Sound Visualization
Day 1: Exploring Sound
Day 2: Visualizing Percussion Piece
In the middle of the piece, there are sharp and distinct percussion beats. Further research seems to point to it being claves. So I researched claves and attempted to create a visual that reflects both the properties and qualities of claves within the piece. To produce the circular marks, I used a bottle cap dipped in ink and pressed it on newsprint. This mimics the striking action one does to produce percussion sounds.
At the beginning of the piece, there is also a series of deep fast-paced beats most likely made from a wooden drum. Although I could not identify the specific drum, I attempted to visualize the sound itself, which was very similar to claves. As such, I used the same method with the bottle cap to produce a radial pattern of close beats.
Day 3: Reconsidering visualizing sound
The goal for my experiments was to avoid making linear patterns when visualizing my group’s sound. In class, we discussed how we could capture the general feeling of the sound rather than focusing on clearly expressing every single note. With that in mind, I listened to the recording again, paying attention to what sounds stand out the most and contribute to the overall ominous and suspenseful feeling of the piece.
I decided to focus on expressing the loud drums at the beginning, rhythmic wooden beats, and cymbals. Mimicking the visualizations of those instruments my group members made, I played around with different variations.
While these 2 variations captured the main characteristics, and the messiness reflected moments of fear and anxiety, it lacked the heaviness associated with deep percussion sounds that were regularly used in the piece.
Keeping most of the elements, I experimented with using darker ink and having thicker brush strokes to reflect the heavy feeling of percussion. I also explored using Conte crayons to represent the echoes of cymbals and triangles.
In class, my group had a lengthy discussion about each of our interpretations and evaluated the different qualities and properties of each. We focused on 2 main differences between our pieces: whether they were spaced out or close together, and organized or chaotic. We also talked about how each semantic represented the main feelings of our sound, which were ominous and suspenseful. In the end, we decided that a mix of spaced-out and chaotic represented those feelings best.
Day 4: Physically working together to create a
Based on our previous discussions, my group began working on a collaborative piece. Taking turns with our own instruments, we drew together, adding marks one onto the other. As we worked, we focused on making 3 sounds the most distinct: the beginning gong sound, triangle, and cymbals.
We felt that our first attempt lacked the hierarchy we were looking for, where each sound was the same size and the main 3 sounds lacked emphasis.
Our second attempt was definitely an improvement from the first, where there is a clearer hierarchy, and each mark leads smoothly into the other. However, it had a lot of white space and lacked the strong feel of percussion instruments.
For our last attempt, by using more wet ink and also Conte crayon smudges, we were able to create more solid forms and background texture, adding a greater feeling of suspense to the piece. While we were satisfied with how this felt, we also agreed that it slightly lacked contrast and are hoping to experiment with more 3D forms like other groups.
Day 5: Final visualization
Learning from what we heard in class and discussions with Matt, each member of the group experimented with creating new and more intentional marks for each of our instruments.
With my wooden drums and claves, I wanted to create more distinction between the two sounds. Before, I had used the same method to create each’s visualization, but this time, I created hollow circles so that it would not compete with the gong sound (since the gong sound is most important and drums are played softly in the background). For the claves, I used charcoal to create circles that got lighter gradually, as the sounds also faded out slowly.
While making these marks before, my main focus had been to accurately represent them, this time I also had to think about how they’d work with my teammates’ drawings in a cohesive piece.
We also worked in photoshop to piece everyone’s work together, deciding on these final iterations. With the gong being the loudest and most distinct sound and light wooden drum beats in the back that lead into the long triangle sound. This then becomes the ringing cymbals and then regular claves that get clustered at the end.
Reflection
After this project, I’ve realized the difficulty and complexities that come with translating an audio sound to a visual format. Similar to the stick, stone, and leaf project from last semester, there were various qualities and properties that had to be captured through detailed and deliberate mark-making.
Additionally, working in a group was also a very different yet fun experience compared to working alone. Each member of our group had different visualizations of the music which we had to account for. However, hearing my groupmates’ opinions also helped me be more confident in the marks I was making.
Sketchbook flipthrough of personal drawings
