A. Concept
Work Title: Mom’s Cooking
I chose the first memory that occupies my mind when it comes to the word “sonic memory”, which I think is the deepest impression of sound in my memory. It is the sounds I heard when my mom cooked in the kitchen when I was a kid. It includes the sound of gas, oil boiling, ingredients entering the pot and food getting stirred in the pot, etc. It’s a noisy mix of sounds, but it’s about life, and my expectation for lunch as a kid, so it is a kind of warm and pleasant sounds.
In the beginning, I just planned to remake the actual sounds of my memory but later I realized, another important aspect of the memory might not stand out to the audience in this way, which is the feeling when I listened to the sounds in my childhood. I remembered the way I felt the sounds. I often imagined them to be a song when all the different sounds during cooking came together, but somehow it was harmonious and pleasant. Therefore, I decided to make this memory soundscape combine the actual sounds of cooking and the pleasant feeling when I listened to them by editing them to be a piece of music related to my memory.
B. Process
I have recorded almost every sound during cooking lunch, but I didn’t use all of them because the length of this soundscape is only one minute, and including all the details of the actual sounds wouldn’t help the audience catch the feeling of my memory. In the end, I chose the sound of the gas stove, the sound of the kitchen ventilator, the sound of oil boiling, the sound of ingredients entering the pot, and the sound of food getting stirred in the pot, as I think they are the most impressive sounds that stand out in my memory during my mother’s cooking.
While recording, I held the TASCAM to be as close as possible to the stove (but definitely from a safe distance) because I wanted my audience to feel that the sounds are close, as you are hearing them right in front of you, and they are so close to your life as well. I encountered the problem of having too much noise like wind sound in my recording. The solution was just paying more awareness of things in the environment that might make noise then recording several times to have the best quality of needed sounds as I could.
The beginning section of my project is imitating the actual sounds of cooking. After selecting specific recordings that are mentioned above, I combined them together to make them sound like the real cooking process even though the length was reduced a lot compared to reality. The main method was emphasizing the “key sound” – the sound of ingredients entering the pot, by repeating and manipulating this part. Because the sound is the most vivid and impressive part of my memory.
The other section of my project is creating music from the actual cooking sounds. During editing, the most challenging part was selecting the proper effects for making the piece of music. I tried plenty of different effects and finally decided on the notch filter. It has multiple pre-settings including “A and E minor”, “C major”, and so on, which can transform the corresponding pitch in your recording to the exact note-like sound in music. To make the “music” sounds more pleasant and less monotonous, I created multiple tracks in Audition and set each of them in different minor or major – because the average pitch of the cooking sounds was kind of high, I mainly chose A and E minor and E minor chords work together to make the music sounds harmonious, fitting the music I felt in my memory. Also, there were reversing effects and pans shifting in the middle section of the music to create a more abundant auditory experience.
I also learned a lot of other techniques while doing the editing, such as how to make noise reduction and the transition of audios. Besides the techniques, I think the most important thing is how to consider my work from the audience’s perspectives and make all the complex audios sound harmonious together as a whole soundscape work in the end.
C. Conclusion
As mentioned by Jingtian, if I had more time, I would record more cooking sounds that including thin rubbing sounds, for making a string type of melody in the music section. Because now my project mainly has the percussion type of melody, which might sound a little monotonous.
D. Image of Audition
Here‘s the link for this memory soundscape.