Music Concrete Loop (First Assignment)

For our first assignment, we were asked to record natural sounds we experience in our daily lives. These sounds were then combined through various looping mobile applications and played for the class and throughout the University of Nevada, Reno campus through handmade cardboard tubing.

The sounds that I recorded were walking up and down stairs, walking down a hallway, someone talking on a phone (unbeknownst to him), humming the "Doug" theme song, a clicking pen, and outdoor sounds. They were all combined in the Looper application at varying volumes.

The recording sounded better when they were played through real speakers. The differences in panning and the clarity made the sounds quite distinct and "loopable." When the recording was played in the cardboard tubing, the sounds were mashed together and lost the aspects that made it listenable. It sounded like a metal singer growling the entire time when it was in the tube.

When we walked around campus, I could really only hear my own recording since it was a deafening growl. The looks that people gave us were pretty funny and as a whole when we circled up, there was really a cacophony of sound.

The recording:

What it sounds like in the cardboard tube: