Autobiographical ethnography is a genre of autobiography that connects individuals to culture, society and politics. Autobiographical ethnographic works are usually written in the first person and appear in a variety of creative forms. Examples include short stories, musical compositions, poetry, photographic essays and reflective journals. Musical autoethnography explores the intersection of autoethnographic methods and music studies.

My work also falls under the Autoethnography concept, as I will be using my own field recordings to modify and mix. And these recordings will be of subjects that are more personal to me. The Autoethnography concept of working in the first person is also a new idea for me, as I may be able to do monologues or some first-person style for my audio.

I also examined this collection of articles, and in the first section, “Songwriting and Improvisation,” the authors explore how the process of songwriting and improvisation can be used as a powerful autoethnographic tool for storytelling and reflecting on significant life experiences. In the second section, “Interpretation and Performance”, the diversity of experiences that musicians face in singing and interpreting musical works is emphasized. The diversity of experiences faced by musicians in singing, interpreting musical works, acquiring musical skills, and losing the ability to play music due to injury. The third section, ‘Learning and Teaching’, provides autoethnographic descriptions of learning music in three different cultural and pedagogical contexts, including Bali, Southern China, and Western conservatory settings. In the fourth section, ‘Researching Identity and Transdifferentiated Contexts’, the authors use autoethnography as a means of describing and reflecting on their experiences of researching in a number of musical and cultural contexts.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/44960958_Music_autoethnographies_Making_autoethnography_singMaking_music_personal

The final presentation of my project is in the form of a combination of audio and visual and interactive forms.

My current reference for a visual motif is the clock, as I clock moves with the passage of time just like my sound memory. I might do an effect of a clock that keeps turning, here’s what I was inspired by.

Solstice is a Kinetic Timepiece, that does a lot more than just tell the time. Solstice turns time into a moving piece of art. It ‘breathes’ in and out over a 12 hour period, gradually opening and closing like a flower. At midday, when the sun is highest in the sky the clock-face is at its largest. At 6pm when the sun has dropped lower in the sky, the clock-face is at its smallest. Solstice has two modes: clock-mode and demo-mode. In clock-mode Solstice functions just like a clock, keeping time and completing one rotation every 12 hours. In demo-mode Solstice completes one rotation every minute, beautifully opening and closing in front of your eyes. Solstice continues to keep perfect time even if left in demo mode for days.

我会用touchdesigner设计出以时钟为原

In the past few days in China, I saw some older veteran actors and actresses perform two performances of Yueju Opera; the first one, and the other one was in Yueju Opera Town, which is located in Shi Jiaao Village, Ganlin Town, Shengzhou City, Zhejiang Province, the birthplace of Chinese women’s Yueju Opera, and occupies an area of 3.68 square kilometers, making it China’s first cultural tourism town named after a drama genre. It is the first cultural tourism town in China named after a theatre genre.

They all performed the same piece, “Dajinzhi – Challenging the Palace.” “Dajinzhi – Challenging the Palace” is a trendy Yue opera piece that tells a story rich in legend. The play is renowned for its vivid character portrayals, dramatic plotlines, and exquisite performances. The story revolves around a woman who intrudes into the palace, attempting to fight for her rights and justice. Her courage, resilience, and determination to confront authority make her a hero in the audience’s eyes. In this play, the performers’ singing is deeply emotive and compelling. Through melodious and engaging singing and vivid acting, they vividly present the passion, struggles, and emotional complexities within the story. Particularly, the portrayal of the main character is brave yet charismatic, leaving a strong impression on the audience.

In Yue opera, the main instruments include percussion: clappers, wooden clappers, large and small gongs, and cymbals. String instruments: erhu, zhonghu, sanxian, pipa, liuqin, and yangqin. Wind instruments: flute, xiao (vertical bamboo flute), and dizi (transverse bamboo flute). Brass instruments: suona (Chinese double-reed horn). With the innovative development of opera music, starting from the 1950s, many classical instruments were added to the commonly used instruments, such as sheng (Chinese mouth organ), zheng (zither), and various Western instruments, especially violin, cello, bass, suspended cymbals, flute, clarinet, etc. These additions greatly enriched the expressive capabilities of Yue opera music.

To better reflect the sound of my hometown, I also returned to the place where I was first born, Shengzhou, Shaoxing, a small city not far from Hangzhou, which I still feel is an important place even though I didn’t grow up here most of my life. Shengzhou is more famous for Yueju Opera, which is one of the significant Chinese opera genres. I will discuss this part in detail in another blog.

My recordings in the Gongchenqiao area of Hangzhou made me think that my Sound might not have been very distinctive, as a lot of the more grounded sounds had disappeared. So I returned to my grandmother’s house, which is in a small village surrounded by mountains and water. With young people preferring to work in the city, most of the village’s residents are now elderly. They generally lead a self-sufficient life, with their land to grow vegetables. Since there are few young people, the village is usually quiet. I recorded the cries of some poultry, the ambient sounds of the village, and the sounds of some elderly people beating drums and reciting Buddhist scriptures. When I listen back to these sounds, they are very special because we don’t have many chances to get in touch with such sounds after living in the city for a long time.

The location of my field recording was a natural bamboo forest near the entrance of my grandmother’s village. I used the Sennheiser 416 microphone, which has more penetrating power and can record more details, and connected it to the sound device’s mix pre for noise cancellation. This was also the first time I used the 416 to record outdoors, and I could hear the sound from several dozen metres away very clearly when I was wearing monitor headphones.

When I listen to my recordings, I can hear the apparent scraping of bamboo leaves in the bamboo forest and even the buzzing of insects vibrating their wings as they fly by the microphone. I could also hear cars traveling down the road in the distance and the sound of the family dog barking in the house next to me. The only downside is that I didn’t bring a stand with me to record with, which resulted in my recordings possibly producing some additional noise due to the shaking of my handheld.

The first point I chose for field recording was called Gongchen Bridge, a large historic bridge built in the fourth year of the Ming Dynasty and collapsed in the eighth year of the Shunzhi Dynasty of the Qing Dynasty. The bridge was rebuilt in the 53rd year of the Kangxi reign. On the east side of the bridge is the Canal Culture Square; the square has a shopping supermarket, and there is the antique architecture of the teahouse and singing theatre stage. I remember when I was a kid, I used to come to the square every weekend to hang out, and there were many events in the square during major traditional festivals, such as the lantern show at the Lantern Festival and the annual fireworks display. So when I did this project, the first place that came to my mind for recording was this side of the Gongchen Bridge, which I’m very familiar with. But, when I went there this time since I hadn’t been back in China for almost three years, it changed a lot, not to mention the memories I had of it as a child.

My SOUND WALK was conducted with this red line on the map, and I walked from the south end of the line to the north end, and the sounds along the way had different dynamics. At the south end, there were almost as many shops in the area, so there were relatively more people, and I could hear people discussing and some of the shops playing promotional loudspeakers. I also listened to the sound of a gyroscope, which was also recorded in the plaza, and when I heard it in the distance, I thought it was the sound of children playing with firecrackers (a kind of firecracker that explodes when thrown on the ground with force). At the north end of the road are some tree-lined paths for people to come and walk and exercise. So in this area, the sounds are all natural ambient sounds, and I could also hear the sound of a ship’s engine going by. The place where the amplitude of the sound was the greatest was at the centre of the route, that was also the head of the Gongchen Bridge. Crowds of people converged there, some taking photos, some buying things at roadside stalls, and there were also some older people discussing in dialect.

After I listened to all my field recordings in the Gongchen bridge area, I felt that the sound of this area is entirely different from what it was ten years ago; when I was a child, I remember that on the west side of the bridge, which is now a more commercialized neighborhood, there used to be a lot of vendors who would come on bicycles to sell food that they had made, and those sounds of shouting and selling were very nostalgic for me, and now all of that has disappeared because the government doesn’t allow these vendors to freely The government doesn’t allow these vendors to sell food freely. This may also be a negative emotional impact of the change for some of the more nostalgic people.

One of the most important goals of my recording trip back to China was to record one of China’s traditional operas, Yueju Opera. Yueju Opera was born in my hometown Shengzhou, flourished in Shanghai, and is now mainly popular in Suzhou, Zhejiang and Shanghai.

There is some controversy over the origin of the name of Yueju Opera, and the evolution of the name of Yueju Opera and its designation in different periods have not been accurately verified due to the different accounts of people in different parts of the country at that time. I visited the Yueju Opera Museum in Shengzhou. According to the introduction of the museum, in the middle of the 19th century, optimistic Shengzhou peasants used to entertain themselves by singing in the fields when they were working or resting. Some peasants would improvise their own songs, such as singing “The boss of southern goods is rich, gold and silver treasures roll in” in front of a shop; in villages, they would sing small stories of rural life; and in the early days, they sang the Sigonghuo (Four Workers’ Harmony) tune, which has a high and bright pastoral tone and a gentle and mellow rhythm. The “Four Workers’ Harmony” has a high and bright pastoral tone and a mellow melodious and undulating melody and is made up of two parts: the main singing and the receiving tune (the helping voice). The main part of the melodious phrases has three forms: “starting melodious phrases, up and down phrases, and guandao turning phrases”. The melodic expressions of the picking-up and singing parts are connected behind the starting melodic phrases as the transitional melodic phrases that carry on the previous and start the next; and behind the guandan melodic phrases as the intermission transition, which can be used as the melodic phrases of the falling melodic phrases.

In 1906, the early form of Yueju theatre also evolved into the rural cao tai (草台). I remember when I was very young, this form also existed; usually during some festivals and temple fairs, there would be a troupe of theatre vaudeville and other performances. Every time there was such a performance, my grandmother would take me to watch. They set up the stage shantily, and I vaguely remember that the radio equipment is not very good, but the audience is still delighted to see. Unfortunately, I didn’t record these performances with my video camera.

I thought I needed to not only record natural sounds, but I also needed to go and record some of the more unique parts of the city. I remember when I was in primary school when I returned to my hometown with my parents, we would almost always go to the biggest farmer’s market in the area. I’ve never seen many farmers’ markets in the UK; the ones I’ve been to are usually fairs where they sell lots of fresh vegetables and fruits. At that time, I was reluctant to go to the market because it was very dirty and smelled like fish and meat. But it was still very busy. During this trip, I also went to the current farmers’ market. I plan to record the ambient sounds of the farmers’ market and the voices of the shopkeepers.

But the reality actually made me a bit disappointed; this farmer’s market has changed too much, and now it’s not at all the way I remembered it. The stalls in the market have become more neatly divided, and the ground also feels more. I went there at two or three o’clock in the afternoon, probably because of the time of day; there were not very many customers in the market. I heard my father say that the market is usually busiest in the morning at 5 am. Apart from the fact that the stalls have become tidier, another big change is that most of the stallholders also don’t do yelling to sell their wares.

In a tutorial with Ingrid, Ingrid suggested that I could go to a fireworks display and record the sound of the fireworks, as the fireworks festival in the UK is about to start. For my project I needed to record the unique sounds of London and Hangzhou, China. Speaking of fireworks, I am reminded that in China, there is an exceptional type of fireworks called “Ta Tie Hua（Cast iron blossom）”, which is one of China’s national intangible cultural heritages. This is one of China’s national intangible cultural heritage. “Tiehua” originated in the Northern Song Dynasty as a ritual for craftsmen to pray for the blessing of the goddess Laojun and the god of fire for their business to flourish and for peace and wealth to be made. In this event, the craftsmen first build a flower trellis and a shrine, and then the procession marches in a line, carrying the statue of the god Laojun to the shrine, and setting up incense and offerings in the shops along the way to welcome the god. After arriving at the god shed, a ritual is performed to ask for the god’s blessing and safety. In the evening, flower-beating begins, and the participating craftsmen kneel and change their clothes inside the god shed as a sign of respect and to pray for safety. This activity is supported and participated in by Taoist priests who provide venues or contribute money and materials and organize bands to cheer the artisans during the procession. The original purpose of this activity was to showcase the industry and advertise business, as well as to signify prosperity. However, this event is not something that is difficult to come across in my hometown, as artists usually perform it during some traditional Chinese festivals. But I think the visual effect of the fireworks and the ironworks can be applied to my visual part. A fireworks display is a carnival of nature, with bright sparks blooming in the darkness and dreamlike colors intertwining to create a unique night sky picture. Each fireworks display is a moment of poetry, some blooming like flowers, some splashing like a river of stars.

On 5 November, I went to watch the fireworks display in Battersea. The music and the fireworks were very well coordinated, with many of the fireworks following the beat and rhythm of the music, which made the whole fireworks show very exciting. I also recorded the full show with the zoom H5, and when I listened to my recording, I could hear many details clearly, in the area in front of my ear, I could hear the sound of the fireworks and the music. In the back of my ear, I can hear the crowd and the children’s screams. I think many times, sounds are like fireworks, they’re fleeting. But when we record them, their beauty remains in our memory, so I wanted to do the theme of sound memory in the first place.

Mengting Zhuo is an artist from Guangzhou, China who creates situations in the form of performances, participatory installations and concerts. The work is often characterised by minimalism, subtlety and intimacy, involving audience participation to explore themes of connection, communication, chance and distance. In terms of sound, she explores the politics of listening through the use of non-instrumental, unusual noises, readymade objects and physical activity, involving the creation, reception and manipulation of signals, as well as the liminal points at which sound intersects with space. Her arrangements have recently been exhibited at MAO, Turin, Italy, Frieze, London and Cafe OTO, London. As a performer and director, she meets audiences in theatres, galleries and a variety of other spaces including parks, beaches, karaoke clubs, flats and the internet. She studied performance making at Goldsmiths College, University of London, where she also held a position. Her work has been exhibited in the UK, China, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

I listened to her collaboration with Li Song, ‘Two Rooms’, which they both played live in London. In the first part, I could hear the friction of stools moving around and the sound of them walking around with the chairs. In the following part, I could listen to some harsh sounds from the speakers and a looping noise. After that it ends with the tapping of a metronome. This piece made me feel that the rubbing of the stools gave me a feeling of inner turmoil because for me personally, the sound made me impatient, but when it was followed by the sound of the speakers and other sounds joining in, I felt my mood become much calmer.

During the talk, Mengting played a game for us; when she clapped her hands, three volunteers needed to sit down in order according to the approximate time of 15 of this clap. In the first round, the clap was almost 1 second in my feeling, so I counted almost 15 seconds in my mind and realized that the first volunteer didn’t sit down, and then almost 5 seconds later, he sat down. I think this is very interesting because everyone has a different concept of how long applause lasts. Based on this, I think people’s concept of time may also be related to their age, and I feel that time passes more quickly as they get older. When I was a child, the world was full of curiosity, where are fresh, the outside world is full of all kinds of new stimuli so that every day is very long; with the growth of age, the outside world has lacked too much of a sense of freshness, more just a monotonous repetition of stimuli, rich experience so that the nerves for the life of the information processed extremely quickly, and gradually entered the “adaptive” state, weakened not only the concept of time, but also the concept of time, and the concept of time. Slowly, the nerves process the information in life very quickly and gradually enter a state of “adaptation”, which not only weakens the perception of the passage of time but also retains an incomplete memory of the information, which makes it appear that the day has passed without notice. Often, when you look back, a year or ten years have flown by. As a result, the older you get, the faster you feel time is passing.