So far I have been recording noises in Champaign for a couple of days now and so far there have been many positive and negative things about it. I guess my recording journey began the night before the assignment was assigned in class because while I was on my way back to my dorm last night, I heard several girls chanting and was very curious about where the sound was coming from and I realized there was a sorority that was practicing for rush this weekend. There were about thirty or so girls chanting and clapping around a the front door of their sorority house and I sound recorded it having this project in mind. When I finally reached the bus stop, there was a portion of the school's marching band outside another sorority house playing and dancing and shouting. I'm not sure what the occasion was, but I also recorded that having this project in mind because I wanted to have unique sound that didn't happen everyday in the project. Another instance when this occurred was Thursday afternoon. There was some sort of gathering or party happening in the center of all the ikenberry residence halls with tents and booths set up and the music playing through the speakers outside was so loud, it sounded like it was coming from inside of my dorm so I grabbed a recording of the music playing outside as well. I haven't really recorded many commonplace sound yet except for some traffic in the street outside my dorm and the unbelievably loud cicadas from the lobby of my dorm at night because all of the windows with screens are kept open because there is no AC in the lobby. Westerkamp's article states "Interestingly enough, aside from heightening aural perception, a soundwalk also alerts all other senses." What is interesting about this project is that the increase in my attention to my surroundings for this project has really been eye opening to what I would miss or ignore automatically on a daily basis just because I'm constantly worried about what I'm doing and everything only in my immediate surroundings. One really frustrating thing is when a noise occurs that I really want to include in my project, but it happens so quickly that it is impossible to get out my phone and catch it in time. The quiet American article states that "Many of my best recordings are good because of unexpected or serendipitous events." I'm not interested in recreating things that I have heard because I really care about how genuine my sounds are. Another thing that factors in is how long to record something in order to get the best part of the sound that is happening and timing things out to create the best product and organically I think is really hard to achieve both at the same time without compromising one or the other. But maybe I will find a happy medium because the few times I achieve a really interesting sound without it being planned is worth the dozens of recordings that aren't that great, but lead up to a successful sound walk in the end.
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November 2016
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