SONIC ART

This was Jamie's Major Project for his MA Music at Kingston University, for which he scored 85%. Pictures and text have been added here to showcase his capabilities in Sound Design. Below is a summery of the listening guide from Jamie's project commentary. Automation in Live Music =================== Medieval and Baroque mechanised clocks transform sacred timekeeping into automated ritual sound. The Gdańsk cathedral organ clock’s chimes generate the main medieval motif, spatialised with ‘Abbey’ reverbs and processional panning to evoke vast stone vaults. A time-filtered transition leads into an intimate German Baroque long-case clock, whose precise strikes and Bach-inspired melody sit in close ‘Tile Room’ ambience, contrasting public basilica spectacle with private devotional listening. Victorian and Edwardian Domestic Rituals: Domestic Automation ================================================ Victorian and Edwardian parlours become sites of domestic automation, filled with musical boxes, orchestrions, pianolas, and other self-playing instruments rendering lullabies and popular classics. Differentiated reverbs and panning simulate movement between villas, cafés, and drawing rooms, turning the piece into a loose sonic walking tour of 19th‑century interiors. Environmental recordings such as footsteps, audiences, and birdsong ground these mechanised textures in real-world acoustic experience, bridging past technology and present listeners. The Fairground and Mechanical Carnival: Public Spectacle =========================================== Fairground organs embody industrial-era public spectacle through dense, polyphonic mechanical sound. Spatialisation via multi-source panning and 'Playing Field' reverb evokes open-air resonance, contrasting prior enclosed spaces. Subtle detuning, phase variations, and asynchronous timing replicate historical calliope ensembles' imperfect synchrony for vivid carnival immersion. Early C20th: Turntable Orchestras and Mechanical Phonography =============================================== Recreation of 1920s Berlin turntable orchestra recital: eight Victrola turntables playing offset versions of Beethoven’s 5th, capturing phasing, tempo deviations and acoustic horn timbres from a vinyl recording. ChromaVerb situates this in a concert hall ambience, highlighting tensions between acoustic limits and technological innovation. The 1930s to Present: Automation in Sacred and Secular Space ============================================== 1930s carillon bells retrofitted in C21st mark the fusion of tradition and modern automation in sacred and secular venues. 'Abbey' reverb simulates church surfaces and gardens, then 'Playing Field' reverb using rotor panning for transition to the present. Present-Day Concert Automation ========================= December 2018: Rick Wakeman at the Cambridge Corn Exchange playing “Liebestraum No.3 in A-Flat Major”- with a recorded choir. Emulated by Jamie playing the piano to recorded choir synthesised on Viscount Chorum S80 organ. Ethereal self-playing Wurlitzer tones gain temporal ambiguity through pitch shifting and reverb, blending past and present realities. Our journey now takes us to the ultimate example of automation in live music: the ABBA Voyage concert. Using CGI and the latest screen tech, with a live band accompanying recorded singing, it is a near-perfect window in time back to the 1970s. Jamie's piano arrangement accompanied by recorded singing frm fellow student Lin Yang is a tribute to all the engineering of the self-playing instruments throughout time which have made this project possible. Future Horizons: The Role of AI ======================= AI-generated music via AIVA draws from Gdańsk clock motifs, celebrating yet critiquing algorithmic creativity. Synthetic scores contrast medieval rhythmic precision with emergent patterns, enhanced by synthesised analogue textures for human-machine synergy. Improvised AI jazz supports live vocals, extending Pauline Oliveros’ concepts into a future of seamless algorithmic-human orchestration. List of References ============= • AIVA (2025). Your Personal AI Music Generation Assistant. Available at: https://www.aiva.ai/ [Accessed: 3 September 2025]. • Afterword (2020). ‘ABBA: The Defence’. Available at: https://theafterword.co.uk/abba-the-defence/ [Accessed: 10 September 2025]. • Bazylika Mariacka (2025). Zegar Astronomiczny. Available at: https://bazylikamariacka.gdansk.pl/qr/zegar-astronomiczny/ [Accessed: 3 September 2025]. • Cipriani, A. & Giri, M. (2010). Electronic Music and Sound Design. Milan, Italy: ConTempoNet. • Cox, C. & Kubisch, C. (2006). ‘Invisible Cities: An Interview with Christina Kubisch’, Cabinet Magazine, Issue 21. Available at: https://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/21/cox_kubisch.php [Accessed: 3 September 2025]. • Earth.fm (2022). ‘Acoustic Ecology and the World Soundscape Project’. Available at: https://earth.fm/earth-stories/acoustic-ecology-and-the-world-soundscape-project/ [Accessed: 3 September 2025]. • FocusRite (2025). Scarlett [Product Information]. Available at: https://focusrite.com/products/scarlett-2i2 [Accessed: 4 September 2025]. • Hoffmann, J. J. (2001). ‘Ctesibius of Alexandria’, in Neil Schlager (ed.), Science and Its Times: Understanding the Social Significance of Scientific Discovery, Vol. 1, 2000 BC to AD 699. Gale Group: pp. 400–401. • Kolber, D. (2002). ‘Hildegard Westerkamp’s Kits Beach Soundwalk: shifting perspectives in real world music’. Organised Sound. Available at: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/organised-sound/article/abs/hildegard-westerkamps-kits-beach-soundwalk-shifting-perspectives-in-real-world-music/49A433DBAC44B92593E64E7C043443C2 [Accessed: 3 September 2025]. • Loudersound (2015). ‘50 Years of Pink Floyd: the Experimental Years, 1968-1970’. Available at: https://www.loudersound.com/features/50-years-of-pink-floyd-the-experimental-years-1968-70 [Accessed: 3 September 2025]. • Mae Mai (2025). Timeline of Early Turntablism, Sampling, and Real Time Audio Recording Manipulation (1900-1960). Available at: https://silpayamanant.wordpress.com/about/silpayamanant-bibliography/timeline-of-early-turntablism/ [Accessed: 26 July 2025]. • Musical Instrument Museum Berlin (2025). Exhibition viewed on: 13th June 2025. Berlin, Germany. • Musical Museum (2017). Souvenir Guide. London, England: Chimera Design Ltd. • Pasoulas, A. (2020). ‘The Art and Science of Acoustic Ecology’. Available at: https://www.entandaudiologynews.com/features/audiology-features/post/the-art-and-science-of-acoustic-ecology [Accessed: 3 September 2025]. • Philipsz, S. (2010). Lowlands [Sound Installation]. Glasgow, Scotland: Turner Contemporary. • Plugin Alliance (2022). ‘DearVR Update’. Available at: https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/blog/blogpost/items/dear-vr-update.html [Accessed: 8 September2025]. • ProducerHive (2022). ‘48 kHz vs 96 kHz: Differences, which to use (and why)’. Available at: https://producerhive.com/ask-the-hive/48khz-vs-96khz-differences-which-is-best [Accessed: 17 May 2025]. • Schaeffer, P. (1966). Traité des objets musicaux: Essai Interdisciplines. Paris, France: Le Seuil. • Stockhausen, C. (1962). ‘The Concept of Unity in Electronic Music’, Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 1 (1), pp. 39–48. • Thursford (2025). Mechanical Organs. Available at: https://www.thursford.com/steam-museum/#mechanical-organs [Accessed: 25 May 2025]. • Truax, B. (1996). ‘Soundscape, Acoustic Communication and Environmental Sound Composition’. Available at: https://www.sfu.ca/~truax/Truax-CMR.pdf [Accessed: 3 September 2025]. • Truax, B. (1998). Handbook for Acoustic Ecology. Vancouver, BC, Canada: Simon Fraser University. Available at: https://www.sfu.ca/~truax/handbook2.html [Accessed: 3 September 2025]. • Truax, B. (2001). ‘Soundscape Composition as Global Music: Electroacoustic Music as Soundscape’, Leonardo Music Journal, 11, pp. 15–18. Available at: https://ciufo.org/classes/sonicart_sp09/readings/truax_soundscape_comp.pdf [Accessed: 3 September 2025]. • Truax, B. (2002). ‘Genres and techniques of soundscape composition as developed at Simon Fraser University’, Organised Sound : An International Journal of Music Technology, Vol.7 (1), pp. 5–14. • Weaver, S. (2017). ‘Roots for Deep Listening in Oliveros’s Bye Bye Butterfly’, American Music Review, Volume XLVII, Issue 1. • Walsingham Anglican Archives (2020). The Shrine Bells. Available at: https://www.walsinghamanglicanarchives.org.uk/shrinebells.htm [Accessed: 16 May 2025]. • YouTube (2015). ‘Beneath the Forest Floor’. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Av4MHE9ueHk [Accessed: 14 September 2025]. • YouTube (2023). ‘at home: Artists in Conversation | Susan Philipsz’. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9SnaNKBa9c [Accessed: 3 September 2025]. • Zeitz, A. (2021). ‘Sound and Light in Christina Kubisch’s Sonic Practice’, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 79(1), pp. 90–102. Available at: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/717404?journalCode=aft [Accessed: 3 September 2025].

Music composed by Jamie to a short animation about a young boy having a dream. Composed at Kingston University for the "Score & Screen" module in Jamie's MA Music, using an animation provided.

The story of Happisburgh (pronounced Haisboro) through time, told through sound. Most of this coastal village in Norfolk, UK has fallen into the sea through coastal erosion, so bells are extensively used in the composition to warn of climate change. Composed at Goldmiths as a final year Sound as Art project, pictures and text were added to make this video in 2025.

An electroacoustic composition using sound to metaphorically describe an abstract train of thought. It has three "movements", or sections: 1. Thought Starts ============= This section begins with station ambience sounds and a melody captured from a Viscount Chorum S80 organ. The station sounds are treated with a high-pass filter, delays and panning, indicating an imaginary train in one’s thoughts. The melody has Pitch Shifting, Panning, Band-Pass Filtering, Gated Reverb, Delay and Compressor applied, representing a train of thought. There follows an organ-created train whistle, with variable and reverse speed FX then overdubbed and panned. Accelerando in the melody ensues, with a pitch shifter configured to seven semitones, and up-down panning gradually increasing. The resultant increased texture indicates the train moving off. The accelerando continues to when the sound fades out, indicating the train’s departure. 2. Train of Thought in Progress ====================== This section starts with a drumbeat and a reprise of the melody, new sound effects (pitch-shifter to one octave, band-pass filter removed, more delays, reverb and higher compression), signifying the train in motion, this denoted by a thicker texture. Up/down/left/right panning evokes continuous motion. There are various journey sounds : the train motor, the clanking on the rails and people talking, treated with variable delays and high-pass filter to embody a train of thought. The melody repeats, inferring continuous motion. 3. Thought Concludes ================= Another burst of the melody starts, minus the pitch shifter, reverb, and delays, but enhanced with lower compression and low-pass filter, thereby reducing frequencies indicating the train slowing down. Electric motor sounds, diesel engines and screeching brakes, treated with delays and a high-pass filter, convey the train of thought slowing down. The opening and closing of doors is treated with delays, high-pass filter and variable panning further reinforcing the slowing down. The piece concludes with a final sequence of the melody, then faded-out diesel engine sounds with delays, indicating the train of thought coming to its end. The picture at the end is a spectrograph showing the frequencies present in each section.

This is a large-scale composition project for a large Jazz ensemble of nineteen musicians, which demonstrates the clarity of structure and compositional technique. “Footprints to a Camper Van” is modal, written in C Dorian with a 5/4 time signature and a tempo marked “Moderately Slow Funk Groove”. It is inspired by Wayne Shorter’s composition “Footprints”, Kenny Wheeler’s “Nonetheless” and various other modal Jazz compositions. The funky bassline and the dotted rhythms are particularly noticeable. One notable approach to scoring for big band, however, is that the instrumentation here varies between blocks, smaller groups and solos. Also, Wayne Shorter’s “Footprints” and Kenny Wheeler’s “Nonetheless” are not harmonised in blocks, they are harmonised sparsely and with the occasional solo passage. “Footprints To A Camper Van” uses the Intro-Head-Solos-Head-Coda format with a D.S. The Coda is the most interesting part of the composition where there is a massive Crescendo whilst over that, various instruments improvise and at the end of the Crescendo there is a bold, majestic finale with extreme lip trills in the Trumpets and a Tremolando in the Piano and Guitar, with the entire piece ending on a Piano Glissando! The instrumentation in “Footprints to a Camper Van” is a little different, with Flute, two Alto Saxes, two Tenor Saxes, Baritone Sax, Bass Clarinet, four Trumpets, three Trombones, Bass Trombone, Jazz Guitar, Piano, Bass Guitar and Drumkit. The Solos also have Saxophone backings. There is a Cm13 chord harmonised downwards in Widened Lines because it is a much grander ending.The sounds of the Saxes and Trombones blend with one another in order to get a homogenised sound. Kenny Wheeler usually puts Trombones high, so theTrombones here are in a high register too. Higher-pitched clusters are more appropriate for Contemporary UK Jazz. The music in this version was synthesised with Sibelius and NotePerformer.

A whole-tone piece, influenced by the compositions of Thelonious Monk, one of the greatest and most-recorded Jazz pianists of the 20th Century, hard bop trumpeter, Lee Morgan who worked with jazz greats such as Dizzy Gillespie, and Billy Higgins, another hard bop scene regular who worked with Morgan. The composition is in the style of modal jazz of the late 1950s and 1960s, a departure from the ‘Functional Harmony’, in order to include more abstract modal colour. Its roots were the Classical composers Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel whose use of octatonic tonality and dissonance Monk emulated. He often suspended the tonality of his pieces (tonality bending) by flattening and neutralising the accidentals within the key signature of the piece and used contrasting motifs, dissonance and rhythmic displacement. A further reference to Thelonius Monk are the cluster chords, which together with crushed notes, were the hallmark of his improvisations. Form and Structure: “Higgins, Monk and Morgan” is a short-form 24-bar composition which makes use of Whole-Tone Modes. The piece comprises four sections: the Intro, Head, Solos and Outro. This piece is entirely based on Whole-Tone Modes. The form is A(9-12), A’(13-16), B(17-20), B’(21-24), C(25-end). Harmonic Derivation: This piece makes use of the Whole-Tone Scales on E and C. It is predominantly in a scalic and conjunct motion. The Head section begins with a whole-tone scale starting on E for eight bars and then switches to the whole-tone scale beginning on C for another eight bars. The piece also features D-flat 6/9 and diminished chords in the Coda. This piece marks the departure from functional harmony. Phrase Structure: The form is A(9-12), A’(13-16), B(17-20), B’(21-24), C(25-end). Melodic style: The melodic style is in the form of a 2+2 question and answer and is predominantly in the middle register with a wide range from E flat 4 to G flat 5. Bars 5 - 8 include a musical quotation from Martin Pine and Laura Zakian whose ‘Crab Walk’ , performed during Goldsmith’s Music Week was an inspiration. Bars 17 - 24 emulate the rhythmic style of Lee Morgan with a series of swung quavers in a descending sequence of major thirds. Composed for 17 players for the Goldsmiths' BMus, sound created here with Sibelius and NotePerformer. It was derived from an earlier technical exercise which was recorded live live at Goldsmiths with Jamie playing the double bass, which can be found on Soundcloud here: https://on.soundcloud.com/4eVLG9fgKFny8MzPGw

An electroacoustic composition painting a sonic picture of bird activity. Three movements or sections indicate the time of day. 1. Birds in the Morning ================ The focus of the first section is a series of birdsongs, created on the organ and looped in Logic Pro. Starting with a composite attack consisting of a high pitched, five note blackbird song motif, repeated 3 -4 times. Other bird songs join in the blackbird, a looped and low pass filtered melody: the low initial frequency invokes a sense of morning. Birdsongs are treated with panning and chorus, with variable pitch and variable delay FX. A variable reverb time and a granulator are applied to garden warbler. The blackbird song is treated with a compressor, heightening the attack, signifying greater activity. From the outset, a continuous synth bass drone gradually increasing in pitch and an electronic drumbeat (treated with reverb) have set the rhythmic pulse of the piece. Daytime Activity ============ Variable left-right panning applied to organ melody and goldfinch song, indicate motion; remaining birds panned behind the listener to situate them in the background. The pitch of the bass moves higher, implying tension and advising the imminent nest-building phase to the listener. There is a reverberating metallic cymbal crash, having compression at its highest for maximum attack on the blackbird alarm call, embodying the frenetic nest-building activity. The bass pitch now moves major third higher. The melody is increased an octave by pitch shifting, more effects including gradual disabling of the low pass filter, gated reverb and delays –encapsulating the nest-building. Compared to Section 1 where the kick drum and hi-hat were featured every two beats, they feature every single beat, compounding the frenetic active feel. The remaining birdsongs are constant throughout this second section. The overtone harmonics of the bass drone reduce, with the recurring blackbird song indicating the bird’s ongoing presence. A change of bass pitch indicates heightening of tension. 3. Winding-Down for the Evening ======================== Section 3 has the same material : pitch-shifting, filtering and reverb changed, plus delays added to reduce texture and high frequencies enhancing tone and atmosphere. The drum machine and bass both revert in pitch and rhythm to how they were in the first section, implying diminishing activity as the birds reach the end of their day. The bass drops down a minor third, signifying the blackbird is in free flight. The birdsong ceases with garden warbler fading out last, followed by the melody with its final delays. The thinning of the texture and loss of high frequencies here implies winding-down of bird activity. The picture at the end is a spectrograph showing the frequencies present in each section.

This is how Trumpington, near Cambridge, sounded in the past, how it sounds now and how it might sound in future. Composed by Jamie from a combination of field recordings, his own music and FX in the second year of his undergraduate BMus at Goldsmiths. Pictures and text were added to make it into a video for this website in 2025.

Scene from the film "The Others". Jamie replaced the music with his own composition, done a first year Music Technology project at Goldsmiths.