One of my key aims for my first year of studying Sound Arts is to develop my practice within the discipline Sound Arts specifically. As I come from a musical background in regards to sound, I feel that it is important that I outline some key differences between Sound Arts and music for this project. My initial ideas when given the assignment brief were much on the ambient music side. The brief asks for a Sound Study rather than a soundscape or music, this will be my first attempt at creating a sound study.  

In order to help myself steer clear of going down the ambient music route, I have set myself a few guidelines; 

Firstly, I am only going to work with pre-recorded or sampled audio. As someone who has made a lot of ambient music before, I am used to mostly using synths and other VSTs to create sounds digitally. VSTs provide an endless amount of possibilities for making sound and music, this freedom can often ironically end up being quite restrictive. I believe that limiting your materials forces you to be more creative with what you’ve got and can help with moving away from old habits and out of your comfort zone, which in my case is avoiding the temptation to go back to ambient music and make sure I stick to the brief of making a sound study. This leads nicely on to my second guideline and that is to avoid using any melodic or rhythmic elements whatsoever. Obviously, the main reason for this is to completely avoid the risk of making music and ensure that I am working more closely to the discipline of sound arts. But also to do with the sense of place I am trying to convey, as there is no music present in the nature reserve whatsoever. (Provided there isn’t someone else there playing music) My third and final guideline is to keep the piece moving constantly. My aim is for the sound study to reflect on my experience visiting the nature reserve and to also convey a sense of place.