Author: Chi Shun Woo

Whenever I hear the sound “ah”, my first thought is always different and I think it is affected by my mood and the situation at the time. For example, during kendo training session the ahs it reminds of kiai that I need to shout. When I was watching an opera the ahs made me think of what note is that as I have perfect pitch. This is something that is not worth to mention in my opinion. However, when I think about it I recognise that these “meaningless” sounds contruct meanings to me. I found the idea aligns with the Dolar’s (2006, p.552) idea that the notion of a linguistic of the non-voice would seem preposterous if there is only the linguistic of the signifier but not the voice.

In this audio paper, I have been playing different sounds of “ah”. Oftentimes we tend to ignore them unconsciously as there are distractions around us. So I believe that bringing this unnoticed sound out is a way of awry listening that leads to a rethinking of listening to itself as a practice (Drobnick, 2004, p.15).

My first language is Cantonese. And in Cantonese, we use a lot of interjections within sentences such as 呢 (le), 啊 (ah), 喎 (wo) for expressions in different occasions. These interjections come out naturally and has no meaning. However, it just feels weird and distant if we stop using them. Having this experience for my entire life, I believe it sort of unconsciouly and passively made me to decide having “ah” as the topic. I guess I am just familiar with it.

I have also mentioned the fact that a lot of alphabets starting with A. I have done some researches on that and all the evidences points towards to the ancient Phonecian alphabet. So the question here would be, why does the Phonecian alphabet start with A? Unfortunately, I cannot find any answers so far and I guess the only to know the answer to time travel back to the time. Therefore, I assume that is because “Ah” is the easiest and most basic sound that we humans can make.

I have to acknowledge that actually not all the languages that includes “ah”. Examples would be whistle languages and morse code. However, these are not spoken languages and they are use for special purposes. I would also argue that even a person is inarticulate and unable express him/herself with words, he or she can still say the word “ah”. At least he or she definitely yell with “Ah” when afraid or in pain, it is a human nature.

There are many other “ah” examples in numerous occasions and I believe they mean different things as well. But “Ah” is not the only voice that gives meanings.

…what about eh, what about ou, what about oo, what about…

There are other we often don’t really pay attention to as well. Just talking about “ah” is actually too much for now.

Assignments are done and it’s finally holiday. Ah…

Reference

Dolar, M. (2006) A voice and nothing more. Cambridge, MAU: The Mit Press.

Drobnick, J. (2004) Aural cultures. Toronto, Ont.: Walter Phillips Gallery Editions.

I do not think that my impression throughout the entire time: It is almost like a podcast but contains more aesthetic elements, or an academic paper presented in the format of sound.

One thing I find challenging about making an audio paper, actually also for all the works presented in the format of sound, is that we can only provide the listening experience to the audience. The lack of visual elements is a crucial limitation but that does not mean the is the end of it. McHugh (2022, p.64) believes that audio has always been the most intimate of mediums. It’s a lot to do with the connecting power of voice, which allows us to hear so much more than words. Sounds are not just sounds. If we use it well, it’s not only about listening anymore. Although we still can’t see things, we can feel and imagine through listening.

In terms of the content, I believe I can extend the explanations of different “ah”s. However, I think explaining too much would be very bored and overwhelm the audience. I also want to get them spaces to rethink of their listening experiences of ah as I play them. This is more likely a matter of personal choice, there are pros and cons in these approaches. Instead of explain more of each “ah” I think finding more examples of “ah” would be better. For now I think the amounts of ah are quite enough for the audio paper but I believe I can find more of them if I have more time.

On the technical side, I think the volume trimming of my voice could be done better. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough time for this. Instead of simply using presets in mastering plugins, I could have manually fine-tuned the volume of my voice with automation.

Since the audio paper lasts for 9 minutes, it is so easy to get distracted and bored as my audio paper does not have a lot of sound elements but mostly my voice. To draw the attention of the audience, the tone of my voice is crucial. In the audio paper I found my voice quite deep and dull, although I have tried talking more enthusiastically. It is quite challenging to find the balance between having a deep masculine voice and having an exciting tone. On the one hand, masculine creates more impact and feels more persuasive. On the other hand, creating an exciting vibe avoids boredom. Having no experience in voice acting, the outcome of my voice makes me understand how important it is.

References

McHugh, S. (2022) The power of podcasting: Telling stories through sound. New York: Columbia University Press.

Through out the entire audio paper, I have several creative approaches towards different aspects of it. Here are the approaches.

Recording

I have used the Neuman TLM102 as the microphone for recording my voice. It is a big diaphragm condenser microphone that provides excellent presence of the voice in the overall mix. I have also put a pop filter in front of the mic to avoid and reduce turbulent air blasts from the mouth strike the mic diaphragm (Huber, D.M. et al., 2017, p.163)

When I was recording my voice, I deliberately placed the microphone very close to my mouth which generates the proximity effect where the low frequencies are exaggerated. This helps to make the sound more intimate, or more impressive (Wykes, 2021).

Content

Since the theme of the audio paper is about the sound “ah”, it would be great to introduce different kinds of ah. It would be even better if these ahs are related to each other so that the flow will be smoother and enhance the listening experience. To do this, I first drafted out all kinds of “ah” I could think of. After that, I sorted them into different groups as shown in the script of the audio paper (e.g. Life of Ah, Effects of Ah, etc.). Then, I brainstormed a scene/story where I can link the ahs from the same group together.

For example, from 0231 to 0323, I was talking about the emotions of Ah (i.e. the annoyed ah, the relaxed ah, the angry ah), I connected these ahs by mentioning that there’s always something in our life that bothers us. Sometimes when we overcome it, we are relieved, but if not, it is just pain and anger.

I found the audio paper gave me tension as I was listening due to the deep and firm voice after editing.Therefore, I tried to ease the stress by putting some sarcastic or humourous content into it. This adds liveness to the podcast and makes it ‘talkier’ and less crafted, which brings the listener’s attention and create a relaxed and chill environment. The first example is when I said “A…are you disappointed?” at 0030, and the second example is at 0509 where I panned my voice to the right and ask question. The panning make the voice sound like coming from the side and meant to catch the audience off guard in order to create a small surprise.

Sounds

Music

Here are the music I have used in the audio paper. I recognised that I had used quite a lot of classical music when I finished the whole audio paper.

Hall of the Mountain King (0230 – 0253)

This is a well known orchestral piece where the piece begins in quiet and soft then ends in rushed and loud. The quiet part is played when I was talking about the annoyed ah, and the loud part is played when it was about the angry ah. I chose this song as it slowly builds up the tension, which is the same as the process from getting slighly annoyed to fully rage.

Die Walküre by Wagner

This song begins with strings playing tremelo that creates dissonance. It fits into the horror music category.

Magic Flute – Queen of the Night by Mozart

There are other better choices for presenting a soprano singer singer high pitch ah but this is the first song that comes into my mind when I think of examples of ah in music. This is not related to the content but this song is very difficult due to fast and shifting notes at high pitch.

Dig by Mudvaynne (0436 – 0441)

Halo 3 theme (0442 – 0452)

This is actually the theme song of a game rather than a church chant. I found this very suitable for example.

Big enough by Kirin J Callinan (0452 – 0503)

Silence

There are some short silences across the audio paper. This adds suspense and emphasises intensity, which holds the tension of the listeners and makes them curious about what’s next. I intentionally make these silent spaces to seperate the topics, and provide a short break for the audience.

Background ambience

I use some background ambience/noise to fill up the silence. I found the audio paper boring when there is only my voice and to avoid this, I think adding some low level noises is a good way to make the audience focus to the audio.

It is worth mentioning that the ambience in 0355 to 0426 is a recording of a Kendo training session long time ago when I was still in Australia. In Kendo we call this action of shouting as Kiai and we scream throughout the entire 2 hours session every time.

Singing voices

The notes of singing voices looping at the beginning and the end are specially designed. The notes are C, G, D, A then B, G, D, A. The first four notes had the same intervals which is Perfect 5th, and if the notes keep going up (i.e. C-G-D-A-E-B-F#…), the note will return to C eventually as the motion is on the circle of 5ths, and I want to apply this idea to the sound “Ah” that this sound is everywhere. The 5ths is also the harmonic resonance of the fundamental note, and I try to mimic the idea to the “Ah” sound that it also creates the harmonic resonance especially we are humming low. A good example for this would be throat singing/Overtone.

The notes C, G, D sounds very close to C, E, G, D which is the C+9 chord, while B, G, D, A is the G/B+9 chord. If we neglected the 9th, it is just IV (C Major) chord and I (G Major) chord looping around. The IV to I progression forms a plagal cadence that resolves the tension from the I – IV, which is a usual chord progression.

During the part where I was talking about warming up before the practice in choir, the pitch goes up. This is done to imitate the fact that we keep singing higher and higher notes during the warm up in choir.

Use of text-to-speech

The voices from 0626 to 0636 are all AI text to speech. I want to feature other voices in the audio paper to avoid a single tone of voice which is me for the entire time so that it won’t be that boring. Unfortunately I cannot find anyone to record their voices for me and I am just too shy to ask someone doing this. However, in order to make it sound more natural, I have extended the ambience longer so that the voices can blend into them instead of silence.

Mixing

Apple Music uses a reference level of -16 LUFS for music. Although the audio paper is not music, I try to maintain the level around it. The loudness level is around -14 to -16 LUFS.

Reference

Huber, D.M. et al. (2017) Modern Recording Techniques. New York: Focal Press.

Wykes, A. (2021) What is the proximity effect, and why does it occur?, SoundGuys. Available at: https://www.soundguys.com/proximity-effect-explained-51333/ (Accessed: 02 December 2023).

This is the full view of the audio paper session in Ableton. For the voices, I have recorded them in M109 with Pro Tools. I consolidated the file to generate the stem of it so that I can take all the vocal recordings at once instead of importing them one by one to Ableton.

Voice

Before putting my voice on the DAW, I used the Izotop RX 9 to remove the background noise and the saliva sounds from the recording, as these are unwanted sounds.

My voice has been processed with different plugins, including saturation, compression and eq. Processing them removes unwanted sound from a recording or for enhancement or special effects (Ahern, 2022, P.101). To start with, I first added Gate to ensure that no background voices are leaked into my voice. I add saturation to boost the harmonics of my voice so that it sounds richer. Next, I had an EQ to boost the lows and highs and subtract the mids to fine-tune the tonality of my voice. A compressor was added after that in order to even out dynamic differences more precisely (Weekout, 2019, p.240). On top of that, I have added a De-esser to reduce the sibilance boosted by compression and EQ. At last, I added a limiter to avoid clipping and cause distortion.

With the plugins used, my voice sounds clearer, crisper, and more masculine. This avoids spoiling the flow or detracting from the connection with the listener (Ahern, 2022, p.144).

Automation

I used automation mainly for volume control or effect sends. For example, I have boosted the singing voice’s volume to create a fade in effect.

Panning

Panning in this audio paper was done to fill up the space and make use of it.

Fade in/out

Using fade-in and fade-out at the ends of each clip smooths out the transitions and avoids sudden changes in volume.

Moreover, I try to use fade in/out to create the L cut effect, a film editing technique where the audio from the previous scene overlaps the picture from the following scene. The technique adds interest to dialogue scenes (VEGAS, n.d.). Putting the idea into the podcast by mixing two audio from different sources, listeners will notice the shift and focus on the topic.

Reference

Ahern, S. (2022) Making radio and podcasts: A practical guide to working in today’s radio and Audio Industries. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

VEGAS (no date) L-cuts and J-cuts – why and how?, Using L-Cuts and J-Cuts in Video Editing – Why and How? Available at: https://www.vegascreativesoftware.com/in/video-editing/l-cuts-and-j-cuts/#:~:text=With%20L%2Dcuts%20and%20J%2Dcuts%2C%20editors%20add%20interest,the%20audience%20hears%20the%20dialog. (Accessed: 04 December 2023).

Weekout, H. (2019) ‘Mixing | Vocals’, in Music production: Learn how to record, mix, and master music. ROUTLEDGE.

To me, audio papers are academic essays presented in sound format or a podcast that provides a more aesthetic sense of sound.

This reminds me of my assignment back in Australia last semester. It was a podcast, not an audio paper, but I guess they have similarities. So I am quite confident that I can create something interesting in the end. I may take a look at what I did from the podcast and see if I can bring some ideas into the audio paper. For your reference, this is the link to the podcast I have made:

Link

Idea-wise, I think I will keep the same topic as mentioned in the previous blog: Exploring how the sound “ɑː” (ah) constructs meanings in different scenarios and cultures. However, the topic seems to be too broad so I need to narrow it as Milo suggested. I have not thought of any specific things on the topic but I can start doing some research around it.