As I stated in the last update, my next main focus for my piece was to find a text that reflected the sense of place I felt when moving to London. Initially, being inspired by other tracks that use recordings of a text, such as ‘Giorgio by Moroder’ by Daft Punk, I aimed to find an interview from someone that worked on the transport network in London. Although I still think this idea would’ve been fairly successful for the track, after some test recordings I decided that me reciting the words of someone else’s personal experience wasn’t ideal- as it did not carry the personal emotion I was trying to convey through the recording and track as a whole; recordings of me speaking someone else’s words felt unnatural.
Because of this experimentation, I decided to research poetry from London. I believe that due to its figurative language, words spoken from poetry can have a much more personal effect than other writings such as interviews. After some research online, I found a collection- ‘(1991). 100 Poems on the Underground London : Cassell’. These poems were displayed on Underground trains to an audience of commuters. My favourite of these- and the one that resonates most deeply with me is ‘Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1801’ by William Wordsworth (see below).
After deciding on the poem, I had to choose whether to have it recited by myself or someone else. I decided at first to have my friend recite it, and although they read it better than I could, ultimately I chose to recite it myself as it felt more complimentary to the themes of the project. I also decided to make the recording at home rather than in a studio environment on campus, again to emphasise its ‘rawness’. The final recording was done with a AKG perception P4 dynamic microphone in order to reduce unwanted background noise, as although I wanted the recording to feel authentic, it needed to have a level of ‘cleanliness’ in order for me to process it effectively. I added some simple vocal effects such as reverb and subtle delay to achieve the ‘dream-like’ feel I wanted to capture in the track- the reasons for I established in the last post.
I found the final recording successful- my next aims to develop the project were to find suitable recordings to compliment the vocal, as well as carving out space in the arrangement and dynamics for the vocals to sound natural within the track.