For this module I was tasked to make a soundscape within a group of 3-4. I ended up working with Luke Scott and Charlie Thorne and we decided to make a Musical Concrète soundscape called Tranquil to Turmoil which focused on the contrast between tranquil sounds and turmoil; calm and chaotic. The first assignment for this task was to make a powerpoint presentation to pitch our initial idea for our soundscape, Tranquil to Turmoil. This gave me an insight into what it was going to be like to work as a group, organising group meetings to work on the work, preparation, research etc.
Once we had completed assignment one we then had to actually go about and create the soundscape. This meant more organising time together as a group to discuss the sounds we wanted to capture, where we were going to record and when we were to record. Once this was all done, again, it was all about finding a time to meet to work on our soundscape together. The majority of the time we worked individually and then met to show each what we had which actually worked incredibly well.
Over the course of this module we were taught how to use Pro-Tools which was great because at the beginning I knew nothing about Pro-Tools and now I can safely safe that I would be more than comfortable working within Pro-Tools. Another great thing about being Pro-Tools is that it meant everyone in our group could use Pro-Tools so that meant integrating individual different sections of the soundscape could be done much easier.
As well as making the actual soundscape we also had to manage a blog and post to it every time we worked on something for the final piece. I did the majority of the posting to the blog, however I never posted on the same day in which I worked on something. I would rather begin the post with the actual date I did work on something, this was easier for me as it meant I could spend a few days reflecting on what I had done and I could form it into words focusing on mentioning the more important aspects and ignoring the irrelevant. Looking back at the blog I wish I posted every time I learnt something knew in a workshop when working with Pro-Tools as this would have been a great indication for my learning over the course of the past few weeks.
I feel like my weakness in this project was not knowing Pro-Tools which was very quickly solved with the workshops. Another weakness is the fact that I am not the biggest of fans when it comes to working in a group and would much prefer to work as an individual. However I feel like I overcame this struggle and managed to come together with my group, taking in ideas and giving feedback to them to produce a piece at the very end that we were all happy with.
-Joseph Cooper