Music 220a Final Project Presentation
Jennifer Evans
12/13/2007
So, what did I do?
I sat down on my computer, thinking that I would compose a piece entitled
~A Day in the Life of Jennifer Evans~, which ultimately was transformed into me transcribing
my thoughts into a visual text document. The new goal of my project was then to write a piece that
took the listener on a roller coaster ride of my train of thought, complete with soundtrack and all.
This project gave me the perfect opportunity to fuse my love of music (an music mixing) with
the creative craziness that is my mind.
I decided that I wanted to record my voice reading the script
on my laptop's microphone (instead of a higher quality recorder) because that was where my project
had begun and I wanted to keep my script ~in character~. I had typed my script on my laptop,
and so I wanted to also record my script where I had started (on my laptop).
The final result was a 7 minute long stream of consciousness.
Sounds were needed to spice up the monologue and give added dimension.
What sounds were needed to include in the soundtracks?
I read through the script and tried to think of what emotions I had felt during certain parts
and what actual sounds were happening in other parts. By reading through the script with careful annotations,
I made a starting score with sounds like a composer with a sheet of music.
A full sound production was carefully constructed in my mind even before laying tracks.
Once I had decided what sounds I wanted to record, I used a Zoom Recorder to record the sounds
and then uploaded the sounds onto the computer. I ultimately ended up with 32 wav files recorded
from the Zoom containing the sounds for the soundtrack. I also downloaded 2 files from on-line:
1) the ticking clock and 2) the crickets .
After I had all of my sounds and my original stream of thought recorded, it was time to mix,
so I fired up Audacity on a Linux box and got cracking. The first theme I wanted was for the piece to reflect
things that I would hear in my head (along with some fun extra tid-bits). An example of this in
the piece is where I am talking about walking around listening to music in my headphones.
For this part, I literally played the Evanescence song into my headphones and then hit
play while the zoom recorder was placed between the ear pieces of the headphones.
Another theme that I wanted to have in my piece was putting in mini ~lessons~ while
maintaining a light and funny atmosphere. An example of this is when I am talking about major
and minor keys and I start talking about myself being major or minor in relation to everyone else. I added
a cheesy joke where silence follows and crickets make noises. I also wanted to have another theme of irony.
An example of this is when I am talking about how minor songs are more able to get our gut and
I am playing a nice, smooth rendition of Pachelbel's Canon in D Major in the background. So, in a nutshell,
my three themes of the piece were: 1) sounds I would hear while thinking 2) maintenance of a
light atmosphere while still introducing some serious topics and 3) good old irony.
Overall, sit back, relax, and enjoy listening to the roller coaster which is my train of thought.
~Jennifer
Links to Sound Clips Used For Project:
