Big Knife - 1200

Jamuary 19, 2021 – Someone Else’s Voice – Beijing Knife Sharpener

For this one I had no inspiration. I thought I’d approach it the “normal” way of recording a track: lay down some drums, then some guitar or piano, and then do a spoken track over top as a start. And since today’s challenge was to use “someone else’s voice”, or something to that effect. I tried a British accent, which usually switches into an Australian accent, then back to a Guy Ritchie-movie Cockney accent peppered with vulgarity. But it wasn’t working.

I tried to record a simple reading using my own voice and then applying a bunch of effects, such as Echo, Reverb, or some of the effects that Garageband on the iPad is packaged with. The problem was, I didn’t know what to say nor what to write. I thought I would just give a monologue of sorts, but of what?

Poetry slam came to mind and I started to jot down examples of what I thought might work, single-word for each line, rhyming and within a theme. But when I checked out some examples online I could see that my idea of poetry slam was very far from what other people were presenting. So I thought to avoid the genre.

Then the idea popped in my mind to use a voice sample instead. Maybe I could grab some voice clips of famous people or politicians from time’s past, or even from some data set used for voice recognition etc. What about the Google voice or Siri? Maybe they could read for me?

Turns out Google Voice and Sisi (and even Amazon’s Polly) need to be applied for in order to use, though you can use them for non-commercial purpose no problem. I did find some other clips online of different accents from around the world and they sounded neat enough but required me to register and create an account in order to download. I wasn’t going to bother, at least not tonight. 

Then I remembered that, throughout my travels, I’ve recorded various sound bites and videos that contain sounds from all over.

The first thought was to use a recording of a cafe in Winnipeg that I made years ago and then overlay an instrumental jazz track. It seemed simple enough and would’ve fulfilled the requirements because there was enough of a sample that you could tell people were speaking, but it would be difficult to tell what they were actually saying. 

But, would there be something even simpler?

Yes.

Beijing’s knife sharpeners.

The one classic sound of “old Beijing in the summer” is the slow walking call of the knife sharpener. Although I’ve never used their services, their job is pretty straight forward: they sharpen knives.

Why the call out?

I’m not sure exactly but they generally just walk through the neighbourhood calling out their services.

Do people use their services?

I’ve only once seen someone getting their knives sharpened but, in at least one of the recordings I have, the guy is having a conversation with someone else.

Why am I recording knife sharpeners?

Because, as a traveller, it’s one of those elements of living somewhere else that can be a fascinating discovery and record. Simply put, it differentiates this place from that place over there. I didn’t think it was uncommon to record sound clips while travelling but apparently I’m in the minority on this one.

There are two different knife sharpeners as far as I can tell and they never appear on the same day. One has a pre-recorded message of his knife sharpening services while the other prefers a more personal, spoken-through-a-loud-speaker approach. I have recordings of both but the guy with the pre-recorded voice came through a bit more clear. And so that’s today’s track:

Now, what’s he saying?

I’ve had other people tell me what the recording is saying so I know the gist of it, but I don’t think I could get the characters right on my own. 

So that will complete this challenge. It’s not a song in the direct sense but I’m sure we’ve all encountered those albums that have “filler” content that bridge the gap from one song to the next (Hello, Tool?). Sometimes they do have a function in a story, other times they are just there. This one is a record of where I was during this year’s Jamuary. (I do have to clarify that this recording was made a while back and was not made exactly on January 19, 2021, but I’ll give myself some leeway in “preparation” for the month’s challenges.)

Here are the project’s screenshots:

Jamuary 19, 2021 - Someone Else's Voice - Knife Sharpener - MIXER
Jamuary 19, 2021 – Someone Else’s Voice – Knife Sharpener – MIXER.
Jamuary 19, 2021 - Someone Else's Voice - Knife Sharpener - TRACKS
Jamuary 19, 2021 – Someone Else’s Voice – Knife Sharpener – TRACKS.

Minimal editing and effects. I had to boost the gain quite a little bit and then applied the Expansion effect and some Compression. I was on the edge of whether or not to use compression but it seemed a bit louder and more clear with the plugin on than without. I boosted the track’s gain in the Track window and then on the channel strip and Stereo Out, but left the Master at 0 db.

It’s simple but it is good enough and, I might add, serves as a historical reminder of our times and of Beijing itself. At least that’s what I’m going by.


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stevensirski