Brief Details: Task 3C Composing Using Music Technology (2013 – 2014)
Brief 3: Food
The composition must contain at least SIX separate vocal/instrumental/sample based parts.
You may use any combination of:
- MIDI-controlled timbres
- Samples
- Live recorded audio
- Atmospheric sounds and electro-acoustic effects.
You must:
- Use original sound design (synthesis/sample manipulation/creative effects)
- Produce a high-quality stereo recording of your composition that pays attention to all aspects of production – capture, balance, blend, EQ, dynamics, stereo field and effects.
Composition Brief 3: Food
In the UK it is possible to eat food from nearly every part of the world. Celebrity chefs fill the TV schedules, sell their books and pack their restaurants. People happily experiment with exotic and enticing recipes in their homes. At the same time a debate rages about unhealthy diets full of unwanted fats, sugars and artificial ingredients.
Create an original composition that makes use of a minimum of SIX samples of words, phrases or sounds derived from the process of preparing, cooking or eating food.
Your composition must be THREE MINUTES long.
You may use one or more of the following themes:
- a homage to a particular food, type of cookery or celebrity chef
- a commentary on the merits of a balanced diet, from vegetarian, vegan and other controlled diets to fast-food and junk food at the other end of the scale
- sounds from the kitchen – preparing, slicing and dicing, cooking food, exploring the sonic possibilities of cooking utensils, packets of dry food
- the sounds of the dinner table or restaurant – from a calm and polite Sunday Roast to an exuberant Mediterranean feast.
Task 3C Composition Brief: Sounds from the kitchen – preparing, slicing and dicing, cooking food, exploring the sonic possibilities of cooking utensils, packets of dry food (Bullet Point 3)
I really like the look of this brief as it gives the students a huge opportunity to experiment with sound capture. To do this task the students will need to do a lot of forward planning. Firstly look at the structure and plan the 3 minute layout in your sequencer, consider the following:
- The structure and length of each section
- Look at tempo shaping e.g. speeding up and slowing down the tempo
- Find space for pauses and silence
- Develop simple rhythmic phrases (choses about 6 to get started)
- Choose your instruments / kitchen utensils
The first time of recording this we are going to do it as a group with each member producing a structure in a sequencing package and getting their peers to record in their rhythms to a click track. The click track will help them stay in time and make it easier to overdub other parts, even over any tempo changes or silences.
More Composition ideas for this task:
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlE3ba-niNY
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmKusqRnHBY
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GqEkxEcL6s
Composition Ideas:
Creating complex rhythm structures – http://www.bandcoach.org/TSSSR/rhythm.html
