1) The document discusses the author's soundscape project focusing on portraying the Albert Dock in Victorian Liverpool through environmental sounds. 2) Key elements of the soundscape include faded transitions between sounds to create a smooth listening experience, a recording of chains with added effects to make it more abstract, and altered pitch of voices to distort them. 3) Overlapping layers of sounds like talking, waves and seagulls were used to give the impression of a busy crowded place near the water. Repeating certain sounds symbolized multiple boats in the dock, supporting Bill Fontana's artistic mission.

1. My written justification for my soundscape
Introduction
I was asked to create a 3 minute sound sculpture of a bygone time and took into
consideration Liverpool’s Albert dock. For the purpose of this task, I went to Liverpool for
both research and to record sounds. My initial ideas were The Beatles because they were
from Liverpool, slavery, because ships carrying slaves docked into Liverpool and the titanic
because the company who built the ship was from Liverpool and the staff on board the
titanic had strong links with Liverpool. Therefore, I decided to the subject of Titanic and
included sound ideas such as classical music and the ship sinking. However, I ran into a
problem. I found that the titanic would be too much of a narrative and this contradicted the
basic principles of Bill Fontana and his environmental sounds. So I decided to do our
soundscape on the Albert dock and to portray it of how it must have been in Victorian times
when it first opened.
Key points
My soundscape mostly uses recorded sounds recorded by our
group. I only use 2 pre-recorded sounds sourced from freesound.org
and YouTube.
Firstly, I decided to fade in each
sound. I faded the first sounds of
the sound scape by 3 seconds. I
faded in the sound because it
would be a smooth transition
between the scene where the audience were and the Albert dock, the main theme of the
sound scape. This would give the first sounds on the sound scape a slow attack.
Another key feature
of my sound scape
is a recording a
chain being pulled
up a down, so its
fits the theme. Plus, I have put the effect a “wah wah”. We’ve done this to make it more
abstract and this supports Bill Fontana’s principle of experimental sound compositions.

2. I also have changed
the pitch of the
voices used. This
made the voices sound quite distorted which added another depth to the piece and made it
less naturalistic. You could still identify that there were people talking but they sounded
squeaky and distorted to make it more abstract.
The different layers
added depth to the piece
and made it more
interesting. When some
of the sounds were
played on top of each
other it made it seem like
a busier atmosphere to
give the audience the
feeling that they were in a
crowded. The talking
layered on top of the waves and the seagulls was to give the impression that they were in a
busy place near the water.
We repeated
some of the sounds throughout the piece to symbolise to the audience that there was more
than one boat in the dock. This supports Bill Fontana’s artistic mission, the transformation
and deconstruction of the visual with the aural.
Conclusion
I believe my piece does meet the initial theme of the brief. This is because I believe that my
soundscape gives the impression to the audience that there in the Albert dock because of
the sounds of people talking making them believe they are in a busy crowded place, but also
because of the sounds sourced from the Albert dock. I also believe that the choices we
made by leaving the titanic theme worked because it would be too much of a narrative
rather than a soundscape and not support the concept of Bill Fontana. I recorded most of
the sounds in Liverpool so the soundscape has a sense of realism. So if it’s played in a stately
home for example, it would displace the sound which is another aspect of Bill Fontana.