A found sound is a non-musical sound that is used for a creative purpose in a piece if music, this can range from sounds of closing cupboards to sound of microwaves. Found sounds are relevant to my project because they are used many times in the DOOM Soundtrack, especially in the Icon Of Sin theme. This theme has sounds of metal scraping and sirens.
Origin of found sounds
The first person to discover the musical element of found sounds in music was called Luigi Russo lo, he wanted to be able to make music out of sounds from the real worlds environment. To do this he built up his own orchestra called a noise orchestra, this was a group of musicians that created music out of non instrumental sounds. Russo believed the industrial revolution let people appreciate a larger range of sounds, that it why he believed noise music (found sounds) would be a successful element to music. These reinventions of sounds from the outside world inspired emotions such as anger in his audience, this anger sometimes lead to physical violence within the audience. Russo is what we today call a futurist, a futurist was an Italian art form around the 20th century industrial revolution. Futurists strive to incorporate the elements of the modern world in their art, that explains why Luigi was using found sounds in his music. The futurists movement was initially started by a poet called Filippo Tommaso Marinetti in the year of 1909.
Musique concrète
Musique concrète derived from the ‘Noise music’ of Luigi Russo, however the difference was that instead of recreating the sounds, the sounds would be captured. Pierre Schaeffer was a famous french composer and musicologist, his music began to develop in the early 1940’s. In the 1940’s there was access to audio recording equipment, thanks to Thomas Eddison who invented the phonograph in 1877. The industrial revolution occurred in the middle of the 1700’s meaning there was no audio equipment for Russo to use. Audio recording equipment allowed musicians to record the sounds of the environment, this meant there was no need to recreate the sounds from physical objects like Russo did, this is because they were now able to easily record them. Musique concrète was intended to manipulate modern day sounds we hear today into music, they could manipulate the sounds using audio effects and techniques of tape modulation. Schaeffers music was of the electroacoustic genre, this is when musicians use technology to manipulate the timbres of acoustic sounds.
Sampling
Peter Zinovieff was a British inventor who created the world’s first transportable synth, he is also said to have created the word’s first sampler. Zinovieffs sampler had 4K memory that had the ability to sample audio for one second, although this is a short time it still had the ability to manipulate the sound. In musique concrète the overall vision that Schaeffer had was to detach the recorded audio from its original sounds to transform it into a more musical sounding instrument, because of this sampler and the ones to come this vision could become a reality. A sampler has the ability to distort, loop and skip samples to morph the sound into music, sampling can completely tear audio from its original sounds.
Ambient Music
Ambient music was introduced to the world in the 1978 record named ‘Ambient 1: Music For Airports’. The ideas of ambient music was to create a relaxing place to think within the music, ambient music began to rise in popularity through the 1970’s. The music was all about creating a physical space though music, ambient music of this era was designed so that it could play in a room and be in the background of everyone’s mind. Ambient music was designed to play on a continuous loop, this genre of music began to break down the barrier between music and physical space. Ambient music tried to characterise the environment around the listener in the form of sound, the music aimed to build its self up as a solid and concrete factor in the room listener is in.
Foley
Foley is the re-creation of everyday sounds, these sounds are added as effects to movies and the general film industry. These sounds are recorded for the soul purpose of being added to a movie. Foley gets its name from Jack Foley, the person who invented the idea of Foley for film. When a door closes in a film it will be dubbed over with Foley, this is so the audio is more immersive and the sound overall sounds closer to the audience of the film. Foley sounds can range from being a glass being smashed to pouring water in a glass.
Reading List
Cliff, A., 2012. The Dummy guide to found sound | DummyMag. [online] DummyMag. Available at: <https://www.dummymag.com/features/dummy-guide-found-sound/> [Accessed 28 May 2021].
Google.com. 2021. Before you continue to Google Search. [online] Available at: <https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+foley&rlz=1C1GCEB_enGB946GB946&oq=what+is+foley&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l7.2896j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8> [Accessed 28 May 2021].
Google.com. 2021. Before you continue to Google Search. [online] Available at: <https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+the+futurist+movement&rlz=1C1GCEB_enGB946GB946&oq=what+is+the+futurist+m&aqs=chrome.0.0j69i57j0i22i30l4j0i10i22i30l2.8467j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8> [Accessed 28 May 2021].
Google.com. 2021. Before you continue to Google Search. [online] Available at: <https://www.google.com/search?q=when+was+the+first+music+recorder+made&rlz=1C1GCEB_enGB946GB946&oq=when+was+the+first+music+recorder+made&aqs=chrome..69i57.18230j1j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8> [Accessed 28 May 2021].
Google.com. 2021. Before you continue to Google Search. [online] Available at: <https://www.google.com/search?q=year+of+industrial+revolution&rlz=1C1GCEB_enGB946GB946&oq=year+of+industri&aqs=chrome.0.0j69i57j0l2j0i22i30l4.8074j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8> [Accessed 28 May 2021].