As the composition recital week inches closer, I have started spending a lot of time trying to plan out my composition in my head. Over the years I have been composing music, I feel like I have a decent idea of how my creativity works when it comes to making music. I plan out about 60% of the song in my head, and then dissect each individual parts and try to replicate those in my DAW. The rest of the 40% (or maybe more/less) comes from playing around in the DAW, experimenting, feedback from people etc.
What I was really intrigued by was the idea of audio illusions. Sounds that seem to be doing something, but actually aren't, just "seem" to. So for the score, I thought of looking up optical illusions that would be the closest representation of what I had in mind. After about an hour of looking through several mind-bending illusions, I finalised three of those. Each figure represented a different movement in the piece. The quality and the shape, number of sides etc. also determine several aspects of the piece. For example, the first movement, that corresponds to the triangle illusion, is in 3/4 time signature.
As far as creating the auditory illusions goes, I successfully created a Shepard Tone. A Shepard Tone is essentially like a barber's pole. It is a sound that seems to be rising constantly but is really not going anywhere. So there are multiple sounds playing together that are rising in terms of pitch, and once the topmost voice reaches a certain pitch, it starts to fade out and the voice an octave below it becomes dominant.
I am excited to see where I go with this piece, and whether or not I will be able to achieve this idea that I have in my mind. I'll give it my best shot!
What I was really intrigued by was the idea of audio illusions. Sounds that seem to be doing something, but actually aren't, just "seem" to. So for the score, I thought of looking up optical illusions that would be the closest representation of what I had in mind. After about an hour of looking through several mind-bending illusions, I finalised three of those. Each figure represented a different movement in the piece. The quality and the shape, number of sides etc. also determine several aspects of the piece. For example, the first movement, that corresponds to the triangle illusion, is in 3/4 time signature.
As far as creating the auditory illusions goes, I successfully created a Shepard Tone. A Shepard Tone is essentially like a barber's pole. It is a sound that seems to be rising constantly but is really not going anywhere. So there are multiple sounds playing together that are rising in terms of pitch, and once the topmost voice reaches a certain pitch, it starts to fade out and the voice an octave below it becomes dominant.
I am excited to see where I go with this piece, and whether or not I will be able to achieve this idea that I have in my mind. I'll give it my best shot!
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