The students created a 3-minute soundscape about Liverpool that communicated a bygone era. They researched Liverpool's history with immigration and slavery and captured field recordings at Liverpool dock. The soundscape features distorted African drums to represent cultural tension, layered with birds to represent immersion in African culture. A loud manipulated water recording represents Liverpool's significance. A reverberated man's cry on a boat conveys confinement. A low-frequency boat horn with long sustain suggests the question of when slavery would end. Overall, the soundscape uses edited environmental recordings to displace the listener in time and culture through themes of immigration and slavery in Liverpool's history.

1. Unit 70: Stage Sound Design
Justification of sound design
We were asked to create a 3 minute sound scape that communicated a bygone time, which
could be displaced. Our theme was Liverpool. We researched Liverpool and at first, came up
with the idea of communicating a different culture or foreign country. We also looked at
war and slavery alone before coming up with the idea to create a sound scape with sounds
that relate to immigration and slavery, and leave our sound scape open to interpretation.
We eventually decided to go to Liverpool dock to capture sounds to do with immigration
and slavery, which linked to our original idea of a different culture.
We chose to play African drums throughout our piece to directly relate to the theme of
immigration and slavery. The drums are of a fast pace which suggests tension.
However, we decided to edit the rest of the drums after the original drums using sound
forge using the distort effect, to show the transition from a familiar culture to a change in
culture when the immigrants travelled to Liverpool.We also wanted to distort the drums to
a point that they created more tension and fear and a significant change in the atmosphere
of the piece. Distorting sounds helps to create this tension because it changes the sounds
pitch and adds dissonance. The drums have a short attack, sustain and decay and a fast
paced rhythm. The drums are a low pitch which makes each beat sound powerful. This
edited drum piece plays throughout the rest of our soundscape which carries the feeling of
tension.
We then layered the beginning of the drum rhythm with African birds. We chose to have the

2. bird sounds fade out when the drums begin to distort. The bird soundings are of a high
frequency, which makes us feel like we are close to the source of the sound and immersed
in the culture. This links to Bill Fontana’s Pigeon Soundings, where he used birds to
communicate space and location.
We chose to play the sound of water we recorded, and decided to manipulate it so it was a
lot louder than the other sounds at this point. This is show that the water is a significant part
of our sound scape. This links to Bill Fontana’s River Soundings. He purposely recorded
water, and displaced the sound at sites where there isn’t any running water. This links to his
idea of “suspending visual belief”.
We also included the cry of a man, which we added reverb to so it sounds as though he is on
a boat in a confined space. Reverb makes a sound echo, and can help to communicate
location. The man’s voice has a short attack, a long sustain and moderate decay. The
beginning of the sound is a high frequency, moving to a midrange frequency, then a low
frequency just before the sound finishes. This makes the man’s cry seem powerful, and yet
also like we’re close to the source of the sound, which suggests the lack of space on the
boat, which is backed up by our use of reverb on this sound.
The boats horn is of a low frequency which makes it sound powerful. The horn has a short
attack and a long sustain and decay. This makes the sound longer than most, which could be
linked to the question of slavery – when will it end? This also links to Bill Fontana’s work, as
this is an environmental sound that we recorded in Liverpool.
Our sound scape contains distinct sounds that can be linked directly to our theme, and the
theme of bygone times. Our sound scape’s theme helps it to be displaced in the means of
time, and culture. We have also been able to edit our sounds to create sounds that sound
older, or for example, reverb has been added to make the sound echo like the sound is
coming from an enclosed space on a boat. If I were to do my sound scape again, I would
record more sounds, or distinct sounds that could be repeated throughout the sound scape.