RESEARCH SOUND PROJECT

Goals
Make a sound piece about your research topic/theme.
Make it matter. Invest yourself. Take risks. Experiment.
Define and lead your own creative practice from brainstorming to evaluation.

Rationale
One of the big questions driving this course is “How do you make work that matters to you using digital media?” As you develop as an artist/designer, you become increasingly free to, and responsible for, forming your work. This assignment throws the ball back into your court and challenges you to lead your own creative practice within the supportive environment of our class. You are invited to take recording equipment out into the world, and to return to the studio to edit what you have gathered as you see fit, in accordance with your self defined goals and objectives. This is your opportunity to apply the realizations and information you have gathered up to this point. Integrate them into a work that realizes your vision of your listeners’ experiences, whomever they might be.

Objectives
1. Consider what you hope the audience will gain from your work and develop the most appropriate genre for your work (or vice versa). This includes achievement of an appropriate level of craft.
2. Formulate questions that will help you develop your work through stages of brainstorming, conceptualization, experimentation, refinement and evaluation.
3. Take risks with lots of different kinds, and degrees, of contrasts.

Vocabulary
Intentions
Genres
Formulating questions

Obstructions
Do not use or make music. Music is defined as the presence of all three: beat, harmony and melody.

Part 1: Clips Due: ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬_________________
A CD containing the number of individual sound clips you find necessary
Part 2: Research Sound Work Due: _________________
A single, layered sound work

Procedures & Helpful Advice
One of the most common errors with this assignment is that students make assumptions about what their project should sound like (i.e. you assume it should be documentary interviews, representational sound, abstract sound, image associative, or of a certain length or mood). This assignment has very few parameters. It challenges you to determine the appropriate structure for your sound and the best length. Don’t put boundaries around yourself that aren’t really there.

• This work should be carefully crafted but it doesn’t have to be polished. This means that if distortion makes sense in your project and you use it intentionally then it is not a problem.

• Break your work into two parts over two weeks: 1) recording sounds & 2) editing

Part 1: Clips
Procedures
• Due in one week at the beginning of class. Burn your disc before the day of class.

• When creating your sound pieces, use the Sound Studio program unless we discuss other options first, and work in the lab as is expected with all assignments.

• Test your sound on the sound system we will use for critique.

Part 2: Final Research Sound
Procedures
• Due in two weeks at the beginning of class. Burn your disc before the day of class.

• When creating your sound pieces, use the Sound Studio program unless we discuss other options first, and work in the lab as is expected with all assignments.

• Test your sound on the sound system we will use for critique.

Labeling Your Work
Please see the file labeling sheet for directions on how to label your disk, disk icon, files.

Evaluation
Evidence of in depth research, exploration, risk taking, and experimentation as presented in blog and sound clips
Appropriate level of craft
Links between your intentions and form/genre
Timely completion of both parts of this assignment