Glyn Keegan
My project attempted to use environments to facilitate and improve the nature of my music, by emphasising acoustic qualities to enrich the stories of songs I wrote, in the folk genre.
I attempted to find out if personal songs, with vintage sounding guitar, nostalgic and poignant lyrical content are preferred by listeners and if less personal/poignant storytelling was better suited to more conventional studio settings.
Lastly I wanted to see if sparser songs are suited to more reverberant environments that showcase the room and allow for the quiet sections to be more impactful.
I used 3 distinct styles, each song representing the breadth of the folk genre, and styles I cover in my songwriting.
To find out if recording environments impact listeners of my music, and if so, which environments were best suited to each different song or style.
To test multiple environments for practicality, unique as well as mundane places and to find out if they were duplicative in nature.
I intended to chose between recordings I thought covered the spectrum of environments, and worked well as recorded versions of the songs, to then allow a smaller set of songs to be ranked by others.
To cast a short survey, where participants would rank each version of 3 songs.
I recorded in several environments: kitchens, living rooms, under a bridge, in two studio environments (using baffles to isolate the sound) and I found that the second studio I recorded in (Sun Studios) offered great comparison potential, especially given the fact that I was using the same mics and could replicate the setup easily, allowing for direct comparison.
I found that my bedroom was a suitable candidate, as it offered a more authentic, less rich environment that I felt worked well.
So I cut 9 recordings of 3 songs (in three separate environments) into a survey.
Survey:
The first song (with a long, ballad-like story and more complex guitar) suited the closer mics, in a dry/isolated studio environment in Sun Studios.
The second song (another long story-telling song, but more drawn out and atmospheric, describing the struggle of a musician's life) suited the more reverberant, less isolated and larger space in Sun Studios as well.
The third and final song (a more personal song, and written from the perspective of the singer and not describing events, as the others do) was ranked highest in the bedroom environment, it was a thinner sounding recording, using fewer mics and feeling more directed at the listener.
I wrote three folk songs, using influences from the genre as a basis to work from, those inspirations included Bob Dylan, John Martyn, Nick Drake, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell.
All of the songs were stories, told in different ways. The first one was of an old folk hero, blending inspiration from classic stories and modern influences, written in the style of a ballad, attempting to conjure medieval aesthetics. The second song was a narrative based around a more modern character: a musician. Struggling to survive, playing music to people who did not appreciate it, it shows how easy it is to be discouraged, and how important it is to keep trying. The last song was sung and written from the perspective of someone struggling to get to grips with the past, and asking (rhetorically) an unnamed "you" character who is referred to in a zoomorphic sense, to be a bird.
Testing was completed of different environments. Common spaces, such as a living room, kitchen, and outdoor areas were used. The initial recordings after this testing involved a mandolin, to provide some transients in the high end. The most practical, and best takes were done in Sun Studios, and in my bedroom, so I mixed and mastered 9 tracks to be ranked in a survey, and the best three were taken. The survey was small, and therefore somewhat anecdotal, but the nature of the project was subjective and for re-appropriation of techniques and sonic features for future recording of my songs.
I'm a 22 year old songwriter and producer from Co. Mayo in Creative Music Production (CMP4 - DL838). I write and sing folk using an acoustic guitar. The genres I cover are: Folk, Country, Rock music. I produce (separately): Electronica, predominately IDM, Dark Synth and Synthwave.
