Thoughts on Soundscape Piece Conceptualisation

For this post I thought I'd just do some free writing about the concept I have in mind for my soundscape piece. The basic concept I want to convey is the sound of my brain as it goes through a normal day in which I wake up, take a shower, go record different spaces for my sound library, come home, make dinner, do the dishes and eventually go to sleep and start dreaming. This concept is quite mundane at its core since it's supposed to capture an average day for someone like myself. I'm hoping that I'll be able to add some interest with different sound layers representing everyday stress and the act of dreaming. For instance, I'm thinking that the piece will begin with the droning sound of the fan in my room, followed by my alarm clock. At this point, sounds that will appear later in the piece/day slowly start fading into the mix, representing me thinking about what I have to do that day, but they never come to the fore since they're not actually happening yet.

 As my day goes through typical routine to the point of venturing out through the camden markets, these anticipatory sounds will remain a part of the mix while the sound of what's actually happening is louder and panned center. Then, once I reach the place I actually want to record, Regent's canal to start, I'm enjoying myself more, my head is more clear, and thus the mental noise fades to an almost inaudible level. The piece will then remain fairly simple and sparse, mostly highlighting the peaceful canal sounds of boats passing, water, and bird calls among other elements. I think I'll follow this in a similar fashion with some quality sounds I captured at Trinity Buoy Wharf. Then, the piece transitions into the journey home on tube/bus at which point the mental noise creeps back into the mix as I not only think about cooking dinner, doing dishes and and other chores but also remember what I've done with my day thus far.

Once I've done all my chores and I'm getting ready for bed, the mental noise fades away again as I clear my head to go to sleep, eventually reaching complete silence. This is where the piece really gets interesting as I try to evoke the essence of dreaming using only the previously heard sounds of my day, but with lots of manipulation. For this section, I'll try to make something very detailed and psychedelic that represents the strange fashion in which the brain recycles and jumbles our experiences in dreams. Finally, the piece will come full circle as the psychedelic dreamscape abruptly ends with the sound of my alarm clock, followed by the quiet drone of my fan.