Feldenkrais and mixed it with the tour aspect of Alter Bahnhof Video Walk.

Tim Chatwood Graduate Recital

For my gallery viewing I went to a graduate student in composition, Tim Chatwood,'s graduate recital. He had a few pieces that were just instrumental, but for the most part he had video to accompany his work. For his first piece, Blurred Lines on McCarran, the video was of different streets along the border between Reno and Sparks. Each part of the video accompanied the piece of music very well. For his piece 21 Hit of Improvised Ensemble, he had a folder of 21 pictures and used chance to randomly pick two pictures, then the ensemble below played an improvised piece based around the pictures they were looking at. This was very similar to our visual scores, but it also used the chance aspect. This was not the only instance of improvisation in Tim's recital. Later, his piece An Improvised Outcome, he has a video set up of someone painting and the painter has to make marks depicting the music that was being played. Overall Tim's recital had a mix of music and video that blended well together. His pieces showed influence of John Cage with his use of chance and minimalism. The musicians all performed well and some of Tim Chatwood's pieces from the evening are being showcased at a few composers festivals around the US.

Triptych

My video tryptic is of a metronome. Each metronome is set to a different time, and they were all set off at once. Through out the videos they sync up, and then go out of sync. There was some video editing done to each one, so that the images don't line up all the time. The audio remained the same; however, it was spit between the speakers according to each metronomes left and right action. The piece was meant to be engaging yet overwhelming at the same time. I decided to leave the background plain so that it does not distract from the piece. This metronome was chosen over an older model because it was easier to find, and because this particular one wasn't as reliable as others. In a gallery this tryptic should be placed with one video on the left wall, one on the middle, and one on the right. Each speaker should line up with its corresponding video. The videos should be lined up to where they can be looped once they have finished their first showing.
Here is my Triptych of all three videos together:

Here is the Left side of the video:

Here is the Middle:

Here is the Left:

Artist Instrument and Score

Here is my artist instrument for Sound and Image:

This instrument is comprised of the keys from a glockenspiel and a bucket with water. When the keys are dipped in the water their pitch bends down. The frame is made of PVC pipe. Unique mallets can be used to bring out different colors of sound from the suspended keys. I chose the glockenspiel because I knew that it would produce a clear tone, while still having a unique effect with the water. The frame was made for an easier use of the entire system. Overall the instrument produces a pure tone that can be distorted to the performers will.




Here is my artist score for the hinges on wood instrument:
 I intended my score to be read left to right, top to bottom. I wanted the upside down treble clef to signify the beginning while the bass clef to be the end. The first few scatter of black dots is suppose to represent a quiet tapping sound, the big black line is to indicate a repeat of that section as much as the performer wants. Next is where hinges squeak. The middle section is rhythmic and loud to start, but then gets more chaotic. Finally, the performer has one last quiet section to play the thin strand to the end. 










Here is my partners score for me:

I read my partners score in a spiral. I started on the right and wound my was down and eventually to the middle. The shapes represented different notes. The squiggly lines are when I am suppose to dip the keys down in the water. The grouping of shapes was the rhythm and speed that I should take the piece. I interpreted that as being very slow, and in a three feel. The written sections were to indicate what mood I should be portraying at the time. The size of the shapes also indicated how loud I should play each note.

Self Portriats

Here are my self portraits. It took me a while to figure out how to take the picture, but in the end it worked out I think. Either way the model of me is there and that's what's important! I made it look like me, I thought that was the best representation. I am holding a pokeball because it really symbolizes how I grew up. Pokemon was my first game and I still play it. On my back I have a Mr.Saturn backpack. I put that there because the Mother series is my favorite video games and I feel that is a great way to describe myself. I also have headphones on  because of my love for music. I am a music major so I felt something needed to be there to represent that part of me. Blue is my favorite color and purple is a close second, which is why I chose those colors. I also got the comment that I resemble an Animal Crossing character, which is also one of my favorite games. Blender was easier to figure out after a while, I had trouble at first figuring out how to get the color but it came together. In the end I felt it was very fun to work on all the little detail I put into myself.At first when I was trying to think of everything in lines like I do with drawing it wasn't coming out; however, when I thought of things in shapes it started making much more sense.

Video Project!

Here is my finished video project. It is based on the film "Music of Your Own" by People Like Us. This video was an interesting one to try and film. Our dog would not cooperate most of the time so we had to have someone off screen helping him. We also had to improvise a last minute siren. The film used a lot of forward and backward clips and so in mine I did the same. Most of the longer scenes are just one clip playing and then playing again in reverse. I used Adobe Premiere to edit the video which made the fading in and out effects really easy to add. I also had to add out a few small parts where the child in the original throws the bread. There's one scene that shows him tearing off a piece up close and we couldn't think of a way to make our dog do that. It seemed really pieced together when I was starting, but when the clips came together I feel it made a good project.

Video Project update

So far with my video project I have yet to start filming. I just got a new phone which has a better camera, so I was waiting for that before starting that process. I have planned out my video though. I have decided that I am going to take the video People Like Us made called "Music of Your Own" and film it scene by scene exactly how they did; however, I will be replacing all of the people with animals. The only scene I can see difficult is when the little boy feeds the ducks at the end. I don't think I cant get any animal to patiently sit there as geese walk up to it. (Or make geese walk up to it for that matter) So that scene may be slightly switched.