Music

Artists of Hangzhou

Dominic Falso

When I began making this my digital music piece, I used the digital workstation that goes by the name Soundtrap. I had the term “West Lake” in mind. I knew that I had to make my piece revolve around west lake while making it interesting. I chose the water splashing noise as my symbol for west lake for two reasons: west lake is a lake, therefore consists of a lot of water. And that was the only audio available from the field trip due to the others having bad background noise/technical problems. Well, even if it was the only audio I could choose from, I still felt that it was appealing and could potentially . I added a beat and an 808 to the piece because it is something that represents me. I listen to a lot of rap music so I chose some specific instruments to give my piece a kick while still maintaining the west lake theme. I also used a software called Uberduck to generate an audio sound which would reinforce the west lake theme. The audio sound connected to me and the piece because it was an AI voice of a rapper that I listen to a lot, the rapper would say “Yeah, West Lake”.

Eden Lim

Using soundtrap, I created a digital music piece composed of a mix of natural sounds and ‘musical’ elements; a soundscape. After a virtual visit and several virtual interviews, I decided my piece was to be inspired by the environment of the Longjing tea farms, a balance of both natural and manmade elements and sounds. My aim was for the my entire piece to bring the listener through my interpretation of the infamous tea making process; picking the tea leaves, drying the leaves, frying the leaves, and finally serving the tea! 
The first half, I had hoped to be representative of how it would feel to pick tea leaves; serene and fantastical, and reflective of the natural elements that residents often brought up, open air, fresh food, the ever present smell of tea, through a high pitched, lightweight, repeating melody and a resounding, well-rounded bassline. 

As the process of tea making progressed into a more urban environment, I tried to create a more grounded, though still whimsical sound, through lower pitched instruments, copious amounts of reverb (for an ‘indoors’ sound), along with a combination of tea making sounds (frying, boiling) and easily recognisable urban sounds (chatter, car stopping).
The transition between the two sections was also a crucial part in my opinion, because it represents the connection and balance between the natural and manmade elements. I faded out and panned to one side the first half, in an attempt to make way for the second half to fade in from the other ear. 

Gigi Xiao

My musical piece is a soundscape of what I think the tea farm - when lively and not empty like it is during the pandemic would sound like. Although this is a bit different from my original idea, I think it’s relatively similar. My original idea was to do tourist spots in general, thinking they would be peaceful without a lot of tourists, however, during the virtual field trips, it was a lot livelier - I think I wasn’t expecting the workers who maintain the areas to be so passionate about their jobs. So, I made it faster and more upbeat, to sort of reflect a feeling that's very vibrant and full of life. My final piece is a combination of digital audio and natural sounds, put together in a digital workspace, Soundtrap. When making this piece I started with the recordings of the natural sounds, which included some leaf picking that I used to base the rhythm of my piece from, as well as sounds of moving water and trees for some background noise. When testing it, they sounded right to me, so that is how I decided which sound recordings I would use.

Gorden Chen

In my piece, I used soundtrap to combine natural sounds and musical elements to create a magical/upbeat vibe.  My location was the LongJing tea fields. I wanted to express the feeling of what it's like to be on the top of the hill and looking down on the fields, of course we haven’t been there yet but after our inso field trips, I decided on a magical and upbeat mood.  I have 3 layers to my piece that takes the listener on a journey through the tea fields. The first and shortest was a quick and simple introduction, not with music but with the sound effects of a bus.  The bus would come to a halt, announce the next stop to be the LongJing tea fields, then drive off.  This is just a very quick introduction that tells the listener the location.  The next is a combination of harp, violin, viola,  sounds of wind, water and birds.  I wanted this to have the magical vibe and it would be what you feel when you arrive at the fields.  Then the piece moves to a more upbeat and happy mood using piano, flute, violin, and clarinet.  There are also sounds of tea pouring, tea leaves getting picked, and the sound of birds chirping.  This is what I think the mood and atmosphere is when you reach the peak of the fields, looking down at the gorgeous view.

Hayden Lai

My musical piece conveyed the atmosphere of the LongJing Village using natural sounds such as birds, rain and water pouring into a cup. I used verbal communication at the beginning of my piece to state the specific place that this piece is referring to. Furthermore, I utilised loops and chords to generate a pattern and a melody, I made sure to keep the pace at a moderate tempo so as to simulate the peaceful tranquil environment of the nature within the tea fields.

Irma Sung

In this piece, I wanted to capture the essence of nature and the things that nature brings to us. I tried to create a natural and pure soundscape which also created an eerie effect as I believe nature contains mysteries that are hidden from plain sight. In this piece I focused on recreating the environment of the Longjing Tea fields in Hangzhou. The layers of different sounds show the atmosphere given when visiting the hills where the tea leaves are grown. From my research, I learned about the techniques used in creating the Longjing tea leaves. What fascinated me was the natural process used to create the final product. I wanted to capture the traditional ways of the tea making process, especially as Hangzhou is becoming more of a technological city. From this piece I hope to convey the tradition and the environment around the creation of Longjing tea, and it’s natural atmosphere where Longjing tea leaves are grown. 
I decided to draw a comic, because I’ve always loved reading comics and I love how you can tell a story through a sequence of images and really bring to life a story with expressions, colors and personality. Through this project, I want to develop the skill to visualize my stories, and sketch my ideas down on paper and draw them into life. And have an end result of a story and visuals that I am proud of. 

Isabelle Li

I made my piece by using soundtrap. My piece is a digital music composition, it is soundscape. The place that I aim to let the audience be in is the West Lake, as I think West Lake is the most beautiful and relaxing scenery we have seen and learnt so far in Hangzhou. Within my piece, I included some natural sounds from the West Lake, so that the audience can have a better understanding of West Lake. From my research and interviews in inso, I realised that locals or tourists usually go to West Lake to relax and have fun. So, I decided to have my piece’s theme relaxed and calm. In my natural sounds, I included people talking, laughing, dancing, cooking sizzling sounds, wind, bird and water sounds. At first, there were no cooking sizzling sounds and people dancing. But then I let my friends hear my music, and they thought it was in Longjing Tea Temple. I then researched more about West Lake, and realised that there are a lot of restaurants and people dancing there. That is why I decided to add the sounds. I have made a lot of changes throughout making this piece, and I am glad to make them. 

Jennifer Chen

I wrote a piece of music thinking about how Hangzhou is a heavily artistic city due to its rich culture and history surrounding arts of various kinds, as well as how it’s present today in the city itself, and the minds of its people. I used Soundtrap mainly and chose instruments that sounded soft and funky to perform pentatonic ostinatos – I wanted to combine the artistic history (hence the pentatonic), traditionalism (hence the repeating ostinatos), and imagination of the creator of arts (hence the funky beats) together to create what art in a large 21st century city is like for the average art enjoyer. I visited the Grand Canal and saw an oil umbrella museum there. We interviewed the umbrella creators and many other handmade fan creators in their nearby shops, and gained a deep understanding of what art is like to those who put their lives into it in Hangzhou. Originally I wanted to do a museum to show how history and art are closely connected, but later I turned to a library instead – art is also largely based on imagination, and libraries are the places filled with most imagination in my opinion. I used page-flipping sounds and footsteps to represent that the library is active, but I kept them at low volume since the main focus was the book the listener was reading (represented by the melodies). Before the melody started, a book opening sound played, and after the melody faded out, a book closing sound played. I tried to structure it so that it seems like the listener opened a book and read it for a while, focused in the world the book built with words, while others went on with their own readings nearby. 

Jodie Fei

This digital audio piece, named “Growing: Hangzhou”, is a soundscape that presents “a travel in time”, from ancient Hangzhou, China, to modern Hangzhou, China. The increase in speed and the varying instruments demonstrates the difference in lifestyle (living speed, becoming “westernized”, etc.) as Hangzhou changed and developed overtime. One inspiration was from my InSo question: “What do different generations of Hangzhou citizens think about local art?”. During the field trips, I found through my interviews that the younger generation is known to more westernized music (and instruments) while the older generation is known to more Chinese music (styles and instruments), my piece can also show this difference through my selections (melodic choices of the two cultures, such as pentatonic and heptatonic scales, and instrument choices).Through my piece, I hope to show how life has busied overtime in Hangzhou, and the bird sounds at the very end are to convey my wishes as a musician for a slower, more calm pace of life.  

Julian Sung

I created my soundscape through soundtrap.  It is a music piece incorporating musical elements such as a melody and harmonies along with natural sounds, intended to create an audio image of the location through music. I started with the sound palettes and played around with chord progressions and different musical instruments until I found something that I was looking for. I then added onto it with different elements such as accompanying instruments and of course the soundmarks or natural sound recordings.  The main instruments are a harp, an ocarina and a group of flutes.  I found woodwind instruments to sound more rustic/organic and fitting more with the atmosphere, as with the harp. The harp especially reminded me of the guzheng, and the flute/ocarina both have their Chinese counterparts, perhaps contributing to the oriental sound.  It represents a journey of sorts, where the listener starts in a bustling street with traffic and a crowd, but the music slowly takes him into almost a trance.  The listener slowly begins to dream about nature, and the surreal natural beauty.  Toward the end, the listener snaps back to reality, and an announcement plays, reporting the next station to be West Lake. It is my interpretation of Hangzhou as I have experienced through my short stay at the quarantine hotel and some conversations with locals. It emphasises the natural elements and beauty of this city while remaining a bustling metropolis.  

Matthew Tai

From the beginning, I have decided to contain both nature and city elements into my creation. The idea remained, but it gradually turned into a narration of a story. Similar to a standard sonata, there are four movements in my piece. The morning, The city, West Lake and Nature’s call. It represents a virtual journey, the start of a day, work, then slowly getting sucked into the nature of the city.
The morning: Fading in with birds chirping, it resembles a start, a bright start to a day, as well as keeping in touch with nature at the same time. In order to create a lively and happy mood, I used a ¾ waltz beat in c major, as well as creating a happy melody over it with the clarinet(similar to the flute, an instrument that represents the bird chirps)

The city: The city started with traffic lights and is accompanied by road traffic sounds. A minor chord loop is used, with the choir adding layers as it progresses, to give out a heavy and drowsy mood to emulate the busyness of the city, and to symbolise the wheel loop of city and work life. 
West Lake: To resolve the heaviness of the city, I instilled the calmness of the West Lake. I used nature water sounds to bring out the water aspect of nature. I also used my own cello cover of “moon river”,  which is very fitting for the setting.It fully brought out the peacefulness and the elegance of nature that I was trying to portray. 
Nature's call: I call this section “bringing it home” as the general theme of my creation is nature. I used the ocarina to simulate the chinese flutes, and composed a melody that displays chinese culture. As it is the closing of my creation, I kept this section as thin as possible, adding soft glockenspiels and thin chords, making “nature” sound as light as possible. The listener slowly gets sucked into the beauty of nature. I created an ethereal vibe, which in this case, perfectly symbolises “the nature’s call” and serves as a good closing to my piece. 

Nicole Huen

My piece of art is a digital music composition which is of the soundscape genre created on a website called Sound Trap. To make the music, I first started off with a location. I then chose a chord progression, made a melody, added a few new instruments and finally mixed my music, slowly constructing my final piece of art. This piece of digital music conveys the atmosphere and feeling one has when walking through the West Lake. I decided to have my music convey these aspects because they go hand in hand. Adding feeling to the atmosphere helps the listener visualise and live in the music. By allowing the listeners to experience all of the sounds of nature with the help of the natural sounds they are able to feel as if they are walking through west lake. And with the help of the instruments, they are able to feel all of the emotions. My music was based on one of my InSo question regarding ‘Has the increase in tourists walking around the West Lake affected its naturistic atmosphere?’ I explored this question by displaying both the bustle and peacefulness of the West Lake. My main influence was my previous visit to the west lake. It was a very memorable experience for me, I still remember how it was both noisy and calm at the same time. From the loud chatter of the local people, to the relaxing sound of water rippling and trees leaves rustling in the wind. My goal for my music was for people to experience an accurate representation of what I had experienced. Finally, the message I wanted to convey through my music was a relaxing, light hearted, happy and almost fantastical mood and feeling.

Shuwen Wen

I created this piece through soundtrap, with the use of the sounds that our couch mentors gave us as well as some searched up online. This piece was made to represent the tea fields of Hangzhou. From the very start, I wanted to use a pentatonic chord progression, as it has a more stereotypical Asiany feel, and so I built off that. After that, I gave it the drums to establish the beat of the piece, and then I made a melody. For the melody, I just chose notes from the pentatonic scale I was using and if they sounded good I kept them! I listened to several Chinese pieces for inspiration as well. My idea for this piece was to make it seem like a little field trip through the tea fields, picking tea, listening to birds and then ending off near the waters. The melodies are very different, because I made each with a different aspect of the tea field in mind. The drums and chord progressions serve as something that ties it up together, as it keeps repeating throughout the piece, serving to remind the listener that while it may sound different, everything in the piece takes part in the same location. 

Sylvia Tseng

This piece was created in soundtrap, where I used a weird combination of instruments and natural sounds, then tried to make it sound less weird. It’s what I felt during the beginning of Artist of Hangzhou — when we started planning then going on virtual trips~ There are four main sections of this piece: the awkwardness of starting this unfamiliar project, going (virtually) to an unfamiliar place —> the transition between uncomfortableness to comfortableness, an attempting-to-self-reassure, hesitant stage where things stop being a stranger —> the sudden cheerfulness, relaxedness, and surprise of my first virtual trip —> the nostalgia and simple pleasure as the feeling of Mainland China-ness slowly spreads through my veins, my brain remembering my previous yearly visits there (which stopped two years ago because of the pandemic). And basically, I hope to achieve what I just said. All those feelings~