One of the most attractive parts about New York City is arguably its park system, which includes some of the most renowned parks anywhere in the world - Central Park, Washington Square Park, etc…. However, the big park areas in NYC are almost exclusively reserved for high-income residents, while the low-income are the ones who are losing out the most due to insufficient green outdoor spaces.
In order to highlight the differences between parks in the city and different neighborhoods, I'm making an artistic soundscape that can represent the contrast between all the involved elements. The final composition can be perceived as experimental or abstracted, as it will mostly derive from a combination of natural sounds (urban and natural environments) and electronic instruments (Computer generated sounds, electric organs).
The sound prints I'm looking for includes:
- Natural Sounds of Nature - trees, leaves, dirt, walking, jogging - to show the beauty and necessity of parks.
- Natural Sounds of the City's Streets - cars, metalic noises, train noises, ambience - to show the tiring sounds of the city and the people.
- Instrumental - Upbeat Jazz, Blues, R&B - to capture New York City's senses.
- Electronic (Computer Generated) Sounds - to complement the calmness of parks and chaos of the city hustle.
All sounds will either be made by me or non-copyrighted sources.
Logistics & production details
For production, I plan to use very simple tools available to NYU students.
| Pre-production | Production | Post-production | |
| Procedure |
Idealize and identify feels, tempo, structure of the soundscape.
Plan out audio recording dates and methods. |
Record audio using different methods.
Put the audio tracks together for a complete composition. |
Polish audio tracks.
Finalize edits. |
| Equipments |
DR-40X Tascam Audio Recorder
Behringer B-5 Single Diaphragm Condenser Microphone |
Adobe Audition
Editing computer |
|
| Result | Rough draft | Unpolished composition | Polished and finalized composition |
Affect and influence
The composition is meant to impact the audience's hearing sense. It hopes to enhance the audience's learning experience while exhibiting the varied environmental sounds and characteristics (the difference between contradictory elements in the project and context in which it is played). Since the project surrounds the idea of space and the environment, I want the listener to experience that. Firstly through a feeling of the natural, of lightness and green which represents the rich, affluent areas of NYC. The soundscape's first part will create a very welcoming, elegant feel. Then I would transition to the second part which is heavier, tighter, more constrained, which fits more to the image of cramped up apartments in NYC's poor neighborhoods where there would be little to no space for experiencing nature.
The particular neighborhoods that I'm visiting are:
- The Upper West Side, where there's access to 2 of the biggest parks in NYC - Central Park and Riverside Park.
- Greenwhich Village, where there's access to piers, Hudson River Park and Washington Square Park.
- The South Bronx neighborhoods, where there's the beautiful Crotona Park, but also the unkempt, under-maintenanced Tremont Park.
- The East Flatbush neighborhoods, where lies the tight and often crowded city parks.
This project is not about amplfying the prejudices against different reighborhoods, rather it's about the things that could be done differently or better in order to serve equality among different classes, gender, and race of New Yorkers. In order to solve a problem, we need to firstly recognize that there is one, and the visual as well as audio samples being represented in this project serves as such.
My hope through this composition is to make the audience connect more to the ones who are living in New York's poorest and richest neighborhoods, and thus further understand the inequality that's happening in the past few years, in the best city in the world. I hope that it would incentivize the audience to push for change and actions from our leaders and policy makers, to create a living environment that's fair and just, regardless of income or race.