IMD 4 Honours Project - a journey through sound
Welcome to my IMD 4th year Critical review site.
This site will chart the turbulant path, with its ups and downs, of my 4th year IMD Honours project.
On this initial page I shall outline what I have tried to achieve with this project, what the concept is and then in the following pages shall go through the processes and trials that have taken place since September 2007 to reach this point.
My project, a journey through sound, is looking at translating physical motion into sound. The sounds created are to be melodic and representative of the motion. The physical outcome of the project shall be a prototype of a bicycle which, when ridden, records information of the rear wheel speed, pressure on the front suspension and the turning of the handlebars. This information will then be tranlsated into digital sound via a synthesiser, creating music representative of the journey which has taken place on the bicycle. Though the bicycle created is a major part of the project, the focus shall be the music, or 'soundscape', which is created as an end piece.
The main aim, therefore, was creating representational sound. This is what led me to choose the three areas of the bicycle in which to record data from. The areas give a full picture of what is happening on the journey. For this, i looked at some of the major aspects of music that vary. The rear wheel gives information about the speed at which the bicycle is traveling, which translates well into music, as this can be used to control the tempo of the music created. The pressure on the front suspension is used to get information about the terrain the bicycle is covering, which is a major factor in the style and experience of the ride, whether the ground is smooth or bumpy or anywhere in between. The best way to convey this in music i found was in the pitch, if the bicycle is traveling smoothly (ie the suspension did not move alot), the music would stay at the same pitch, whereas the more the suspension moved up and down over bumpy ground, the pitch would reflect this by also moving up and down in pitch. The third aspect which i chose to look at was direction, controlled by the turning of the handlebars, this would simply pan the music to the left or right between speakers, in accordance with the turn of the bars.
Although there are many more areas of a bike which could eventually be incorporated, these were the ones that i found made the most impact in the experience of the bicycle user.