What Sonic Branding Can Learn from Graphic Designers

VISUAL CRITERIA:

• Size
• Shape
• Position
• Direction
• Units
• Repetition
• Pattern
• Figure
• Ground
• Hierarchy

Now apply to audio.

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.

Branded @ Birth™

Regardless of one's cultural background, primary language or education, some people believe babies call their mother ‘MA’ (or some version thereof) not because they’re taught do so, but because they’re programmed to do so.

This theory stipulates that just as humans are born with certain physical body parts, we're also born with a bit of a pre-birth cognitive fodder called ‘Archetypes’.

In Jungian psychology an archetype is described as “a collectively inherited unconscious idea, pattern of thought, image, etc., universally present in individual psyches.” (Dictionary.com)

There are many fascinating aspects about this, if it is true, not the least of which is the implication that we are all Branded @ Birth, and then start from the very beginning of our lives branding every single thing around us (as products of our reality, our culture, even our imagination).

If this is indeed the case, then archetypes presuppose culture and are neurobiological in origin. We might then say that archetypes exist within the black box of consciousness as pre-programmed urges to express certain behaviors. These primal urges first take form as intuitive actions that are then instagrammed as  symbols intended to represent the action or capture the meaning of these urges.  That is, rendering symbols is the manner by which one documents an impression, applies a cognitive filter to it, and then shares it with others.

If every urge represents a fundamental need or desire, then every symbol is essentially a command. And these commands once produced and distributed/transmitted/communicated –put into action as it were– exhibit memetic potential.

Perhaps this potential is even the result of archetypal recognition by those receiving the transmission. But the additional result of this eternal loop is a complicated matrix of understandings and conventions we call culture. And one might also say that the reverse engineering of all this resulting symbolic data is what we now call semiotics. This could all be academic, or it could be navel gazing, but I still find it all very fascinating to consider; the mind reels.

What is the zeitgeist anyway?

We might think of zeitgeist as a series of trends, but by my calculus it's semiotics in motion; an archetypal tsunami; symbolic data moving culture the same way a strong current moves a floating object. –But equally influenced by an undercurrent of ideas and prior actions that collectively effect the NOW as they move beneath the visible surface of society, and in this way capably move highly ingrained and even resistant convictions great distances over many years, even decades, centuries and millennia.

Of course, if we define archetypes simply as pre-birth patterning, then animals are also endowed with them, and we can suppose that any instinctual activity has at its source archetypal data. It may not be enough to ask if the dog's bark is worse than his bite, but also inquire what does either bark or bite mean?

In any event, the notion of archetype supposes we arrive into the world if with not a song, then with an elemental sound already formed in our heads (or the urge to produce a sound), and that is the sound of our mother’s name –at least the name by which we will call her. Again we are branded at birth, imprinted by a distinguishing mark that identifies us as no less than a product of our Mother.

By the way, some people also believe we do actually arrive into the world with a song in our heads. It's called 'The Ur-song' and you can hear what it sounds like by playing the following video (the melody here is played straight; it is also often heard with a swing):



Incidentally, because the vocalized ‘ma’ signification precedes graphic representation, I like to think of it less as an archetype than as an ‘Archetone’.

I also think it might be true that ‘ma’ doesn't bear any archetypal or pre-natal psychological origin, but that it ehibits universal usage simply because nursing mothers interpret ‘SMA’ –the sound of lips un-puckering from a kiss or breast– as an attempt to communicate. (And by extension, ‘DA’, the sound of one opening one’s mouth when one’s tongue has been stuck to the roof of it).

Once believing their baby has begun speaking, parents might then reward a child with further affection. And by this action they thereby reinforce a lip-smack as as an appropriate designation for a god like being by an utterly helpless moppet.

It’s not quite as romantic an etymology as being in possession of an ancient archetype, but who’s to say it’s wrong?

Whatever the mechanics, 'ma’ becomes a meme, and eventually ma becomes mama becomes mom becomes mother, and this is how mommy goes viral.

If you have any interest in memetics (the study of cultural transmission), one can’t help but ask if ‘Ma’ is the smallest unit of cultural transmission exhibited in early childhood development?

–Or is there something smaller than 'ma' to be found; something that lies between archetypal urge and symbolic utterance? I believe that there is, and that thing is the actual sound of the baby’s natural and not-quite-yet semantic cry.

Although, I’m not really sure that such a cry can't be designated as non memetic because I've heard one baby set off a dozen other babies, as if they were all part of a single coddled swarm.

The fact is, any human behavior can trigger an action which once repeated becomes a pattern, and then, at that point –at the point of Pattern Manifestation– it finally assumes the potential to be transmitted along a memetic distribution system.

Or rather, it exhibits the power to trigger replication from one host to another: you, me and mommy, too.

It’s as if the archetype once given voice as an archetone, the entire process resembles nothing so much as a musical Ouroboros –the mythical image of a serpent eating its own tale, and thus forming an eternal circle.

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.

BEYOND SOUND: What is Music?

Near the beginning of my career I participated in the development of a 1.25-second connection tone for AT&T Long Distance. 1.25 seconds doesn't provide enough time to deliver a story, but it suffices for a mark –a carrier of data– and it is therefore fully capable of conveying a message, branded or otherwise.

But can an audio mark also be considered a work of music?

It begs the question: What is music?

At one level, anything that can be described to exhibit wave like motion might be considered music. Others go a step further to define music as a subset of sound by limiting it to those sounds or collections of sounds which are organized.

As a sophisticated example of organized sound, the answer is yes, an audio mark is music.

But as a mere signifier, the answer is no. It's like asking if a STOP sign is a sentence.

DEFINING TRADITIONAL MUSIC

I'm of the dual opinion that 1) all movement describes musical activity, but also, 2) that the sensory experience which we commonly describe as music is more than simply organized sound (as Edgard Varèse and others often regard it).

The problem I have with Varèse's definition is that it lacks recognition that 'organization' does not simply describe intent but also impression, and sometimes impression is a false construct. So, instead I attribute the following characteristics to that which we call music by traditional standards:

• Purposeful design (whether 'composed' or 'improvised')
• Deliberate execution (demonstrating mastery of dynamics and phrasing)
• Unified by sustained control of coherent pitch and rhythm
• A specifically timed sequence of sound

So, what happens if non-musicians decide whatever it is one is playing is not music. Well, it happens all the time: if the consensus judges your art is noise, then it's noise (until such time as the audience decides otherwise). As Varèse points out, the audience will call anything new 'noise'. And so what if it is?

This is not the definition you'll find in Webster's, but it works for me.

MUSIC VERSUS ACOUSTIC ECOLOGY

The purpose of the above described filter is not to provide a megacosmic definition music, but rather just the opposite. And the purpose of this limitation is to control the focus and scope of specific conversations by eliminating those random or otherwise atmospheric emissions that we perceive as music, even if we can describe them as musical.

One of the most profound musical experiences of my life occurred while walking though a patch of forest and hearing a cricket apparently synchronize in concert with birdsong, a brook and indeed, what seemed to me all of of nature. But I would not define the composite as music, although it was certainly music to my ears. First, it was only my impression that my experience of the sound was organized, but as to whether it actually it was or not, one can't say.

Language, for another instance, is also organized sound, but I generally eliminate language from my definition of music, although that may only be the result of a sonic bias. I'm certainly open to any argument that includes the spoken word as evidence of music. Personally, I feel as though I experience a different psychology when I sing than when I speak.

What about rap?

Rap and other metered or otherwise poetic verse also feel different to me than either 'regular' speech or sung lyrics. I recognize rhythm devoid of melody as music, but I also stipulate that song requires melody.

Certainly, there are tonal languages which one might perceive as more musical than other languages, such as Mandarin. But lacking recognizable phrasing, non speakers might equally perceive a conversation as impenetrable gibberish as they might discern musicality as a result of pitch differentiation. Regardless, is there anything one might call melody produced by the vocalization of tonal languages during common conversation?

It would be interesting to me if a person who raps in English and who claims his or her craft is essentially musical in nature would also agree that the 'simple' act of speaking Mandarin is even more so. Anyone? No doubt, there are many examples of rap and song blends.

Not to say rap is not music, because a rap within a hiphop context most definitely is. However, a sung lyric without harmony is still a song, but whether a rapped lyric without a musical accompaniment is still music, I'm not so sure. What is poetry in relation to music? Is a poem music? Is it important that a rapped lyric be thought of as music instead of poetry? Yes? No? And if so, why?

Ultimately, music is everything and anything we designate it to be, but people still draw lines and make divisions, and I'm interested in the rational behind the why.

Then there are those who wish to dispense with genre, who claim there is only good music and bad music, but in my experience what people mean by good music is only the music they like.

MUSIC VERSUS MUSICALITY

For the casual listener of traditional music, my guess is music need only exhibit a steady beat and a sing-able melody.

By the full standard, the 1.25-second ATT mark (or any such mark) may be wrought of music, but it is not a work of music. Though purposeful in its design, it lacks phrasing, existing within a time frame in which phrasing is irrelevant, except at a micro scale. Music must exist at scale, and by that I mean, at the scale of human intelligibility.

The audio mark is therefore better described as an utterance, like a burp, even if it is one meant to announce the presence of a branded service.

Indeed, such utterances are better understood as a unit within a category of elementary particles (Quantum Audio) that serve as building blocks for music. As an example, few would consider a pitch or even a short sequence of pitches (motif) music, much less a musical work, even if we recognize the capacity for both pitch and motif to blossom into music. This limited definition does not invalidate the power of the audio mark. I never cease to be surprised by how much information a deftly constructed mark can convey.

Both 'Hello' and 'Help' are also utterances (and audio marks of the highest caliber), and both capably increase one's significance in the presence of others who happen to be on the receiving end of either message.

POP GOES THE RADIO

That organized sound should within its organization also demonstrate phrasing and dynamics happens to be a contentious idea in some circles. Indeed, music being a medium from which we create experience, communicate ideas and alter perception, it should not follow any dogmatic rule. The laws of physics yes, but someone's subjective aesthetic? No, not unless you want to become an expert in a particular style, of course. Regardless, the point is, the absence of either phrasing or dynamics is often the very reason many may snub both highly polished commercial works and their polar opposite: aggressively performed amateur pieces.

Over quantization, correction and processing –or just banging the drum loud all the time– might be suitable activities towards producing various examples of audio craft, but employed with a heavy hand or jaded ear and a track can be drained of all its musicality, not to mention humanity (which may be the key to understanding and defining 'what is music' in the first place).

Although it may be that while some consider such commercial pop works unmusical or unsophisticated because they lack sublimity, others might be stimulated by the way these constructions provide an uncluttered platform for meaning produced by words or sonic symbolism.

THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF MODERNISM

That some will find the idea that music must employ a sing-able melody will also no doubt strike others as an offensive, restricting or even heretical idea.

However, no doubt, it is one reason why a lay audience might categorize a modern symphonic, jazz or self defined noise piece as unlistenable or unbearable. Because while any of these forms may present a tapestry of harmony or rhythm, and though its performers may exhibit immense musicality, without a sing-able melody to unify a given work, these compositions sound like amalgams of disparate sonic elements to a casual listener, rendering them a pleasurable experience only to the fan.

'Wait, no melody?', the Einsturzende Neubauten or Igor Stravinsky fan replies, 'there's melody all over the place!'.

And yet, to a non-fan, strident strings or a given anvil solo on a post industrial track sound only like noise, which may be the performer's intention (no doubt), but nevertheless and otherwise torturesome to many other listeners.

The ears can't even begin to approach it; the mind not given a chance to assimilate it.

Similarly, a saxophone solo on within a modern jazz context doesn't sound like a melody to many people. It sounds like an incomprehensible sonic emission.

By contrast, there are also audiences bored with same old, same old, who find melody old hat, so last century and all that, and these persons crave a sonic experience composed of disparate elements that find cohesion in a single idea.

Maybe you are one of those people?

MUSIC IS EVERYTHING IS MUSIC

Personally, I have varied tastes. There are plenty of recordings I enjoy that present as either mono dynamic walls of commercial sound, as noise and as waves of non melodic harmony adorned with 'sonic emissions'. I am equally happy with a gourmet meal as I am with an apple and cheese. And as with some food creations, I enjoy a bit of over processed music, too, from time to time. For me, variety is the spice of life.

But I'm also okay with the notion that such works deliver a different audio experience than traditional works of music.

And whether or not every form of sonic expression is music, so what, if it is nevertheless intended as a genuine attempt to communicate an aspect of one's soul, and whether or not that expression is made manifest as a Rite of Spring, a Tanganyika Strut or a Rage Against the Machine. So much the better if you find yourself entertained or elevated or whatever else it is you draw from the magic of a given aural experience.

Yet for some reason, too, it seems important to many sonic artisans of disparate crafts that each be considered a musician. Is a guitar player a musician? A trumpet player? A drummer? Most people say yes. Is a DJ or sound designer a musician? The answer isn't so universal.

More interesting (to me) than whether or not a turntablist who uses the combination of old vinyl and modern decks as a percussion instrument, is to ask whether or not the violinist who uses a strange mix of nineteenth century spruce, horse hair and animal gut to make unearthly sounds is also a musician?

Or is the sound designer who purposefully creates an aural experience with which we can discern a mastery of such things as dynamics, phrasing, timing and pitch, –is he or she a musician? (Varèse called himself "not a musician, but 'a worker in rhythms, frequencies, and intensities'." Sounds a lot like a sound designer to me.)

Is it the instrument in your hands that makes one a musician or what you do with it?

And if a composer is responding to a dancer (or other moving image), who is actually designing the musical work? The person making the sound? Or the person directing the placement of sound?

And what is happening when we recall or compose music using only our imagination, no instrument involved but our brains?

Does music even need sound?

The dancer who draws elegant phrases or who otherwise punctuates space without a pianist or drummer in the room understands that music exists as much as a directed feeling or thought as it does an audible wave.

MUSIC BEYOND SOUND

In fact, the definition of music Varese claims to have preferred (other than his own) was one proposed earlier by Polish philosopher Józef Maria Hoene-Wronski who suggested music is "the corporealization of intelligence in sounds", which I find actually more accurate when we eliminate the last two words, so that the complete phrase is limited to "the corporealization of intelligence," with the desired net result, of course, that one masters one's art and instrument.

But whether that instrument is a cello or a conga; whether you pluck strings or turn knobs; whether or not you even make a sound at all is secondary to what music is. Music is in your brain, not your hands. Although if you've got hands, by all means, use them.

Having rhythm, for instance, has far greater applications than simply being able to blow or beat or bow in time. Surgeons and athletes (and lovers) use rhythm as performance tools. Who says what the surgeon or athlete or lover is doing is not music but a response to music? So is playing in a band, but that doesn't diminish the musicianship of any member of the band.

It may be that your listeners become your collaborators in a derivative work the moment they use your music as a platform with which to create something else -and I don't mean another musical work. I mean, anything at all.

And then there will be those who argue whatever sonic emission they produce from whatever orifice suffices for music, and as it happens, if I am locked into not examining one specific aspect of sound, I tend agree with them.

Marshall McLuhan famously said (among other things), "Art is anything you can get away with." But the truth is, the answer to the question, 'What is Music?', changes with context, and it may be that context itself exhibits conceptual wave like characteristics.

Isn't it interesting that if I have steel, and I build a car with it, I can say that I have steel and I have a car. But if I have music, and I construct something with it, I still call the end product music.

I don't accept that music is one thing possessing a given absolute form –or even that it necessarily may be limited to sonic manifestations. Rather I believe music to be nothing less than a conceptual medium capable of being shaped into many different things and infinite forms for as many different purposes (even non musical forms and purposes!)

So what is music?

In the widest sense of the word, music is, indeed, whatever it is we want it to be.

One Word: Memetics

A big Spring shout out from the CRITICAL NOISE Aural Intelligence Blog to say thank you to all its readers for making CRITICAL NOISE The #1 Music Memetics Blog in the world.

Apparently there are a few others out there as deeply interested in the interstices of music, message and marketing as I am.

So, after ten years in the making, it's nice when someone points out that you've reached the top of Mt. Google writing about a subject you devote a lot of time and study to. It gives one reason to pause, reflect and imbibe. So, cheers! It is Saturday, after all.

In related news, congratulations again to the UK's Annalisa Kumi for her popular and deeply interesting SAE thesis on the subject: AN AD FOR ADVERTISERS: SONIC BRANDING AND THE EVOLUTION OF MUSIC IN ADVERTISING. I first mentioned her paper on my twitter feed, but lately I've noticed it's been the 2011 consistently #1 ranked site on the topic of Sonic Branding. Hooray for her and maybe she should think about starting her own consultancy.

I'm simply happy that my own 2001 article on Sonic Branding, BRANDING WITH AUDIO can be counted as one of her sources.

More recently: If you haven't already, please check out the March 25, 2011 SHOOT magazine for my article regarding the decline of traditional scoring and the ascent of Music Design in television advertising ( SOUND: MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER). SHOOT is the nation's leading resource of its kind providing news and information to and about "creative and production decision-makers at ad agencies, and executives & artisans in the production industry", and it's honor to have an article published in a nationally distributed journal.

In the meantime, back to our regular programming, but first, to paraphrase a famous line from the film THE GRADUATE:

One word: 'Memetics'.

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.


* * *

Photo Collage by Terry O'Gara

Audio Imaging and Radio's Multimedia Future

Sonic Branding is by no means a new idea, although the phrase only seems to have come into common parlance with the new millennium. In the early nineties I contextualized the concept as 'Branding with Audio'. My old bosses, Scott & Jonathan Elias, preferred the phrase 'Sonic Identity' or 'Sonic ID' for short.

But radio stations have long distinguished themselves from one another using a technique the trade alternately calls Audio Imaging or Music Imaging.

Imaging is all the patter, Voice Over, music, interludes, along with every other branded sound asset, etc., that is inter-dispersed between programming. The composite effect serves to differentiate one station from others and provide a unique radio presence or identity.

In most important respects, Audio Imaging is a precursor of, and synonym for, Sonic Branding. I say "In most important respects" because the result of Audio Imaging is not a single brand asset, but a portfolio of assets whose resulting implementation is closer to what I define as 'packaging' than branding. In my brand mythology, a brand represents a singular asset; while packaging indicates a portfolio of assets that includes branded assets, but is not limited to them. That said, many professionals use the terms interchangeably, and for the sake of this article, I will, too.

What I find personally interesting is that unlike common Sonic Branding, which is usually implemented in order to distinguish similarly tangible goods and services from one another, Audio Imaging uses one palette of sounds (the packaging) in order to provide context to another group of sounds (the transmission).

A music supervisor (and his or her client) commissioned to create programming acts on the premise that the net result of a curated playlist will 'brand' a given (retail) environment. It may or may not: results vary. Muzak has developed a long, successful business model based on this premise. But other Sonic Brand professionals believe otherwise. Radio professionals, it seems, have found the practice lacking.

The reason being: radio playlists are in constant flux. Algorithm based programming will certainly distinguish one genre based station from another –tune in and you know immediately if you're listening to Country, Pop, Urban or Rock. But although they play an important role as an indicator of content/programming philosophy, playlists by themselves (in saturated markets) do not provide listeners with enough information to distinguish one station from another (that delivers similar/overlapping programming).

You may already know that the radio industry is in crisis. Many stations, which in the last decade or so adopted a music only platform, now find themselves facing obsolescence in the wake of Apple's iPod launch.

iPods and other hard disc players have almost single handedly eliminated the necessity for radio.

If radio is going to survive, it will need something that iPods and other hard drive players lack. The industry is still grappling for the secret recipe that will pull audiences back to their programming. One ingredient can be found in a re-tooled Audio Imaging approach. Digital music players provide the capacity to create user-generated playlists, but such playlists as programming lack general accessibility. Unlike radio programming, they do not represent communication from one human to another, but rather serve the utilitarian function of providing a frame for a single person's individual experience (excepting playlists created in real time by a dance DJ for a live audience).

If a relayed signal requires at least one source and one receiver (which often alternate roles), can our own thoughts be defined as communication? Maybe. Personally, I think of thoughts as akin to cognitive reflections, which seems to be the antithesis of what we think of as broadcasting (or even narrow casting).

So although the hardware and technology that makes portable hard drive music players possible seems like magic, the experience a single playlist delivers can also prove less than magical once shared with others beyond the creator's own ear buds.

What we require is context, and the kind of disruptive surprise that only human logic choices in real time can provide, and that pre-programmed random play by algorithm simply has yet to demonstrate a capacity to deliver.

In the past, radio did not simply deliver experience; it was quite often central to the experience. Arguably, it was the experience. Before the invention of television friends and family members listened together, and while listening, they often stared at the apparatus. In effect, radio became the hearth, the fire we all sat around. And then enter TV. Now audiences actually had something to look at. Radio responded by scaling smaller and becoming portable, allowing users to multi task.

But in some cases chatter is perceived as an interruption. Naturally, competing stations eliminated chatter in favor of music-only programming.

Either way, portable digital music players have rendered both strategies ineffective.

So how can radio compete?

I would like to say that Audio Imaging can do it all, but neither branding nor packaging alone can prevent obsolescence. The task is how to prove necessity of being in the face of competing information and entertainment sources. Ultimately, unique and engaging 'Destination Content' will be key. But there are other things we can do, too.

Certainly greater brains than mine are already trying to figure this out, but why wait when I want to save radio right now:

One must ask ones self, what makes radio distinct from other forms of media? What is radio anyway? Is it the box or is it what is in the box? Up until the advent of PC distributed digital audio we have considered radio to be the composite of media and platform. In the face of current technologies, radio –like newspapers– must redefine itself as platform neutral.

What is important is not the box, but 'The Feed', or 'The Stream'.

So, it may be that one possible strategy is to dispense with any reliance on these devices we call 'radios', and instead concentrate on programming. But who and what's going to broadcast the programming if not a radio?

How about an iPod?

Saving Radio scenario #1: The primary agenda should be to influence audiences to tune in via PCs and hand held PC devices, and abandon sole-use dedicated devices, such as, ahem, radios. Listeners may then listen in real-time at their PCs, or download to their digital devices any programming as a Podcast. What's a Podcast anyway, but TIVO for sound? –At least that's the way the radio industry should sell it:

Listen to what you want when you want, wherever you want.

Simultaneously–

Saving Radio scenario #2: Embrace Interactivity. Traditional Radio, like TV, represents one-way communication. In the past, at least listeners could call in and make requests, which would be fulfilled in a reasonable time frame. Today, such communication is all but squelched. Though many, if not all, commercial radio stations have a web presence, their sites merely serve as a virtual wall scrawled over with a station's tag. With some notable exceptions, few radio web sites today boast the tool kit (or interest) to move beyond the monologue experience in order to more fully engage in a conversation with their listeners. In short, in the traditional radio paradigm, the goal is to gain and maintain listeners, which is a limited ambition, at most.

Moreover, expecting loyalty from someone, and hoping the other party will be content to only listen and not wish to contribute in any other way may have worked in centuries past, but that model is disintegrating by the moment.

Talk Radio itself is not immune to this sort of erosion, but over sized personalities may be one reason Talk seems to fare so well, when it does. Because Talk, unlike most iPod playlists, promotes a point of view. Love or hate the man or woman behind the mic, they have the capacity to make brains reel and emotions surge.

As it happens, digital playback devices are increasingly becoming multimedia players, so portability is not exclusive to sound programming. Users can travel with video as well, but viewers can't multi task the way listeners can. It's a simple fact of life: Consumers of sound-only content can multi task in a way that Television and Print audiences cannot.

Thus:

Unique Selling Position #A: Radio provides content that doesn't require you to stop your life in order to consume it. We turn to Print when our lives are on hold. We turn on the Television when we want to relax. But Radio provides Content (Information and Music) to Go.

Radio is where the action is, and one marketing strategy might be to impress upon media consumers that 'RADIO' and 'ACTION' are SYNONYMS, and where there is Life there is Radio. Indeed:

Radio=Life.

In contrast:

Saving Radio scenario #3: Given the choice to choose either listen-only content, or viewable content with sound, what will audiences do? If the answer is the latter, then radio may want to create viewable content to accompany heretofore listen-only conceived content. For instance, a slide show, if nothing else, or other visual content that enhances an otherwise heretofore listen-only experience. Representatives of the radio industry may scoff, but as audio books evolve into multimedia experiences, I believe radio itself may well embrace the idea of enhancing audio content audio content with images, the way television uses audio content to enhance video.

After all, who doesn't look at the back of the box while they eat their morning cereal? Even eating is enhanced by imagery, –any imagery.

But if radio starts providing images, what will make it any different from a TV company?

If the New York Times and CNN are both streaming video from their websites (and they are), why is one company considered a newspaper and the other a cable television company? In effect, they space each once inhabited is converging with the others.

Forward thinking radio professionals already intuit this. But what many may not realize is that the media universe, unlike our own, can be thought of as collapsing. By collapsing, I don't mean that it's disappearing. Rather, all media is evolving into multimedia.

Today, we are witnessing the emergence of Multimedia Singularity.

We are moving past the day when there are TV companies and there are Radio companies –or Print companies, for that matter. What was once a constellation of individual communications companies, each inhabiting their own space –Print, Television, Radio– is now better perceived as a single moving object: The Feed or The Stream. Where once we saw a smattering of stars, now we see an interconnected galaxy (of providers). Distribution platforms themselves are increasingly incidental (as primary indicators of experience); whatever the next technological advancement is, it had better be transparent.

Likewise, when we look through a telescope we don't care if we're looking through a Celestron Telescope zoom eyepiece or a Meade Series 4000 Eyepiece & Filter Set. We just want it to work, and if it works, then all we see are the heavens.

Multimedia Singularity is being made manifest in a variety of ways:

The New York Times, like all newspapers and magazines, is reinventing itself as a content aggregator and distributor, using not a single media platform delivered on paper, but a multimedia one, traveling via light through fiber optic cables. The similarities between Print and Television increase by the day.

Radio must follow suit if it is to survive. When Media Singularity is achieved, radio's competitors will not just be other radio stations, but all media sources (providing parallel content choices in a given market). Though perhaps born as traditional twentieth century newspapers, magazines, television channels or radio stations, respectively, all heretofore separate platforms will continue to transform themselves until each has fully evolved into, quite simply, unique points of interest, destinations, hosted by purely electronic media.

Do you remember what a Venn diagram is from your high school mathematics class? A Venn diagram consists of two or more overlapping circles, or sets. The overlapping area indicates shared characteristics or commonalities between the set

Now imagine a 'Content Venn' composed of not two circles, but many, –and possibly in three dimensions. Each circle represents a traditional media platform; to name three: Radio, Television, and Print. Within each circle are numerous other Venn diagrams representing subsets composed of individual companies competing in a given space. It doesn't take a futurist or psychic to see that the circles as they are presently positioned are not static, but that they are in motion and will continue converging upon one another until we are left with not many spaces, but one space. The result is no Venn diagram, that's for sure, but a single globe representing The Feed.

And what of that overlapping common space where all companies in all spaces meet, regardless of distribution platform? That space is what we can now think of as Multimedia Singularity.

So how will we choose who and what to tune into?

Once platforms become universally transparent, content will have to speak for itself. Given that scenario, context will be more important than ever. And context will be achieved via the same tool kits and assets we rely right on now:

• Personality
• Positioning
• Branding
• Audio Imaging
• Sonic Branding

–All of which we increasingly recognize as aspects of Design.

The result being that after the technological deluge, humans will actually be more important that ever.

Ironically, there will be so much to look at, that sound will play an exponentially more significant role in hooking in audiences.

One should expect to soon see what might have once been conceived as asymmetrical partnerships now engage in strategic merges. We may have had an inkling of that when Time Warner merged with AOL. That partnership was universally judged to be a fiasco. But ultimately it wasn't because Time Warner didn't need to be a multimedia company with an Internet presence, but rather that Time Warner didn't need AOL to withstand the same digital pressures, and be subject to the same evolutionary processes, eventually sustained by all successful members of the corporate species.

But regardless what partnerships evolve, and what eye candy is produced, sonic assets and Radio's importance as a vehicle for content distribution will also increase at reasonable rate.

Here's why:

When people listen to radio they may request more or less talk, more or less music, more or less advertising; but they never request less sound.

As it happens, Television viewers, rich with color, dimension and ever increasingly denser pixel formations, also share with radio listeners an enjoyment for sound. Likewise, they never request less sound either. Lower volume, yes; less aural data, emphatically no. That's because TV isn't just a vision experience; it also relies on sound. In fact, Television only 'works' so well because it is a multi-sensory experience. You don't think so? Try muting the audio. Subtitles communicate information to a varying degree, but the experience is far from optimal. Except for video art installations, the television experience is compromised without an accompanying soundtrack.

In the nineties comic and radio talk show host Howard Stern famously declared his ambition to become a 'King of all Media'. It sounded funny to hear him say it back then. In retrospect, Stern was ahead of his time. For today, radio strives for Multimedia Singularity, inching closer to TV and Print, and at exactly the same time TV and Print edge closer to Radio. It's that or die. And by die, I mean, fade away into silence. Of course, there's not a single profit or not-for-profit information, or entertainment company, that wants to stop broadcasting. So, silence is not an option.

It may be that one day the word 'radio', generally speaking, will solely come to mean 'broadcast sound', and that no one will actually think of a device called 'radio' when the word is uttered. By radio, we won't mean hardware, what we will mean is simply:

Content (though it may be accompanied and supported by images), requires no visual enhancement in order to communicate information, entertain or deliver a message.

And because storytellers have sustained that model since the dawn of man, it's safe to bet that radio, whatever form it takes, will continue to be a powerful medium for years to come.

Future Friendly For David Fincher

Have you ever lit up the world with music? You Will. In 1993, the music house I worked for was commissioned by ad agency, NW AYER, to create an original score for an AT&T campaign named 'YOU WILL'. At the time I was a young assistant –hanging onto the ropes of commercial music production with one hand, answering phones and getting coffee for composers with the other. 

 The premise of the 'YOU WILL' campaign was that with the future right around the corner, AT&T was in a position to deliver all sorts of high tech goodies to their customers. Try to visualize the pre millennial era: Few in the public sphere had yet heard of the Internet, much less owned a personal computer. Cell phones were the size of car batteries. The hot technology was the CD-Rom.

So imagine how futuristic these commercials looked and sounded when they first aired and asked the then hypothetical questions: "Have you ever paid a toll without slowing down? Bought concert tickets from a cash machine? Or tucked your baby in from a phone booth? 'YOU WILL'." 

In one sense, 'YOU WILL' can be seen as (and possibly) modeled after GE’s own campaign 'WE BRING GOOD THINGS TO LIFE'. But cleverly, AT&T recast the message so as to position itself as the GE of the future. But what a dark future the ad agency imagined for its client. Let's look at one of the spots now, sans audio. Doing so will give you an idea of just the way our music composers first approached the project: 

AT&T YOU WILL  'TOLL':30 (NO AUDIO)

 

Director David Fincher was commissioned to shoot the commercials. His vision of the future, as it turned out, was pretty bleak, made only somewhat more pleasant by gadgetry. At first glance, most of the interiors looked like they couldn’t even power the lights in the room much less a computer, while exteriors seemed designed to resembled a climate change model in full effect. Which is not to say the film didn’t look good, it was great, even beautiful. But the art direction did not immediately convince one that a brighter future –either figuratively or literally– was upon us. 

Essentially, Fincher delivered a study in Sci-Fi noire: equal parts 'ALPHAVILLE', 'BLADE RUNNER' and 'BRAZIL'. Oddly enough, no one at the agency or anyone of our creative staff initially thought this Orwellian version of the 21st Century presented much of a marketing problem (for a company trying to position itself as a ubiquitous element to your future lifestyle). 

In fact, the consensus between both agency and our compositional staff was that Fincher’s footage demanded a rich cinematic treatment that inspired admiration in the things AT&T could achieve for its customers. Someone suggested that the music house use as a reference Ennio Morricone's 'WHILE THINKING ABOUT HER AGAIN’ from the soundtrack to 'CINEMA PARADISO'. I don't recall who first made this suggestion. It may have been Fincher, Jim Haygood (the campaign's editor), someone at the ad agency or one of our own creative directors Jonathan Elias or Alexander Lasarenko. But upon its acceptance and approval, Lasarenko composed a stirring work that captured the emotional depth of Morricone’s original cue. 

In fact, if you lay the 'CINEMA PARADISO' cue against any of the AT&T spots today, you can see that as a temp track, the music synchs relatively well to picture (it lacks sound design, but you get the idea). If I had to guess, I'd bet that Haygood might have used either Morricone’s music, or Lasarenko’s demo, to facilitate the process towards a final cut. 

 AT&T YOU WILL 'TOLL':30 (Alternate music direction):

   

Either way, Morricone's track certainly reinforces the cinematic quality inherent to the footage. It also adds emotive warmth, and in that regard it humanizes the picture. By virtue of the orchestral arrangement, it also conveys a sense of understated power, which one would think agreeable sonic branding for the communications giant. 

All of which is to say that this direction seemed exactly right for the project, and everyone at the ad agency seemed to agree at first. 

Unfortunately, the account executives at AT&T found the Morricone direction, however romantic in its original context, weirdly dark for a project that purported to be a brand imaging campaign. It wasn’t simply an issue of the music not working, but that the music worked too well, reinforcing Fincher’s dark vision, demanding awe and respect; rather than conveying a feeling of technological marvel and inspiring a sense of excitement and wonder. 

And of course they were right. Most of the time music is supposed to support picture, but the AT&T campaign provides us with a perfect example of a project that requires a score that contrasts picture. The symphonic direction did well to announce a Brave New World, but our real job was to introduce a Friendly Future. Lest there be any confusion, the future was not going to be dark, rainy or Orwellian, or feel anything like the inside of a rusting deep space oil rig. It was going to be fun, engaging, the technology liberating and easy to use. –Less 'ALIEN 3', if not quite 'JETSONS'. No rayguns; no monsters; and the weather is going to be fine. 

In other words, Disney’s TOMORROWLAND: safe, warm, inviting; and above all human and accessible. 

So why didn’t Fincher shoot happy-go-lucky spots in the first place? 

In all likelihood he was the hottest young director at the time, and sometimes that’s all it takes to get the job. Which is to say Fincher was hired to do Fincher (and he delivered), and any issues related to branding would be managed in post, which they were. 

But another surprise awaited our composers: While our symphonic music demo was soundly rejected, the edit it was synched to was approved. In many cases, when music providers get it wrong, agencies simply fire them and move on to someone new. But in the case of 'YOU WILL', NW Ayer gave us another chance. However, now we were in a position of having to compose a new score that contrasted picture, and in such a way designed to represent the polar opposite of our first demo, but would nevertheless synch to the existing edit, therefore matching picture lock. 

Elias wanted to provide yet another reference track for the creative team, in order to provide a concrete example of the client’s aspirations. So, this time out Lasarenko suggested an inspirational acoustic rock track, written in the odd meter of 7/4, whose cadence roughly followed a driving I V I vi V vi† chordal sequence, upon which a mystical lyric was delivered. Slammed against picture the music’s energetic beat and shimmering guitars all but lit up Fincher's otherwise dark world. (†FYI: For readers who are not musicians, the roman numerals in the previous paragraph represent shorthand for various kinds of chords: Upper case = Major/ Lower case = Minor) 

As a choice for a scratch track, it was far from typical film music. But it indicated a direction that could transform a Sci-Fi noire mini feature into a fanciful version of the future. And it achieved this result by forcibly re-framing picture with music (that specifically provided the necessary context). Obviously this speaks to the power of music, whether in advertising, entertainment or something else altogether: That is, the power to make you believe you are seeing something you are not, because your ear is telling you that you absolutely are.  Today, people re-frame their own respective worlds simply by scoring their life with personal playlists streaming off their own iPods or other portable playback devices. 

In the end, both Elias’ NY and LA composers created several versions of the driving acoustic rock direction. The agency selected the strongest demo, which was further developed by adding sound design and an affable voice over courtesy MAGNUM P.I. actor Tom Selleck. When at last approved, and the final spots delivered, AT&T released the following press announcement: "… the 'YOU WILL' campaign takes a whimsical look into the near-future when information technologies now being developed at AT&T will soon enhance the way people work, live and play." 

 AT&T YOU WILL 'TOLL':30 (FINAL AUDIO):

   

Of course, if the agency had approved the original symphonic orchestral direction, inspired by Morricone’s CINEMA PARADISO, the spots would never have been framed as anything near whimsy. Even now, the images themselves remain, dark and a bit Orwellian. If this is the future, where the hell is the sun, you may ask? Well, it's there, of course, beaming down upon the entire campaign, whimsy and all. It may never be a prominent element in any of the video. But nevertheless, it shines bright, illuminated by the power and magic of music. 

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 Here's a video that includes all the spots in the campaign

 

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Read what other people thought about 'YOU WILL': 

1. From Boingboing, Cory Doctorow writes: “I think these are the most emblematic advertisements of the era, defining the way that big companies totally missed the point of the Internet…” 

 2. The Work and Genius of David Fincher: AT&T - "You Will" (1993) 

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 FUTURE FRIENDLY FOR DAVID FINCHER is the third in an educational series examining the utilization of temp music in advertising, entertainment and media production. To read previous articles on this topic, click on either the following link or the TEMP MUSIC label/link that follows at the footer of this post: 2009 WINTER/SPRING CRITICAL NOISE ARTICLES ABOUT TEMP TRACKS: 

Scratch Track Fever

10 Rules for Branded Audio Logo Design

Back in 1986, I was a big fan of popular performance artists, such as Laurie Anderson and Pina Bausch. In like fashion I tried creating a multidisciplinary performance piece.

In the work I created I instructed a group of professionally trained dancers to improvise dance movement inspired by Brand Logos. Just how does one leverage kinesiology to communicate iconography? Can shapes be imbued with meaning? And isn't that essentially our intention whenever we create something we identify as 'branded'?

How would you, for instance, assimilate the following designs into your own body and then attempt to express them with abstract gesture and movement?

The dancers not only attempted the task, they results were both informative and spectacularly entertaining, and the process certainly contributed to my understanding of non-verbal messaging.

In like fashion,  it occurred to me that it would also be a fun exercise if I applied a set of Graphic Design rules towards the creation of a musical or otherwise sonic work.

I suggest you try this yourself: schedule some 'playtime' and then experiment designing an audio logo using these tried and true suggestions for composing a Logo Design.

A cursory search online turned up these recommendations:

1. Avoid going overboard in attempting uniqueness
2. Use few colors, limited colors, spot colors
3. Avoid gradients (smooth color transitions) as a distinguishing feature
4. Produce alternatives for different contexts
5. Design using vector graphics, so the logo can be resized without loss of fidelity
6. Be aware of design or trademark infringements
7. Include guidelines on the position on a page and white space around the logo for consistent application across a variety of media (a.k.a. brand standard manual)
8. Do not use a specific choice clip-art as a distinguishing feature
9. Do not use the face of a (living) person
10. Do not use photography or complex imagery as it reduces the instant recognition a logo demands

Below, I've modified the above rules so that they directly apply to sound artists:

When designing (or commissioning) a music or sound design logo:

1. Avoid going overboard in attempting uniqueness
2. Use few harmonic colors.
3. Avoid smooth transitions as a distinguishing feature
4. Produce alternatives for different contexts
5. Design for scalability, using melody, so the logo can be rearranged in various genres
6. Be aware of copyright infringements
7. Include guidelines on the placement of the audio logo if it is to be incorporated into other musical works, for consistent application across a variety of media (a.k.a. create an audio brand standard manual)
8. Do not use naked samples as a distinguishing feature (i.e., don't use stock sounds: create your own. Or modify samples so that they uniquely identify the product, service or experience –and/or brand attributes– you've chosen to translate into sound)
9. Do not quote the musical/sonic work of another (living) person (Be original)
10. Do not use lengthy phrases or complex harmonies as it reduces the instant recognition a logo demands (you're designing logo, not composing a song cycle, so keep it under five seconds long)

* * *

OK, you don't want to make this your audio bible, but I think there's something to be learned from this little exercise.

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Like this topic? Related Articles from the Critical Noise Archive:

It's a Cut and Paste World (October 07, 2007)
Six Requirements for Sonic Logos (August 10, 2007)
When Marketers HEAR Double (December 01, 2006)

Do Jingles Work?

Do Jingles Work?

In July's Business-Standard, Seema Sindhu asked Indian advertisers if Jingles work (Do signature tunes for brands work?)

The power of the jingle is not just immediate aural stimulation –ear candy– but it's ability to continue stimulating the inner workings of our minds long after the commercial has ended and even after we've turned the television or radio off. In this respect, a good jingle can be measured by it's potential to work as Ear Worm, i.e. little tunes that get stuck in your mind.

The Wikipedia definition of Ear Worm provides us with this amusing example:

A Calvin And Hobbes strip had Calvin's dad getting up from an armchair and pausing vacantly, before asking his wife, "Why is it that I can recall a cigarette ad jingle from 25 years ago, but I can't remember what I just got up to do?"

Good jingles have such infectious melodies that they bounce around our brain and even drive us a bit mad. Even when we think we've finally purged them from memory, they emerge as we stroll down the supermarket aisle or whenever we consider a purchase.

I for one can't buy a 7-Up without thinking that "It's an Up thing".

Kudos to Mary Wood of Frisbie Music and Clifford Lane for managing to make the same indelible impression on my brain (with that 1996 jingle) as Bach and the Beatles.

Sindhu writes that jingles are making a comeback with South Asian companies like Bajaj, Titan, Kingfisher, Nirma and Airtel –all of whom he notes are using their old jingles in new campaigns.

The difference between today, and say, the mid twentieth century –arguably the golden age for jingles (and pop music in general)– is as Prasoon Joshi, executive chairman (India) and regional executive creative director (Asia Pacific), McCann-Erickson, says:

"Today, the entertainment quotient in life has gone up. TV, films, online, ringtones, the options are endless. The shelf life of a campaign or an ad has gone down. The ‘melodious' tune, be it in films or ads, which takes its time to gently make way to your heart is a rarity for these reasons."
When jingles do make an impression though, it's not simply because their melodies are memorable, but because they serve to deliver products and services which we actually find useful in our lives.

Bobby Pawar, chief creative officer, Mudra group, says:

"Audio signatures, such as Titan's Mozart score or Airtel's tune composed by AR Rahman..." don't just sing the virtues of their respective products, but are "...also driven by a strong idea..."

Whatever you think of jingles –and some people write them off as cheesy artifacts that have no place in contemporary advertising– jingles continue to have enormous potential as tools to cultivate relationships between brands and consumers.

–Not to mention between Bands and Fans: What's a ringtone anyway, but a jingle for a recording artist's hit single, or even their entire catalog?

It may seem we hear little of jingles these days, but the truth is they never went away. More often than not, advertisers get them ready made from pop stars, in the way of licensed tracks, instead of commissioning wholly new tunes from composers.

A lot of creative people on both sides of the arrangement think this trend is mutually beneficial, and it can be. There's nothing wrong with providing new revenue streams for bands –or brands.

The downside is strictly for those who compartmentalize the arts as either Fine or Commercial. Any marriage of media diminishes the power of its component parts, often transforming any isolated visual into a 'frame' and any song into, quite simply, well, a jingle.