To hear one of the Movements for the upcoming Fotopoulos film, see his blog at:

Fantasma blog

Scroll down until you see the entry for "Alice" -- this is the final movement produced by ONO for this project (see my last post for more info on our process)...



All original images, text, soundtracks, etc. that constitute the blog, "bledwhite" by Shannon Rose Riley are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. For more information, contact the artist at misstranslation@gmail.com

Alice in Noiseland

I am currently working on a sound project with ONO based loosely on the theme of Alice in Wonderland. P.Michael, travis, Jesse and Rebecca have been doing some recording; this morning I received an email with instructions from P.Michael:

"Please download and cut the tracks up in segments and add some Shannon to them then send them back to us."

I listened to the track and copied it into Garageband. In the meantime, I used High-C to generate some loops that I might use in the piece. I started generating sounds in High-C by using "Alice" as a basic structure and point of departure. Working with the alphabet series in mind, I quickly wrote out the name and began to copy, paste, sequence, and invert the text to come up with the following spontaneous pattern. At this point I worked quickly, visually, and intuitively to generate material.
This is what it sounds like:
Alice 1 by bledwhite



From there, I cropped one section and copied it into another file in order to try to develop an interesting sounding pattern and/or discern certain parts that had an interesting sound quality:
This is what it sounds like:
Alice 2 by bledwhite



While listening to the above sequence I found one small part interesting and decided to replicate it into a sequence. I also added different colors for different pitches using the Show Pitch with Color option under the View tab:
This is what it sounds like:
Croak FFF by bledwhite



I liked both the look of the simple "F" pattern and the dirty rhythmic croaking sound that was developing. I removed the pitch colors and began working to further develop the pattern visually and to create a longer slightly more complex sequence:
Sounds like:
Croak FFF modulated sequence by bledwhite



At this point I was working both visually and in terms of sound. I decided I liked the kind of purring sound that was emerging in with the croaking locusts and worked to build that development. Visually I was interested in creating a more dense pattern with color.
Sounds like:
Croak FFF modulated sequence derivative by bledwhite



Once I finalized the above sequence I made it into a Pattern using the option under the Effects tab:

Sounds like:
Croak FFF modulated sequence derivative looptest by bledwhite



Finally, I made the above sequence into a Waveform using the option under the Effects tab. With this, I copied the wave and layered it in different keys on top of one another. The visual data is lost and I am left with three modulating bands of color. It's interesting because these most simple visual forms equate with the most complex of the entire soundscape development.
Sounds like:
Croak FFF modulated sequence derivative looptest waveform by bledwhite



I will use some combination of these sound files in the ONO collaboration and also in some other solo pieces. For example, I really look forward to using the basic Croak-FFF as the bottom to a _bledwhite_/Leatherettes song.



All original images, text, soundtracks, etc. that constitute the blog, "bledwhite" by Shannon Rose Riley are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. For more information, contact the artist at misstranslation@gmail.com

This is an experiment...

Lately I've begun to experiment with the program HighC -- a program that lets you approximate "drawing" as a means to produce sound. I've only just started to explore the possibilities -- and there are many limitations to be sure. For example, you can only draw from left to right... and so on. I also wish I could copy one drawn pattern or image from one wave type (color) to another, but if that's a possibility I haven't yet figured it out.

Currently, I am creating a font in HighC... I have completed letters A through P, above.

The alphabet is a series of sounds:

ALPHABET A-P by bledwhite
Press play on the widget here.
The file will begin to play within approx. 60 seconds.


I am interested in using this font for creating text-based sound-loops and soundscapes. For example I've used it to spell out the band name ONO:



I repeated "ONO" to get the sequence ONOONOONOONO.... I then replicated that sequence at a higher pitch and later in the loop to create this pattern:



The above pattern sounds like:

ONO bottom loop I by bledwhite
Press play on the widget here.
The file will begin to play within approx. 60 seconds.

In order to make a rhythm that resolves more conventionally, I removed one of the "O"s so that the pattern becomes ONONONON:


This revised pattern sounds like:
ONO bottom loop II by bledwhite
Press play on the widget here.
The file will begin to play within approx. 60 seconds.


If a file looks good, it might not sound good...
and vice versa...
I am trying to generate a series of sounds and loops that can be experienced as soundscapes on their own as well as used to create larger sound collages and structured songs... but I am also interested in how the sounds look... what kinds of images they produce. The font idea is nice conceptually and has promise... but there are other possibilities that explore shapes, patterns, colors, and drawing to generate sounds. For example:




This design sounds like:
A spectre is haunting me by bledwhite
Press play on the widget here.
The file will begin to play within approx. 60 seconds.




This pattern sounds like:
Spectral pattern Ib by bledwhite
Press play on the widget here.
The file will begin to play within approx. 60 seconds.


detail of Spectral Pattern Ib:




More coming in the next couple of weeks... In the meantime, to listen to the tracks, visit bledwhite on soundcloud

and also visit my other project: LEATHERETTES