(re)place
Mar 23, 07:24 PM
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(re)place: A Sound Design Exploration of Kraków's Market Square
"The field recording of Kraków’s Market Square captures the energy of a living, pulsating space that has survived for centuries. My personal connection to this place lies in my study of the Polish language (during my Bachelors I minored in Slavic Languages), and my subsequent visits to the city as a professional musician. What struck me most in this recording was its mosaic qualities, shifting layers that were independent of each other but unified in subtle ways. My goal was to find these unifying subtleties and explore their resonances and movements musically, and find a way to connect those features to the traditions of its past. This layering of sounds inspired me to conceive of a horizontal splitting of the sample. Typical sample treatment involves splitting a sample vertically, separating elements in time, often to create a repetition pattern that we recognize as rhythm. I thought I would leave time to the larger scale, that of the entire sample. I discuss this in more detail below.
One way of looking at tradition is that it can be understood as a process of narrowing possibilities, a society falling into certain patterns that allow certain behaviours to endure and others to either discontinue or become taboo. Changes brought about by war, new governments or technologies will stir the choices of the past and settle into new patterns. My composition reflects this by loosely iterating three cycles of stirring and settling through three repetitions of the field recording, preceded by a cacophonous trumpet fanfare. The field recording goes "underground" at times, sometimes only sensed through its resonating pitches. The three repetitions should not be taken as a literal navigational tool for the listener; sometimes change happens when our attention is drawn elsewhere.
"Nine roads lead off Kraków's market square, therefore, I separated the field recording horizontally (spectrally) into nine sonic components using non-negative matrix factorization, a technique typically used for source separation in audio processing. However, instead of isolating individual sounds, I extracted the fundamental pitch of each component. These nine pitches, some of which are quite dissonant when played together, represent a collection of independent voices I could use to create new mosaics of differing timbres. For me, this reflects the multiplicities from which tradition can evolve.
"There are notable absences in the field recording: the Hejnał mariacki, the iconic bugle call, and the presence of street musicians, both of which are hallmarks of the city's and its marketplace square's sonic identity. I introduce the concept of these into my work.
"In contrast to the nine pitches of the recording, the Hejnał mariacki bugle call contains only three pitch classes, forming a major triad, which I use to symbolize the settling of tradition—a move from the many to the few. The Hejnał mariacki is a historically significant sound, marking the passage of time and serving as a call to attention. Bugle calls are fraught with cultural meaning, often signaling moments of importance or alarm. A happy coincidence is that two of the Hejnał's three pitches are shared by the nine pitches of the field recording. I made the most of this by loosely using these two common pitches as magnets that draw the one group towards the other. Like tradition, this represents the many possibilities settling into the few, but always in variations unique to each era (repetition).
"To introduce a sense of irony (is time not the ultimate cosmic joker?), the nine basic pitches of the field recording are fanfared by trumpets at the opening. This gradually resolves into the two pitch classes which are shared by the two groups (the rising minor third). At the end of the work, the Hejnał bugle call is not played by a trumpet as expected, but though the filtered field recording itself. Through this timbral replacement, the sound sources switch roles: the traditional (past) informs the present, and the present speaks back to the past.
"Tourism and market trade are also historically significant, both introduce an ever-changing population to this marketplace, adding to the babble of voices and the promise of commerce. These aspects draw street musicians to the scene. Here I introduce the idea of street musicians, but rather than performing, they are warming up, listening to get a feel for the place. The electric bass, glass harp, a distant, fragmented trumpet band, and upright piano each contribute to the shifting mosaics. The electric bass is confined to the three pitch classes of the Hejnał, but seeks their tuning. The fragmented trumpet band is mostly confined to the two common pitches, the glass harp embraces all nine pitches of the sound recording and bursts into melody from time to time, and from an open window nearby, an upright piano picks out pitches inspired from the sounds in the marketplace. All of these added elements are triggered by events in the field recording, and they in turn, affect the audio processing of the field recording, creating a feedback network between the two worlds.
"By allowing the ambiance of the marketplace itself to evoke the bugle call at the end, the composition suggests a continuous cycle of transformation. The timbral shift from live instruments to the filtered field recording reflects how traditions morph over time yet remain rooted in their origins. The shared pitches always remain and serve as a starting point for what is to come next. That the shared pitches portray the hallmark "unfinished" ending of the original Hejnał melody (the rising minor third), gives scope for new things to come.
"The Sonic Heritage Project poses the question: How do we preserve sonic heritage while allowing it to evolve naturally? Here I attempt to acknowledging the fluidity and interpenetrability of parallel cultural soundscapes. We can celebrate their riches by allowing them to co-exist and hope their commonalities and intersections prevent them from ossifying."
Credits: sample of Hejnał accessed from: https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plik:Cracow_trumpet_signal.ogg; samples of other bugles accessed from: https://www.drumcorps.marines.mil/About/Music-Resources/
Krakow market square reimagined by Helen Bledsoe.
———————
This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights.
Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage
"The field recording of Kraków’s Market Square captures the energy of a living, pulsating space that has survived for centuries. My personal connection to this place lies in my study of the Polish language (during my Bachelors I minored in Slavic Languages), and my subsequent visits to the city as a professional musician. What struck me most in this recording was its mosaic qualities, shifting layers that were independent of each other but unified in subtle ways. My goal was to find these unifying subtleties and explore their resonances and movements musically, and find a way to connect those features to the traditions of its past. This layering of sounds inspired me to conceive of a horizontal splitting of the sample. Typical sample treatment involves splitting a sample vertically, separating elements in time, often to create a repetition pattern that we recognize as rhythm. I thought I would leave time to the larger scale, that of the entire sample. I discuss this in more detail below.
One way of looking at tradition is that it can be understood as a process of narrowing possibilities, a society falling into certain patterns that allow certain behaviours to endure and others to either discontinue or become taboo. Changes brought about by war, new governments or technologies will stir the choices of the past and settle into new patterns. My composition reflects this by loosely iterating three cycles of stirring and settling through three repetitions of the field recording, preceded by a cacophonous trumpet fanfare. The field recording goes "underground" at times, sometimes only sensed through its resonating pitches. The three repetitions should not be taken as a literal navigational tool for the listener; sometimes change happens when our attention is drawn elsewhere.
"Nine roads lead off Kraków's market square, therefore, I separated the field recording horizontally (spectrally) into nine sonic components using non-negative matrix factorization, a technique typically used for source separation in audio processing. However, instead of isolating individual sounds, I extracted the fundamental pitch of each component. These nine pitches, some of which are quite dissonant when played together, represent a collection of independent voices I could use to create new mosaics of differing timbres. For me, this reflects the multiplicities from which tradition can evolve.
"There are notable absences in the field recording: the Hejnał mariacki, the iconic bugle call, and the presence of street musicians, both of which are hallmarks of the city's and its marketplace square's sonic identity. I introduce the concept of these into my work.
"In contrast to the nine pitches of the recording, the Hejnał mariacki bugle call contains only three pitch classes, forming a major triad, which I use to symbolize the settling of tradition—a move from the many to the few. The Hejnał mariacki is a historically significant sound, marking the passage of time and serving as a call to attention. Bugle calls are fraught with cultural meaning, often signaling moments of importance or alarm. A happy coincidence is that two of the Hejnał's three pitches are shared by the nine pitches of the field recording. I made the most of this by loosely using these two common pitches as magnets that draw the one group towards the other. Like tradition, this represents the many possibilities settling into the few, but always in variations unique to each era (repetition).
"To introduce a sense of irony (is time not the ultimate cosmic joker?), the nine basic pitches of the field recording are fanfared by trumpets at the opening. This gradually resolves into the two pitch classes which are shared by the two groups (the rising minor third). At the end of the work, the Hejnał bugle call is not played by a trumpet as expected, but though the filtered field recording itself. Through this timbral replacement, the sound sources switch roles: the traditional (past) informs the present, and the present speaks back to the past.
"Tourism and market trade are also historically significant, both introduce an ever-changing population to this marketplace, adding to the babble of voices and the promise of commerce. These aspects draw street musicians to the scene. Here I introduce the idea of street musicians, but rather than performing, they are warming up, listening to get a feel for the place. The electric bass, glass harp, a distant, fragmented trumpet band, and upright piano each contribute to the shifting mosaics. The electric bass is confined to the three pitch classes of the Hejnał, but seeks their tuning. The fragmented trumpet band is mostly confined to the two common pitches, the glass harp embraces all nine pitches of the sound recording and bursts into melody from time to time, and from an open window nearby, an upright piano picks out pitches inspired from the sounds in the marketplace. All of these added elements are triggered by events in the field recording, and they in turn, affect the audio processing of the field recording, creating a feedback network between the two worlds.
"By allowing the ambiance of the marketplace itself to evoke the bugle call at the end, the composition suggests a continuous cycle of transformation. The timbral shift from live instruments to the filtered field recording reflects how traditions morph over time yet remain rooted in their origins. The shared pitches always remain and serve as a starting point for what is to come next. That the shared pitches portray the hallmark "unfinished" ending of the original Hejnał melody (the rising minor third), gives scope for new things to come.
"The Sonic Heritage Project poses the question: How do we preserve sonic heritage while allowing it to evolve naturally? Here I attempt to acknowledging the fluidity and interpenetrability of parallel cultural soundscapes. We can celebrate their riches by allowing them to co-exist and hope their commonalities and intersections prevent them from ossifying."
Credits: sample of Hejnał accessed from: https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plik:Cracow_trumpet_signal.ogg; samples of other bugles accessed from: https://www.drumcorps.marines.mil/About/Music-Resources/
Krakow market square reimagined by Helen Bledsoe.
———————
This sound is part of the Sonic Heritage project, exploring the sounds of the world’s most famous sights.
Find out more and explore the whole project: https://www.citiesandmemory.com/heritage