The pages here are primiarily intened to be a summary of my doctorate research. My practice-based research uses sound recording and composition to investigate the lowest sound layers of selected soundscapes in a progression towards recording as near to silence as possible. The recording methodology used throughout the research uses a room-tone recording approach taken from film production: an atmospheric sound recording of an interior filming location that avoids any primary sounds of anthrophony (human sound), biophony (wildlife sound), and geophony (geophysical sound). Compositions based exclusively on the location sound recordings summarise the findings of the recording practice using stringent compositional rules that restricts sound processing to equalisation, amplitude, and noise reduction. First, room-tone recording is taken out of film production to an empty house in attempt to record near-silent rooms and compose with the captured room-tone recordings. The same room-tone recording approach is then used in conjunction with the Covid-19 2020 lockdowns in the Sydney CBD to record the city in a state of quietude. Common city anthrophony was minimised presenting a unique opportunity to capture the removal of sound layers caused by the pandemic lockdowns. With the reduced sound levels, it was possible to record the ‘room tone’ of the city, this being the lower-level sounds of the city function usually masked by the louder sounds of traffic and people. Urban sound layers are then removed through travelling to remote locations in the Australian desert. There, only the most fundamental geophony of gentle winds are recorded in an environment of extreme quietude, an ancient and untouched soundscape. Finally, in an attempt to escape all sound on the ground, weather balloons are used to remove sound layers through altitude, recording through the troposphere, into the stratosphere and to near-silence above the Ozone Layer.
The pages here are intended to be a short summary of this research.
