The Artistic Legitimacy of Electronic Music

Rap collective Wu Tang Clan made pop music history the other day by winning the right to license a sample from the Beatles. This event precipitated an argument in online music industry forum, the Velvet Rope, which pitched music production traditionalists against electronic musicians regarding the artistic legitimacy of modern production techniques.

Essentially the question is this:

Is music created by electronic means as legitimate as that which is created by traditional means?

It seems like a straightforward enough question, but given the relatively short history of recording itself, I was only able to arrive at a definition of ‘traditional means’ after some thought. And it’s quite an unwieldy definition, but here it goes:

Traditional Means of Music Production: Performed by live musicians expertly interpreting a previously written musical composition, whether together or one at a time, at the direction of a dedicated Producer, Engineer and/or Creative Director, which is then recorded in a multi-track environment; and its component elements modified, mixed and prepared for radio, broadcast or other distribution so that the resulting composite recording is simultaneously experienced upon playback as both a precise document of that moment in time, and as the best and most definitive performance possible of the composition in question by the artist/s performing it.

Contrast this process with the philosophy that defines ‘modern electronic music production’:

Modern electronic music production accepts that all sound sources –music, machine, noise, environmental sound, conversation and even prerecorded sounds– constitute viable elemental material for the experimental collage and composition into audio works, and that such resulting works are in fact musical in nature.

The irony of the contrasting definitions is that the latter methodology, in the form of musique concrète, wasn’t an afterthought but born nearly simultaneously alongside traditional means of music production. By this I mean the development of musique concrète occurred at roughly the same time as reel-to reel recording gained popularity. By this perspective so-called modern production isn’t so much traditional music production’s younger sibling as it is its fraternal twin.

That said, let us say that traditional musicianship, composition, arranging, theory, engineering/audio production are unique and expansive fields of study such that any one will consume one’s entire energies in order for a person to master it to one’s fullest potential. This has been demonstrated to substantial effect countless times.

By that standard, an electronic musician, being one whose craftsmanship draws from across all these skill sets, cannot possibly master them all, or even just one if he or she attempts to continue a cursory study of each. Therefore, the syllabus of an electronic musician results not in a virtuoso but produces a musical generalist.

This is by no means such a bad thing:

Walk into any modern music production facility and you’ll invariably find a musical jack-of-all-trades playing all the instruments of a composition he or she composed, arranged and/or programmed; dropping in samples and sound effects; directing other various musicians, singers and sound designers; producing a broadcast ready arrangement work. The result may sound like an experimental electronic music band one day, or it may sound like a jazz ensemble, classical orchestra or hip-hop track the next.

One might further note that any performance, no matter how traditional, –how live or alive– once transformed into an electrical current by pickup or microphone becomes ‘electronic music’.

This last point is exceptionally demonstrated by African band Konono N°1, founded over 25 years ago and who play traditional instruments through a handmade sound system –built from old car parts, megaphones and discarded amps (!). Each band member’s individual performance is traditional, but the effect of the collective amplified performance –as it spills out of the speakers– is a distorted, distressed Pan Africa Post Modern sound that is deeply infectious and absolutely electronic.

Follow this train of thought long enough and one invariably loses one's mooring regarding what is and isn't traditional; what is and isn't modern; what is and isn't electronic. In fact, come to think of it:

Isn't all music, once conducted through a pick up or microphone, electronic?

Sound Byte: Singing Dunes, Seismic Sands and Dirt that Goes Boom

Bedouin, desert dwellers, sand surfers and those just passing through –like Marco Polo– have heard the eerie phenomenon of shifting sands. In National Geographic’s Why Sand Dunes Go Boom, Stefan Lovgren writes:

"Tribes of the Sahara in Africa are said to have thought God was speaking to them through the sand."

As it happens, there are several theories revolving the source of the sound, God simply being the earliest documented conjecture. A 1954 hypothesis suggests the effect is achieved by the production of electrical currents by quartz grains under mechanical stress. –Sort of like a pick up on a classical guitar, I'd like to imagine, whether true or false.

Modern theories were aggregated in a September 1997 Scientific American article Sound-Producing Sand Avalanches. In that article Paul Sholtz, Michael Bretz and Franco Nori ( Department of Physics, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) provide an ‘Analysis of the theories and experiments done so far on sound-producing (e.g., roaring, booming) sand avalanches’. The authors begin with an encapsulated history of the topic:

"There exist two distinct types of sand that are known to produce manifest acoustic emissions when sheared. The more common of the two, known colloquially as "squeaking" or "whistling" sand, produces a short (< 1/4 sec), high-frequency (500-2500 Hz) "squeak" when sheared or compressed. It is fairly common in occurrence, and can be found at numerous beaches, lake shores and riverbeds around the world. The other, rarer type of sound-producing sand occurs principally in large, isolated dunes deep in the desert (Nori et al.,1996; Criswell et al., 1975). The loud, low-frequency (typically 50-300 Hz) acoustic output of this "booming" sand, resultant upon avalanching, has been the subject of desert folklore and legend for centuries."

Even more esoteric:

"Marco Polo (1295) wrote of evil desert spirits which "at times fill the air with the sounds of all kinds of musical instruments, and also of drums and the clash of arms." References can be found dating as far back as the Arabian Nights (Carus-Wilson, 1915), and as recently as the science fiction classic Dune (Herbert, 1984). Charles Darwin (1889) also makes mention of it in his classic Voyages of the Beagle . At least 31 desert and back-beach booming dunes have been located in North and South America, Africa, Asia, the Arabian Peninsula and the Hawaiian Islands (Lindsay et al., 1976; Miwa and Okazaki, 1995).

Sharply contrasting differences between squeaking and booming sands have led to a consensus that although both types of sand produce manifest acoustic emissions, their respective sounding mechanisms must be substantially different. More recent laboratory production of "squeaks" in booming sand (Haff, 1979) has nonetheless suggested a closer connection between the two mechanisms. A satisfactory explanation for either type of acoustic activity is still unavailable."

Even a decade later, in Matthew Chalmers' November 2006 Physics World article, The Troubled Song of the Sand Dunes, we learn the basic question of what makes the sand sing still hasn’t been answered. Chalmers writes of a researcher, Stéphane Douady, having to ‘trawl’ through the scientific literature in order to come up with a meager 10 papers relating the acoustic emission of sand dunes:

"But despite some articles also predicting that the sound comes from the relative motion of sand grains, none offered a convincing explanation of how this happens…Singing dunes, he thought, were the result of air being pushed in and out between the synchronized grains… effectively turning it into the membrane of a powerful loudspeaker."

Douady’s idea was supported by an observation that sand only sings when sand layers above a certain thickness slide over one another.

"This, he reasoned, means that the sound must arise from a resonance within the shear layer itself, whereby grains bump over each other at the same frequency and set up standing waves that, in turn, synchronize the grains."

But Douady’s equally passionate colleague, Bruno Andreotti, looked at the same evidence and arrived at quite different conclusion:

"...the collisions between grains excite waves outside the shear layer on the dune surface that then synchronize the collisions via a mechanism called wave–particle locking."

And lets just say Andreotti backed up his argument with a bit o’ math.

Returning to National Geographic’s Lovgren, that author offers us yet another take on subject: While scientists have long believed the friction between surface grains of sand avalanching produces the sonic phenomenon, Melany Hunt, a mechanical-engineering professor at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, noticed that dunes continue to sound even after surface movement has stopped, and that such sounds differs depending on the season.

So what gives?

Hunt postulates that the sometimes musical frequencies of moving sand are created when "the friction between sand grains creates a noise that reverberates back and forth between dry sand on the surface and wet sand below."

Knowing this, it is difficult not to feel a bit of irony when rereading the 1997 Scientific American article. Note of the authors' early observation:

"Booming and squeaking sands each show a markedly different response to water exposure. Booming occurs best when the grains are very dry, preferably several weeks after the last rain. Small amounts of atmospheric humidity, which creates a fluid surface coating on the grains, effectively preclude booming emissions in these desert sands (Lewis, 1936). Even mixing as little as five drops of water into a 1-liter bag full of booming sand can silence the acoustic emissions (Haff, 1979). Similarly, squeaking sand that is visibly moist is not acoustically active either.

However, sound is most easily produced from squeaking sand immediately after the grains have been "washed" in water and subsequently dried. It is not clear whether this is due to the washing away of fine impurities in the sample (Brown et al., 1961) or to the creation of a looser, more natural grain packing (Clarke, 1973), although it may explain why squeaking sand typically does not extend inland more than 30 m from the shore (Richardson, 1919). This process of cleaning can also "revive" squeaking sand that has lost its ability to squeak, a condition that often occurs after repeated compression (Hashimoto, 1951). Finally, squeaking sand can emit sound even when completely submerged in water (Lindsay et al., 1976; Brown et al., 1961), suggesting that intergranular cohesion in moist sand precludes acoustic output."

Ah, so close and yet so far: They must be kicking themselves! If Hunt is correct, it’s not that the sound is connected to the relative cleanliness of the sand, but rather to the water that sits beneath it.

I am not a scientist, of course, but as this discussion appears to be an ongoing one, I won't rule out the possibility that some combination of all the above theories is at play. Wouldn't many like think that IT IS God's voice heard in the sand?

*

Click the link to listen to an impressive sample of Seismic Sounds, recorded by John N. Louie, Associate Director, Nevada Seismological Laboratory.

Stéphane Douady and Bruno Andreotti, both, have also created their own respective great pages to hear dune sounds–

Stéphane Douady: Chant des Dunes
Bruno Andreotti: Morphodynamics Lab The Song of Dunes

Six Requirements for Sonic Logos

According to his company's website:

"Steff Geissbuhler is among America’s most celebrated designers of integrated brand and corporate identity programs. His work for a broad spectrum of international and national clients includes identity systems for Merck, Time Warner Cable, NBC, Telemundo, Voice of America, Toledo Museum of Art, National Parks of New York Harbor, Crane & Co. and the May Department Stores Company. Prior to forming C&G Partners, he was a partner and principal at Chermayeff & Geismar Inc. for 30 years".

I agree with Geissbuhler when he suggests during a presentation at the HOW Conference in Atlanta, that:

“A successful mark is informed by a deep strategic understanding and is deliberately designed to provide a distinctive, memorable and appropriate visual expression of the organization it represents.”

Geissbuhler’s breaks logo requirements down into six main categories.

Each category can also be applied to Sonic Branding and Audio Identity assignments (perhaps change #2, 'Legible' to 'Articulate' or 'Clear', in order to more fully relate to audio expression).

1. Appropriate
2. Legible
3. Memorable
4. Flexible
5. Consistent
6. Lasting

To my mind, Geissbuhler only falls short when neglecting to also add that a great logo also requires acceptance (by audience/consumer/user). Maybe he does so elsewhere. Personally, I'm of the opinion that a logo doesn't actually become BRANDING until it becomes an accepted currency by consumers. –Meaning that ideogram or audiogram becomes synonymous with company, product or service.

For instance: Consider what it must take to coin a word for a heretofore-unarticulated concept. It's not enough to point out the necessity of the concept, or to even come up with the actual neologism. You must also create a word that other people will agree to use.

In other words, the word/symbol has to circulate.

Regardless, Geissbuhler gives good advice, and members of the creative class engaged in sonic branding, sound identity and audio mnemonics –be they music designers or brand analysts– would ignore it at their own peril.

Sound Byte: Tonal Rain Falling From Cathedral Space

I would not say it was a religious trip, but when I first visited St. John the Divine, in 1991, I was blessed to be present for a profound acoustic experience. As soon as I entered the Cathedral I noticed an oddly beautiful music drifting through the sanctuary. As I made my way from the back of the nave, I naturally assumed my visit coincided with an experimental rehearsal of some kind.

The music emanated from an unseen location near the altar. It was certainly chromatic, even microtonal, and I could not decide if I was listening to a harp or sitar. Either way, it did not strike me as dissonant.

The melody of the unknown artist moved in un-metered fashion, which is to say, it had no particular rhythm or tempo.

It was New Age but not naive.
It was complex without being overly intellectual.
Fractal-sounding motifs simply floated in the background, like a gentle tonal rain.

Its effect on me was absolutely transcendent. Needless to say, I couldn’t wait to find the source of this incredibly different music.

When I finally I arrived, I stepped upon the altar, and I discovered:

A man tuning a piano.

Guided by the tuner's ears, each awkward tone echoed over the next, until the sum created a constant blanket of sound waves whose only connection with each other, was that each represented an approximate step closer to what you and I think of as being ‘in tune’.

It occurred to me then, as it does so now, that we who live in a post modern age, where musicians often play through computers and effects; where jets and media enable both physical and virtual travel to cultures quite distinct form our own… perhaps now even the public's ears are so open that there really is no longer a distinction between sound and music, but rather –to paraphrase French composer Edgard Varèse– between sound that is well organized and sound that is not.

Sacred Jazz Modern Jazz

If one had attended the Ascension Ceremony for Alice Coltrane at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, in New York City last night, and unwittingly entered that sacred space head filled with boy bands, pop tarts or rock stars; then the performances by Rashied Ali, Ravi Coltrane, Jack DeJohnette, Charlie Haden and Cecil McBee, among others, would have turned your head off its axis, emptied it of crap and filled it up again with soul-satisfying inspiration.

Actual performances aside, I found it intensely interesting to experience jazz music in a Cathedral space –or what ever that thing is that Alice Coltrane called her uniquely styled be bop. As it happens, the music producer in me never turns off his ears.

Sound engineers and music professionals perceive large floor spaces, tall ceilings and hard surfaces as problematic, because such architecture causes sound to reverberate, and therefore reduces intelligibility. Contemporary music in particular –where every voice pursues a discrete sonic thread, and perhaps even dances along to its own polyrhythm– suffers greatly from reverberation produced distortion. (Assuming one is of the opinion that such music is not inherently made that way, either by intent or error).

That said, composers who write for such venues must necessarily compensate for echoing enclosures. It is no coincidence that music written specifically for church, such as chants and hymns, work as well as it does. That is because those who conceived such music take into account the particular acoustic issues presented by the architecture, and may actually rely on the space’s natural ability to produce reverberations.

Our modern or popular equivalent is the stadium, or sports arena. These spaces also present the same problem to both musicians and listeners. However, as with faith-based composers, popular artists have learned to create music that plays especially well in such venues. Rock bands like U2 certainly bear stadia acoustics in mind when constructing their songs. When the reverberant energy produced by The Edge’s guitar returns from the bleachers, it seems as much a part of the original composition as the source information, so perfectly does it fit within the music’s made-for-stadia form.

However, those who write with smaller or less reverberant venues in mind, might be disconcerted when hearing each note or phrase of their work return corrupted by repeating audible echoes slamming back a moment later from far off parallel walls.

Perhaps some at Alice Coltrane’s memorial service, performers and audience alike, thought as much, too.

However, though the delayed and repeating echoes may have proved problematic for others, they did not spoil the performance for me, but just the opposite. Rather, I heard music contoured by a greatly interesting aural effect. It struck me then that a musician playing in a church may as well be playing through the church, if you can think of the space as an effects unit of mammoth proportions, and if one is talented enough to understand what material works in such a space.

The result was that the distorted echoes of each musical phrase returned off the walls to layer, and therefore accompany, every musician's evolving performance, so that a Rashied Ali drum fill, a Charlie Haden motif or a Coltrane sax passage –to serve as various examples– echoed over an evolving score, and seemingly in time, as if one rhythm or phrase were being consciously looped over another.

This was different, I thought, this music in this setting, hearing it with open ears: and yet, not so different, because the net sonic result so closely resembled the way contemporary music is often made today –with layers and loops, artfully or oddly processed as the case may be.

All of which is to say, this be bop may be old hat to some – but last night, far removed from its usual setting of velvet lined dives around the world, jazz transformed by the mysterious acoustics of St. John the Divine suddenly sounded very new, very modern and very much alive.

And it may be that Alice Coltrane will always deliver us a revelation.


alice coltrane

Jazz is Dead! Jazz is Dead! Long Live Jazz!

Jazz is dead, Jazz is dead –you’ve no doubt heard some Jazz cat wail, sounding him or herself like a tired saxophone bleating out one last broken note for the night.

At first I think I agree with these cats: After all I’ve been repeating the same lament ever since I first sat down for harmony tutorials with Bill Dixon twenty years ago.

But now that I think about it, I realize I have to ask myself: Just what sort of Jazz is it that I expect should hold more appeal for the masses? After all, that which is Jazz contains by its very definition not only popular entries from the Great American Songbook but the seemingly Schoenberg inspired tone and rhythm agnostic interpretations of Free Jazz.

Between the two extremes of Melody and Soundscape lay a great variety of creators and interpreters. To name a few (in no particular order): Scott Joplin, Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, Django Reinhardt, Tito Puentes, Joao Gilberto, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday, Art Tatum, Thelonius Monk, Frank Sinatra, Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Joe Zawinul, Steve Coleman, Art Blakey, Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett, Wynton Marsalis – each and all quite unlike the other.

When I re-read the liner notes of my own Jazz collection I‘m almost inclined to think bassist Ron Carter is the common denominator that holds the whole Jazz genre together. A living Rosetta Stone of Jazz history –or half of it, anyway.

But isn’t it ironic that a medium that demands its practitioners constantly think out the box is constantly under threat by its own fans arguing what can or can’t wear the Authentic Jazz label?

Granted, some styles have fallen out of popular favor, but others appear more vibrant than ever. Take for instance cabaret, which today has an international audience and graces the world’s grandest symphony stages. As of this writing, Ann Hampton Callaway is booked two years in advance. Is she on Top 40 Radio? No, but Top 40 is –by definition– vacuous bubblegum: Chew on it for a little while, enjoy it, and then spit it out. Hey, some Jazz cats don't even consider cabaret a Jazz idiom. No surprise then that some cabaret artists consider all the other stuff noise.

Maybe the idea that Jazz is dead has a more than a bit to do with the idea that the very concept is in a constant state of metamorphosis, or that such a disparate group of people claim ownership to the world.  But lamenting Jazz’s absence on Top 40 is like asking why Jazz can’t be as brilliantly disposable as its pop brethren. And lamenting it's absence from our culture is just wrong. It's everywhere, but whether or not any given person recognizes all it's manifestations as true, as pure, as the real thing, well, that's another story.

I consider myself fortunate to have been asked to produce any number of recordings for national TV and Radio commercials in the Jazz genre. I like to say: Stick three Jazz musicians in a room, stand back and watch the roof blow off. Even if the end result in my case is only thirty seconds created to enhance film footage of a sports car, that’s still proof positive that even Madison Avenue thinks the genre holds enough general appeal as to influence the purchasing power of a significant portion of consumers. Or more to the point: Jazz has a lot of appeal. And Jazz sells, even if it can't sell itself.

For most of my career, I produced music for the advertising business, but for the last two years I’ve worked on the marketing side of the music business. Based on my own experience, I can testify that while Jazz may not be the pop music of our times, it is undeniably alive and living large at more Jazz festivals around the world than any genre deserves. Maybe Jazz doesn't play in stadiums because Jazz fans prefer not to muddle a great musical experience with the poor acoustics of sports venues.

Not to mention that Jazz musicians regularly play stages to appreciative audiences –not just in bars and clubs– but also in symphony halls, theaters, and even on dedicated Jazz Cruises, of all places. There is no place ships sail that Jazz can’t be heard, even if only because it turns out, the cruise has likely booked a band. Oh, that’s easy for a cynic to disparage of course, until you realize the sheer world-class quality of musicians who are actually getting these jobs.

Get paid to play piano while sailing the Caribbean? My friend, that’s not a bad gig.

Nevertheless, many Jazz musicians old enough to recall what the sixties sounded like will tell you that Jazz stopped evolving then, but I disagree. Listen to a sampling of what Americans call ‘World Music’ and you’ll realize that Jazz harmony has taken up with nearly every indigenous music from around the world. Jazz isn’t stuck in time: Like any living creature, Jazz has mated, and I have to believe that the new millennium promises interesting progeny from the union.

Furthermore, while some argue the dismal state of music’s place in American schools, America’s colleges and conservatories are giving the young musicians who do make it to their ivory towers an education in Jazz. Notable Jazz musicians, like Robin Eubanks, who teach as well as record and perform will tell you that their classes are filled with enough amazing Jazz heads to keep every American household swinging for another generation.

Jazz is has also wound its way back into popular culture via Hip Hop. More players are experimenting with loops, beats, digital music production and audio technology. What was called Acid Jazz in the nineties has acquired a significant audience under the genre label 'Chill'. Chill doesn’t require a charismatic band leader to work a show, just a DJ to work a solo over a loop. In today’s iPod culture, that may be just fine, –and just enough to provide a decent living to those who make Jazz their livelihood.

So, is Jazz dead? Now that I think about it, I’m inclined to think that Jazz isn’t dead at all, but just the opposite: Jazz is alive and it is everywhere.

It's All the Silent Rave

I'm intrigued by the idea of Silent Raves. In some instances, everyone listens to the same music broadcast to wireless headphones. But at other seemingly similar parties, each participant instead shows up with their own iPods and personal playlists in tow.

This former rave is both a party and a public service (for the neighbors), but the latter speaks volumes to the power of individually selected music: The members of this tribe may share the same dance space, but they certainly aren't dancing together, at least not to the same unified beat.

I wonder if raves of this sort can reach the same ecstatic highs as the former often do, if its participants aren't experiencing the same musically induced emotional ride at precisely the same time, the way a deft DJ can coax simultaneous and shared joy from a crowd thousands.

Individuality and personal branding are important elements in today's modern media centric society, but we also miss something if the singular intention to bask in the reverberations of our own message makes communication with others impossible, or even irrelevant.

Time and The New York Times

In Natalie Angier’s January 23rd article, Making Sense of Time, Earthbound and Otherwise (©2007 New York Times, Science), she writes:

"The long and short of the universe is just that, almost exclusively long and short, with the hyperclipped quantum clickings of the atom on one end and the chasmic lollygags and foot drags of the greater cosmos on the other."

Human rhythms she reminds us, are bound by the simple coincidence that we are born on a tilted planet, one which takes 24 hours to make one revolution around itself, and 365 revolutions to turn around the sun.

So, it appears the rhythm of life falls into place like a jazz fan tapping his foot to a cosmic pulse.

"Every cell of the human body pulses to a circadian beat, sucking in glucose, squirting out hormones, building up fresh proteins and breaking down stale ones, all in predictable swells and troughs throughout the day,” Angier continues, "–a rhythmicity that may help explain why we love music but still does not explain the lingering popularity of Bachman-Turner Overdrive."

I picture aliens on Mercury taking a week off from work every eighty-eight days, in order to celebrate the Winter Solstice with gifts, and sing in a New Year.

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.

Happy 2007 Update – About Critical Noise

Happy New Year!

–Or if you've arrived to this post via a search query–

Welcome.

So, what's this blog all about?

CRITICAL NOISE is about SOUND in all its many facets–

–From natural phenomena to sonic branding and other musicological topics. And as it can be heard in the ecology, our educational institutions, entertainment, industry, advertising and everything in between.

This blog is not a personal dairy, nor do I even think of it as about me, so much as it's about my experience with sound. I do keep a professional journal but I don't use it to write about the sometimes esoteric topics presented here. Critical Noise is like the op ed section of a newspaper that only reports about sound.

I attempt to post one article a month, up to 3000 words per article (they do get long). I may post an article in its entirety initially, but then later break it up into a bite size installments before archiving, if only to test the patience of those who do stumble here from search engines.

And few people want to read a 3000 word think-piece on the relationship between early childhood development and bird song as much as I may want to publish it. But if you are one of those people, you've come to the right place (Aural Intelligence ).

None of the articles published here are time sensitive, although some links may naturally expire. If you love the subject of sound, you'll equally enjoy my most recent entry as you will something I posted several years ago.

Want to get started? You can start at the top and work your way backwards but I suggest you head over to the index and sort entries by tag or subject.

So, who am I to assume such an interest or fair degree of expertise in these topics?

My name is Terry O'Gara. (A select list of clients and accounts can also be found listed in the left margin).

Beginning in 1991 I've made a living producing commercial music, sound design and sonic branding projects. And since 2003 I've provided brand and image marketing solutions, in the capacity of a creative consultant, to independent artists, artist management and creative entrepreneurs doing business in the advertising and entertainment industries. Interested parties are welcome to contact me via email to the address listed in the left hand margin.

Along the way I've been fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to produce, direct audio or otherwise contribute to a fair number of projects that went on to be recognized by the Advertising Entertainment Complex and international design community. So, yes, I've got a few awards. Earning them was once important to me. I only mention them now by way of providing readers with credentials.

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

* I was a key member of the first team of music supervisors supported by a commercial music house.
* I was a senior producer on the first Olympic music library delivered with Meta tags and a digital database.
* I was one of three internal supervisors/ producers that created that first Meta tagged music library –pre iTunes.
* I was the senior producer for the first commercial music company to offer product ‘sonification’; and in this capacity I produced –or was part of a team that produced– sonification assets for AT&T and TeleTV, an early interactive Television platform.

I was also the senior producer for the first company to produce corporate audio identity systems, where I became the key architect of standard operating procedures for production at what turned out to be the first U.S. bi-coastal music production house and the leading sonic branding enterprise of its time.

Additionally, I was an early adopter of pre Protools computer technology as a musical instrument and recording tool; and co-founded the first dedicated interactive music production house that catered to Silicon Alley. Blister Media was the first music company to provide music, sound design and code as a standard service. Mix Magazine, in their Interactive Audio supplement suggested Blister Media's hybrid practices were a portent to ‘The Future of Music Production’. And as such, Blister Media was the first music house to provide such services for Sync-To-Broadcast events/experiences, such as for MTV's webRIOT.

I've also produced sonic identity and music imaging promo packages for ABC, CBS, Disney, E!, ESPN, Fox, HBO, MTV, TBS, TNT, TNT Asia, The Comedy Channel, PBS, VH1 and not to mention TV and Radio projects for many household brands.

The best part of it simply was –and is– the opportunity to work with other uniquely talented and creative people in the earnest attempt to create remarkable advertising, accessible information and maximized entertainment entertainment experiences.

And so much the better if we burn a blazing trail while doing it.

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THE MUSIC PRODUCER'S SYLLABUS

Young people (or the simply curious) interested on just exactly what a commercial music producer is and does on daily basis are invited to read a number of articles I've composed explaining as much and collected under the the series title:

The Music Producer's Syllabus

Academic Institutions and persons are of course invited to print, distribute and expand on The Music Producer's Syllabus for limited educational purposes. Kindly credit and notify the author via email, and provide a trackback or originating URL.

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I hope you enjoy reading Critical Noise.

Comments are invited.

Spread the knowledge.



Terry O'Gara


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(This article last updated January, 2009)