Composing Digital Media with Emma Cichocki

For work in progress two, I decided to build upon the audacity sound class assignment. The only stipulation being that I used garage band instead of audacity. To begin the assignment in class I decided to make an audio track of what it would sound like to be inside a bottle of corona at a barbecue. I used garage band to set the scene, I have a track of a song that I could picture being played on a sunny day with friends, I have people talking, and using the volume modifiers I have all of those things on a low muffled volume until I add a bottle being opened and all of the ambiance gets louder. I really liked this effect because it really gives the impression that you’re in a closed bottle that and when it opens and the sounds flood in. After the bottle gets opened I have the sound of a beer being poured into a glass and the beer bottle being shattered, because well, stupid college kids and their antics must be displayed in this college day drink... caugh caugh barbecue sound track. After this I continue to play the sound of liquid being chugged, ping pong balls bouncing, which is actually a recording of golf balls bouncing but serve the purpose I needed, which was to portray a game of beer pong.

To build on this, my plan was to either add a more extensive history to the soundtrack, or make a sort of game about distinguishing between several different sound tracks. I first tried to add a history, meaning I wanted to put the packaging sounds, the travel, entering the party in a cooler, and then even adding digestive sounds after it was drank and then maybe even the sound of peeing. That seemed weird though so I went in a different direction. While making the audio file for the class assignment, I realized I was using sounds I remembered from days I’ve had here at Pitt, specifically from tail gates for big football games. For that reason, I decided to customize the track I had, I wanted to make it longer, I wanted to create the soundtrack of a game day here at Pitt which were some of my favorite days. I focused on one game in particular, Pitt Penn State last year. What I loved about the idea is being able to close my eyes and listen and be back there, and have other people close their eyes and listen and envision their own perfect game day.

To customize my original track, I took out the generic music I had looped and I added in two of my favorite tail gating songs, Chicken Fried and Come on Eileen. Those songs always brought everyone together and are generally feel good songs in my opinion. Next I added the sound of a car pulling into a gravel lot, and the sound of doors opening and closing using the same idea as opening the bottle, having the sounds get louder after the doors opened originally. To express leaving the tailgate and entering the game I added the sounds of crowds walking accompanied by an admittedly abrupt shift from come on Eileen to the Pitt band playing and crowds yelling P I T T LETS GO PITT, the sounds that usually hit you as you walk into the stadium in my experience. After this, to finally show which game we were at I added a video I actually took of one of my friends saying Penn State sucks, adding a somewhat personal touch I think, and finally my favorite part of the video… I was able to use an audio file of Pitt students singing Sweet Caroline as a background continuous sound for a few of the games highlights as given by the announcers, I think this was not only really fun to do but it brings emotion to the sound track. Some of the biggest plays that I remember reacting to with my fellow students being broadcasted in real time on my sound track seemed to add an active listening component. I imagine people listening to the sound track could feel a bit of that build up and excitement that I felt when I was actually there watching the game.

All in all, I had a blast creating the track, and I think I’ll have a blast listening to it when I miss Pitt football games next year. I used to think pictures were the only way to reminisce but now I realize how crucial audio is in representing a day in a life. While videos capture both mediums, this experience showed me that sometimes having the task of mustering up your own image portion to accompany an audio file can help to uncover the memories that are most important, the images or even feelings that the camera lens may have missed.

This class assignment started out as a funny and abstract audio file idea, and turned into a journal entry without words or pictures. It also inspired a graduation gift idea for my best friends, maybe not this exact file, but a more all-encompassing audio file and potentially an accompanying slide show that would condense the last four years into a sensory journey. If nothing else, this assignment gave me a new hobby. Something about mixing and matching sounds and fading effects until stumbling upon exactly what I wanted… even though I didn’t know it until I heard it seemed mind numbing and at the same time mind intensive. The creating and editing process completely captured my focus and nothing else in the world was taking up any thought space during the time that I worked, which didn’t feel like work, and it was therapeutic in a way.

As a last unrelated thought, I understand from your comments on my Skills Assignment that H1 heading font is generally supposed to be larger than that used for H2 headings, and while I understand that I truly do think that I like the look of my pages. I changed my H1 headings to be uniform, I like how the colorful H2 headings are the important things and the H1 headings are just a fixture that reminds you what website you're on. I understand the idea of the ways your eyes go diagonally down the page so I like how I have my top left and bottom right matching which makes a sort of frame for everything else. So I do appreciate the comment and I could see how that would be the most accepted but for some reason I like how its sort of small no the top and bottom and big in the middle like a KABLAM in the middle of a comic box if that makes any sense. I just wanted to add that so you don't feel as though I didn't take your comment into consideration, as for the functionality of my website I really have struggled with making the website impermeable to the issues of window size but haven't been able to perfect it, something I will work on in the future I feel as though those features are easier to add in originally than they are to edit in after the fact. Lastly I apologize for going over the word count... I hope you enjoy my audio file!