ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the methodology used for validating the Four Sound Areas framework, and this approach may be of particular help to those students who are contemplating, or completing, a PhD by Practice. The turn to creative practice is one of the most exciting and revolutionary developments to occur in the university within the last two decades and is currently accelerating in influence. The current state of affairs regarding Practice as Research would seem to suggest that practitioner and academy are likely to remain uncomfortable bedfellows for some time to come; superficially sitting alongside each other, but with a constant, below-the-surface rumbling of subducting tectonic plates, as it were. In comparison, Apocalypse Now is one of the first Hollywood examples of dense, multi-channel sound design and mixing and serves as a direct contrast to the intentionally stripped-back, and in comparison, bare soundtrack of Winter Light.
