Jude Jaremi, a recent graduate from dBs’ Plymouth campus, explores the sounds of skateboarding in his fascinating honours project The Topology of Skateboarding. Learn more about it here.
When passions collide, the results can be outstanding and the process incredibly rewarding. One of the great things about music production and game development as disciplines within the creative industries is that they can be used as tools to express other passions. Whether that’s a concept album about a love of extreme ironing or a game where players engage in rounds of competitive dog grooming, art forms like music and games are instruments to express yourself.
For the final honours project of his Bachelor’s degree, Jude Jaremi, a BA (Hons) Music Production & Sound Engineering graduate from dBs Institute’s Plymouth campus, has used the music production and sound design skills he has developed while at dBs to express his love for his greatest passion: skateboarding.
The Topology of Skateboarding is a project in which Jude has explored the sounds that skateboarders emit when performing tricks, delving into the unique characteristics of specific tricks, how different skateboarders emit different sounds and how producers can use them in their music. He hears musicality and rhythm when he goes to a skate park and has used this project to unite his interests.
“I love skateboarding,” says Jude, telling me that he goes skating every chance he can get and that he’s, “In a good mood” because he can skate again now that a new set of trucks has arrived to replace a set that snapped just a few days before.
“I'm never going to be able to skateboard as a job,” he says, “But maybe, I can combine my passion for music and skateboarding.” That passion for music started at a young age, fuelled by his parents’ tastes and the constancy of music playing in his family home.
“My first memories are with my parents listening to music,” says Jude, “Music has been ingrained in my life from the start, partly from my parents, but also from myself. My dad used to be a DJ and used to go to the Hacienda in Manchester. I used to go to a lot of raves and so did my mum, so they probably drove that passion for music. They love alternative music and dance music, so that's probably where it is from. When I was younger, I did ballet a little bit, so I also really like classical music. I can't pigeonhole myself to liking one thing, I just really like a lot of music.”
Ballet may seem like a world apart from skateboarding, but when I ask if he thinks his passion for music and dance as a young kid bled into his passion for skateboarding, he answers with a resounding yes.
“One million per cent!” he says, “I didn't do ballet to a high grade, but the thing that got me into skateboarding was that I stopped doing ballet and I still needed an active thing to do. I wasn't a football or rugby guy, but my parents let me skateboard and that felt intrinsically similar. If you think about it, ‘second position’ in ballet is pretty much the same stance you have on a skateboard standing on the bolts. The position for a Laser Flip, which is a 360 Heelflip, is very similar to the ‘third position’. If you separate your tail and front foot from the ‘third position’, you do a Laser Flip. A 360 big flip could be seen as a pirouette. There is an intrinsic commonality between the two that I find interesting.”
“Skateboarding is a dance, it’s a real ebb-and-flow motion. There's a huge link between dancing generally and skateboarding. If you look at freestyle skateboarders, especially in Japan, the young kids who do breakdancing, also do freestyle skating. The spins where you need that strong centre of gravity are very similar in breakdancing and skateboarding.”
While studying at dBs over the last four years, starting with a Music Production Access to HE course and following it up with three years studying BA (Hons) Music Production & Sound Engineering, Jude discovered that he had a talent for field recording and sound design as well as studio-based mixing and mastering. When he came to his third year, those skills helped to inform the direction of The Topology of Skateboarding.
“I wanted to explore my passions for music and skateboarding,” says Jude, “When I looked at the commonalities between music and skateboarding, there's only ever really been a focus on the music ingrained within skateboard culture… There’s plenty of analysis regarding certain music and how it relates to a skate style, fashion trends or a specific era of skateboarding. For example, you’ve got JNCO baggy pants and the Good Charlotte, early 2000s vibe. Then you've got the thrash skaters who wear tank tops, have long hair and listen to Suicidal Tendencies and Municipal Waste. People focus on that aspect but they don't actually focus on the transient pop of a skateboard and how it’s a really good layer for a snare. The sounds that are present in skateboarding are actually really interesting.”
“I’m trying to change that perspective of skate sounds being the music that we listen to when we skate, to the actual raw sounds that we curate when we skate. When you're grinding a ledge, that's a brilliant layer to create like a synth. You can create a really interesting synth by taking the layer, sampling it and pitching it, let alone using other techniques like granular synthesis, which is something that really makes interesting textures and sounds.”
To change the perspective of skate sounds, Jude embarked on a journey to collect as many skate sounds from as many different contexts as possible and create soundscapes and sample packs using those sounds.
“I wanted to explore not only the manipulation of skate sounds but also the recording of raw audio and creating soundscapes from it,” says Jude, “The recontextualization of skate sounds is brilliant, you can create some really interesting samples and instruments out of it, but the actual raw sounds of the environment are a song and a composition themselves. If you go into an indoor skate park, the acousmatic effects of the skatepark really enhance the popping and transients of tricks. Sometimes it's deafening, but other times it sounds really interesting. The individuality of skateboarding usually reinforces the individuality of sounds. For instance, there's a common sonic quality to a kickflip that, if you're an avid skateboarder, you can pick up but everyone's got their own independent twist on it. The way some people might catch their kickflips in the air could be different to other people, which causes the landing to sound different.”
The individualistic nature of skateboard sounds became apparent when Jude, who had primarily been recording a close friend skate, began recording himself. Through that process, he realised that, although he was leading the project, his friend was the performer.
“I have a friend who is a really good skater,” he says, “If I ask him to do any trick on a ledge, I can record it straight away. But it came to a point when I was creating my soundscapes, that it almost became his composition as opposed to mine. Yes, I was sequencing it and I was arranging it, but he was the instrumentalist. He was the performer. He was the person emitting these sounds. There are sonic differences between him skating and me skating, which was really interesting. For example, he did a few 50/50s and then I would record myself doing 50/50s and when I was listening back to me skating, it was tonally off. It was completely different. It wasn’t wrong, but compared to what I'd been used to with my friend, it just didn't sound right. It had a different depth to it. It didn't have the harsh grinding to it, it had more of a lighter taint. He would crush through his grinds and put his weight and power through it and when I was grinding the same ledge, it sounded dainty. That was one of the moments where I realised that this is a substantial thing. I wouldn't have recognised that an individual has their own sonic footprint if I didn't have to constantly record the same person, and then record myself in the same environment. You don't often get to do that.”
The end result of this work, the product that Jude has delivered for his final hand-ins, are soundscapes that depict the skateboarding culture of the South West, sample packs that people can download and use in their own music and a purpose-built website explaining his thinking and ambition of the project.
“With my first soundscape, I used recordings from indoor and outdoor local South West skate parks to get an idea of the sounds of the area,” he says, “I have also released a sample pack with some raw recordings of the skateboard tricks, as well as cutting some of the transients for people to resample themselves, so if you wanted to use them for drums, you'd have the ability to. I also wanted to contextualise the sounds by giving people some drum loops using the samples, so I made a collection of loops with different BPMs and grooves. Everything in there is skateboard sounds. There is no other programming, no other synths and no other samples. It’s literally just the skateboard audio… One of my friends in my class asked me for the sample pack, and I think he's doing some stuff with it. One of my lecturers Matt wants to have the sample pack and do some production work with it when his time clears up.”
This massive project has allowed Jude to explore an interesting niche in sound design; one that touches on a close-knit culture with its own language, style and references as well as interesting technical practice and a product that could go on to have a life of its own. For him, it’s been a great way to end his Bachelor’s at dBs, where he has had a nurturing learning experience.
“I've got a good rapport with all of my lecturers and they're all wonderful people,” says Jude, “They're really, really sound. I don't think you can put a price on that at university. A lot of my other friends who have got degrees, they haven't had that experience. Some of them, and no disrespect to them, didn't make it to the third year because of a lack of support. I've probably annoyed my lecturers by talking to them so much. I've loved studying at dBs in Plymouth. It is a wonderful institution. If I've had anything that I needed to hone in on, I've been able to do it. If I've needed any support, the support has always been there.”
So, what’s next for Jude and The Topology of Skateboarding? Jude hopes to continue the project by honing in on different areas of the country, like Manchester where he has family, and maybe even continue the process under the tutelage of the Master’s course leaders at dBs. “I am currently applying for the MA Innovation in Sound at dBs,” he says, “so it’s safe to say my experience here has gone pretty well over the years to make me want to stay longer!”
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