Category Archives: Sound Design

Thursday 11th April 2013 – Immersing Your Audience (part two)

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Previously…

My last blog post was all about some talks I attended on ‘Immersing your Audience’ .  The talks were given by experiential marketing agencies RPM and Sense and the immersive theatre group Punchdrunk.  Last week, I mentioned the general concepts that I learned so this week I thought I would talk about my thoughts on these ideas in relation to getting creative with immersive audio.  These ideas could be used for any kind of experience and even song-writing to give the material a better chance of communicating your ideas or message.

The Importance of space

I mentioned that the key thread throughout all these talks was the idea of dipping your audience into a different reality based around a theme.  Audio really is vital to achieving this.  Sound defines any space we are in, whether we notice it or not.  The way sound bounces around a space gives our brain little queues through our ears.  Because the part of our brain that deals with sound has good connections with our emotion centre, these queues spark emotional responses and this is one of the reasons why spaces all make us feel different.  Of course, other factors such as light and previous memories have a say in this but sound is an important piece of this puzzle.

How can this be used in staging events?  Well, you could physically choose the right space to host your happening; a claustrophobic theatrical piece could utilise a series of small, enclosed rooms or an air of freedom could be created by large spaces or even the great outdoors.  Artificial audio could also be used to achieve these effects.  Choosing the right audio, echo/reverb and sound-wave frequency emanating from hidden speakers would all contribute to the desired atmosphere.

Tailor sound to emotional direction

Next, I talked about direction.  This is vital with any aspect of a project really but is more than just choosing the right thematic sounds that fit in with it.  An experience is always more than it’s theme so you are not always just pointing towards ‘burlesque’, for example.  How do you want your audience to feel?  Define the emotions and then tailor the work to these while using the burlesque theme.  Again, use of sound frequency, echo/reverb and the right audio will all contribute.

Realism

Realism and appealing to all of the senses was mentioned next.  The great thing about audio, as is seen with music, is that you can evoke emotion without the audio sounding like a real-world occurrence.  Of course using realistically accurate audio will have advantages in some situations but the sound palette doesn’t stop there.  Think about how a piece of classical instrumentation can make you feel, or the fact that gunshot sounds used in film are far more exciting and very different from the sound of a real gunshot.  In terms of the senses, the realistic crackle of bacon cooking can evoke the idea of the smell of bacon (if the audience is familiar with it).  Music can also be used to approximate the senses; sounds can be warm or cold, pungent or smooth.

Attention to Detail

The last posts mention of detail and backstory is the same with any medium.  Subtlety and attention to detail will enrich any experience and also make it seem more real and natural even if your chosen atmosphere isn’t real at all.  Many sounds are present in every environment and they all contribute to your experience of that environment even if you are not conscious of them.  The background rumble of traffic, for example, will be a cue that you are not in the middle of a jungle but you may not consciously recognise it’s affect.

Understand the Audience.

Knowing your audience is also vital to any experience.  This is probably most obvious with the use of music; different people have very rigid expectations of what they perceive good music to be.  They can’t all be right can they?  That very fact shows you that the definition of ‘good music’ is subjective and, ironically enough, not very useful in actually determining musical quality.  Replacing the idea of good music with the phrase ‘music this group will like’ is much more helpful if you plan to use music in an event.  Customer profiling will help this and to an extent a good result can be achieved using such scientific means; TV adverts show how successful this method is.  The music industry has tried very hard to mystify music to make it more appealing.  Releasing yourself from these shackles will make creative use of music much easier; think about the perceptions of your audience rather than providing ‘good music’.

And finally…

The last idea that brings all of these threads together is simplicity.  Of course, this is a relevant idea for most things – the most elegant solution is always the simplest one!

My experience has shown that audio and how it can be used in creative applications can mystify people.  Whereas this post hasn’t really unlocked tools of the trade, I’m hoping it has shown that audio isn’t so scary after all: you can think about it like any other creative aspect of a project.  And of course, there are always content providers like myself who are more than willing to delve deeper into the ideas behind audio use when needed.  I also hope the ideas I have written about here have given you food for thought as well as giving you ideas that you can take away with you!

Baralek Rendang in the Media

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Some work I created last year for an Indonesian event, Baralek Rendang, has had attention from the Indonesian media:

http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?sl=id&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.metrotvnews.com%2Flifestyle%2Fread%2F2013%2F02%2F18%2F470%2F132025%2FMusik-Rendang-dari-Inggris

Here is the site in its native language: http://www.metrotvnews.com/lifestyle/read/2013/02/18/470/132025/Musik-Rendang-dari-Inggris

12th February 2013 – Music, Sound and War – Part Two

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This is the second part of a two-part post about the destructive capabilities of sound and sound design.  Specifically, these posts talk about how sound design is used during war and the factors common to these uses.  Maybe a look at such extreme usage will spur ideas of how sound design can be used in more constructive, peaceful ways.  

From reading the previous post, you can see that the use of sound design in this context is both psychological and physical and it’s strength lies in being able to affect both the body and the mind; potent stuff!  This is no less true for another, more sinister application: the use of sound in torture.

If the use of sound design in war strikes you as sinister, you may be shocked to learn that it is also used in torture.  The idea apparently came from the North Koreans and Chinese who used sound to brainwash captives during the Korean War.  The Americans realised how powerful this concept was and therefore conducted research into how it might be countered so they could defend themselves against it.  This research actually ended up leading to the US using similar techniques employed by the Chinese and North Koreans and these techniques have been used at both Guantanamo Bay as well as the Abu Ghraib prison.

So, what has this torture consisted of? Well, reports say that very loud, aggressive music is played as an integral part of stress-based torture; loud sound is extremely fatiguing to listen to.  On its own, the music serves to isolate the captive and draw them into their mind while learning dependence on their captor.  Used for hours, the music keeps the captive awake and disoriented; the idea being that talking and divulging information will be seen as a release from the stress of not being able to rest and also of escape from the sound.

An interesting point to note about this audio torture is that Muslim detainees at these two prisons have also talked about how culture has played a part in their discomfort.  Music has very different, religious meanings for a lot of Muslims and being subjected to intense rock and metal music offends their beliefs, which are at the very core of their existence.  When paired with isolation and hopelessness, this imposition could be very powerful in changing thought patterns.

It is probably pretty obvious to you that very loud sound is very uncomfortable and you instantly want to remove yourself from it.  However, something called dissonance also contributes and is used in sound design with great effect.  Heard in much modern metal music, dissonance also produces an uncomfortable feeling.  Sound is basically the vibration of air molecules and the speed at which they vibrate is called frequency.  The frequencies of sounds that go well together have a mathematical relationship, one number is divisible by the other.  When sounds are dissonant, this numerical relationship does not exist and our brain interprets this as uncomfortable, making it a great tool for violent, unsettling music!  This effect comes from a cross between physiology and culture though:  Our cultures train our ears to what sounds acceptable but the effect is directly related to how sound moves as well as the way our brain is structured in interpreting these sounds.

So, as with the militaristic uses of sound design  as described in the previous post, torture also uses the basic power of sound as well as the psychological affects it has, creating an overall sound design. Too much of any sensory input is always painful so there is perhaps not much we can learn from this.  But sound is very important to our psychological make-up; sound is always around us, we cannot easily switch it off like we can with sight and the fact that sound is a constant in our lives (even when asleep!) means it can easily obtain meaning when paired with emotion.  Reverse these negative sounds to positive sounds and the affect remains.  Think of a nice relaxing summer afternoon in a park; what can you hear?  The gentle, hypnotising swish of the trees in a breeze; delicate birdsong and maybe even the calm of running water.  Now, keep the scene exactly the same but replace those sounds with violent, uncomfortably loud smashes and crashes and have a think about how your mood changes. The emotional pairing and content of sound is driving the feelings you are experiencing.  

24th January 2013 – Music, Sound and War – Part One.

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This blog post has been inspired by the documentary ‘Songs of War’ aired on Al Jazeera and is the first in a two-part post on an extreme use of sound: the use of sound in war.  This is a fascinating subject although you may be shocked to hear about how sound can be used and what is actually happening today in our own armies.

I’ve talked about it before but sound has been used to trigger emotion in film for a long time, reinforcing the emotional content of what you are seeing, creating a much more integrated atmosphere that draws the viewer in.  Also, the importance of sound, not just music, is being accepted more and more in the marketing world. Sound tends to focus on the positive here as brands fight to associate their goods with attractive, positive attributes that gain customers.  However, as with everything, music and sound aren’t always used for good, sound has also been used in war for a long time.  The very fact that sound can be used in such extreme ways shows how very potent sound design can be, both a strong physical force as well as psychological one.  The characteristics of sound and music that cause them to be manipulated in such a way are what makes this subject so interesting for marketers wanting to convey messages as well as those just interested in sound.

The first uses of sound in war were to intimidate the enemy.  Drums, trumpets, shouts and the crashing of shields and swords have been used to show strength and power, whip soldiers up into a frenzy and strike fear into the hearts of the enemy.  These are all very physical, powerful sounds that seem to remind us of danger no matter what our cultural norms are.  Particular to the UK, the sound of bagpipes in battle is both stirring for the British and fear-inducing for soldiers on the other side.  This sound is different in that it is more complex although it is still rousing and powerful.

As time went on, the use of music and sound became more sophisticated and strategic. A famous example is how Adolf Hitler and Josef Goebbels controlled music in the Third Reich through the Reich Music Chamber. Stirring militaristic marches full of bombast, powerful brass sections and simple crashing beats were used to ignite war in the population.  Also, during this period, the famous Stuka dive bomber used sound to inflict terror on the people it fought against: as the plane dived to release it’s bomb, a siren let out a shrill whine.  You might notice here that context played a big part in this terror rather than sound in isolation, accenting fear already there much as cinematic sound designers do.

Later on, the use of sound in war is got ever more sophisticated. During the Vietnam War, the American military used speakers in the jungle to project eerie, ghostly sounds. This was intended to affect the Vietcong spiritually and break their morale; they believed that if they died away from home their spirit would get lost and be forced to wander the earth forever. Here you can see that power is not so much of a contributor but again, playing on context, emotions can be influenced by knowing about your ‘audience’.

Modern times have seen the invention of the directional speaker. Conventional speakers project sound outward in a 90 degree arc meaning that sound can be heard even if you are not directly in front of a speaker. Directional speakers use a carrier wave to hold the sound waves and this only travels in straight lines. This means the speaker can be pointed at just one person or a group of people and even though it is delivering intense sound levels, those standing outside of this ‘beam’ will hear a much reduced sound. It can therefore serve to incapacitate a select group of people without having to fire guns and it’s inventor even goes so far as to say that this invention could end war as we know it.  Again, power is the theme and the importance of this is also shown in the continuous thread of battle music:  modern American soldiers have been known to listen to music while actually in battle; tank crews in particular listened to hard rock or heavy metal while fighting to keep them motivated and fearless.

As you can see, sound can be terrifying and it can be used to control as well as to injure.  There are a few constants that appear throughout these examples, highlighting general effects that sound can have.  My next post will talk about taking these ideas away from the front line and their use in torture, an even more sinister application.

Thursday 10th January 2013 – Positive Thinking for 2013.

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Happy New Year!  Here we are, 2013!  We have escaped a Mayan apocalypse and there are reports of the UK’s financial situation improving!

Whatever your stance on the last two pieces of information, a new year always kickstarts new ideas and positive thinking. Most of us seem to be back at work now, looking forward to an exciting new year …despite some still being on the turkey sandwich diet…

I’ve heard more than a couple of times this January that people are keen to keep this New Year positive thinking intact, not allowing the usual January lull to depress us; a kind of new years resolution to stick to our new years resolutions… So, instead of giving up the fitness plan on January 17th (supposedly the most miserable day of the year), losing track of all those books you want to read for self-improvement purposes, or chaining an entire pack of cigarettes (…on the 17th…) lets join them and put plans in place to make goals and targets a reality. All you have to do is have ideas to improve yourself and plan out when you will see them through… and stick to it!  Whenever you get tempted to leave something until tomorrow, do it right that second instead. You’ll feel better for it and actually see progress!

As far as myself goes, I am developing and expanding my work to make things more appealing to more people and am relishing the new challenges that this brings. After discovering that making sound and soundscape interactive is well within my grasp, I am now working on new systems to achieve this. Motion sensors, pressure sensors and more can be used to add a whole new dimension to soundscapes for events. Immersing an audience now becomes even more complete as people take ideas on-board by thinking about them while interacting with them. This is a powerful way to bring people into a branding or experience.  For example, when promoting Crunchy Cornflakes, maybe Kellogg’s could use a doorway entrance mat that sounds crunching noises when walked on. Or maybe a company promoting it’s eco-friendly status could use an interactive rainforest of noises that appears when a display of its products is approached.

Innovating and pushing your ideas to their limits is key to success so don’t let January pass without making sure you stick to improving yourself and developing ideas!  What plans and ideas have you got for this year?  How do these ideas push your past thinking to it’s limits? Let me know, maybe we can share ideas…

Thursday 6th December 2012 – Sleepy Dreams – Instrumental Bedtime Nursery Rhymes

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London Composer of bedtime nursery rhymes, Jay HarrisLondon Composer of bedtime nursery rhymes, Jay Harris

Some of you may remember an album of childrens music I released a couple of years back called Bedtime Nursery Rhymes. I sold the album as download on various sites via Tunecore and physical CDs through Kunaki. Wonderful reviews and some steady sales followed and overall, I was very pleased with the project. Press play above to listen to two tracks.

This year, I have been updating the album.  A few of the reviews mentioned that Bedtime Nursery Rhymes could have been a bit longer, so I extended it by another 5 tracks. I included Little Bo Peep, Hey Diddle Diddle, There Was a Crooked Man, Hickory Dickory Dock and Wee Willie Winkie to the existing tracks: Curly Locks, It’s Raining It’s Pouring, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Rock-a-bye-baby, Kum Ba Yah, Brahms’ Lullaby. The artwork has also been updated by the talented Marie-Pier Tremblay and the album has received a new title: Sleepy Dreams – Instrumental Nursery Rhymes. The title was changed due to the possible misconception of the album containing lyrics.

Bedtime Nursery Rhymes was the first project that I created where I wanted to give a practical use to sound. Music and sound have always been very powerful forces for me but the fact that most of it is aesthetic or perceived as aesthetic bothered me. Therefore, I came up with the idea of using music and sound to lull young children to sleep by using bedtime nursery rhymes. To achieve this, the music had to be relaxing and relevant to children so it could have a use of parents playing it as they put their children to bed. The music also had to be magical for children so that bedtime would be an enjoyable experience. Overall, the creative focus was on the sounds rather than the tunes, and using established nursery rhymes helped this. On a technical note, the nursery rhymes used also had to be free of copyright.

Bedtime Nursery Rhymes was also my first look into sonic branding and the techniques that could be employed in this. I looked at each element of my chosen nursery rhymes and created a sound or series of sounds to convey these elements. The idea was therefore to create pieces of music that were focused on their subject matter as well as the use I had in mind for them. This would make sure that the messages I wanted to convey would be focussed. Creating sounds using some of the more abstract concepts as starting points made sure that there would be a level of intrigue to the music as well originality. These two factors were very important if I were to create something magical.

To create the sounds, I had a look at each nursery rhyme. I then came up with various related adjectives from which I could create some sounds. For example, Little Bo Peep is all about Bo losing her sheep so I created a ‘fluffy’ sound. I also pictured her with some sprightly lambs so I made sure to put in some delicate sprightly noises that feel like little lambs frolicking!

Sleepy Dreams will be available in Just Williams Toys very soon. The shops are located in south London at Herne Hill, East Dulwich and Clapham and will retail at £9.99.

CDs are also available via the internet from Kunaki. Kunaki are based in New York so please leave 2-3 weeks for delivery. The total price has been adjusted to take the cost of basic airmail into account.

Thursday 22nd November 2012 – Interactivity in Sound and Experiential Marketing.

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Experiential marketing is a fascinating subject and it follows my interests in creating immersive experiences.  If you are unfamiliar with the concept, it is a way to imprint a brand on people by allowing them to experience it.  This is a very powerful tool.

Interactivity has been a long-standing interest of mine with regard to music and these ideas can easily be adapted to create a richer experiential marketing campaign.  You may remember about the band that I started called Lunar Rising.  For those unfamiliar with the band, we were a folk/rock band that had to split due to members following other non-musical ambitions.  Anyway, before the band split, I got thinking about how to make our gigs stand out from the crowd (it’s a sad state of affairs that music is only a small element of this, especially in London for some odd reason – but this isn’t the post to talk about that lengthy subject!).

Partly inspired by a situation we once found ourselves in, I had the idea of getting the audience involved as in true folk-music fashion. One evening at a gig in south London our singer conjured up a disappearing act after sound-check so, not being people to disappoint, we decided to go instrumental and improvise.  It turned out that the venue had a bountiful supply of percussion instruments so we seized the opportunity and handed them out to the crowd.  The next thing we know, we are jamming with a room full of people and everybody is having a fantastic time!

I started to think about how this could be developed and created into a selling point for the band.  There were many ideas; some bad, some good and some probably more at home in an art gallery than a music venue.  I thought about entrusting the use of a simple drone instrument to a volunteer; ordering the controlled chaos of jamming somehow so that the crowd could play along to our songs; positioning ourselves among the audience for an acoustic gig so that people could get close and personal and experience being with the band; using samples of conversations and other noises recorded in the venue queue, manipulating them and working them into songs or instrumentals.

This is when I started to think about what else could possibly join music when creating a musical experience, and this was one of the seeds that led me to wanting to get involved in sound for events and experiential marketing.  Various sound artists have shown us that involving the audience can create events and such ideas in folk music are very old indeed.   With wireless, touchscreen technology; silent discos; sound gardens and trails included, there are many ways to lift an experience by getting the audience involved.  On one level, this is great fun but on another it brings each individual to the centre of experiential marketing activities that they will remember for a long time; creating sound is a very rewarding experience.

In terms of audio ideas to bring an events or experiential marketing audience to centre stage, there are many possible routes.  As briefly mentioned, current iPod technology has been used to create touchscreen access points that trigger various happenings, but then there are the more primitive ideas where people can interact with sound sculptures; maybe such ideas work in harmony… It doesn’t have to be a gimmick either; given a theme as a starting block, related ideas are always possible.  What is also clear is that audiences no longer have to be passive and when they are not the experience is far more rewarding for everybody involved.  The rise in experiential theatre as well as experiential marketing embodies these ideas and I believe this is the future for sound and music.  And vice versa, sound really is truly immersive and it’s use beyond music in experiential marketing will definitely grow.

Thursday 8th November 2012 – My Sonic Brand

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If you have been reading my recent posts, you will know that using sound in branding and identity is one of my interests.  This weeks post is therefore about the creation of my very own sonic brand designed to help immerse my website visitors in what I’m all about. Consistent sensory branding is a widely untapped reservoir of customer communication, it uses all of the senses to help people remember your brand; audio being one very important part of this. Press play to hear a basis for my own sonic brand.

Audio 

There are various elements to the sonic brand now playing (which I display on my homepage) and each part is designed to offer a particular element towards the total image that I want to convey.

Firstly, I created a list of words and ideas that embody my desired image.  Once these had been finalised, I paired them up with musical or auditory concepts.  These were generally based on the physical properties and/or psychology of the sounds.  Once these links were created, all that was left to do was create the sounds to go into the sonic brand.  Some kind of structure is always needed (well, unless having no structure is part of your structure…!?).  When the main concept I am dealing with is sound rather than what is making the sound, I find creating a graphical score the best way to create structure.  Using this method you can create relationships, show contrast and layer as well as show any other musical concept.  Having a visual link to the sounds can also help you refine a piece as you notice things that weren’t previously apparent.  (Read my previous blog post on graphical scores).

So, what did I decide for own sonic brand…?

You will notice the absence of a strong melody, which in terms of branding, you may find strange.  This was a deliberate move and I decided this for a number of reasons.

Firstly, my work deals in atmosphere and auditory immersion; providing too strong a melodic focus point will distract from the overall sound as the listener narrows their focus on the melody.  The idea is to produce a way of feeling that can be associated with my brand rather than a melody that will keep you whistling.  I also wanted to add a sense of enigma and depth by burying various focal points within the sonic brand, and a strong melody would have detracted from this.  There are a lot of sounds occurring and some you may only hear after a bit of close scrutiny, even though they are all contributing to the overall impression.

Also, in terms of catchy tunes, distancing myself away from the shallow sheen of catchy TV ad melody was also important; we have all been annoyed with the ‘Go Compare’ adverts (although their new twist is a clever take on that).  I’m promoting a future, not a quick fix with a limited shelf-life.

There still needed to be some sort of focus point in my sonic brand though, otherwise it would have been just a mishmash of sounds.  To create a calm atmosphere of positive contemplation, I decided that a string ensemble should be used.  This was processed to give a less realistic sound, again, to enhance enigma.  I gave them something repetitive but not catchy to play so I could free up the listener’s attention allowing them to soak up the other sounds within the sonic brand.  All of the sounds correspond to a certain aspect of the image I want to convey, therefore all had to be given room.

So, what I came to was the main soundscape that functions as a sonic brand and provides audio building blocks for other applications.  Working this way gives lots of opportunity to dissect the overall sound and use the individual parts for other applications, giving variety yet having a consistent branding.  For example, if orange is part of your branding colour set you will tend to use it in various places to make sure your visual image is consistent.   Any one of the sounds could be used alone or the mix of the main soundscape could be altered and used to sound button presses, create a second-long sound paired with a logo ident, create  employee ringtones, computer start sounds, used in company events or could even be used to influence the physical sounds your product packaging makes when handled.  Any sound associated with a business can be looked at and refined for use in a sonic brand.

Have a listen to my sonic brand.  What image does it convey to you?   Get in touch if you are curious about having a sonic brand and want to know how your own image could be communicated this way.