Binaural Soundscape Compositions 2019: Queen's University

The life of a music student. A music student's home at Queen's University is Harrison-LeCaine Hall (HLH). A large portion of their time is spent in this building whether they are in class, practicing, talking to a professor, or sitting in the lobby. As you step into the shoes of a music student and take this journey through the basement of HLH, listen for the iconic sounds of the practice room hallway in the basement of HLH and experience the space as Queen’s music students would.

These piece is the soundscape of the hallway in the basement of HLH where a majority of the practice rooms are located. I decided to structure the piece as a sound-walk of sorts of a music student who is going to practice. It begins with the sound of opening one of the doors to the stairwell and footsteps walking downstairs. Then you hear the opening of a locker followed by many different snippets of people practicing. The movement of these sounds from right to left and front to back is representative of walking by an occupied practice room, with the sounds getting louder as you are closer to the room and quieter as you move away. As the piece progresses, you hear many unique sounds to this space. For example, you can hear lockers opening and closing, people walking by, the shuffling of jackets and backpacks, chatter amongst students, instruments and instrument cases, as well as the ‘hum’ of the building/heating system. The piece ends with the sounds of entering a practice room. The noise from the hallway and sounds of others practicing disappear as you enter the practice room and are prepared to focus on practicing your instrument and repertoire.

This composition is intended to highlight the athletics that happen on Nixon Field. It encompasses the triumphs and glory of the teams who have run the turf into their bruised knees. The field speaks to the hundreds of athletes who have stepped foot onto the field, and captures the essence of the athletic life. Alumni, current athletes, students, or spectators can hear this recording, but regardless of the audience, everyone can relate to it.

The purpose of this piece is to have the listener stand on Nixon field, and feel surrounded by the great sounds that we find associated with the location. As you walk around the field, and when you feel the sound moving around, try and move along with it. This, in my opinion, gives us a sense of an athlete moving around, as they run and twist and turn suddenly to keep up with the game. The composition also moves between the perspective of the spectator, as well as the athlete. The heartbeat in the middle of the composition gives us a sense of what the athletes are feeling when they are in the middle of the game. Overall, this piece is meant to bring back the life of the field, whether it’s a late summer evening, as you walk around campus after the field has emptied, or in the wintertime, when the spirit of Nixon Field is hibernating underneath the snow and ice.

The main motivation behind this composition is "movement vs. state”--how an inert, unchanging location facilitates movement and direction--and how an environment can feel at once familiar and yet take on surreal qualities in the right context.

The chosen location was the Union/University crossing. The crossing was immediately appealing due to its very memorable crossing indicator sound. To me, the sound of the crossing is so inseparable from its location that any transformations made to the sound itself become transformations made to the location itself, in a way. (This was probably a popular spot for compositions--I hope it wasn’t too cliche). Recordings were taken at day and at night in an attempt to better capture changes in state and mood. All sounds were recorded on-site. In the spirit of incorporating a representation of location in the composition, I have also tried to convey a sense of scale and differences in scale. Some elements intended to sound more distant and encompassing, while some elements are intended to sound intimately close and internalized. I made an attempt to utilize the 360-degree binaural effect in helping me space sounds.

When in Doubt, Go to the Library - J.K Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

“When in Doubt, Go to the Library,” is a soundscape composition created to represent the 7th floor reading room in Douglas library, more affectionately known as the “Harry Potter room”. The piece is not only a tribute to my favourite place on campus, but also to my favourite book series that is associated with it. The piece starts as if you were walking into the room for the first time, you hear the creak of the door and then the soft sounds of the library start to surround you as you find your seat. As you start to unpack your bag and settle into a rhythm, different sounds from around you catch your ear, a cough here, a ringtone there. You have some whispered conversations with your friend before focusing deeply on your homework. In your concentration, the sound of the room fades away and you are left with a barely conscious level of what is happening around you. At the sound of your phone vibrating, you are quite suddenly brought back to reality and realise that it’s time to leave. You quickly pack up your things and head to the door, eager to come back.

The composition is created with raw recordings I took on a zoom recorder when I was in the library. The background noise for the majority of the piece is a general recording I made to capture the essence of the room. I staged the more specific sounds such as whispering, writing and typing by holding the recorder close to me as I performed the sounds. There are also a few instances where I took recordings of clips from Harry Potter and incorporated them in my piece to act as people talking in the background (most of the clips were from scenes where the characters were in the library, so I thought it was fitting). The three main technical aspects I included were the Ambeo Orbit, ATK FocusPushPressZoom and NearFieldProximity plugins. I also used basic editing techniques such as altering pitch and speed, fading, reversals, splicing and a lot of automation. For the transition between the two states of mind, I generated a “whooshing” sound by using the Orbit plugin and automating it so it would spin around as quick as possible to create the illusion that your mind was tunnelling and focusing really hard.

The idea for this piece came from an early morning walk along William Street.

As I passed The Spire which sits on the corner of Sydenham & William (82 Sydenham St.) its history felt palpable. The church itself is over 160 years old, and a few other houses along William St. have timestamps from the late 1800s on display for passerby’s like myself. Simply put, the street oozes of the past. The old brick and stone houses have probably been restored since their initial construction, and I congratulate the owners for taking such good care of these present-day relics.

My goal with this piece was to create an auditory time-portal which would compliment the visuals of this street in Kingston.

The piece is meant to be one of contrasts. Present vs. past. Warm vs. cold. Within vs. without. Some of these juxtapositions are achieved literally, while others are more metaphorical (for example, the voices of the specters). The middle section, as the specters swirl about and envelope the listener, is the climax of the piece.

I recorded my soundscape at Common Ground Coffee House in the Queen’s ARC. Specifically, I sat at the table in front of the bagel station. The sounds in this location consisted of lots of people talking, background music, tables/chairs being pushed around, and any machinery sounds which came from behind the café’s counter.

When creating my piece, I wanted to take the listener through a few transformations, however, I started it with the real sounds in order to set the listener up to being in the space.

I wanted the first transformation to be introduced subtly. This way, the listener is gradually introduced into each sound transformation so that they seem more “real”. I decided to take specific sounds and have them “echo”, by placing them in different tracks which were panned to come from different places around the listener.

In my second transformation, I wanted to play with the location of the sounds, making them appear far away, in a larger or smaller space, and coming from different places around the user. To do this, I used ReaEQ and Ambeo Orbit plugins. I started with the sounds appearing far away, and gradually re-introduced the sound as being close to the listener.

Since the audio is generally pretty clear and distinguishable as fragments of conversation, my final transformation was to make these sounds seem distorted. I did this by simply reversing a few tracks, layering them, changing the pitch, and playing around with ReaEQ.

Finally, I ended the piece with the original audio to take the listener back to the real sounds of the place.

This piece not only embodies the Lazy Scholar, but the students who live on campus and above the very restaurant in question. It begins with the introduction to the location and the ordering of the food, which includes the sounds of a fountain drink being dispensed, ordering at the grill (chicken snacker wraps), and the organization of the disposable food containers, such as paper ketchup containers and biodegradable food containers.

The meal then commences, displayed by the chewing sounds, crunching of ice, slurping of the drink. Within that sequence is also the movement of the metal mesh curtains in the side lobbies of the restaurant, as I thought they would add an interesting sound. I also used the reverberation effect with this clip.

Next, after the meal is mostly done, the students head over to the games tables, starting with pool. The clashing of the different components involved within the game provided some very interesting noises, like rocks smashing against each other.

As one of the students becomes defeated, they suggest a new game with new sounds; foosball. The games end with a tie, and as the night grows longer, the students grow more tired and lethargic from eating so much. This is demonstrated by the slowing down of music and the stretching and lower pitched motives that gradually become lower and lower, until the night finishes with the tossing of the scrap meal containers.

I recorded my soundscape at Common Ground Coffee House in the Queen’s ARC. Specifically, I sat at the table in front of the bagel station. The sounds in this location consisted of lots of people talking, background music, tables/chairs being pushed around, and any machinery sounds which came from behind the café’s counter.

When creating my piece, I wanted to take the listener through a few transformations, however, I started it with the real sounds in order to set the listener up to being in the space.

I wanted the first transformation to be introduced subtly. This way, the listener is gradually introduced into each sound transformation so that they seem more “real”. I decided to take specific sounds and have them “echo”, by placing them in different tracks which were panned to come from different places around the listener.

In my second transformation, I wanted to play with the location of the sounds, making them appear far away, in a larger or smaller space, and coming from different places around the user. To do this, I used ReaEQ and Ambeo Orbit plugins. I started with the sounds appearing far away, and gradually re-introduced the sound as being close to the listener.

Since the audio is generally pretty clear and distinguishable as fragments of conversation, my final transformation was to make these sounds seem distorted. I did this by simply reversing a few tracks, layering them, changing the pitch, and playing around with ReaEQ.

Finally, I ended the piece with the original audio to take the listener back to the real sounds of the place.