Justification for Soundscape We were asked to create a soundscape based on Bill Fontanas work, so that they could be presented

at Arley Hall to an audience. The theme of our soundscape was slavery in Liverpool in the 20th Century, and we aimed to mix together sounds sourced both naturally and from the website freesound. Our initial ideas were to mix the sounds of slaves working, such as groans of pain, and bags of grain being piled on top of each other. However we chose instead to record sounds of the slaves being imported into the docks, with sounds such as chains rattling and the engine of a boat included in the scape. My group went to the Liverpool Albert Dock into the Slavery Museum and sourced sounds of boats from in there. We also researched a little bit more about maritime slavery to gain more knowledge about what we were creating. We all had a go at recording sounds using the zoom equipment, and we even got on a boat to record its engine. Many of these sounds are included in our final soundscape, and there are very few sounds that we have imported from freesound in there. There are lots of sounds of rattling chains included, also the eerie squeaking of rusty bars. The aim was to make it sound really gloomy, so whoever listens to it gets the image of what it was like to live like a slave at that time, and so we downloaded a sound from freesound to play at the start of the sequence. This played quite a distorted bass, and we equalized it to make the volume switch between loud and quiet, to add more of a creepy effect to the scape. We edited nearly all of the sounds that we included so that they fit in to the theme, and if anything was out of place we would cut it up and loop it until it flowed smoothly with everything else. The sounds we recorded from the Albert Dock made up the first one and a half minutes of the soundscape, and we didnt want the whole of the second half to be made up of sounds gathered entirely from the internet. My group and I took the opportunity to record some more sounds in one of the music rooms in our college. It was at this point that we recorded ourselves moving around, attempting to recreate the sounds of slaves on ships in the 20th Century. We used various musical instruments and parts of the room to record what sounds like the typical environment of a slave ship. We recorded thuds, I played a symbol on the drums and a bass drum pattern in quarter note beats so that they could be used for near the end of the song, to represent the strict orders that the slaves were given, and that they had to be very precise with their work. One member of the group also recorded herself dragging her nails across the front of a guitar amplifier, to appear like there was nails falling on the floor and that one of the slaves had perhaps messed up whilst they were working. I individually worked on the second half of the soundscape, with some help from one of my colleagues. I took the sounds that we recorded in the music room, and edited them by changing volumes and adding other effects to create a sort of order that fit together, but not so much that it created a storyline. The only other sound that I took from freesound was a violin playing, to create a sense of sympathy that the audience could feel for the slaves of that time. I edited this so that it looped smoothly and was rather quiet; giving other individual sounds a higher volume to stand out. I took a groan that one of my group members made during the recordings and reduced the pitch significantly, so that it sounded like a man, and also increased the length of time that the sound was

played for; making it seem like someone was in agony. It was shortly after this that I inputted the sound of the thud on the floor, which would make anyone listening know that the slave has collapsed, possibly from exhaustion. Finally I inserted the bass drum and ride cymbal patterns and tried to make them fit together. However the beats per minute were slightly different so I made them play one after the other instead. I had the sound track of the violins fade out to indicate the end of the sound scape. What worked was the sounds that we recorded naturally, as we chose good environments to record them in and we could choose to do different things with the equipment available such as instruments and chains. Recording sounds naturally is what Bill Fontana does, so we ensured that we do this to follow his style. It is also more efficient that downloading sounds from the internet, as it can take ages to find the sound that you want. Our finished soundscape meets the initial thought and concept that we had, as it is rather gloomy to reflect how depressing it was living life as a slave being imported into the docks of Liverpool; it would take months to sail there from some destinations. However, in some ways it didnt meet them, as we could have included more dialogue between slaves and guards/sailors to engage the listener more.