A very sound design of the Tay

Andy Truscott desk officer at UNESCO City of Design Dundee, talks about his love of music and how he creates his own sounds

Music has been a lifelong passion of mine and although I’ve been playing drums for many years, the decision to start writing and composing my own music is a fairly recent one. I’m not classically trained and I don’t have any significant music theory knowledge but I think that can also have its advantages. I take much enjoyment from a creative design process of experimenting, making mistakes and learning along the way.

As well as recording and releasing music under the Kinbrae moniker with my twin brother, where we produce a mix of ambient, modern, classical and experimental songs, I have also written bespoke commission pieces for exhibitions.

I’ve become more and more interested in composing music for TV and film and have recently started composing music for library albums for use in documentaries and commercials.

Composing music for a wide range of projects always requires approaching each one differently.

My music software of choice is Ableton Live. Having used other platforms in the past I’ve found Ableton to be the most intuitive and creative when composing.

When writing music for my own work I try to experiment with sound as much as I can and inspiration can come from pretty much anything. I’ve built songs round simple brass, synth or piano lines but also in some cases from field recordings of wildlife or urban noises such as factory machinery or people talking in cafes.

Designing music for TV has its challenges but has also been a hugely rewarding experience.

The briefs for this work are often very specific with extremely tight deadlines and although stressful, I’ve found that it’s allowed me to really hone my processes and gain a better knowledge of how this side of the industry works, though there is less creative freedom.

For example, I might be restricted to keeping the track length under three minutes or to get into main melody within first 20 seconds of the song.

From a creative point of view, I’ve always found it important in my work to bring a sense of place and personality into my compositions and this is done through utilising aspects of sound design.

I was awarded the Tay Landscape Partnership Art Award in 2016 to record music inspired by the Tay landscape – a project celebrating the areas where the rivers Tay and Earn meet.

The land stretches from Newburgh, on the south side of the Tay Estuary, around to Perth and along the Carse to Dundee.

I approached this project by first going to a wide range of locations within the area to gather field sounds.

These included contact microphone recordings from fences next to the train station at Errol and hydrophone recordings of the River Tay at Perth, as well as recordings of local wildlife.

I then collated the resulting audio and manipulated chosen snippets of the recordings in Ableton.

I then ran the hydrophone recordings through resonator and reverb plugins to create ambient atmospheres while also adding special effects, creating drum parts and ambient synth sounds, to go alongside the percussive sound of wire fences.

Sound design has always been a major feature in my compositions, even when I use real instruments.

For example, on a recent commission I took frozen reverb samples of brass recordings that I then used to create slowly evolving drones that made up the background atmosphere of the song.

I always try to approach composing music with an open mind. I think this way of working really helps open up opportunities for interesting sound palettes and it allows me to constantly find and develop new ways of working.