For our second Project as Action in Soundtopia, we created a soundscape that depicts the pitch of one of our favorite songs. The song I chose to do was Angel by Jack Johnson because it has always been a really utopic song for me and manages to relax me and give me a carefree feeling. This was a really challenging project in that identifying the pitch was something I had never done before and proved to not be very good at and creating our instruments to remake our song was no easy feat. However, although my version sounds nothing like the original, I’m proud of it and think it sounds pretty cool! You can listen to it below.
Artist Statement:
HM
Soothe My Soul
May 2013
120 seconds
The purpose of this project was to create a soundscape that was based off listening to the pitch of another song. We were given the choice of choosing either a utopic or dystopic song and I chose one of my favorite songs of all time, Angel by Jack Johnson. This project was a really long process and there was so much I had to learn. I first had to take a lot of time understanding pitch and how to recreate it with different instruments and sounds. We also had the really cool opportunity of learning how to and making our own instruments, a diddleybow and.
There is not one specific memory that I associate with Angel by Jack Johnson but instead just several memories of times it has helped me feel incredibly peaceful and at ease. When I think of this song, I often think of warm weather, relaxing, and feeling incredibly carefree no matter what exactly I’m doing. I chose to title my “remix” of this song “Soothe My Soul” because that is exactly what the original song does for me, no matter the circumstance. Pitch plays a large role in this because I think although it’s relatively low it offers a really calming vibe and therefore making me feel all the things I do when I listen to it.
Finally, to create this project we had to first identify the pitch of the song we wanted to choose and then go back in and identify the pitch of each element of the song, instruments and voice. Then, we created our instruments and used them to play the pitches we had already identified. I recorded all my sounds on my phone then downloaded them to GarageBand where I organized them so that they would sound as close to the pitch of the song I’m so familiar with.