project 2 reflection

Ella Shaffer
Reflection on Sound Project
This sound project grew out of our class exercise. I decided that I wanted to do a piece about a friend of mine’s most recent relationship. Since I was and still am friends with both parties involved, I wanted to try and include both perspectives of the relationship. I also was constantly around both of these people as they both lived with my boyfriend. They have since split up, and Janelle has moved back to FL while Ricky has stayed here and is continuing to live with my boyfriend, Brian.
Janelle and Ricky met randomly one night while Ricky’s boat was in Port Canaveral, FL. Janelle was leaving a bar with her friend and Ricky was in the parking lot under a street lamp and called out to the girls to come talk to them and offered to buy them a drink. They talked on the phone for a couple months and then decided that Janelle should move up to Norfolk so that they could be together. Like all whirlwind relationships, they had a very tumultuous relationship of highs and lows. They even broke up for a few days over Christmas and eventually, Janelle decided that she had rushed into the relationship and decided to go back to FL and pick up the pieces of her life there. As I stated, Janelle and Ricky are both people I would consider good acquaintances, if not friends, and she is doing very well. She has gotten a job, sounds over the phone (something that I wish I could have captured in this piece) like a totally different person—relaxed and full of joy and energy. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for Ricky. He puts on a good face at home…acts like nothing bothers him, but his actions over the last month show otherwise. He has been out drinking a lot and the latest on him is that he was caught by Brian and two junior officers huffing on the boat while they were underway. While Ricky has always been a thrill seeker, his actions have turned more self-destructive since Janelle has left.
As a writer, and avid and varied music fan…I wanted to create a sound essay interpreting their relationship. I used several songs in my iTunes Library. Unfortunately, some of the CD’s that I had added to my Library where MPEG4’s and would not transfer to Audacity (at least, I couldn’t figure out how to convert them). Also, I tried to just use songs and mix them together, although, now that I think about it, the project would have probably been better with some primal screams and slamming door sounds…since that happened a lot throughout the time they were living together. My audience would be people that are considering jumping into a serious relationship or moving in together before establishing a strong relationship first.
At first, I was really excited about this project, but as time went on, I became more and more frustrated with the editing aspect of the project…I felt like I kept having to fade everything in and out which became tedious. I also had to try and get the snippets of sound very precise which was pretty cumbersome over time.

Sources used:
Dire Straits: “Romeo and Juliet”
Rusted Root: “Beautiful People”
Sheryl Crow and The Dixie Chicks: “Strong Enough”
The Beatles: “Here Comes the Sun”
The Grateful Dead: “One Toke Over the Line”
Alice Cooper: “School’s Out for Summer”
Good Charlotte: “My Bloody Valentine”
The Clash: “Should I Stay or Should I Go”
Joaquin Sabina: “Quien Me Ha Robado El Mes de Abril”
John Coltrane: “In A Sentimental Mood”
Gypsy Kings: “Samba”
Pablo Neruda: “From Twenty Poems of Love” http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/from-twenty-poems-of-love/