I have started to arrange the collection of field recordings and compositions I have recorded and written in order to construct the environment of my interpretation of Monet’s ‘Fisherman’s cottage on the Cliffs of Varengeville’.

I spent this past Wednesday in Greenwich park, collecting sounds that reminded me of the painting, alongside the notes I took of the initial environment before doing a sound walk. Finding groups of birds were the most inspiring, and I went to the thames to record the sound of waves and rocks against the water. The only challenge I faced was finding a sound the represented wind. It wasn’t that windy on the day I went out to record so there were no leaves or trees making any noise. However, after experimentation at home later that night I found the dragging a cloth towel over the carpet in my bedroom and recording the faint sound in stereo with a Zoom H6 created a very convincing sound that can be used as a wave on the beach or gust of wind through a group of plants.

In order to contribute music to the composition I have written two pieces, one titled ‘Scene from the Cottage No. 1’ and ‘Scene from the Cottage No. 2’. One utilises midi instrumentation in order to replicate a live string ensemble, and one is a live recording of my roommate Ela and I doing a fairly simple guitar and clarinet duet. This is supposed to represent a faint recording played on a simple phonograph in the cottage depicted in the original painting. Upon layering the compositions with the arrangement I created with the field recordings I found a new sense of depth that feels as if it were a pivotal or developmental scene in a film.

The challenge I found in mixing live environmental sounds together was the abundant low end; having recorded the birds at a high gain. In cutting the low end from all the clips I edited and arranged together, I found a certain lack of depth to the environment presented. In adding foley, the article wind I recorded with the face towel, I was able to layer in what was necessary to complete the environment I wanted to create.