UWE MA Media Practice student Geraint Ffrancon joined the Studio earlier this year to work on Channel Weather Symmetry, a locative music composition project funded by the PRS Foundation and others though the Beyond Borders scheme and commissioned by Local Journeys (a Community Interest Company that aims to encourage and enable people to enjoy, understand and appreciate their local landscapes).

For last Friday’s Lunchtime Talk, Geraint came in to tell us what has inspired him on this project and to help us understand what he aims to achieve with his work.

He began by explaining that locative music composition is the creation of soundscapes that change in response to your movement or location, an effect most commonly achieved through the use of Global Positioning System (GPS) devices. For Channel Weather Symmetry, Geraint has been using AppFurnace, the online app development toolkit created by Studio residents Calvium, to designate zones upon the landscapes he is tasked with scoring and to allocate different sounds to each of these.

Geraint told us about the long history of music inspired by places, which reaches back to classical musicians such as Mendelssohn. In 2004, Geraint composed the album Llechi, which was inspired by locations around Snowdonia and provided GPS coordinates at which each track should be listened to. Expanding upon that concept, Channel Weather Symmetry draws inspiration from the landscapes at two National Trust sites: Rhosili in Wales and Brean Down in Somerset; beautiful locations that share an open and windy character as well as strong Celtic and mythic qualities and rich histories.

Based at these sites, Geraint’s aim is to record a response to the weather on both sides of the Bristol Channel, composing music that captures the immediate impression that the weather makes as it moves in, as well as the effects that the conditions and climate have upon the surrounding landscapes: the plants, the architecture, etc.

Inspired by the practices of sculptor Barbara Hepworth and painter Kurt Jackson (who places his canvasses into the landscapes he is trying to capture and allows the mud and vegetation to become part of the texture of the image), Geraint wanted to get himself physically and emotionally into the landscape for this project and initially took a handheld synthesiser to the locations so that he could sit and compose music at them.

He then moved on to using smartphone-based composition apps and started to produce musical sketches of the landscapes, as well as field recordings which he later combined with sound effects and foley work in the recording studio to create larger sound pieces inspired by folk and ambient music that aim to evoke a sense of the places where they were conceived.

In contrast with his previous musical projects, Geraint found that the main challenges of composing locative music lay in finding ways to make multiple compositions work together as the listener crosses between zones as well as the necessity for experimentation to find what sounds fit the context of the landscapes and considering how outside noise will effect the listening experience on location.

Speaking on the topic of slow movement, Geraint discussed how this project aims to cause its audience to think at a different pace, to pay attention to their surroundings and become introspective. Geraint observed that people in contemporary culture seem to feel they need to have an excuse to slow down and Channel Weather Symmetry is his attempt at providing an excuse for an unhurried experience that allows its audience the space and time to become immersed in their sensations.

Geraint pointed out that the idea of using technology to slow things down may seem counterintuitive, as technology is commonly tasked with increasing speed and efficiency, but he feels that technology should instead be seen as a tool that can change the tempo of life in whichever way seems appropriate or desirable.

Similarly, locative music may be seen by some to be an outmoded medium and the idea of developing a project in this field could be considered anachronistic when new technologies offer the chance to create entirely new types of work. However, Geraint wants to challenge the idea that artists should always be seeking to work at the cutting edge of technology, as this can often result in the production of pieces that do not work properly or lack the depth of interest that working more conservatively with technology can allow for.

For the future, Geraint is looking into the possibility of utilizing additional information feeds (such as accelerometers or weather monitors) to select the music that is played to the user or even allowing these feeds to directly generate the music of their own accord. He is also interested in allowing his audience to record their individual experiences of the piece to be shared or listened to at a later date.

Channel Weather Symmetry will be launching next June and Geraint has extended an invitation for volunteers to help him test the piece on location or to provide feedback on the downloadable iPhone version. For information, please contact him at: geraintdewi@hotmail.com / @ffrancon

Lunchtime Talks are an ongoing series of presentations and discussions by Studio residents and associates. They take place at 13:00 on Fridays and are free and open to everybody who’s interested in what we do. For the full programme of talks, please visit: http://www.pmstudio.co.uk/events