Author: Flora Braddell

The sonic dimensions and acoustics of a space play an incredibly important role in how the listener immerses themselves and perceives the work in which they’re listening to. Throughout the past 70 years, the design of spatial sound has evolved massively, from the development of early stereo systems to fully immersive audio formats like binaural recording and Dolby Atmos, the listening experience becomes not only heard, but felt throughout the body. Due to these technological progressions, artists are now able to use space as a creative element, allowing this sense of movement through sonic environments that feel like a living, physical space.

The acknowledgement of spatial sound’s significance has been a crucial understanding for centuries, long before the focus of surround sound systems. Ancient Greek amphitheaters were designed with specific acoustic needs. These huge, stone, open-air structures used for performances were built within the natural landscape, particularly built into a hillside or slope. The reasoning behind this was both, so the seating could naturally rise, but also because they understood that it created excellent acoustics, sound from the stage traveled upwards to reach the thousands of people in the arena. The semi-circular shape of the amphitheater was also purposely built to help amplify the sound from the stage, the curved positioning of the seats acted as a reflector for the sound, therefore directing it to every part of the audience area.

In religious structures worldwide, the acoustics of a space have played a crucial role for the music being sung in them. For example, many European cathedrals focused on the importance of the reverberations when it came to Gregorian chants. And in a non western approach, many indigenous cultures focus on the placement and arrangement of people in the space to carefully orchestrate the music. The use of space has long been curated to immerse the listener and heighten emotional, spiritual, and connective experiences.

In the 1930’s Alan Blumlein, a British engineer developed stereophonic sound, a method of using two audio channels (left and right) to create a more three-dimensional, directional sound experience. Recordings, that, prior to this discover only had a mono option, could now create a sense of space and movement. Many music artists, like The Velvet Underground for example, began to use stereo sound to create entirely new works of music that play with space in a way that hadn’t been done before. By the 70’s and 80’s early surround sound systems began to appear in cinemas mainly, but also in high end home set ups. Dolby stereo, a multi-channel sound format, usually four-channel, which encodes sound information onto the optical soundtrack of 35mm film, was first introduced in 1975. Developed by Dolby Laboratories, it was crucial into how film soundtracks were recorded, encoded, and played back in cinemas, and made for an incredibly engaging watching experience. The first film to use a Dolby-encoded stereo optical soundtrack was Lisztomania (1975).

Binaural recordings use two microphones (sometimes placed on a dummy head) to mimic the human ears, capturing sound as we naturally do. Binaural recordings create a very realistic sound scape, especially when listening back with headphones, this is its the closest you can get to recording exactly what you’re hearing. Binaural recording’s popularity increased significantly in the late 1970s and early 1980s, however the first known binaural recordings date back to the 1880s. Clément Ader, a French engineer, transmitted opera audio through telephone lines using two microphones- one for each ear. As of today, with the invention of virtual reality and the popularity of gaming, binaural audio has come back into focus as these games depend on their sonic environment and atmosphere to help completely immerse the player.

In today’s day and age the use of multi track channels is habitual, with the listening experience becoming a full 360 degree environment. While newer formats of surround sound like 7. 1 or Dolby Atmos are available and offer a more immersive sound, 5.1 surround sound remains the standard and most commonly used format since the 90’s.

As well as the technical aspect to it, spatial sound has been used for creative purposes throughout its existence. One modern artist who often plays with the use of space throughout her work is Janet Cardiff, a Canadian artist known for her work within sound installations. One piece of hers that massively involves space is ‘The Forty Part Motet’ (2001). A sound installation that consists of 40 speakers placed in a circular shape, with each speaker facing inwards towards the audience. Based on the choral work, “Spem in alium” (1570) by renaissance composer Thomas Tallis. The composition was written for 40 separate vocal parts, divided into 8 choirs of 5 voices each, and so Janet set up 40 speakers, separated into 8 sections of 5, each projecting a different singers part.

Visitors are free to walk among the ‘singers’ (speakers) and get as close and personal as they would like, which they of course could never do in a real performance. The emotion of the piece creates an intensely personal and spatialised experience for each listener, as each part of the choir, each singer is directed into its own distinguishable beauty. Depending on where you stand, your interpretation of the piece will differ entirely.

As a whole, the spatialisation of is used to create an environment in which an audience can completely submerge themself in, creating a kind of route into the sound’s surroundings. Whether used throughout cinema, or in music or in an installation, the manipulation of spatial sound generates an entirely unique experience that no other kind of media does.

Additionally, here is a short extract from a practice in Milo’s lecture where I was experimenting using space within binaural recording. Specifically using the plug in; dearVR MICRO to move around with elevation and direction. This is a plug in I haven’t used previously, and in fact, playing with elevation was an entirely new experience for me, and although subtle, made a big difference the way the sound is perceived.

In Milo’s lecture last week, he briefly mentioned and explained beat frequencies, using two tuning forks to demonstrate. Beat frequencies were something I had heard through music before but had never been aware of what was actually occurring and why. The fluctuation in sound that occurs is something I find intriguing and so wanted to learn more about it, hence this blog post.

A beat frequency is the result of two slightly different frequencies occurring at the same time. Whilst you hear each individual tone, you’re also able to detect an interaction between the waves, hearing a fluctuation in amplitude. This perceived fluctuation in volume is the beat, which oscillates at a rate equal to the difference between the two original frequencies. For example, if two notes with a frequency of 440 Hz and 445 Hz, the beat frequency will be 5 Hz, meaning you’d hear 5 beats per second. The interference between sound waves can be a constructive or destructive interference.

• Constructive Interference: When waves align, resulting in a larger amplitude. 
• Destructive Interference: When waves are out of phase, resulting in a smaller amplitude. 

The back and forth between constructive and destructive interference causing the modulation of amplitude.

Beat frequencies are used for a number of purposes including-

• Tuning Instruments- When 2 notes are played together, if in tune then no beat should be heard, however if out of tune the ‘beating’ sound will be heard.
• Binaural Beats- When each ear is hearing a different frequency, the brain essentially creates its own beat frequency which can be used for relaxation and focus.
• Radars- Some radar systems like speed sensors or military and aviation radars use the Doppler effect, which is a change in frequency due to movement, to determine the speed of an object, beat frequency helps in used for this process.
• Radio Broadcasting- Beat frequencies are used for multiple aspects of radio broadcasting, including signal processing and transmission. 

Beat frequencies can also be used not just in a technical way, but also a creative one. They can be used to shape textures, add emotion and immerse the listener. Synthesisers often use two oscillators tuned to slightly different frequencies, supplying a pulsing texture to the sound- particularly noticeable in drones, these textures can add depth to a sound that without would sound rather boring. When involving spatialisation, beat frequencies can create a sense of movement, panning across speakers, – this is a useful tool in ambient and experimental music especially. When it comes to acoustic instruments and spaces, beat frequencies emerge naturally when nearly identical pitches and played or sung. For example, the larger pipes of an organ create slow, deep beat frequencies when pipes are slightly out of tune, this creates a very rich underlying texture, that although may not be noticeable, can be incredibly useful for creating an atmosphere.

Many artists intentionally use beat frequencies within their work as part of the musical emotion. La Monte Young, an American composer, musician, and performance artist, was a central figure in the Fluxus movement and is best known for his exploration of sustained tones and drone music. Young often played with microtonal tunings throughout his work as he began to focus on the physical experience of sound. ‘The Well-Tuned Piano’ is perhaps Young’s most famous solo piece of work, involving a piano which is carefully tuned to emphasise specific harmonic relationships between notes, the tuning resulted in complex frequency beat patterns that slowly shrift throughout the piece. The pulsing that is created through the beats is used to draw the audience physically into the piece, creating a meditative, sonic environment in which the audience dive into.

Another example of an artist who has worked with beat frequencies is Alvin Lucier, specifically his work; “I Am Sitting in a Room”. The piece features Lucier recording himself narrating a text, and then playing the tape recording back into the room while re-recording it. The new recording is then played back and re-recorded, and this process becomes a cyclical loop. Due to the room’s shape and size, certain resonant frequencies become emphasised while others are reduced. After the cycle goes on for long enough, the words become indistinguishable and are replaced by the intensified feedback sounds of the room’s resonance. The reinforcement of the frequencies causes a distinct beating, phasing effect.

‘The Well-Tuned Piano’ ‘I Am Sitting in a Room’

These pieces explore psychoacoustics as a tool throughout composition, they’re able to shape the listener’s experience through the interference of patterns rather than traditional techniques of melody or rhythm. The pulsing that is created through beat frequencies often sounds similar to natural, rhythmic movements of the body- like the heartbeat, and so we are able to find an unconscious comfort in the sounds created. This is one reason as to why it is able to evoke an emotional, and sometimes spiritual presence that we can emerge ourselves in.

Maya Deren ( 1917–1961) was a Ukrainian born, American experimental filmmaker and artist, playing a crucial role in the American avant-garde period of the 40s and 50s. Known for her rather surreal work, she explored the subconscious and poetic potential of film, something few filmmakers were doing at the time, especially known women. Although her most recognised works lie in film, Maya was also a choreographer, dancer, film theorist, poet, writer, and photographer. 

I first came across Deren’s work through her film ‘Meshes of the Afternoon’ (1943), an experimental, non-narrative short film co directed by both Deren and her then-husband Alexander Hammid. It is an incredibly surreal piece in which the protagonist (played by Deren herself) enters into a dreamlike state, her unconscious mind drifts between reality and imaginary. Deren explained that she wanted “to put on film the feeling which a human being experiences about an incident, rather than to record the incident accurately.” This is conveyed through the camera capturing only her subjective focus.

Meshes of the Afternoon really established the independent avant-garde movement of film in the States, a movement now known as the New American Cinema. Through her extensive work, Deren became the voice of avant-garde cinema of that period.

‘Meshes of the Afternoon’

For the time, it was rare to find a lot of women creating such abstract work and getting the recognition they deserved for it, and so when I discovered Deren’s work I felt incredibly inspired and opened up to a world of cinema that not only was so different to previous work, but also influenced an entire life of film to follow.

Deren began her career with Katherine Dunham’s dance troupe, which was famous for exploring the mythological roots of Caribbean rituals, and by 1942 she began writing and publishing articles, specifically, about Haitian religion and dance. Focusing on Vodou, and its spiritual implications, she felt inspired to spend several years in Haiti, first to photograph Haitian dance and Vodou rituals. Deren spent eighteen months in Haiti between the years of 1947 and 1952, accumulating 18,000 feet of film taken with her hand-held Bolex camera.

Vodou, although thought to be a kind of black magic, is actually a kind of religion where Gods and spirits can be invoked directly to earth and join the festivities of rituals. The Gods aren’t worshipped as remote entities, but instead involved as one of the dancers, in which the individual that becomes possessed by the god disappears and transcends beyond their physical body. Reality becomes an expression of the spiritual world, while it also feeding the real world back into the spiritual realm.

Deren became engulfed by the Haitian ritual cultures and during her time their produced a significant collection of work including; a 52 minute documentary film- ‘Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti’, along with a book of her extensive fieldwork and personal experiences in Haiti- also called ‘Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti’, as well as, ‘Voices of Haiti’- an album of Haiti’s percussion and chant heavy ritual music, it is one of the earliest and best ethnographic documents of vodou culture in Haiti.

‘Voices of Haiti’- Ghede Nimbo.

She had an fixation throughout her life between the real and the imaginary, the rational and irrational, “I am concerned, with that point of contact between the real and the unreal, where the unreal manifests itself in reality.” Her work acted as a place in which this ‘point of contact’ could be made visible. And so it becomes completely transparent as to why she was so intrigued by Haitian Vodou culture. The overlap of a physical reality with a surreal, spiritual world in Haitian religious practices, encompasses her own fascinations. Deren’s deep involvement with Vodou, can be seen as her pursuit and interest to a living culture that gives credibility to the ‘unreal’, providing her with a presence she presented throughout her films.

I find Deren an incredibly inspiring artist, I am able to appreciate all her forms of work, however, especially her films. Experimental, surreal films have always intrigued me, the visual aesthetics and the narratives that come with the genre have influenced my style of work massively, both in my film making and sound work. I love the freedom that comes with it and I think Deren’s work is a perfect example of how to use that freedom.

Collision is one of Ableton’s synthesisers that uses physical modelling technology to simulate how objects (real or imagined) vibrate and resonate when struck. Collision uses mathematical simulations of real-world acoustic behaviour to replicates the characteristics of an instrument. Collision is primarily known for simulating mallet percussion instruments like a vibraphone or marimba, however it also allows for the creation of completely unique and custom percussive sounds and instruments that venture beyond traditional mallet instruments. Because Collision replicates real life resonant sounds, it creates this quite raw, organic sounding feel to compositions, more so than other synthesisers do, I think.

Collision’s sound consists of two oscillators called Mallet and Noise, these are fed into a pair of stereo resonators (individual or linked) – which have the most impact on the sounds characteristics.

• Mallet section- This tab simulates the impact of a mallet hitting a surface, the parameters below adjust the properties of the mallet. Stiffness adjusts the solidity of the mallet, at low levels the mallet is softer (resulting in fewer higher frequencies and longer impact time), at high levels the mallet the mallet is firmer (resulting in an increase in high frequencies and less impact time.) Noise controls the impact noise of each mallet strike. Colour controls the frequency of the noise component- this control has no effect if the noise bar is set to 0.
• Noise section- This section produces white noise which is fed into a multimode filter with a dedicated envelope generator. This section can be used alone or simultaneously with the mallet section. The LP tab next to the noise one is for filter types, you can choose between low pass, high pass, band pass, or low pass and band pass. The Env Amt knob controls the envelope generator with ADSR options. The Freq knob defines the cut off frequency of the filter.

The Collisions interface on Ableton is dived into different sections and tabs (as you can see below)-

The mallet and noise sections on the left contain controls for the corresponding Mallet and Noise oscillators. The resonators, 1 & 2 in the middle contain controls for both individual resonators. The LFO tab on the right contain 2 separate LFOs which can each modulate multiple parameters. The MIDI/MPE tab allows for MIDI pitch bend, modulation and aftertouch messages, and their MPE (MIDI Polyphonic Expression) equivalents o be routed to multiple destinations. On the far right are controls for parameters such as; voice polyphony note re-trigger, resonator structure and output volume.

The resonator tabs are the most important when it comes to defining the characteristics of the sound you’re producing. Collision features seven resonator types, in this case resonator refers to both the playing surface and the optional resonating body behind it.

• Beam simulates beams of different materials and sizes.
• Marimba is a specialised beam. It reproduces the characteristic tuning of marimba bar overtones that are produced as a result of the deep arch cut of the bars.
• String simulates strings of different materials and sizes as found in instruments such as pianos, guitars and dulcimers.
• Membrane is a rectangular drumhead, with options for adjusting material and size.
• Plate simulates a rectangular plate of different materials and sizes.
• Pipe simulates a cylinder with one end open and a variable opening at the other end (adjusted with the “Opening” parameter).
• Tube simulates a cylinder that is fully open at both ends.

Collision has two configuration modes; Serial and Parallel . These copy real-world construction of an instrument, for example a xylophone consists of a beater, a playing surface (a resonator) with a resonating tube underneath. Therefore a xylophone is a serial configuration. Parallel setup is not very common in the real world but is where physical modelling synthesis really gets put to use: it lets you create virtual instruments that go beyond what’s physically possible.