EDWIN JONES
MUSIC
About
​
Edwin Jones is (probably) a WAAPA graduate from the Composition and Music Technology degree (Hons).
His output runs the gamut from film scores to performance art spectacles.
In addition to his eclectic output as a composer, Edwin is also a guitarist working primarily in improvisational contexts.
He should probably archive his stuff or something.
Field Report. Week One
A pulsating wave travels up in frequency as it swells in volume. An underpinning moan of ethereal torment and grinding breathes underneath. A wail interjects, high and thin, cutting through and rising to the top of the sound. A sporadically rhythmic beat attacks through the mid range, jumping out and fading as it dynamically charges and diminishes. Long decaying sizzling tones come through and juxtaposes against the beating, creating a semblance of order to the chaos. An organic clicking makes its way to the fore because it is the only sound that isn't drenched in reverb and ambient sound. A sharp wailing begins to appear, high pitched and thin at first, it swells in volume and becomes warmer as harmonics from other frequencies are made apparent in it.
Field Report. Week Two
A soft and far away wash of soothing static flows, a constant drone of high dispersed frequency. A very quickly oscillating pitch is also a near constant, but it’s pitch is more focused than the previously discussed, a chorus of similar sounds, almost as abundant in sources to seem like a single focused note. An occasional jarring bass sound comes through, an originally loud noise that has been diffused leaving only the low frequencies carrying. A noisy signal is being shut on and off, a processed and thin sound that is melodic but so washed with reverberance that it no longer seems so. A shrill tone comes through, very wavering in pitch but maintaining the same high-mid range focused timbre, the shrill tone warbles up and down sporadically in pitch but always descends before it ends its phrase.
Field Report. Week Three
A rhythmically choppy sound flows through the centre of the soundscape, midrange and higher timbres cutting through amongst the din of lower frequencies. Different sources trade back and forth an arrhythmic trading, the different sources utilizing a dynamic range from very low and constant sound to higher pitched sounds with greater amplitude and harmonic richness. A high pitched noise comes through, it drops in pitch as the amount of oscillations is reduced and then smoothly returns to it's whirring natural pitch. A high pitched tone cuts through, despite being somewhat quiet and distant sounding, it occupies it's own very specific slice of the pitch and frequency spectrum and is rhythmically constant unlike most of the other sound. A low frequency rumbling, low in amplitude, underscores the whole soundscape.
Field Report. Week Four
The soundscape is mostly bare with the only constants being a very low rumbling tone and another tone that is more midranged and airy. In the lower spectrum other rumbling, somewhat menacing tones come and go, building in pitch as they go up in amplitude, and falling in pitch as they become quiet and disappear. Within the mid to high range there are disorganised sounds, high pitches, grinding buzzes and the occasional melodic phrase. While the sounds themselves are not especially loud or many, they are amplified by the many warm and disparate reverberations of the space. Occasional high percussive sounds and scratching voices come closer, speedily working their way through the other sounds which are mostly lower mid-range and decaying. Interaction occurs between different sources, bright reassuring with clear timbral qualities, trading with more garbled less distinct spaces that cut less through the din.
The space has a distinct difference in it's spacialisation, different sets of high-mid range arrhythmic punctures coming from the left side of the space and the right. An open sounding, airy tone comes from behind, distinctly non-tonal as opposed to the melodic chatter from the space. A soft but crunchy low range sound moves through the space, punctuated and rhythmical moderate and even. The space is quite enough to make very small changes in sound apparent, but the many sources of these small sounds tend to accumulate as the listener wades deeper, til they are almost cocophanous. New sounds become apparent, crisp, thin, high range frequency. The room is dead and all sounds are first order, with very little reflections, so things feel closer than they might actually be. A silvery chunking noise taps away, two distinct timbred tones, quickly trading off with each other and stopping at seemingly random times.
Field Report. Week Five
Field Report. Week Six
The space is hugely reverberant, almost none of the sounds are first order, they are all accompanied by thinner facsimiles of themselves. The sounds behave in an interesting crescendo and decrescendo as they progress, not characterised by their attack but by the way they are bolstered as they inherit all the harmonics of the offset echoes of themselves. Some of the sounds are high timbred smooth and mid-range approaching in a wash of softened sound. There are other tighter, higher pitched sounds, these are the biggest transients in the space and feel closer to us, but the initial peak is interestingly garbled into a milieu of it's own repeats, a hollow cold sound that holds none of the solidity of the initial signal. A new source of high frequencies comes in, a long with series' of ascending and descending sub-bass frequencies, these are not subject to the echoic effect and hold their own, seemingly seperate part of the spectrum because of this fact
Field Report. Week Seven
The spectrum is full of an overlay of different coloured sound sources. Punctuated, quick, high tones with a round sounding timbre interject at the very top of the layers. Thick garbled bass frequencies push into the bottom of the spectrum, still punchy even without the attack that the mid range would provide. Tight, mid-range tones jump up and down, a very warm timbre that speeds up, slows down, pauses and jumps almost erratically in pitch, switching between low and high. The energy of a travelling low bass sound feel naked to their nature as mechanical vibrations, seemingly bending the soundscape with each distinct burst. A lighter sound begins, a drone that is notable for it’s steadiness of pitch, a low airy note that doesn’t attract so much attention with dynamics.
Field Report. Week Eight
The space feels empty and clean at first, due to the almost complete lack of any strong fundamental sounds in the mid-range. The interjecting of squealing high sounds draw the ear upwards, to the high breathy mesh of sounds that resides there, no specificity of pitch, rather just a band of soft noise. The attention is then drawn to the bottom of the spectrum, where warm bass sounds travel in and out, some of them fleshed out with crisper high frequencies, but most of them low and dull and travelling up and into and down and out of the soundscape. Now that the landscape is accustomed to, small artefacts begin to make themselves known, and the midrange is not as bare as it at first seemed. Crisp rhythmic repetitions, quick high mid range sounds, far away clicks and pops, now become closer to the listener than they could before.
Field Report. Week Nine
A drone emanates throughout an otherwise sonically sparse scene. The drone feels like it must be made of two deprecate sources as it it has an inherent strain to it, perhaps compounded by the second and third order echoes that are padding out its sound with distorted sense of pitch. A lower sound makes itself know now. Strong mid range timbres devoid of high frequency push around the space, warm and coarse in texture. A high sound and a wet slow sound appear from two different sources, another more pitch centric drone comes into the mid range and briefly the soundscape is alive althought not with any very colourful rich sounds.
Field Report. Week Ten
A series of different sound objects exist in a reverberant space off to one side of the listener. The different sources each give precedence to another sound, taking turns. Each has a curiously similar way of beginning by rhythmically dancing up in pitch at the start of a phrase, then slowly and steadily crawling back down to a lower pitch to finish the phrase. Each sound source has distinct timbal qualities, some sitting higher in range and others coming from a thicker, more fundamental place with less overtone detail. All of a sudden the sources convene into a shared melody and become one thick and airy tone, seemingly paradoxically keeping the strength of heavy fundamental notes right along with the airy harmonic sparkly textures.
Field Report. Week Eleven
The scene is full of many low-mid range frequencies from many sources vying for dominance.It is the rumbling tones with greater amplitude and lower pitches that tend to dominate, they throb between two distinct low pitches. In the absence of these heavier sounds there is space for the soft, somewhat sparkly blanket of sounds that travel very smoothly in amplitude in and out and make little variation in their pitch. The sound object weave quickly and frequently in and out of dominance, but there is always one sound object at a time that is briefly the main attraction, usually due to a quick flash upward in their amplitude which quickly at first then more slowly is decayed. The few higher pitched interjections cut easily through the mix, quick stabbing pitches immediate in their attack and decay.