Weekly Post February 4, 2010

This week I worked on refining my sound piece (10 hours).  At this point I think I can fully recite the piece by heart. 

I met with Stephanie and Katherine Weider for about an hour on Tuesday; we listened to the piece a few times and discussed ways to improve the piece by including highway sounds and switching up some parts of the narrative.  I also wrote out a transcript of the piece so that I can get even more detailed feedback about exact phrases and words to edit. 

I recorded car sounds again yesterday, which much better success.  In order to block the sound of the wind, I stayed in the car and cracked the window open.  Stephanie mentioned trying “sonic punctuation”, in which I place sounds (of a car passing, for example) in between places where Jay pauses. 

Working with sound is really exciting—I initially thought that adding highway sounds to the background might lessen the value of his voice; however, I think it is starting to add more depth to the piece, and really places the listener at the scene.

I also had a meeting with a writer from AnnArbor.com about an opportunity to write a piece for the paper, which is extremely exciting.

I also met and interviewed Ted, the artist who burns images onto wood.  We had a nice 40 minute interview.  I haven’t listened back to the piece yet because I have been working closely on the “doorknobs” piece.  When I met with Ted, he happened to have with him some pieces he was currently working on.  I snapped these shots quick with my camera phone.  This first piece is a stick, about 3 feet long and one inch thick, but the detail on the stick is impeccable!

This is another piece he had with him- a portrait of a family who commissioned him to create this:

The highlight of my day today:  I rented high-quality headphones from the Duderstadt.  Seriously…………I have never heard sound in this way!  What a difference quality headphones make!!!  The guy at the Duderstadt recommended this one pair for $30 and I bought them online today because I was just very excited.  So excited that I spent an extra $10 for 3-day shipping.  Goodbye iPod headphones… 

Also want to say that today’s Penny Stamps lecture by the architectural designer was great.  I loved when he said that his architectural firm doesn’t throw out any work that gets turned down by clients, because even if a particular architecture plan isn’t fit for the current situation, it might be the answer for a project down the road.  I think that is true for all artists’ work.

The sound piece is due next Monday.  But I am flying home next weekend for my nephew's baptism because I have the honor of being the godmother!  So really, I need to finish this by Friday.

What is next? 

Making the sound piece concise!  Cut back Jay’s words.

Writing an intro for the sound piece

Recording an intro for the sound piece

Make sonic punctuation smoother

Test out different ways to begin the doorknobs piece

Just go go gooooooo