Now I know what an audio paper is, I can move on to my next question, What topic or statement do I want to base the paper on?
Throughout the weeks, I found it hard to think of topics that were interesting in their own right but also appropriate for an audio paper in an undergraduate course. Despite that, these were the stand-out ideas I came up with
The Problematic Rise of Audio Papers in Formative Academic Institutes – This paper would be self-critical as it would try to understand if audio papers in an undergraduate university course were useful or detrimental to a sound arts student such as myself.
The Homogenisation of Indie Video Game Music – While the title makes little to no sense, this paper would first be an investigation into the trends of indie video game music and try to figure out if the trend-jumping and shovelware nature of the indie scene is causing a homogeny in video game music. This topic stems from how I have been noticing that the soundtracks in indie games are usually the same style of electronic video game music which makes me worry that music in video games is being treated as a necessary evil or means to an end instead of something integral to the game.
The Copy-Write of Audio – For this idea, I wanted to discuss copywriting laws for audio samples and pieces, and then argue that copywriting is actually an enemy of sound art and restricts the development of it. I find great interest in law and as someone who is not sure if it’s right to purely sell your art and skills as an artist, I thought it could be a thought-provoking rabbit hole to go down.
Something Something Thought Something Something in an Auditory Context – I had no idea how to word the title but the main idea for this topic was “the sound of thought”, how thought is coded and how thoughts themselves are portrayed aurally (not only through languages like English). I did psychology when I was younger so a topic like this would play to that interest.
The Manipulation in Language and how Foreign Languages are Interpreted – This topic would mainly be about logical and lexical semantics (I was always bad at English so I’m not sure that is correct) This means talking about the difference between the defined meaning of a word and what words mean in terms of how they are used. I would then want to bring in the idea of nonverbal communication into it too, or at least diction/articulation.
All these ideas are interesting in their own right, but the one that really stands out to me as unique in context to myself and what would be relevant to me is the first topic The Problematic Rise of Audio Papers in Formative Academic Institutes. This is because as someone who would be positioned to make an audio paper in lieu of a written dissertation, I believe it would be useful to look at what I’m doing as a student critically, not only to learn more about my future options but also to birth an intimate understanding of why I’m doing what I’m doing in this course.
However, in respect of the project itself, an audio paper about the positives and negatives effects of introducing the format to contrast to the final dissertation would make for an exciting and thought-provoking subversion of the project as well as a useful pilot to talk about the battle between tradition and modernity or at least a pilot to talk about whether or not innovation is always truly innovative.