The Audio Mark as a Storytelling Platform

Image by: Craig Cloutier

Music, as we know, comes in many forms. And one person's music is another person's noise.

Readers of this blog know I'm fascinated by microstructures; that is, those forms of noise and aural expression that may not represent complete 'works' as we think of the concept, but which nonetheless capably convey meaning.

THE DESCENDING CADENCE AS CLOSING STATEMENT

For instance, where one single pitch might convey neither music nor meaning, two pitches in a sequence –if they are the right pitches– might serve to conclude a story, a song, or even an event, such as a religious service. The two pitches in question are, of course, IV and I, which we know as a 'descending cadence', and which together package enough signification in one descending step that whenever they are deployed, everyone within earshot receives the exact same message: This is where the story ends.

THE AUDIO MARK AS INDEPENDENT SIGNIFIER

As it happens, it is the identification and contextualization of such nano sized musical expressions that provide the underlying conceptual framework whenever we are commissioned with the construction of an AUDIO MARK (and whether we are conscious of this activity or not).

For this reason, I do not always think of an Audio Mark as a micro musical work itself, but instead as a communication asset composed of sonic elements, especially in regards to non melodic marks. Such composition is often closer to sound design, in my mind, being born of qualitative research, analysis and a methodical construction process rather than simply inspired composition.

The outcome of inspired composition is not always immediately apparent, nor the activity always directed. When making music we may simply want to entertain; and the music may have no reason for being at all, except that we conceived it, either as formalized composition or improvisation. In contrast to this common artistic process, the construction or design of an Audio Mark is always crafted with purpose, and often to a client's detailed specifications. Thus, if the outcome of traditional composition can be said to be our moods set to music, marks represent the attempt to package data into non verbal sound. In other words, we are asking ourselves how sound may be used for signification.

This process is not limited to commercial branding; it has long been used in the creation of scores whose themes and other elements might serve to indicate an actor, an animal, the weather, or something else.

But when our task is branding, then much like a Morse code pattern, our intention not so much to create an entertaining rhythm but to package data in a way that a given audience can and will actually decode the resultant sonic expression And if the message is not so distinct as to be unintelligible, and coded with cultural conventions in mind, then there actually stands a very good chance that it will be received and understood.

THE RINGTONE AS BRANDED ALERT

While music fundamentally suggests mood, I believe that brands –if they are to live in the world as semi or crowd conscious entities– shouldn't be defined or limited by the results of a mood board alone. What kind of actual person only possesses a single mood? Psychopaths and sociopaths. Certainly,  some management teams might be accused as lacking empathy, but when crafting identity assets for a client, one should create assets that might be made to respond in the same manner as healthy human attributes. To put it another way, our moods ebb and our reputation might change, but our identity is generally regarded as stable.

Identity assets should therefore be responsive, and crafted in a way that allows for scale and variation. Easier done in print with size and color; and easy still, if our mark is melodic in nature, but somewhat more difficult if the mark has been produced as an immutable sonic construction, for instance, when designed as a parallel experience and synchronized to a specific moving image. Nevertheless, if we want a mark to carry, then it must possess the capacity to scale infinitely, or at least within a set of parameters that we identify as true to that specific identity.

This is not to suggest that every mark be designed as a musical motif, though the two concepts in their most popular forms share similar characteristics.

But something very different happens when we hear a mark than when we listen to a motif. A strong mark will be perceived as a whole entity and independent of any other asset within the same single framed context.  Motives, on the other hand, while they may express variation, are perceived as dependent on other assets within the same single framework.

Motives, on the other hand, are deployed in such a way as to produce continued delight and interest with every variation. Indeed, we might even define traditional music not as organized sound, as is the convention, but as any construct that employs reiteration and also, the thematic variation of a pattern. Given this definition, the thing might not even be aural, which is why we can look at the sky or the ocean, or  even traffic, and describe it as a musical experience.

Music is essentially patterns at play.

And it's also why we may not always frame an Audio Mark as a musical work. It does use elemental musical sounds in its construction, but it is of singular design and voices so quickly any inherent patterning is either lost or non existent. Repeat it again and again without variation, and while the result will likely demand our attention, it may equally be perceived as annoying if the alerting sound does not signify incoming important information, hence our response to Ringtones.

We can very easily design interesting or pleasing ringtones, but our perception of any ringtone will nevertheless be shaped by the user and those nearby.  We might even forgo the repeating tone, riff or sample and actually trigger a complete work with each incoming call, but it even high fidelity rendition of recording of 'Ode to Joy' by the Berlin Philarmonic might strike another commuter as irritating if the phone's owner continued to receive multiple calls between Dover and Brick Church.

And it may be that the Alert construction is the most effective construct for a Ringtone simply because it frames the subsquent experience as one of information processing.

THE BROADCAST STING AS CONTROLLED DISRUPTION

Melodic audio marks also share some similar characteristics to another form of sonic identity asset, being THE BROADCAST STING. Both Audio Mark and Broadcast Sting serve as a form of conceptual punctuation that sends a single message –again, like Morse code. But unlike Morse code, we do not want to hear either a sting or a mark repeat within a single context. Or if it does repeat, the inherent message of both the sting and mark become diminished by the sense of urgency conveyed by the repetitive aural experience. Alternately, if this is the desired effect, then the message is simply reduced to 'URGENT'.
 
Of course, all four forms of micro musical expression discussed here –The Audio Mark, the Descending Cadence, The Ringtone and The Broadcast Sting– are designed to work like zipped semiotics, which once open, a given marketer's message will be decoded and delivered.

I've participated in the production of several network package music and sound design projects: CNN, ESPN, HBO Zone, MTV, PBS and VH1, to name a few.

Interestingly, The Broadcast Sting is the only expression of the four that is not constructed as an independent statement. Ending on an anticipatory high note, the Sting, while designed to brand a television station, network or cable channel, is also designed as an open ended inconclusive element, which if we compare to sentence structure,

suggests interruption. The Sting thus requires a listener/viewer to wait until later (typically, 'after these messages') before being 'rewarded' with aural or musical closure (finishing the sentence). Indeed, the Sting does not so much announce who he is, as he compel us to wait another moment before closing with a big reveal.

Whatever construction is appropriate to the task, the message is clear: even micro musical structures can be employed in the support of storytelling; and a skilled sonic artisan can capably convey a lot of non verbal information in mere seconds, and sometimes in even just one second.

A Sign of the Times: The Semantic Terrorist

Naturally, one can't help but make comparisons with controversial performers. Neither Madonna nor Sinead O'Connor, for instance, are strangers to provocation. However, they were already global superstars when their offending actions threatened to derail their careers.  In contrast, Pussy Riot's illegal in-church protest was actually the thing that transformed this theretofore little known arts collective into a worldwide punk rock phenomenon.

Similarly, the Sex Pistols railed against 'the Queen and her fascist regime,' as well as their record label, EMI, but the motivation behind those efforts is debatable given the band’s parallel efforts to sell records and gain celebrity.

Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, U2, and many others, too, pen songs of protest, but like the Sex Pistols, their tunes are as much sentiments of social consciousness as they are product.

Interestingly, it may also be that not since Kabuki styled, fire breathing, glam band Kiss launched their act in the mid seventies, that any single rock group has achieved such wide interest largely based on signification codes, i.e. Pussy Riot's 'look' is as much vehicle for  their ideas as the lyric to their punk prayer. As a result, the band's semiotic strategy actually makes the music irrelevant to one's appreciation of the group. As it should be: for commercial groups all activities are meant to create a funnel towards product; but in the case of Pussy Riot, the music is a  conduit for regime change.

In this regard, the women of Pussy Riot appear to be first to concept with a new breed of 21st Century performer and change agent: The Semantic Terrorist; that is, an agitprop art bomber with the marketing acumen of a brand strategist but who doesn't give a sh*t about selling you anything.  

Indeed, it's likely that we'll see and hear from other Semantic Terrorists as others rise and join in the chorus of the Great Connected Global Disruption that defines our era.

But what exactly do we find so captivating about the Semantic Terrorist?

In a world where advertisers are increasingly replacing record labels as ministers of culture; when economies are crumbling under the weight of outdated precepts; when politicians think it more expedient to silence the voices of the weak, and protect the interests of the powerful;  the women of Pussy Riot serve to remind us that free of corporate sponsorship, blind nationalism or overfatigued groupthink, a dissident artist can get on with the business of attempting to topple a government, jail time and trendy miniskirts, not withstanding.

In a way, it's absolutely refreshing.

Machines, Music and Meaning

 
Machines, Music and Meaning:
From orchestral cannonfire to the Countdown clock

[First published by SEMIONAUT†, March 13, 2012.]
 
From rail rhythms in rock, to drill bits in glitch hop and dub step, the use of machines to make music is not a new idea, although their influence may not always be apparent to our ears. 

In one very clear link, music refers to the sound-making device itself, as when Tchaikovsky employed cannon fire in his 1812 Overture. Certainly, cannon fire can be said to be dramatic, and because of its powerful effect, it signifies a warning to potential invaders, as much as it should also produce feelings of patriotism in a loyal nationalist, as was the composer’s intent.

Tchaikovsky also chose to use an actual cannon for the sound of the cannon’s roar, rather than engage traditional instruments to mimic explosive blasts. That is to say, as with words or images, sometimes the power of abstracted sounds lies with their direct or common associations. Likewise, sometimes a sign only points in one direction. However, also like language and imagery, and depending on context, abstracted sounds lend themselves to a variety of uses, which resonate well beyond literal interpretation.

For instance, the clock at your bedside simply indicates the time of day. But when embedded within the score for a game show, such as Jeopardy or Countdown, we do not so much as note the time as we become aware of its passage, and all that such passage implies. We may thus find ourselves empathizing with an indecisive contestant when a looming deadline must be beat. In the case of Countdown, if we remove the clock from the main theme, all we have is an exciting musical prelude, but otherwise lacking any real sense of urgency.

For another example, trains have long had an influence on modern music, either as a literal effect, or as a source for a powerful rhythm. However, in ‘This City Never Sleeps’, the band The Eurythmics employ the sound of London’s underground towards another interesting result. For whether we notice it or not, the lack of crowd murmur within the sound sample imparts upon us a feeling of loneliness. So that no matter where or when we listen to this song we are transported to a particularly empty place in both our hearts and the middle of the night.

In the same way, consider the Cha-Ching opening of a cash register in Pink Floyd's ‘Money’. The register alone might set the physical scene of a shop, but it’s the incessant looping of the sound that produces a feeling of obsession, and thus, before a single word is uttered or sung, the music is instantly framed as a missive on consumerism or greed.

Even if we dismiss mechanical rhythms as primary influencers, industrial products have been responsible for not simply contributing novel sounds to music, but for seeding several modern genres. One needn’t even point to electronically powered music for an obvious example. What would calypso be, for instance, but for the empty steel oil drum?

Generally speaking, the use of machines in music have historically suggested that we are collectively more modern than we were yesterday. But since mankind’s most recent mechanical fascination is with an otherwise silent device –the computer – one wonders what impact it will have on music of the 21st Century? Will silence become the new indicator of modernism? Or will this silence force us to reconsider our own biological rhythms and usher in a new bio-musical age? Or will the computer’s easy capacity for copying and combining thrust us towards an ever increasingly paste modern future?

Of course, any answer would only be guesswork, but we can be certain that otherwise reticent machines will continue to find new ways to speak to their human designers through the language music.

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Semionaut is an online magazine & knowledge resource offering insight into culture, media, creative industries, and brand strategy. Its publishers, editors, and contributors are professionally involved in the application of semiotic and cultural analysis to brand communication and design issues.

Deconstructing Nuance

Bmearns

Isn't it amazing how some radio listeners who can identify a song from a tiny clip of sound.I certainly think so, especially if a person can do so with less than a second of sonic information. I think this phenomenon speaks to powerful capacity for even a small musical bytes of sound to evoke memory, not to mention a profound emotional response. And my fascination only deepens in those cases when I realize that I don't know the song at all, have no history with it.

It must be that however short and unique a given clip is, it nevertheless stimulates the ear according to a prior, similarly framed aural experience so that an equivalent response is thereby triggered. And if that's what indeed happens, then this tiny matrix of sonic data hits our brain like a zip file, immediately opens its contents and we respond to that data almost the instant we hear it.

In other words, very small packages can produce very, very big feelings.

As it happens, I think there's a lot to learn from this phenomenon, especially if one is in the business of music or sound design, or otherwise involved in the craft of creating sound for commercial application.

So, the question I want to know the answer for is not how long a clip has to be in order for someone to recall the title of a familiar work, but how small can an unfamiliar sample of sound be edited, and still produce an emotive response?

In other words:

How much information can be conveyed and decoded from within a fraction of a single edit, sample or beat?

Certainly, we can convey a mood and much more with even a single beat. Sample enthusiasts do this all the time, lifting a kick or snare, say, and dropping it into one's mix, with the result often being a sort of verbal shorthand for a specific era. Gated snare drums, for instance, recall the eighties, and by extension, a general feeling of the entire decade. Whether or not it’s fair or honest to reduce a decade to a single feeling or vibe is yet another question, but this is often what happens in the production of any period reconstruction for theater, film or video.

Feelings of nostalgia and evocation of mood aside, no doubt a single sonic event can transmit a complete message, so long as there is general consensual agreement that certain sounds, combinations of sounds, or treatments of sounds signify extra musical meaning (which is what I mean by 'message'). It may be that such terse transmissions do work upon us because what ever is there, however obscure, provides just enough aural evidence that a listener receiving this incomplete communication can reasonably assume to fill in what is missing, like reading words without vowels, or when someone cuts us off before we've finished speaking because they already understand the point.

Lollipop, Lollipop: The Primacy of Patterning

Photo Credit: Henrique Matos

Art, especially modern art, often relies on the relativistic notion that anything organized suggests meaning. We don't usually enjoy something because it lacks meaning. In those instances, when a communication is illegible or impenetrable, we are simply left confused, or it makes no impression on us at all, as when we hear two people speaking a language we don't understand. Although, true, we might find ourselves enjoying the ambiance provided by a foreign lilt, as happens when we are on vacation. But more generally we enjoy a thing or a statement because it conveys information to us, which we are able to decipher. Or in the case of pure abstractions, because we think it means something, if only because that meaning is the result of our own projections upon the thing in question.

Indeed, was there ever an object that man did not endow with meaning?

SONIC SIGNIFICATION

Of course, music is a prime example of this. How can any combination of non verbal pitched soundings come to mean anything? The moon doesn't care if you play a seventh chord. And yet, music does contain and is capable of conveying meaning to us; meaning, mood and message. Even minute passages of music can capably frame or change the context of a given reality, by triggering emotion, recalling or embedding within memory, all by shading or shaping our perception with timed bursts of varying frequencies. This is a fact that never ceases to amaze me.

This is immediately evidenced in film scores, whereby a given cue might lead the viewer to a different understanding of a scene than one might otherwise have had without the cue. Likewise, walking down the street with headphones on and playlist engaged, you are effectively scoring your world. And it is the easiest way I know of to turn a gray dismal day into pure musical theater.

Simply define any two random dots or concepts in space, and the brain will create a bridge between them. Thus, everything is networked, not via intention (though sometimes so) but as a result of our perception of ideas and things. Every time we take in a new view, our eyes our constantly trying to make sense of what we're seeing, and our ears are no different in regards to the constantly changing acoustic ecology.

Without a doubt, what we hear can shape,modify or otherwise color what we see.

NOTHING IS ABSURD: EVERYTHING IS ABSURD

It happens the other way around too, and to such an extent, that I'm not even sure anymore that we can think of music as purely an aural experience.

Because, actually, everything we sense, whether through our eyes, ears, skin, nose, tongue or that which we call intuition, presents us with a collective (multidimensional) melody as long as we can link one concept to other, which we can not possibly avoid doing once we become aware of their existence within a single perceived set:

Elephant, car, bushman, bauxite, chica, flower, kijiti, pop.

Did you hear that? Maybe not but there's a good chance you gathered this sequence of randomly chosen concepts into a single set and began to attempt to make some correlative assumptions. Something about a bushman taking a car to see an elephant, perhaps, or something like that. Or maybe you didn't hear it so much as felt it, as certainly as percussionists feel lollipop triplets: 'lollipop, lollipop, lollipop' = '1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3').

It seems that everything whether it makes a sound or not, once it arrives into the brain can serve to ignite a musical experience. A comet slamming into the earth for instance, silent as it sails through space until the moment it slams into the Gulf of Mexico. Now, that's a gong on a cosmic order.

MUSIC AS AN APPLIED THEORY OF PATTERNING

So if everything we can conjure can be defined as music, it's only because everything that arrives upon our senses is subject to immediate real time organization relative to a personal knowledge base, and thereby perceived as containing or contained by patterning.

Whether that patterning is divine in origin or not I'll leave to others to imagine and answer.

Either way, the result is we can hear, feel, and see, and taste, and smell music everywhere, because patterns are everywhere, and as such, they form a multi sensory matrix that appeals to all our receptors. Music pushes all our buttons, so to speak. –And also, because as we've demonstrated, even when no patterns exist, or are intentional, and whether or not there is evidence of maker, the mind nevertheless creates bridges, and thus produces a pattern, and then searches for meaning, until one is satisfactorily found. So there's no getting away with saying a work of art doesn't meaning anything; because if the artist doesn't invest meaning into his or or her work, the audience certainly will.

This circumstance may or may not yield answers to our deepest questions about the nature of our existence, but it does shed light on the nature of man's relationship to Art.

From chaos, beauty: not because it is inherently so, but because by connecting the dots and identifying a constellation therein, we make it so.

The Changing Role of Sound in Branding

From Musical Score to Critical Noise: 
The Changing Role of Sound in Branding

[First published by SEMIONAUT†, September 20, 2011.]


Composers and sound designers have long treated commercial projects as they would film scores, but in miniature. It’s obvious to see why. Traditional scoring techniques do many things for film and other media. Scoring adds flavour; provides a sense of time and place; magnifies emotion; enhances activity and establishes mood. A mere hint of melody can even frame the present, foreshadow the future, or recall the past.

Scoring also serves the functional purpose of smoothing problematic transitions. It’s as if music possesses a sensory gravity that draws together disparate images, scenes, people and places. A deftly scored experience feels less a sequence of individual events and more like a cohesive, unified work.

Obviously, music is pretty magical stuff, and there is no question that for the modern storyteller, it remains a powerful tool.

Nevertheless, the proliferation of multiple, small portable screens, in tandem with the device-ification of all remaining objects, has changed (and will continue to change) how audiences navigate media. If our smart phones cause a distraction now, what happens when our homes and everything in them also become ‘smart’?

The primary effect is that marketers are increasingly forced to abbreviate narrative, and add brand-to-fan touch points that didn’t exist before (or if they existed, were ignored). Consequently, the notion of story has been stretched to its semantic limits.

Yet one noticeably interesting result of this tectonic paradigm shift has been the curious emergence of a new breed of sonic artisan.

The practice is called audio, music or sonic branding, and many have indeed recast themselves using this nomenclature. Others have adopted related verbal identifiers, but haven't updated their processes, because they think such phrases are simply new ways to give the same old thing a modern twist.

Personally, I believe branding with sound does require a different aural intelligence than is typically accumulated from a film or broadcast media composer’s education or experience. I frame the actual process as the development and combination of micro musical sounds into ‘critical noise’ assets.

Unlike most commercial composition, the aim is not to support narrative, but to convey a message.

Rather, we employ sound to reframe an otherwise interruptive transition as an informational transaction. A navigation tone, such as a click of the mouse, for one example, confirms ‘command executed’.  A custom ringtone signals someone you know requests your attention. And a deceptively simple melodic logo has unzipped itself inside your brain. You can't really sing it, but its construction suggests it's bursting with symbolic data.

Indeed, in the same way the purpose and design of a traffic signal is different from painting landscapes, so too is the craft of sonic signification different from composing music to enhance dramatic action. Ironically, branded sound is designed to influence behavior and drive action from a potentially distracted audience, while an action score is composed to delight a passive, receptive audience.

This is why new musical solutions providers require not only musical talent but also the ability to research and analyse extra musical, culturally relevant data. Lacking these skills, we risk conceptual dissonance when our goal is immediate comprehension.

Additionally, these sonic assets are ‘critical’ because in an automated world, they are the first point of contact between a brand and consumer, and therefore increasingly synonymous with another more common signifier: ‘hello’.

Unlike thematic material, when we use sound as a signifier, we intend to deliver a self-contained and instant communication. Sometimes, in the case of a consumer touch point, we only have seconds to do this. While that is just as hard to do as it sounds, it isn’t without precedent. But first, we have to think like a sonic semiotician.

I was fortunate to produce a 1.25 sec connect tone for AT&T. The communications company wanted to leverage the pause between dial and pick-up to identify itself using a non-verbal connection tone. Impossible? As it turns out, you can actually say a lot in 1.25 seconds. You can say: ‘Provided to you by AT&T, a friendly and technologically savvy company.’

To understand how this might actually work, consider the possibility of guessing the title of a song from a snippet. Now, even more amazing, recall how a mere sliver of sound can evoke an emotional response. Anger, Love, Sadness, Joy. It quickly becomes evident that even a button-sized musical solution has the power to fulfill a marketing objective. And because branded sonic assets are often wordless, they become especially advantageous assets across a multinational customer base.

Of course, traditional film scoring techniques will continue to contribute to our enjoyment of stories. However, marketers will increasingly rely less on scoring and more on critical noise solutions that can guarantee immediate brand signification as a means to fulfilling a communications strategy or marketing objective.

In other words, the intelligent application of sound is more important than ever.

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Semionaut is an online magazine & knowledge resource offering insight into culture, media, creative industries, and brand strategy. Its publishers, editors, and contributors are professionally involved in the application of semiotic and cultural analysis to brand communication and design issues.

SET ARPEGGIOS TO SEMIOTIC STUN

One of my favorite works from the Baroque era is the Sonata No. 1 in G minor for solo violin, by Johan Sebastian Bach. And one of the things I admire about it is that when the Presto section is performed, it not only serves as a means to display a given musician's technical mastery, but that even when played at half time or quarter time, the sequence of notes create the illusion that this work can go on forever. In this way the score sometimes strikes me as containing a secret code for perpetual motion, much the same way some believe the Bible has embedded within it a Torah code or Rapture mathematics.

J.S Bach: Sonata for solo violin No.1 in G Minor, Presto BWV1001

Another particularly brilliant aspect of this work is that while it presents itself as a series of broken chords, Bach has so conceived the pitch sequence that our ears are given to an aural illusion of transcendent melody floating upon a driving harmonic engine. Although not an ostinato , this effect reminds me how repeating patterns can fall upon our ears as both a linear sequence, or as an underlying dimensional sonic color, and sometimes both.

Here is another example:

J.S Bach: Prelude No. 1, C Major, BWV 846 [v03]

While Bach's Prelude No. 1, C Major (1722) is beautiful on its own, I think I actually derive more pleasure from a derivative work composed nearly a century and half later by French Composer Charles Gounod. Gounod essentially superimposes a new and original melody of his own upon Bach's piece, resulting in the equally evocative 'Ave Maria':

Charles Gounod: Ave Maria

Is Gounod's 1859 score for 'Ave Maria' evidence of the first mashup? One would like to think so, and that Gounod, perhaps, represents an early precursor to the likes of Armin van Buuren, Fatboy Slim, P. Diddy and other sample based composers and DJs, and that with 'Ave Maria', he thereby paves the way for hiphop and trance which would come only another 150 years later.

But the fact is, the way Gounod appropriates Bach is not so uncommon as one might first think. Inspiration often works like this, with new melodies blossoming forth from the fertile harmony of another work. Why should that be any surprise, really? Music has the power to inspire not just new activity, new love and new ideas, but also new music as well.

As it happens, it's works such as this Bach/Goundod collaboration that lead me to think that the genius of the modern minimalist, Phillip Glass, is that he, like Gounod, appears to have taken a Baroque convention and expanded on it. But whereas Gounod adds an ethereal top coat to the Baroque harmonic vehicle, Glass finds pleasure by discovering new and inventive ways to let the engine itself run on to infinity.

As such, I either hear more commonalities in Glass' work with 18th Century music than I do with the works of any of Glass’s modern contemporaries, or I simply enjoy searching for them. This includes other minimalist composers such as Steve Reich or Terry Riley, –or even Ravi Shankar, whose work Glass has indicated as a strong influence from his time working for him.

Philip Glass: Glassworks

Of course, neither Bach nor Glass (or Gounod for that matter) are the only composers who trade in repeating patterns. Most conventional music, whatever the genre or cultural heritage, is built upon repeating patterns. But great composers all share a similar knack for altering repeating harmonic patterns so as to create stylistically individual and recognizable works.

Another thing that makes both Bach and Glass so interesting to me is that both composers capably produce the effect of motion though space.

If Glass is cinematic, Bach is compelling. But both are a bit of the other, actually, even if the latter predates the invention of film by a century and a half.

I like to imagine that the German composer was no doubt #soundtracking to his own tunes while he walked the streets of Leipzig way back in 1730. Who needs a radio or an iPod when your own brain gives birth to terabytes more music on a Sunday than most people have contained on a circa 2010 portable playback device?

And because Bach and Glass are both particularly compelling and cinematic, commercial media producers often turn to these composers and their works –and even to the suggestion of their works– for inspiration. Either Glass' influence runs deep, or media producers like to sync to nothing better than the haunting kineticism produced by reloading arpeggios, and they like it the way some people enjoy hiphop, on EVERYTHING.

But why? And why and how could this technique have so many applications?

I think it happens something like this:

Repeating patterns act upon brain cognition in at least pertinent two ways. First they demand our attention, initiate beta waves in the brain and thereby produce a feeling of alertness. The result is increased sensory sensitivity and a heightened level of aural awareness. Our ears once open, our hearing then becomes ready to tune into any incoming information, and our minds prepared to focus any subsequent message.

However, left unabated, our senses in very short order attenuate to the pattern. Our brains then produce alpha waves, and we relax. The pattern then becomes transparent, and we give in to the music.

An adept composer or songwriter recognizes when this shift occurs and at this point will introduce a lyric or melody. Another kind of sonic artisan might introduce a message, or signal a shift in story structure. Still another kind of composer, one concerned with mediation or healing, might signal no such thing at all, and simply let the power of the pattern continue without interruption or transformation.

In effect, repeating patterns in music trigger nearly simultaneous ratios of alertness: calmness, focus: receptivity.

I imagine it's the musical equivalent of smoking a post coital cigarette.

Synced to pixels, it's as if the moving image has been charged with both perpetual motion and perpetual emotion.

In this regard, it might even be said that the repeating pattern represents the perfect carrier of semiosis in media, movies and not to mention not-so-subliminal messaging –any content platform, actually.

In fact, I think it possible that no idea (or motif or message) is too majestic or too scant that it can't be capably delivered upon the undulating wave of a recycling sequence or arpeggio.

Such is the power of the pattern.

I. Michaelson: Google Chrome 'Dear Sophie'

M. Montes: Starbucks 'Vote'

Sonic Branding with Sub Atomic Audio

Quantum Audio describes a variety of micro structural units of audio transmission which may be collectively described as scale conveyors of symbolic data.

Charles Seeger has coined a related term, ‘museme’ to mean a “basic unit of musical expression which in the framework of one given musical system is not further divisible without destruction of meaning.”

I think there is some overlap between his ideas and my own independent musical musings, but for the time being, let’s explore the notion and implications of this thing I have dubbed 'Quantum Audio'.

Readily observable examples of Quantum Audio elements include Meme at the upper range of scale, which is itself composed of at least four key elements: Semiotic Signifiers (a specific cultural expression of Archetype), Audio Archetypes (a plastic, primordial and universal concept), Nuance (representing both the physical expression of data, and often a unique data unit itself), and Artifact (often unintentional and resulting from mechanical manipulations, but sometimes capable of a performer's control).

And it may be said that as Archetype (Organic) inspires Signifier (Designed), Nuance (Intentional Communication) can be said to produce Artifact (Collateral Communication).

Obviously we are expanding definitions a bit in order to express newly identified phenomena. Therefore, it is natural to ask if Quantum Audio particles are 'real', or if this investigation is merely an intellectual exercise? As it turns out, this is akin to asking if light is composed of particles or waves, because the answer is both, depending on one's method of observation.

Quantum Audio describes what have heretofore been considered intangible concepts. However, we may nevertheless identify and re-define certain notions as observable 'elements', and we do this by acknowledging the very real impact they leave on an audience. Indeed, the measurable result of this collective phenomena can be found in the production of identifiable and undeniable bio musicological reactions in listeners who share a common cultural context. This is to say Quantum Audio elements produce real psychophysiological changes in brain activity, the way we might expect any external or environmental influence to do.

In this paradigm, the motivic Meme will stand for the equivalent of a musical molecule. Next, the building blocks of music long identified by traditional music theorists we will serve as audible atomic structures. But our study primarily concerns itself with even smaller elements, including Archetype and Signifier, as mentioned before, which despite their diminutive scale nevertheless gently impress upon listeners (who share a common cultural context) observational emotional markers, and thus can be said to capably convey symbolic data in the form of audio, which we now designate as Quantum Audio Components or particles.

For instance, it is Quantum Audio that provokes an emotional reaction from even a single beat of music, or any short snippet of sound. Devoid of melodic information or even a rhythmic pattern, this audio 'unit' might not even be said to be music (except on a quantum scale), but our senses tell us it nevertheless remains an entirely capable platform for communication.

What is this then? A burst? An edit? An expression? I think 'Gesture' is a good word, but whatever it is, it is not the word in a sentence, but it is perhaps the syllable in the word, whether verbalized or printed, so infused with emotive or contextual potency that one brief utterance alone may require no further support or enhancement.

Oh?

Exactly.

However, it should be noted that within this system there is a world of Microsound which exist on an even smaller time frame than we are concerned with when we use the term Quantum Audio. The 'grains' of Grain Synthesis', for instance, however interesting and useful for composers, generally lie beyond the domain of this present discussion. A 50ms audio sample might certainly be itself composed from a carrier wave and other physical phenomena, but such assets are generally too small carry to meaning, which is what we are concerned with in this discussion. Suffice to say, the phrase 'sound quantum' as it is conventionally used typically describes physical units of sound, whereas Quantum Audio as it is used here is limited to describing indivisible semiotic constructs.

The application of Quantum Audio data is also what distinguishes the sound of a Rock Guitar from one that is merely amplified, independent of what kind of music is being performed. EFX units may be said to bathe source sounds with Quantum particles. Some may call this nuance; others may label it an algorithm. Either way, what is clear is that emotive quality appears rarely the result of one component, but rather more likely produced by a matrix of controlled minutiae.

Likewise, Quantum Audio data allows the carrier signal to 'push' symbolic data, either independently or in conjunction with melody. And it is these triggers that produce a resulting emotive impact on the listener, whether the musical expression is a full length work or a single beat. A capable musician or music designer can inflect/suggest a variety of 'meanings' on the same melody or audio design construction, transforming the material at hand into any number of rich and differently textured messages.

Interestingly, Quantum Audio is also that which allows listeners to identify one performer from another, creating a fundamental feature of sonic ID or audio branding design.

While not occupied with the natural world, the application of Memetic theory is a good starting point for anyone interested in Quantum Audio. The Memetic premise challenges us to deconstruct any communication until we can at last identify within it what might be called a ‘fundamental pattern’, that is, the smallest unit of cultural transmission capable of being replicated. (For more about music and memes, read: Music Memetics, 1 May 2010)

As with genes, memes follow biological laws –in fact memetic theory parallels genetic theory. But Quantum Audio components, like quantum particles, behave differently, as we have established, depending on how they are observed. Which is to say, while we might find universal agreement in the underlying Archetype, the Signifiers they inspire will likely mean different things to different groups (or nothing at all), depending on local definitions, cultural perception and demographic norms.

Unlike memes, which we can more rightly say are composed of Quantum Audio Components, Quantum Audio itself does not form 'a fundamental pattern', nor do such particles lend themselves to replication. No one hums a Quantum Audio Component, for instance. Rather, it is the assemblage of such elements into an audible matrix that create the potentially (and hopefully) exponentially, replicating musical gene/meme. They are the stuff from which patterning is made, and on the sublime and oft-seeming sub sensory level.

WHY ‘QUANTUM' AUDIO?

In physics, a quantum is the minimum unit of any physical entity involved in an interaction, and because this study conducts itself with the examination of musical microstructures, we borrow 'quantum' as a loan word.

Speaking of musical microstructures, an early inspirations for this inquiry arrived as a result of studying bowed stringed instruments as a child. Unlike a piano, or software instrument, a violinist must first spend many days, weeks, even months learning how to produce a suitable tone before they can hope to produce anything that resembles 'music' as the term is commonly understood. The result of such rigorous application is the development of an acute awareness, and the ability to control both musical and non-musical resonances, which produced in tandem as successive and overlapping sounds, and generated at what might be described a frame-rate scale, when mastered and summed, finally serve to create a single satisfying tone.

Years ago I even wrote an essay describing my fascination with the process of coaxing a usable tone from the various members of the string instrument family, and as thorough as I might have thought myself at the time, it's probable that I was still incomplete in my description of the process. (Contact: The Character of Sound)

One may argue a pianist must also learn ‘touch’, or that the operator of a digital instrument must also acquire technical skills necessary for modulation. But neither is responsible for their respective chosen instrument's tone. The sound of a violin is not the sound of the instrument itself. Don't believe me? Pick up a violin and bow and tell me if you can produce anything that resembles what we commonly think of as a the sound of a violin.

Unless you already have a a degree of competency with stringed instruments, or you think violins generally sound like screeching birds, the answer is probably not. Rather, the pleasing sound, timbre or wave form capable of being produced by a violin –as we commonly think of a violin sound– is that of a violinist engaging with a deceptively complex mechanism that he or she has mastered, and which he or she has formed a symbiotic relationship with. Contrast this with the sound of a piano -or an organ, or a harpsichord– which requires interaction with an interface, but little that might be regarded as actual symbiosis. Thus the sound of a piano –its essential timbre– is always the same regardless of who is pressing down any given key.

It is perhaps like the difference between flying a kite and using a hammer.

To be clear, we are limiting this discussion to the production of tone in the singular, not the full or even partial performance of a musical work.

Granted, the sounds generated by a synthesizer may be modulated in realtime by the electronic musician. And no doubt we can recognize an interface as a tool, the computer itself a collection of tools. That some are masters of this kit should therefore be a given. But it would be an over simplification to state that electronically generated sound is produced as a result of symbiois between man and machine.

This is not to disparage any single kind of musician. I've been a fan of the synthesizer and an electronic and computer musician for thirty years. And perhaps it is for this reason that I can easily recognize that one of the main reasons such instruments enjoy wide and current popularity is because aspiring musicians can get right down to the business of making music without first spending years training their ears and their bodies to work in tandem in order to develop the bio mechanical skill-set necessary to creating a reasonable steady state tone, much less actually make music. In short, perfection, in this instance, does not necessarily require practice.

It's important to recognize this fact, because it is only by the deft integration and application of sound that an audio designer can endow an otherwise sterile set of patches or samples with a gesture that causes his or her composition or construct to suddenly resonate with thrilling humanity, and therefore actually 'touch' people, which one assumes is always the desired result.

As a result, it's worth mentioning that a violinist's relationship with tone is never steady state. String players do not trigger a 'patch' or a sample, and so organic tone is never one static thing, but rather the summed event experience composed of many elements (some imperfectly made) and made manifest over a given time-line by a constantly changing and potentially infinite number of variables, controlled only by the fingertips, and the brain, of course –indeed the entire anatomical structure. This is to say that a violinist's tone is produced by his or her entire body literally working in concert with instrument and bow.

Another way of looking at it is to say that Tone, deconstructed, is not simply the pitched 'musical' or sonic focal point which listeners train their ears on, but includes an infinite number of peripheral, evolving musical sounds plus non musical 'Artifacts', which together produced and controlled by a performer in real-time over a given timespan, serve to enhance each subsequent pitch center with suggested emotive feeling or symbolic data.

To the trained and untrained ear both, Artifacts, in and of themselves, are rarely considered musical, but summed with tonal information, they create Expression, and as such they often prove to be the very reason we feel the way we do about a given performance.

Obsess upon a given Artifact, however, and the sounds of fingers scraping steel, the clacking of keys, the singer's quick inhalation (to name just a few examples) become annoying. But attempt to perfect a recording by eliminating such sounds altogether and we find that what we are left with is sterile by an inhuman degree.

Another fascinating –and easily observable– example of Quantum Audio at work is in the oft heard radio contests that ask listeners to identify a work based on a short clip. These bursts of sound may be as short as a single beat, or even smaller. Yet, regardless of whether one is familiar with the source track, or even if one can't identify the source of the edit, these short snippets nevertheless reveal themselves as fully capable of triggering any number of cognitive reactions, from emotion to memory to inspiration.

At any rate, it is clear that fundamental sonic elements, which we can identify as (micro) Gestures capable of conveying (meaningful) Expression –or Message– and which we collectively call Quantum Audio, is worth continued investigation, especially if one is engaged in the delivery of symbolic data for the benefit of a commercial client, such as in the production of sonic branding, or for some other utilitarian purpose.


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Photo Collage by Terry O'Gara

Point of Impact @ Brand Zero

“A brand is always a story well told,” the New York Times reports Ms. Lucas, the vice president, general merchandise manager for beauty and perfume buyer for Henri Bendel, as saying as she gave a reporter a tour of the boutique’s perfume bar (An Underdog Pursues the Scent).

I understand how Lucas arrives at her assessment. For those who have never given women's retail any thought, movies that lend themselves to multi-tier licensing deals –like STAR WARS– illustrate Ms. Lucas' point emphatically.

Likewise, part of our experience of a given brand results from the context which we discover a given product, service or experience.

But I arrive at Branding from a different angle. To my mind a Brand is not a story in and of itself, but the thing a story delivers.

In my market theology: Story is simply a tool to deliver a brand or creator's promise, message, lesson or entertainment. Positioning is what the client or account or company does to carve out market space and visibility. A brand mark is most certainly an element in that strategy. But, brand marks aside, Branding is completed and returned by consumer consensus responding to the promise delivered by the Position.

Both Promise and/or Message are intangibles that your clients want consumers to understand about a given product they represent at first POINT OF CONTACT. –At least in a retail environment.

As with any ideogram, neither the communication itself, nor what is being communicated can be defined as story –there's simply no time for it. Rather, marks, identity assets, logos and packaging provide a business opportunity to inject a single shot of symbolic data into a consumer's brain. Call the resulting impact 'a feeling'. A story may in fact be the vessel for whatever is promised or experienced, but so is an ideogram –or in the case of a sound logo– or audiogram.

Wikipedia defines Ideogram as follows:

"An ideogram or ideograph (from Greek ἰδέα idea "idea" + γράφω grafo "to write") is a graphic symbol that represents an idea, rather than a group of letters arranged according to the phonemes of a spoken language, as is done in alphabetic languages, or a strictly representational picture of a subject as may be done in illustration or photography.

Examples of ideograms include wayfinding signs, such as in airports and other environments where many people may not be familiar with the language of the place they are in, as well as Arabic numerals and mathematical notation, which are used worldwide regardless of how they are pronounced in different languages."

Naturally, Ideograms are abundantly found in portfolios comprised of brand assets.

AUDIOGRAM is my own derivative invention, and refers to the sonic equivalent of ideographic mark.

In any regard, both ideograms and audiograms carry independent messages open to wide interpretation by those who receive them. We can narrow interpretation by creating context, but consumers often connect with companies, products and services before assimilating context. And your context may prove besides the point if public consensus posits a contrary mythology. In effect, Packaging and Content (or Company) only become synonymous with each other after consumers experience the product or service being advertised, and come to consensus on the value of the thing.

Story delivers brand assets, but neither the story nor the promise is the branding. Although, the reaction to it may very well be.

To make it real simple, consider advertising for a film. A trailer can make an awful film look great. The film's producer's want people to think they have a great film so that they'll actually pay to see it. But what happens after the public sees the movie, and everyone walks out the theater saying, 'it stinks'? Is the film's brand: A) Great? Or B) Awful? Or both? Like the The Rocky Horror Picture Show, it may require the right mood to discern its brilliance.

Of course, we can expand the concept of branding to mean anything we want it to, to apply to any and every sort of corporate communication. But when the feet hit the street in a given supermarket aisle, –and dare I say also along the cosmetic counters at Henri Bendel–, the only thing that matters is POINT OF IMPACT.

In fact, how does packaging compete with story?

Forget the hundred million dollar campaign produced by a legacy brand designed to introduce the pubic to a new logo. What intrigues me is what happens in the mind of a consumer who looking at boxes wrapped in packaging that hides their contents will then choose one over the other, instead of first doing research? It happens all the time.

Stories –delivered via advertising– hopefully drive consumers to stores. But faced with a multitude of heretofore unknown choices, how does a given consumer decide whether to buy one cosmetic over another? Or walking into a store, armed with information –and possibly a recommendation– with every intention on making a specific purchase: what happens then, when a given shopper ultimately decides to go with a different, unexpected, untested, new choice?

I would have to guess lacking personal experience or recommendation from a trusted source, nano-second judgments are made by each individual based on symbolic information made manifest by branding and packaging. When it comes to consumers purchasing products new to them, often choices are made first; and once having been made, only then does the consumer go looking for a back-story. Hopefully they accept the one your marketing department has created. Otherwise, it's behemoth brand against the bloggers, and nothing defines a brand like a bunch of unhappy consumers.

In like manner, the same piece of language can be read using one font or another, but sometimes one specific font is a more perfect choice to serve as the vehicle to deliver a specific composition. That is why Typography, like Sonic Branding, creates experiential value.

Say what you want about Art versus Commerce, first impressions do matter, even more than stories –at least until you've earned the full Faith and Trust of your client or customer.

As a Music Designer or Songwriter, your intention might be to compose an epic metal ballad, but your audience will tell you if you are indeed a rock shaman, or if alternately you are received (and perceived) as formed from the same mold as Spinal Tap.

• Audiograms are not inherently Brands by mere virtue or intention alone
• Brands are not stories, but are the subject of them
• Stories deliver and exemplify brand assets
• Logos, Ideograms and Audiograms promise an experience
• Faithful delivery of the promised experience creates Trust
• Trust is the basis of a relationship
• Relationship and Reputation ultimately define a Brand

In effect, the faith and trust that results from consistently delivering a given experience –THAT is the brand.

Branding –whether it is a graphic logo for letterhead or an audio mnemonic for a Television commercial– BEGINS with design and creation. Application of the mark distinguishes one product, service or company from another. But only when customers become return customers, and come to some consensus as to the value and identification of the assets –in effect making mark and thing synonymous with each other– do those assets and the promise they make (or message they deliver) become the brand.

Music as Collateral: Compatible Archetypes

In previous articles I’ve suggested that collaborations between artists and ‘Ad Buyers’ –businesses that provide products and/or services (and their advertising agencies– are one way musicians might be subsidized by corporate sponsors other than a traditional record label; or alternately serve as their record label; or work in tandem with a record label or management company, but 'outside' the traditional music industry universe.

I’ve also knocked around ideas in an attempt to forecast how future Ad Buyer/Artist relationships might veer away from the current endorsement deal model, and become more collaborative. Traditional endorsement responsibilities can be perceived as hawking by fans and thus damage credibility. Likewise, sponsorships appear most effective when sponsors appear carefully selected by an artist, –and not accepted on the basis of monetary valuation alone.

Consider National Public Radio: Sponsorships are never construed as inherent endorsements by a program, host, celebrity or even the network. But the context in which such sponsorships are presented results in all sponsors framed if not as caring contributors concerned with 'giving something back', then simply as neutral supporters of the arts.

In like manner, I think that providing music as a complimentary gift that accompanies a purchase of either a product or service by a provider who also subsidizes either the artist or artist production may be but one method that music production and promotion in the future will be funded and distributed, with positive effect for both artist and sponsor.

You don't need a strategic partner to make this happen, however. An independent artist might move product in combination with the sales of their own branded merchandise.

What is important is that whether the music is distributed via Artist merch or via a relationship with a partner, it should never be referred to as a ‘freebie’. Perhaps it is framed as a gift, –perhaps as ‘complimentary’ with one’s purchase, or some other term or tag to be decided, but never as a valueless giveaway. A giveaway yes, but one that came at some expense to the giver, and from a giver who actually cares and connects with the gift. This is important: both music and purchase must relate to one another in some credible manner, as I’ll explain presently:

Presently when we purchase music, we buy it for it’s own sake. For instance, you buy a Jay-Z CD because you like his music. And when we buy a product or commission a service, we buy that for it’s own sake, too. One purchases a certain car because you like that make and model, or it serves a utilitarian purpose in one’s life. I think there is an increasing opportunity for both artist and ad buyer to connect with consumers and fans by providing what I might call a ‘lifestyle package’.

In an advertisement for a lifestyle package, the product might be a car, and the soundtrack a licensed piece of music by a certain band. But in contrast to the yesteryear model, whereby the licensed music supported the filmed story, product demo or brand message, in the new model the product and the artist whose music is being used will support each other. Sting's 2000 promotional collaboration with Jaguar represents one relatively recent and notable example of lifestyle packaging between auto manufacturer and rock brand. Likewise, the 2007 Lexus campaign featuring Elvis Costello and Diana Krall.

Ideally, both brand and band serve to sell each other.

Core Costello fans from the artist's punk past might feel affronted by the ads, but his new base probably thinks it's wonderful to see their favorite artist on TV again, in any capacity. Televised promotions are additionally beneficial to the artist because commercials serve to function as an artist's video, and are produced at no cost to artist.

For an example of a lopsided pairing, recall the popular 2000 VW ad that used Nick Drake's song PINK MOON as its soundtrack. In the end, the ad proved better as a music video for Drake than it did as an ad for VW. Simply put, the commercial did more to rehabilitate Drake's career than it did to sell Volkswagens. Not to mention that no one at the time could seem to remember that the ads were actually promoting a specific model, the VW Cabrio.

I suspect that the entire VW 'Drivers Want It' campaign, which featured exceptionally tasteful music choices across a series of quirky spots, did much to keep the music industry afloat with new sales at a time when Napster was biting off big chunks of its bottom line. Meanwhile, VW fired the ad agency that developed the campaign because their cars were collecting dust on lots.

For a strategic relationship between brand and band to work, and benefit both parties, both brand and band must represent compatible archetypes. It will not work when an artist is used to drive sales by overtly pitching products or services directly.

Reciprocally, it will not work when the artist’s fan base does not align with an ad buyer’s target demographic.

But it will work with positive effect when both partners in the relationship are a natural and logical fit for each other, and so long as they remember the silent parties to the contract are fans and consumers. Further, advertiser and artist must not appear to promote each other, but rather fulfill roles as symbiotic symbols in a given lifestyle arrangement, for which the target demographic is shared between both consumer base and fan base.

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Click on any link below to read all the articles in the three-part November 2007 MUSIC AS COLLATERAL series exploring exploring the new paradigms for Music Distribution:

Part 1: Compatible Archetypes
Part 2: Collaborative Marketing Concepts for Musicians
Part 3: The Hottest Brand in the World

Ancient Audio Free With Every Brain

In Same Old Song, but With a Different Meaning (© Copyright The Washington Post Company, Monday, January 22, 2007; Page A08), Washington Post Staff Writer Shankar Vedantam discusses the impact music has on brain behavior. The question isn’t if music stimulates brain behavior, but rather how.

"For neuroscientists," Sherpe writes, "the power of music poses a puzzle." He then reports how McGill scientist Robert Zatorre found that music "activated very ancient parts of the brain."

Meanwhile, two decades prior, in 1984, in The Secret Power of Music, David Tame wrote:

"…science is beginning to suspect that matter is all composed of one fundamental something, and that the frequencies or rhythms of this something determine the specific nature of each object and atom."

Sound, it seems is everything; and it certainly is if we are to believe the quantum notion that every bit of composed reality is a vibrating element of a wide electromagnetic spectrum, which we are only capable of seeing and hearing but a nano-sized slice of.

It almost begs the question, is sound particles or waves? Of course, we know the answer is waves. However, we might also suggest and imagine (if only as a thought exercise) that any transmission that communicates meaning is actually composed of micro sized particles of symbolic data

Carl Jung hypothesized that humans are born, not just with their physical body parts, but that our brains inherently contain what he called the collective consciousness. The collective consciousness, he suggested, was composed of "the residues of ancestral life… (whose) origins can only be explained from assuming them to be deposits of the constantly repeated experiences of humanity."

So then why shouldn’t we who are aural centric also suppose then that some of these ancient deposits inlude archetypal sounds that endow us with the building blocks of music and the (metaphorically) sub atomic sonic particles that make all audible means of communication possible?

And might such sub atomic particles, the substance of archetypes, be made manifest as signs, and thus be subject to analysis and potential manipulation by capable semioticians, wielding a craft one might call 'Sonic Semiotics?

Independent of any prior use of the term, I arrive at this phrase simply because of what I perceived as limitations on the scope of analysis presented by traditional music semiology. That is to say, I arrive at this analysis as not just a composer or musicologist might, but from the position of someone involved with commercial audio production, one who often produces music as a means not simply to enhance dramatic action or otherwise entertain and promote a story experience, but as someone commissioned to use sound in order to fulfill a marketing objective (and deliver a message, if you will).

So, when I say 'Sonic Semiotics', I mean the analysis of any sound unit, not just musical sounds, in order to determine the inherent symbolic 'message' that a given sound might serve as a carrier for, and whether that message is culturally born while other transmissions affect us a certain way because of a bio musical code or archetype that is possibly part of our DNA.

For instance: Audible emissions such as a GIGGLE, the tonal properties identifiable with a cry for HELP (in any language), the spoken word 'MA' or 'MAMA'; and non human audio such as the rumble of thunder or the rustle of wind through long grass, even the revving engine of a Harley Davidson; or a wail –be it produced by a grief stricken mourner or the SIREN call of law enforcement– these things all absolutely possess inherent symbolic properties.

Although, I have also considered that perhaps the emission 'Ma' is simply the sound a baby makes as he pulls his lips away from his mother's bosom. And the proud mother thinks the kid has actually said something, and then repeats it often enough that it eventually becomes his name for her. Maybe? Anyway, moving along–

Certainly, the diversity of species is great, but is there any animal whose GROWL does not induce fear?

This is not to diminish the power of symbolic sounds that can be found in much music, but rather to suggest that my search for inherent semiotic properties of sound are found in much smaller units than musicologists generally identify. I think more of what is today called music semiology can more accurately be described as Sonic or 'Music Memetics', if we allow that a meme, in the broadest sense of the term, "is any thought or behavior that can be passed from one person to another by learning or imitation".

I think this definition lends itself to the consideration of motif sized musical expressions with greater exactitude than 'semiotics'. Whereas to my mind, semiotics more accurately describes expression via symbol, that which the motif serves as a memetic carrier for.

Sonic Semiotics Series

Click on any link below to read all the articles in the four-part January 2006 SONIC SEMIOTICS series exploring the author's musicological development of a personal branded theory for sound.

1. Say It In 1.25 Seconds
2. Bumps, Bugs, Beats and Brands
3. The Message In Merrill Lynch
4. Packaging Vs. Branding

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Like this topic? Explore these four other articles from the Critical Noise Archive, exploring the relationship between Sound and Symbol and Sonic Branding:

1. This Is Where The Story Ends (March 1, 2003)
2. The Ur-Song (February 1, 2002)
3. Branding With Audio (March 30, 2001)
4. HBO ZONE: Creating a Sonic Identity (October 01, 2000)

Music Packaging Vs. Sonic Branding

In 1996 I was asked to serve as a lead music supervisor on the 1996 NBC Olympics, a project spearheaded by Elias’ special projects lead, Audrey Arbeeny, who turned out to possess a preternatural talent for maximizing the entertainment value of broadcast sporting events. My future business partner, Michael Sweet, also worked on the project programming a precursor to iTunes, which would serve as an onsite digital library for NBC’s location based producers.

My own responsibility was to listen, select and identify music –and edit points– for possible license. In this capacity I personally selected and categorized approximately 3000 pieces of music by sport and mood, so that, for instance, Victorious Track and Field different from a music selection suggestive of defeat, but Victorious Track and Field would be distinct from Victorious Swimming or Victorious Gymnastics. Categorization coupled with the digital interface allowed on-site NBC producers instantaneous access to a music bed suitable for any event or situation.

It was by this process that I soon realized how music could thread connected but different events (the activities), within an overall multi-experiential event (NBC's Olympic Broadcast).

While the Olympic Project taught me a good deal about music identification and selection for a broadcast, it also changed the way I think about branding. In fact, I hesitate to think of this work as 'Branding', which I admit goes against the grain given its use in this manner by many music supervisors I meet.

Heres why:

My personal standard for what is and isn't branding starts with a uniquely identifiable mark.Certainly, branding has evolved beyond the limitations of mere mark, but nevertheless, a distinct mark embedded with symbolic data continues to serve as a valid lens through which we may create branded experiences and other related assets.

As it happens, there's nothing distinct about licensing music from the same pool of work which others do, notwithstanding the argument that the music selection in conjunction with the picture creates a unique experience.

Moreover, a winning athlete doesn't need my jubilant rock selection to brand the event victorious. He or she has defined the occasion by virtue of their own efforts. My music selections for the Olympics,then, provided a utilitarian function to enhance (or focus) mood and maximize the entertainment value of those who are spectators to the event.

One could argue a DJ spinning a uniquely and specifically conceived playlist for a given venue is in fact branding the environment. I agree in the general sense of the term, but I still think some other nomenclature is on order.

Wrapping an in-store experience or hotel lobby up in a bundle of musical works specifically composed for an event or the venue itself reminds me more of producing a score for film and TV.

Is a soundtrack a Branded playlist?

Even I'm guilty of labeling such things BRAND MIXES, which is what I called them (and continue to call them) when I first started pitching them to clients in the mid nineties.

But when my company, Blister Media, was recognized by the television industry with the 2000 Gold Promax award for Best Original Music & Sound Design for Network Packaging (HBO Zone) I realized then that the concept of 'Packaging' film and video entertainment could be applied to any media platform, and even environments, and have made the distinction ever since.

Although, lately I've been thinking of retail and hospitality environments as volumes of space (which they are) and therefore maybe 'packaging' isn't quite right because it's something we apply to the outside, when in fact, we fill a space with music from the inside out.

Regardless, it may sound like an arbitrary distinction, but here's how I distinguish between Branding and Packaging:

Branding is the transmission of uniquely distinctive signification in order to convey a client's position for the purpose of creating a bond with an audience, user or consumer. Branding may thus be said to be: The art and science of composing a semiotic construction for the purpose of business-to-consumer communication.

In contrast, a Packaging assignment implies the utilitarian design and construction of mood enhancers for the benefit of participants or spectators, and which may or may not compel a specific action (or inaction).

For instance, the music provided by a DJ in a hotel lobby is meant either to entertain you or float through the air like a kind of aural wall paper, but nary a single track is necessarily identifiable as representing the hotel. Granted, some venues do make effective use of music to brand an environment, but if entertainment is the client's primary purpose, then any brand statement is going to be compromised, or at the very least suffer from potential dilution, as the message of one piece of music fades into the potentially contrasting content of another.

Audio for devices provides a great opportunity for the production of branded assets, although in practice it is more likely a signature 'tone' will be identified as the logo, and the rest of the sounds, though they belong to the same 'family' or 'palette' simply serve to provide confirmation of physical execution.

Perhaps it is better not lump all applied audio as sonic branding or packaging, but simply to speak of the need for utilizing sonic signification for a specified purpose.

In the meantime, I continue to think of audio branding the commission of an original mark (embedded with a message), and packaging as a curated collection of sounds created for a functional purpose. And that utility may –and often does– include the intent to entertain or inform, as each circumstance requires.

So as Branded Audio is to a single ray of light, Packaged sound is the reflections bouncing off a mirror ball.

The Message In Merrill Lynch: A Lesson in Sonic Branding

In 1995, if memory serves correctly, it was Steven Cohen, the senior vice president and management supervisor on the Merrill Lynch account at Bozell Worldwide, who tapped his car keys on the glass coffee table before him and declared:

"This not the sound of Merrill Lynch."

And with that one sentence, our demos were dust.

The specific spot Cohen was referring to was alternately titled 'Privatization' and 'South African Leaders' (Titles change as spots evolve from storyboard to broadcast). And it was produced by Paul Gold and Jean-Claude Kaufmann, who was then the Director of Broadcast Production at the New York office of Bozell Worldwide.

Both Kaufmann and Gold were not only among our most important clients, but their passion for the work, and the humanity they brought to the game, always made them enjoyable to work with. They also both belonged to a group of advertising professionals that I considered role models for best-of-breed creative producers.

And it helped that both men seemed to share a parallel musical aesthetic with the creative direction produced by our music team. So, even though we worked hard, it was generally easy to get on the same page, which is not always the case with every client.

Indeed, the process from demo production through revisions and an eventual narrowing down of selections to two or three suitable options proceeded as efficiently as one can hope for any project.

But only when the New York agency’s creative team were fully satisfied that our music score options fully satisfied the story objectives required by the footage, did they send the music down to the Merrill Lynch account execs, which were based in Princeton. Naturally, we were surprised when word came back that they were definitely not impressed. As head of music production, I was especially none too pleased to see what had at first seemed a finely executed project return to the studio as a full blown crisis. Gold and Kauffman informed us that an emergency meeting was requested and we made the necessary arrangements (i.e., vacuumed the floors and ordered food from a really nice restaurant).

MESSAGE IDENTITY TONALITY

Some days later, a black and gray suited swarm of Bozell and Merrill Lynch representatives filled our studios looking like Federal Agents securing a location, so that the doors were blocked, calls were held and the facility felt like if was on lock-down.

It was only when Cohen arrived that we learned the reason for the Senior VP’s concern. He demanded that not only the soundtrack enhance the story –as was the usual rote instruction for every project– but also that the tonality of the music score itself reflect the Identity of the financial institution. In effect, Cohen demanded that the score, absent of picture, would be identifiable as unique branded audio asset for the company.

In hindsight, it seems like a perfectly reasonable request. But in 1995, most scores for TV commercials in 1995 did not do that. By the way, most commercial scores in 2006 don’t do that either. Then and now, most clients commission music that either works as a bed or simply “supports the story”, exactly in the same manner as a film score enhances a movie cue, but say with a bit of audio pixie dust for a product or logo reveal. The task of creating original music and sound design for TV and Radio commercials did not –or only rarely– require a brand analysis.

We were already familiar with the notion of creating a project specific ‘palette’ of sounds for other classes of projects, such as broadcast network or cable channel packaging, but that was considered a different kind of media animal.

Anyway, Cohen shook his head and played our military snare parts back to us on the table (again using his keys). We were puzzled by his criticism. We felt we had presented a regal fanfare that any financial institution would have been happy to have. And yet, Cohen's arrangement for car keys and glass coffee table, intended to mimic our score (and possibly belittle our intelligence) sounded rather tinny and funereal on playback to me, which was his point.

It did not help matters that a delicate white bowl holding perfectly balanced exotic fruit from Indonesia rattled in sympathetic unison with the rat-a-tat-tats.

'Beyond being symphonic, what was Merrill Lynch supposed to sound like, anyway?'–I wondered.

I know what my colleagues –award winning composers all– were thinking:

'Merrill Lynch be damned, the music works!'

We were frankly befuddled, and Cohen’s departure was followed by internal argument. However, after some discussion, it eventually did click and make sense:

The music we had initially produced supported the narrative just fine, in the cinematic way that a film score enhances a movie experience, however the music did not actually convey anything about the client's Identity or immediate communication objective –the Message– beyond the action and emotion evident in the footage.

When I say 'Message', I mean:

The symbolic transmission of a client's brand attributes.

And if we felt that any financial institution would have been happy to have the track, perhaps it was because our arrangement wasn't specific to any one brand! We had composed symphonic works for other financial institutions before, and it was then that I realized that prior to 'Privatization', melody was the only differentiating element that separated music for one bank from music for another.

We resolved the musical issue and delivered two arrangements that not only ‘enhanced the story’, but were arranged in such a manner that they uniquely conveyed our client’s brand attributes.

PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS

I never approached another project again without the knowledge I gained on from that project. In fact, when Kaufmann and Gold would later that year commission us with the the production of another score for the Bahamas Board of Tourism, we certainly approached that campaign with a newfound branded sensibility. At the time we called it 'Identity' and not 'Branding', and in hindsight, I think Identity formation is closer to what we were doing than branding, even if the latter word also includes the other today.

After that however, I can also tell you that out of hundreds of projects before and after Merrill Lynch –with the exception of network packaging and tourism board commissions– McDonald's is the only other client I recall whose every spot arrived with a precise sound schematic (this during the French Fry wars of the mid nineties).

Today, anyone who has been in the business of commercial audio for some time will not be surprised by this revelation. Music often represents the final step in the production process before a campaign goes to air. It is arguably part of the post-production process, although clients will sometimes invite participation during pre-production to discuss storyboards –possibly ten to twelve weeks before the shoot. But the conversation where everyone discusses how to communicate a sales objective within parameters established by brand values? That happened twelve months ago, without you, the composer, present. At that stage, your opinion (as the audio/music vendor) was considered irrelevant (by the client). Too bad, because I think 'branded arrangements’ would serve some clients much better than simply an old fashioned movie score.

For the most part, music production is often squeezed into an absurdly short development period (assuming quality is also to be considered). Did we tell you that you had a two weeks? Well, now you have two days; can we hear demos this afternoon?

There were times when I literally had 24 hours to produce a forty or fifty piece live orchestra performing a fully orchestrated original piece of music (which of course had to be first vetted by several layers at the ad agency) –including revisions. You'd be surprised with all year to prepare, how many Super Bowl spots are still in production right down to the wire, and how often the music is commissioned with only days to go before the big game.

So, when exactly does the sonic brand conscious composer hope to execute his or her brand analysis before beginning work?

The reality is that most of the time, clients afford music teams a fifteen-minute conference call and then you’re off; and it’s a mad dash to get approvals and finish before the air date.

Notwithstanding this circumstance, however, I still believe that if this is how you want to practice your art, then you do need to develop an aptitude for developing marketing, message (brand attributes ) and story objectives into semiotic audio strategies that work on both the micro and macro levels (for the spot at hand AND for the brand).

No one said it was easy.