http://soundcloud.com/aaudiomystiks/smithstblues
Ok, this is my 2nd track, just completed today for my honours proposal.  This time I have attempted to make a rhythm track using footsteps as a kik, pedestrian warning signals as a electronic hi hat, a tram bell is also used.  Again the synth sounds, this time the bass and the lead are a motorbike sample which I recorded on Smith St as part of the sound map and has been fed into a granular synth to create said noise.  Again, I have not used anything apart from the initial sound maps to create the whole track. 
 
Peace Ben

Hi, Ben,
 
Pretty cool piece and a very interesting concept, using everyday ambient sounds as "virtual instruments"!
 
I would imagine that recording, categorizing and assigning the sounds is certainly no easy task, and then actually "playing" them as instruments for composition on your midi controller is where the real fun begins!
 
Anyway, very different and cool at the same time, nice work, I hope your professor likes it!
 
Best Wishes,
Bob
 

That is some kind of cool. 
 
I would not know where to even start to record something like this.
 
Knowing the source of the sounds makes it even cooler.

Ben, this is one of your most creative pieces, yet.  The mix is textured and interesting, especially knowing the sound sources.  Very cool, indeed!

 To take recorded samples and use those takes a bit more expertise  as far as making it all fit into something that sounds musical. If this was a class wide directive then you are certainly in the running. I could see doing this as quite a challenge.

Hi guys thanks for the positive comments, I need it. As far as the actual piece and making it, the hardest part was getting enough interesting sounds when I was on location. The actual building of the track was pretty easy, it's just a matter of listening to the source material and thinking about what you can use as say a kick, and this is easy you just have to listen to the frequencies of the source material. It's really amazing once you start listening to the sounds of the world how it stops sounding like sonic mush and starts sounding like music.

Cheers Ben

Just like Greenburg is bringing art to its lowest low in the art world, now they are getting professors in our schools and colleges to bring music down to its lowest of lows, as well. This is just an opinion, as a true outsider, that I hold on to, based on what I read and see going on in the art museums and art galleries around the world. Creativity is really becoming, not creativity of the old masters, but of the truly bizarre and makes me wonder, what is next? I know this is an assignment and you are doing the best you can to complete the assignment and a good job at it, at least in your mind, based on the assignment. I don't know if you even have any concept of what I'm talking about, but many do. As artists, whether art or music, I tend to believe we are being lead astray down a cesspool of delusion of what art really is, that is, weird is good and what is good is weird, bad verses good, indifferent verses the norm, good verses evil, and so on. Where does this piece you have done fit in? What genre? I have no idea what this piece is all about, other than an assignment of sound effects, that make no sense what so ever to me. But, I have been staying up on a lot of the sociological events that are happening around the globe  in the art world, and now this comes along. Sorry, but I must be getting old and loosing my mind, but I just don't get what's going on in this world any more. I hope you can understand my thinking. I want to say awesome, but I really can't. Nothing against you and your assignment.
 
Peace and Blessings, John

Hi John, I hear what you are saying but here is the rub and is the crux of your argument.  I've tried to get other projects over the line including analysing and recreating Beatle tracks...good for those who really want to learn about the art of production.  Improvisation using nothing more than the iphone/ipad combination still no go but this is what the academics want, or so I've been lead to believe and again I might be leading myself up the garden path on this one.
 
As for what I am trying to achieve with this project, well at the moment I'm still working this one out but after two attempts I am starting to figure this out.  Basically what I have done is recreate the sound map of the area I recorded and turned it into music.  Ok huh?  if you strip away the melody that I have imposed on top of the rhythm track you actually here the sounds of the street or the sound map.  Now what I have done is then gone this is how this area makes me feel.  So it's a street, the noises that you hear on this street are very repetitive, so hence the repetitive nature of the rhythm track.  The voices that you hear also are super important because they give the piece a narrative, the area it's self is one of disadvantage, if you listen carefully there is an indigenous person talking about her son and alcohol.  The area is also very dirty and grimy.  So what I have done is ok lets turn the sounds into a blue's sort of piece to represent the sounds and the area.  This is my interpretation of the area, my feelings about the area I live in.
 
It is weird, it's not "music" but it is art is music is noise, LoL.  Don't forget these experiments have been going on now for over a 100 years, starting with the futurists in 1909 and are basically a rebelling or was a rebellion at the time against the neo classical movement of the time.  And again this sort of project is an attempt at rebellion too, music is pretty staid and boring, possibly not to you but def for me.  So this my attempt to re-write the wheel, so to speak. 
 
And finally this is only my 2nd attempt at doing this and so far I have chosen rather dark grim subjects to paint but imagine what a park or a garden might sound like?  How do I represent a butterfly flying through the air on a summers day with only the sounds I have gathered in that park. 
 
So give me time to figure this stuff out, at the moment you are asking van gogh to paint sunflowers and he's only just been given his yellow paint.
 
Peace Ben

Ben, I can truly understand where you are coming from. I read about this kind of stuff all the time. The crux of the matter is perfectly clear for me, and others, as well, based on what we see happening within the art world and what is today being called art. And, you are right, it is a rebellion of sorts, and so it carries on, even into music. And, like you say, it has been going on for years. A lot of it comes from the corporate world, but to try and explain it hear would just take to long and to much space. If you want to read more about what I'm talking about try this, http://trueoutsider.wordpress.com/  this site is filled with tons of information on what is going on in the art world today, both with art and music. Not everyone will agree and a lot of what goes on in this site has many links to news media which backs up what is happening in society today. I do, however, wise you all the luck in your endeavers of creativity with what you are doing. It's just way over my head and at my age, I tend to just stick with the norms of social behavior and have no rebellion with anyone.
 
Peace and Blessings, John
 
 

I like where you're going with these pieces.  Nice organic blues, with digital DNA. ;)