I really enjoyed this week’s assignment, though I encountered a lot of difficulties along the way. After meeting with my Professor, I was able to solve a lot of these problems and get through the assignment.
This week, I was a lot more intentional when creating music using TidalCycles. In contrast to how I have approached using TidalCycles previously, this week, I had an idea of what kind of music I wanted to create, and experimented with a lot of sounds in the library until I found sounds that were close to what I wanted. My aim was to create music that you would hear once you enter a mythical but frightening forest. I used three sounds: kalimba, koy and tink. I tried to use what I have seen in movies as well as my own imagination to guide me when creating the sounds. I really enjoyed using the orientation of the prop shield to control the speed and volume of the sounds.
I attached the prop shield to my arm and tried my best to dance with the music. Since my vision was a scary, mythical forest, I tried to imagine being a mythical creature in the forest dancing majestically, though that is not what it looks like (I’m sorry). I find it really interesting how the sounds we hear influence our moving-thinking-feeling. My movements were definitely affected by the sounds I was hearing, which ultimately affected what I was thinking and feeling in that moment.
While dancing, I found it difficult to rotate my arm in a way that would make the ‘koy’ sound more audible. This gave me an idea of a possible interactive installation piece, where hidden messages could only be heard by those capable of moving their bodies in a very specific (and difficult) way. I’m sure if my arm was more flexible, I would have been able to hear the ‘koy’ sound better. I’m not sure if there is an installation piece like this that already exists, but I’m definitely interested in finding out!
NOTE: I was unable to record both the localhost:8000 window and myself dancing, so I have attached both below.
hi deborah! i really like the sounds you created here with Tidal, i get the scary forest vibe you talk about! and i think it’s interesting how you want to change the music with your movement but how the music probably also influences your movement in return.
The inner mythic creature! I think you sort of have a style developing with your sound, sort of natural sounding but spooky?