Anthony, Ryan and Kyle's Sound Critiques

Anthony:
Ah, losing a valuable piece of expensive machinery. We’ve all done it at some point or another. This piece was successful and unsuccessful at the same time. I am a big fan of spoken internal monologues and this one was very honest and not at all overdone. At the same time, I would have liked to hear more of the uncertainty and panic of misplacing such an important item. I know that even when I lose something as cheap as my student ID, it’s a few good hours of panic and plan-making before I can relax in the knowledge that either I’ve found it or made a replacement plan. The voice and tone seemed a little too calm and bemused for the situation. I did however, appreciate the ambient sounds provided. They were the exact right volume and level of reverb for their surroundings. The fade-in interiors of buildings like Eickoff were dead-on. Really great job! Also the muffled winter footsteps were particularly effective, especially since footsteps tend to be one’s main focus when retracing them. Overall, great job, just would have like more of a build-up to the final discovery and relief. The panic and relief contrast could have been stronger.

Ryan:
Is this you playing the guitar? You are very talented. The first thing that struck me was the sharp tone of the guitar compared the warm and casual tones of your voices. This is both positive and negative in that it communicates the focus of music in your life, but also overshadows and outshines otherwise important dialogue for the narrative. I love seeing creative processes, especially in music. Music is one of my passions but the talent of writing it has always eluded me. I especially loved how ideas were immediately realized audibly to us as if they were already completed the minute they were conceived. Again, the strumming guitar is prominent but also distracting to the verbal creative process. I loved how natural the conversations were between the speakers and how absorbed you, in particular were in the emotional value of the music. The memory evoked halfway through was unclear, again, a result of the overpowering guitar. If that was changed, it would be an especially successful project.

Kyle:

Yet another guitar, might have guessed! Though they share the guitar element, yours is very different from your brother’s. It’s more of a jumbled collage of sounds, almost like a cut and pasted stream of consciousness. It’s very electronics based and I got the visual of speakers, laptops and tine cans while listening. The snipping sound at the beginning was very clear and your sound quality is crisp throughout. Again, music is very prominent and I can see it plays a large role in your day to day perception. I would, however, like to have heard some original sounds and voices in your piece. There’s only so much re-recorded audio can accomplish and the result was slightly impersonal. Some organic contrast sounds would have been nice, but overall, it had a sort of swift beat and rhythm, almost as if it was the sound of checking things off a list, a mix of work and leisure, the sounds of a college student. Though the narrative was unclear, it did come off as a very robotic, youthful rhythm of a life lived through electronics.