link:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QWZ5eu5EW08NqoFPmyclA0bDsamRGtaO/view?usp=sharing
Concept
The sonic memory I want to present occurred during my trip back to Shanghai and the time of quarantine this spring. Living alone in a foreign country, It was extremely lucky for me to travel to Vancouver before the outbreak In New York during spring break. Then, I flew back to Shanghai reluctantly at first, not knowing the severity of covid 19. At the airport, I recalled the sound of chitchat and mockery to all the Chinese students wearing masks and goggles. I remembered that a couple mockingly taking photos of the young Asians wearing medical isolation gowns. On the plane, it was extremely quiet, all I could hear was the engine roaring.
During my fourteen days of quarantine, I was locked up in a room by myself. Woke up in the morning, I opened up the curtain and a shaft of sunlight falls on my face. The world outside was extraordinarily peaceful and quiet with not a bit of sound other than birds chirping. There was no more sound of traffic, car whirling, bicycle bells ringing, and kids fooling around, but absolute silence other than the sound of birds singing. It seems like the only one left laughing is Mother Nature. Although I felt uneasy deep inside, it was comfortable and relieving to see the blue sky.
In chronological order, I would like to use sound to present a sense of isolation and loneliness, together with sounds of gossips, the sound of the plane engine, and finally the sound of nature.
Process
The soundscape starts with the sounds of putting a mask on. The setting of the first part is at the airport, which begins with the sounds of luggage rolling. The background noise of the airport is a sound effect I got online. I added a convolution reverb effect with the preset “lecture hall” to create a spacious quality. Then I layered a track of a group of people laughing to represent the mockery to the Chinese students. The sounds become more and more distorted and eventually transitioning to scary whispers. These Voldemort-like whispers meant to represent hatred and scorn, and my own feeling of alienation and helplessness. In addition to the panning effect, the whispers become louder and louder, which stops abruptly at the end. In response to the critiques that the transition is not smooth enough, it was actually intentionally designed to be like a cut scene of a movie. After the end of the whispers, I left a moment of silence for the audience to contemplate. However, this attempt is unsuccessful since the context of the soundscape wasn’t elucidated beforehand.
The next part is set on the plane and at the time of my quarantine. It starts with the sound of the plane engine or what you hear in the plane cabin. I asked a friend who was traveling to Beijing to record a one-minute long background noise for me. I added another layer of human breathing sounds to emphasize the anxious and nervous feeling during the pandemic. The heavy breathing sounds continue to the next setting, which is the quiet hotel room during my quarantine. To present a sense of emptiness living alone in the room, I used the clock ticking sound on the left channel with a convolution reverb sound effect. As for the transition, the breathing becomes softer and softer. This is meant to show that even though I safely arrived home, passing the tests, I am still concerned and uptight about the virus. The breathing stops until you hear the sound of birds chirping outside. I added the “in the other room” convolution reverb effect to clarify that the sound is from a distance source outside the window.
The last part is basically me opening the window or door to be in nature. I woke up at 5 am to record the sounds of birds at the place of my quarantine, and I had several one-minute long recordings of different birds chirping. In order to give a spatial dimension to the sound of nature, I arranged each recording to one channel only, so both left and right channels have different sounds. I also added a subtle forest sound effect, as a foundation of the two tracks, a mixture of right and left channels. Layering the tracks this way can create more variations to the sounds of birds while providing a spatial effect of being outdoor, in the sunny field of nature.
Conclusion
Since a lot of soundtracks are acquired online, I would definitely record more by myself if I had more time. I would make more adjustments to the transitions, especially from the whispers to the second part on the plane. Just like what Marina said that the soundscape should represent your emotion of the memory, I would make the sounds more abstract to intensify the feelings audiences have when listening.
Image of Audition
