Louie Bourne Sound Arts Blog

  • The Toy Market

    The Stylophone rose to popularity in the early 70s not just in musician’s circles but within toy culture as well, “This is largely attributable to its introduction on TV by Rolf Harris, its use in the song that launched David Bowie’s career, “Space Oddity,” and its appearance in a popular TV series “The Avengers”. Three…

  • Sustainability

    The materials I am using for this project are not as sustainable as they could be, this is something I aim to improve on in future projects. My current materials are electronic components, a PCB board, Wood, Plastic speakers. I am preparing to make this change in my process by researching sustainable alternatives to PCB…

  • Soldering

    I have always felt fulfilled by making things using my hands and intricate processes, during my early teens I would often attend pottery workshops with my granddad, a leather worker. I felt fulfilled by learning the skills to create something physical that could sit in the home. I also have an interest in guitar pedals…

  • Collaborative Instruments

    Instruments being created for non musical people supports the idea that sound should be accessible for everybody, having instruments that don’t heavily rely on technique helps eradicate the ownership that musicians have over sound, “Making collaborative interfaces relatively simple and easy to learn facilitates flow for novices.” (Blaine, T, Fels, S, Contexts Of Collaborative Musical…

  • The absence of music and using music for narrative

    I recently visited the cinema to watch “The Old Oak” by Ken Loach, a very real story about community in an ex miners town in the north of England. The sound in this film made me realise how evocative the absence of music can be when applied correctly in a film. There are three instances…

  • Why not use PureData?

    During this section of the course I have experimented with PureData within lectures and outside of lectures, I have created basic synthesisers and sequencers and have found the process of learning how to code using pure data interesting. What I didn’t like about pure data was the lack of physicality, I wanted to be learning…

  • Recording Foley

    Me, George and Lucas spent three hours in the foley studio on Wednesday morning recording for the opening clip of “We need to talk about Kevin”. In this time a process formed naturally, roles changed throughout the three hours with each of us taking turns performing to the screen. Firstly, we made a list of…

  • Blackboards

    Blackboards follows two groups of refugees following the Halabja Massacre, one group of adults, the old and the sick, and one group of child smugglers. We are introduced to these groups by two teachers who are hauling blackboards on their backs and desperate for work. I found it comical that these men would ask for…

  • Reflection on the use of a mix template

    I enjoyed using a mix template for this track, I kept my project way more organised than I have done previously however it still looked messy by the end. In my next projects I will continue to work on the organisation of my projects by sticking more closely to my templates I make for each…

  • Reflection on sound effects

    My initial intentions with sound effects were to use many small sound effects of conscious creatures. During the composition of my track I tested using many sound effects and it sounded over the top, I think only using a few is more tasteful and gives more focus to the ones used, this will make the…