Soundscape

Emotion: Joyless Laugh

Utilizes two Listening Modes:

CASUAL:

- The sound of the door opening and the footsteps are examples of literal sounds.

SEMATIC:

- The soundscape features a number of different cliche comedic sounds. The drum roll, comedic boing, and comedic horns represent those typical moments in a cartoon, sitcom, or movie where some slapstick gag or bit has come to the punchline. We are

hearing sounds that most of us relate to comedy and laughter. They represent comedic

moments for us.

Exploration of Space:

LIMITED:

-restaurant chatter tried to provoke a feeling of being in a diner. trying to make listener feel like they're in a typical sitcom restaurant scene, i.e. Seinfeld

AMBIGUOUS:

-distorted, sitcom laugh tracks

-intro and outro music (synth bass and keyboard)

Affinity between visual and aural space:

-typical sitcom laugh track and comedic sounds share an affinity with the picture of what looks like could be a sitcom set.

Contrast between visual and aural space:

-the restaurant ambience contrasts with the living room scene in the picture

Aural Creation of Space:

-Hard to hear, but half of the comedic sounds are on the left speaker and the other half are on the right speaker. Tries to show movement and directionality in the source of what

sounds like visual sight gags.

Manipulated Timbre:

-Echo on the sitcom laugh tracks made them sound much more joyless, cliche

-reverb added to the joyless feeling as well

Gestalt Principle:

-attempted to tie all these sounds together to emulate the sound of a traditional sitcom. Wanted each individual sound clip to be a part of a bigger whole that could properly project the idea of the cliche, emotionless laugh tracks which would convey the "joyless laugh" theme.