Room Tone to the Stratosphere: Investigating Sonic Substructures Through a Progression to Near Silence

Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Ambroisine, Julius
dc.date.accessioned	2023-03-28T01:43:21Z
dc.date.available	2023-03-28T01:43:21Z
dc.date.issued	2021
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/168655
dc.description	University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.	en_US.UTF-8
dc.description.abstract	This research uses sound recording and composition practice to investigate the lowest sound layers of selected soundscapes in a progression to recording as near to silence as possible. The field recording method used throughout the research uses a room tone recording approach taken from film production: an atmospheric sound recording of an interior filming location that avoids any primary sounds of anthrophony (human sound), biophony (wildlife sound), and geophony (geophysical sound). Composition based exclusively on the field recordings is then used to investigate the findings of the field recording practice using stringent compositional rules restricting sound processing to amplitude, equalisation, and noise reduction. The first step sees room-tone recording taken out of film production in an attempt to record near-silent rooms within an empty house and compose with the captured room-tone recordings. The same room-tone recording approach is taken outside and used during the 2020 Covid-19 lockdowns in the Sydney CBD to record the city in a state of quietude. Common city anthrophony was minimised through pandemic lockdowns presenting a unique opportunity to capture the removal of primary sound layers. The reduced sound levels made it possible to record the ‘room tone’ of the city, the lower-level sounds of city function usually masked by the louder sounds of traffic and people. Urban sound layers are then removed entirely by travelling to remote locations in the Australian desert to record an ancient soundscape. There, only the most fundamental geophony of gentle winds are recorded in an environment of extreme quietude. Finally, in an attempt to escape all sound on the ground, weather balloons are used to remove sound layers through altitude, recording through the troposphere, into the stratosphere and up to near-silence above the Ozone Layer.	en_US.UTF-8
dc.format	Thesis (DCA)
dc.language.iso	en_US	en_US.UTF-8
dc.relation	https://opus.lib.uts.edu.au/bitstream/10453/168655/4/02whole.pdf
dc.rights	info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
dc.rights	© 2021 Julius Ambroisine
dc.rights	au.edu.uts.lib/ppc
dc.title	Room Tone to the Stratosphere: Investigating Sonic Substructures Through a Progression to Near Silence	en_US.UTF-8
dc.type	Thesis
utslib.copyright.status	open_access	*

Abstract:

This research uses sound recording and composition practice to investigate the lowest sound layers of selected soundscapes in a progression to recording as near to silence as possible. The field recording method used throughout the research uses a room tone recording approach taken from film production: an atmospheric sound recording of an interior filming location that avoids any primary sounds of anthrophony (human sound), biophony (wildlife sound), and geophony (geophysical sound). Composition based exclusively on the field recordings is then used to investigate the findings of the field recording practice using stringent compositional rules restricting sound processing to amplitude, equalisation, and noise reduction. The first step sees room-tone recording taken out of film production in an attempt to record near-silent rooms within an empty house and compose with the captured room-tone recordings. The same room-tone recording approach is taken outside and used during the 2020 Covid-19 lockdowns in the Sydney CBD to record the city in a state of quietude. Common city anthrophony was minimised through pandemic lockdowns presenting a unique opportunity to capture the removal of primary sound layers. The reduced sound levels made it possible to record the ‘room tone’ of the city, the lower-level sounds of city function usually masked by the louder sounds of traffic and people. Urban sound layers are then removed entirely by travelling to remote locations in the Australian desert to record an ancient soundscape. There, only the most fundamental geophony of gentle winds are recorded in an environment of extreme quietude. Finally, in an attempt to escape all sound on the ground, weather balloons are used to remove sound layers through altitude, recording through the troposphere, into the stratosphere and up to near-silence above the Ozone Layer.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10453/168655