Blog 1: Midway

I now stand midway in my journey to accomplish MMS 172, Audio in Multimedia. Prior to joining the community server, my experience in audio revolved mostly around editing films. I only get to deal with the technicalities of sound at times when I'm working on mastering dialogues, adding background music, and creating foley.

In regards to music, I have been an avid listener since then (like most) although I have yet to learn music theory besides common concepts that we were taught about in elementary school. These said concepts were the first ones that stood out to me in the modules, being reminded of fortissimo and pianissimo felt like a huge throwback. 

I was looking forward to participating in discussions regarding audio, there were two ways that I was able to fill in this expectation. The first is through the listening exercises in the Discord server and the second — the one that I prefer more — is a live discussion under the class's Zoom sessions. The number of listening exercises was daunting at first but each thread was insightful in its own right. For example, I was able to learn more about dynamics through music videos. It taught me that vocal work is central to the mood of a song, it can change it from being anthemic to something more solemn.

Another key lesson that I picked up in the discussions is that when it comes to recording and editing audio, I must have a strong awareness of what I want to create. This recognition will then dictate the creative steps that I have to do to move forward. This lesson is extremely similar to what I took away from my previous course where Sir Al acted as a tutor (MMS 173, Photography in Multimedia). This mindset was discussed when the class was talking about sound design, specifically in film but this could be applied generally in any multimedia audio product.

Moving on from my course expectations being met, this course had given me the opportunity to meet new faces and allowed me to gauge their technical abilities and compare them to mine. I can confidently say that I am part of the general average that would have their first time diving deep into audio in this course. There are standouts and most of them are musically inclined, their passion for their craft had given me a strong inspiration to learn music not just for this course but for my future creative aspirations as well.

In line with learning music lies my desired final output for this class. Although I have yet to have a definitive plan, I already have a mental image of what I want to achieve — that is, learning how to play the guitar and singing. I share a mixed bag of feelings from anxiety to excitement seeing that I'm learning two new skills in such a short amount of time. I'm able to overcome these feelings, however, by being present for practice one day at a time. Lastly, seeing previous assignments about music further inspires me to better and present an output that has an equal or better quality. I am confident that I will produce a good quality project regardless of my performing skills as the performance is only half of the requirement — what matters more is how I would record the sound and edit it in post-production.

In terms of audio editing, I am currently embedding myself more deeply into DaVinci Resolve's Fairlight program. Some of my courses like FILM 10 have academic requirements that would require me to produce video and audio multimedia products. As such, I have been utilizing those as opportunities to master equalization and general sound design. 

The most challenging part of this course is being consistent with my practice and learning. This is because I often am running out of time since I also have other workloads from other courses and non-academic responsibilities. But I had also developed a habit of always pushing myself, to improve myself. I may not be as skilled in audio production and music performance but I already find fulfillment in the process of it all — that is in the midway of doing what I want to do.

MMS 172 Blog 1