Skateboarding and Audio has always been a passion of mine and very close to my heart. Whether its Musical or just sound itself, its always been an interesting phenomena to me. Often overlooked within the cultural powerhouse of skateboarding is the audio and sonics of skateboarding, we usually get inundated with the visuals of tricks, skate videos, clothing as well as the music that ensues with skateboarding. But we never quite acknowledge or focus in on the actual sonics and sounds that arise when skateboarding. Interesting rhythms are omnipresent as well as peculiar compelling textures interweaved within all grounds and materials within skateboarding. Texture is how we experience and feel our environments when skating and can often lead to a plethora of unique sounds, everchanging due to the parts the skater utilises as well as the grounds they skate over.

The general exploration and investigation into the world of skateboarding is the immediate intention of the project; to focalise the deep world of skateboarding and the phenomenal culture that has bled across the world. From Art to Music, to now being considered a genuine sport within the Olympics, skateboarding is a global creative powerhouse that can only expand. Though mainly attributed to music, fashion and videos, skateboarding’s cultural impact expands further to the very fibre of sonic ecology. Skateboarding is also an experiential endeavour that is interchangeable and dependent on location and surroundings, allowing for variation and the exploration of different environments to skate. Not only do locations have different sonic profiles, but each individual skateboarder has their own sonic profile deriving from the way they skate and their style, I would like to depict and represent this aspect of skating in the medium of audio.

This project also aims to spotlight the interesting nuances within sound that is prevalent in skateboarding regarding locales and their sonic profiles, as well as the individuals who skate. By capturing the concurrent sounds presented within skateboarding, and presenting them in a way for other people to access and create their own music via the means of a sample pack. Featuring a collection of tracks produced solely from skateboard field recordings, providing examples of the versatility within skateboard samples(representing the different uses of skateboard audio, and how creatively, the tonality and transients within skateboarding are indicative of drums). Immersive Soundscapes of skateboarding within the southwest to depict the experience and sounds of the local skateboarding scene, called ‘Sk8Scapes’. As well as the developmental beginnings of “The Skateboard Transcription Theory’ utilising written gestures to represent certain skateboard tricks (with ideas of adapting this idea for possible brail translations of skate tricks within skateboard magazines, as well as a novel way for blind skateboarders to transcript/read skate lines).