Lately I've been working with artist management to re-brand several websites. The dilemma is always: Should music start immediately when the index page opens? Or should it be muted, and the listener given the option of turning music on?
Personally, I think if you're in the business of sound, you can't be shy about making a big noise.
On the other hand, we've all experienced websites which we find annoying precisely because A) We find the sound unbearable, or B) The sound on the site is too loud and interferes with work, our own music player, or the sound coming from a website open in another Tab or Page, or C) Every click of the mouse yields redundant audible feedback.
Websites that immediately sound out when the home page opens can provoke a negative reaction. Unwanted voicing, repeated sound bytes, can all leave the audience/ user/ consumer with the impression that the brand itself is annoying.
HOWEVER:
There is a difference between an artist's or musician's website and a utilitarian corporate website, say. FANS. Fans visit artist websites. And fans come predisposed to hearing their favorite artist sing, ping and ringtone all the way home.
Sonic Branding (and skillfully produced, genre appropriate scoring) produces exceptional results on TV and Radio, and in film, because much like the fan visiting an artist website, the audience arrives predisposed to surrender their senses to the experience.
Conversely, most users don't consume websites quite the same way they do TV. We don't arrive 'predisposed to surrender' our senses, except for artist or dedicated entertainment sites. I think that point is key.
Prior great moments in sonic history aside, modern Sonic Branding has been effective since NBC first created the NBC chimes in 1931 or so.
What marketers still haven't completely figured out, however, is when branded sound is the most effective communication tool, and when to leave well enough alone.
It would be utterly fantastic, I think, and uniquely honest, if upon review of a project and subsequent brand analysis, you went back to your client and reported:
"Hey, the graphics is doing a great job in this area, so we don't think you need to introduce sound here in order to effectively communicate with your customers."
But I'm not holding my breath.
In fact, nothing cuts through the cutter like an effective graphic, and nothing adds more to chaos than ineffective or unnecessary sound.
Sometimes it's best to leave it UNBRANDED.
* * *
By the way: Windows Vista users can mute their browsers (or any individual running application). Visit the Windows Vista Team Blog to learn more or find out how.
Just want to mute Flash movies? Einar Otto Stangvik has created Flashmute, a custom app for Windows users which, "will disable or enable sound output globally from Flash movies".
Mac users can install Firefox and add on Adblock, which is a partial solution. Alternately, on his own blog, Arve Bersvendsen suggests Mac addicts browse with Opera, which offers a global plugin shutdown by simply pressing the F12 key.
* * *
Click any link below to read all the articles in the six-part July 2008 UNBRANDED series detailing the relationship between Effective Sonic Branding and Black Noise (Silence):
TO BRAND OR NOT TO BRAND?
That is the Question.
Part 1: Non Branding For The Best Branders
Part 2: Sonic Branding or Silent Branding?
Part 3: Websites and Sonic Branding
Part 4: The Sonification of Everything
Part 5: Silence Please, for the Soundtracks of Our Lives
Part 6: Black Noise Branding
Monday, July 07, 2008
Friday, July 04, 2008
Sonic Branding or Silent Branding?
In the skirmish to package every experience with sound, from corporate messaging to personal ringtones, sometimes it's good to remember that the relative absence of sound, what we think of as SILENCE, can still be quite effective.
There's a reason why the saying is 'Silence is Golden' and not 'Chaos R Us'.
Even those who make a living in Sonic Branding would do well to heed its message. It's not enough to say 'We are Masters of Sound'. First convince your client you know where and when sound can be effective, and where and when you should leave well enough alone.
A library provides us with an obvious example of a space best left alone:
In a library we don't appreciate a cell phone going off in the history stacks. We all agree it is better to allow room tone to fill the vacuum, therefore creating a sense of QUIET. We certainly don't want the Library administration to feel compelled to brand each section with a unique hum (Just follow the cellos to Biology... –although, wow, I can imagine how that could possibly work).
A movie theater provides us with an example of when it's best to mute our personal branding so that other sound can be heard clearly and enjoyed by all.
Engaging sonic branding can both be a positive expression and produce a positive impression –that's what we hope it does– provided the context in which it is delivered suitable for sound, which is equally important to the equation, if it is to be effective.
What I mean by that is not whether the asset or environment is inherently suitable for sound, although that is a factor, but is the asset or environment a suitable platform for delivering your message?
If it is, then the next step is defining what that message is and how sound can effectively be used to deliver it, or be used as to attract audiences/users/consumers to a platform where they can learn more about a given product, service or experience.
This of course assumes the client clearly understands what they want to convey. Sometimes they don't know. Sometimes they need an analyst to tell them.
And sometimes someone simply needs to make a decision one way or the other.
* * *
Click any link below to read all the articles in the six-part July 2008 UNBRANDED series detailing the relationship between Effective Sonic Branding and Black Noise (Silence):
TO BRAND OR NOT TO BRAND?
That is the Question.
Part 1: Non Branding For The Best Branders
Part 2: Sonic Branding or Silent Branding?
Part 3: Websites and Sonic Branding
Part 4: The Sonification of Everything
Part 5: Silence Please, for the Soundtracks of Our Lives
Part 6: Black Noise Branding
There's a reason why the saying is 'Silence is Golden' and not 'Chaos R Us'.
Even those who make a living in Sonic Branding would do well to heed its message. It's not enough to say 'We are Masters of Sound'. First convince your client you know where and when sound can be effective, and where and when you should leave well enough alone.
A library provides us with an obvious example of a space best left alone:
In a library we don't appreciate a cell phone going off in the history stacks. We all agree it is better to allow room tone to fill the vacuum, therefore creating a sense of QUIET. We certainly don't want the Library administration to feel compelled to brand each section with a unique hum (Just follow the cellos to Biology... –although, wow, I can imagine how that could possibly work).
A movie theater provides us with an example of when it's best to mute our personal branding so that other sound can be heard clearly and enjoyed by all.
Engaging sonic branding can both be a positive expression and produce a positive impression –that's what we hope it does– provided the context in which it is delivered suitable for sound, which is equally important to the equation, if it is to be effective.
What I mean by that is not whether the asset or environment is inherently suitable for sound, although that is a factor, but is the asset or environment a suitable platform for delivering your message?
If it is, then the next step is defining what that message is and how sound can effectively be used to deliver it, or be used as to attract audiences/users/consumers to a platform where they can learn more about a given product, service or experience.
This of course assumes the client clearly understands what they want to convey. Sometimes they don't know. Sometimes they need an analyst to tell them.
And sometimes someone simply needs to make a decision one way or the other.
* * *
Click any link below to read all the articles in the six-part July 2008 UNBRANDED series detailing the relationship between Effective Sonic Branding and Black Noise (Silence):
TO BRAND OR NOT TO BRAND?
That is the Question.
Part 1: Non Branding For The Best Branders
Part 2: Sonic Branding or Silent Branding?
Part 3: Websites and Sonic Branding
Part 4: The Sonification of Everything
Part 5: Silence Please, for the Soundtracks of Our Lives
Part 6: Black Noise Branding
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Non Branding For The Best Branders
Sometimes it seems to me like the best branders in the world either can't or won't brand themselves.Back when I was Head of Production for what was then the leading US music house, the Promo Open that kicked off our presentation reel was left entirely silent, although fully animated with live footage and graphics.
Can you imagine? Beginning a demo reel for a music production company with maybe ten, fifteen or even twenty seconds of silence?
The reasons for this were several:
POLITICS: Of the several in-house composers, management couldn't decide whom to reward with the assignment of providing a sound score for the open.
Conversely, one had to to take into account the feelings of the unselected composers who would certainly feel formally rejected if their own work remain unused for the task. You can't have a bunch of angry, depressed composers walking around, although in retrospect it might have been like that anyway.
There was also the question of BRANDING:
We fulfilled sonic branding assignments so well for others, but we were at a loss for how to brand ourselves (with sound). Just what were we supposed to sound like? What sonic identifier or fanfare should herald our unique presence in the brand universe?
We never quite figured it out.
Of course that didn't stop us from being a successful enterprise!
In the intervening years I've noticed that other dedicated branding companies sometimes share the same quandry.
For instance, look at the screenshot above which depicts websites (circa Summer 2008) constructed for Interbrand, Landor and Wolff Olins.
All three creative solution providers independently arrived at the same white board semiotic/strategy popularized by Google.
Although no sonics involved, each site, as delivered by these creative heavy hitters, opens with something akin to visual silence!
It may make sense in a bald barber sort of way, and I speak as one with a bald barber:
Best Haircut in the World.
* * *
Click any link below to read all the articles in the six-part July 2008 UNBRANDED series detailing the relationship between Effective Sonic Branding and Black Noise (Silence):
TO BRAND OR NOT TO BRAND?
That is the Question.
Part 1: Non Branding For The Best Branders
Part 2: Sonic Branding or Silent Branding?
Part 3: Websites and Sonic Branding
Part 4: The Sonification of Everything
Part 5: Silence Please, for the Soundtracks of Our Lives
Part 6: Black Noise Branding
Monday, June 09, 2008
Sound Solutions for Commuter Spaces
Manhattan's vast system of subway tunnels and platforms provides many great opportunities for sound, but not always or particularly in the area of information delivery.
But while the notorious reverb that is inherent in those cavernous, underground commuter spaces muddles official communications, it conversely provides us with often inspiring performance space acoustics (if one can otherwise ignore all the other distractions that define such an environment, i.e. platform shaking, 80-decibel trains thundering by us).
This circumstance strikes me as somewhat ironic, too, because in no other equivalent modern space have architects quite so flagrantly rejected any and all methods to tame the arguable problem of interior echoes.
Even concert halls known for reverberant spaces are outfitted with acoustic tiles.
Which is to say: Nothing man-made escapes his control, so why should a subway platform be any different?
Cathedrals and temples take another approach: Their inhabitants communicate whether by speech or music in terms that over the years all agree work with the space. The best church music, for instance, is composed with such reverberations in mind. The most inspiring sermons use a call and response that posit soloist with chorus, a model perhaps learned from the Greeks who employed it in their theatre.
Would call and response work for a transit alert? No, of course not. But one thing we can certainly take away from Medieval chant is the fact they were slow moving, allowing for complete comprehension of lyrical data before returning echoes collided with new incoming information.
Indeed, the many cathedral-like spaces within the subway network offer actively reverberant spaces for the many artists who do perform there, both officially and unofficially.
For those readers who are not New Yorkers, the Manhattan Transit Authority (MTA) has since 1985 hosted an ongoing Artist series called MUSIC UNDER NEW YORK (MUNY). According to the MUNY website, more than 100 soloists and groups are participating in the 2008 program, "providing over 150 weekly performances at 25 locations throughout the transit system."
And it was via the MUNY series that I first stumbled on Daphne Hellman and her group Hellman's Angels, playing the main concourse at Grand Central Terminal. Daphne played jazz and blues on an eighty-five pound gilded classical harp. Not only was it some of the most amazing blues I've heard, it re-framed my perception of the harp, and Daphne and her band felt born of the space.
But does anyone know if the MTA simply gives performers space and time, or have the powers that be ever commissioned music inspired directly by transit? When and if they do, the main concourse at Grand Central Terminal would make a fantastic hall for the work's debut.
However, perfect performance spaces don't always make perfect communication spaces. Reverberations essentially render transit alert announcements unintelligible. The result is often frustrating for commuters.
In one sense then, the Manhattan Transit Authority does indeed already possess a Sonic Brand:
For some, the sound of the the MTA is conveyed differently by each artist sponsored by the MUNY project. It is not then any one song that conveys the MTA brand, but the mere fact of song (in what are otherwise caves), which does so.
But I think most strap hangers would say any message is more often than not rudely squelched every time the PA system delivers a burst of incomprehensible noise. And that in fact, it is the squelch itself that is closer to signifying the MTA brand with sound (that and the squeal of a braking train, the two often overlaying one another in something that resembles caterwauling unison).
What if we can get beyond that problem, though?
At that point, –if the MTA were to actually commission a Sonic Brand asset– the resulting sound would no doubt have to deliver a message of safety, timeliness and confidence or authority. Funnily enough, I actually think a variation of the squealing brakes would work, but it would have to be re-sculpted from ear drum piercing to something that conjures up, say, a shooting star or a comet.
However, Commuter Transit and Information Delivery go hand in hand. We live in an age of small networks. We are inspired not just in how to get from point A to point B, but how to do so efficiently, not to mention economically and ecologically.
Obviously at this juncture, it would be premature to commission an aural image campaign, because any such message would land on the city's collective commuter ears with a dull, inauthentic thud.
Who believes the subway travel is safe? Timely? Comfortable? Efficient?
On the other hand, trains do provide a more or less economical and ecological method of transport relative to individuals in cars or trucks. So, one might very well commission a campaign that ignores the common complaints and announces our client's strength's and positives:
Commuter transit by rail: It's cheap and it's green.
I think we all agree, though, it behooves the MTA to first find a way to address the aforementioned issues, the problem of noise inclusive.
We don't just want to get there on time, or on the cheap. We want our trains to be clean and quiet. And we want important announcements regarding travel conditions to arrive on our ears in full comprehensible clarity.
Anything short of that lacks modernity and feels ancient. Time moves forward. Trains move forward. Our expectations move forward.
So, addressing issues related to sound only:
In the near field, the MTA needs to find a way to quash reverberations –albeit only in designated places– so that commuters can always be certain they can receive clear communication regarding the status of their commute.
Far field, the next commission of trains ought to be designed so that they provide a quieter experience for both passengers en transit and for those waiting on the platforms, whose ears are on the other end of an approaching train.
If and when the MTA can accomplish these two things, then the subsequent marketing campaign heralding the acoustic accomplishment might do well to include a Tonal ID or some other scalable construction born from the study of both sound and semiotics that delivers this message, in order that the client might reinforce –and commuters might acknowledge– the old model has faded out, and a new one has taken its place, one that is efficient, economical and ecological and evolved.
The Tonal ID would also prove a valuable asset for any broadcast advertising strategy, and possibly be conceived so as to be integral experiential asset to the information delivery itself.
One beautifully conceived sound to replace many random, often annoying sounds.
In the meantime, the MTA might consider delivering transit update announcements using communication means that are known to work in reverberant spaces.
Maybe it's time to bring on the yodelers!
But while the notorious reverb that is inherent in those cavernous, underground commuter spaces muddles official communications, it conversely provides us with often inspiring performance space acoustics (if one can otherwise ignore all the other distractions that define such an environment, i.e. platform shaking, 80-decibel trains thundering by us).
This circumstance strikes me as somewhat ironic, too, because in no other equivalent modern space have architects quite so flagrantly rejected any and all methods to tame the arguable problem of interior echoes.
Even concert halls known for reverberant spaces are outfitted with acoustic tiles.
Which is to say: Nothing man-made escapes his control, so why should a subway platform be any different?
Cathedrals and temples take another approach: Their inhabitants communicate whether by speech or music in terms that over the years all agree work with the space. The best church music, for instance, is composed with such reverberations in mind. The most inspiring sermons use a call and response that posit soloist with chorus, a model perhaps learned from the Greeks who employed it in their theatre.
Would call and response work for a transit alert? No, of course not. But one thing we can certainly take away from Medieval chant is the fact they were slow moving, allowing for complete comprehension of lyrical data before returning echoes collided with new incoming information.
Indeed, the many cathedral-like spaces within the subway network offer actively reverberant spaces for the many artists who do perform there, both officially and unofficially.
For those readers who are not New Yorkers, the Manhattan Transit Authority (MTA) has since 1985 hosted an ongoing Artist series called MUSIC UNDER NEW YORK (MUNY). According to the MUNY website, more than 100 soloists and groups are participating in the 2008 program, "providing over 150 weekly performances at 25 locations throughout the transit system."
And it was via the MUNY series that I first stumbled on Daphne Hellman and her group Hellman's Angels, playing the main concourse at Grand Central Terminal. Daphne played jazz and blues on an eighty-five pound gilded classical harp. Not only was it some of the most amazing blues I've heard, it re-framed my perception of the harp, and Daphne and her band felt born of the space.
But does anyone know if the MTA simply gives performers space and time, or have the powers that be ever commissioned music inspired directly by transit? When and if they do, the main concourse at Grand Central Terminal would make a fantastic hall for the work's debut.
However, perfect performance spaces don't always make perfect communication spaces. Reverberations essentially render transit alert announcements unintelligible. The result is often frustrating for commuters.
In one sense then, the Manhattan Transit Authority does indeed already possess a Sonic Brand:
For some, the sound of the the MTA is conveyed differently by each artist sponsored by the MUNY project. It is not then any one song that conveys the MTA brand, but the mere fact of song (in what are otherwise caves), which does so.
But I think most strap hangers would say any message is more often than not rudely squelched every time the PA system delivers a burst of incomprehensible noise. And that in fact, it is the squelch itself that is closer to signifying the MTA brand with sound (that and the squeal of a braking train, the two often overlaying one another in something that resembles caterwauling unison).
What if we can get beyond that problem, though?
At that point, –if the MTA were to actually commission a Sonic Brand asset– the resulting sound would no doubt have to deliver a message of safety, timeliness and confidence or authority. Funnily enough, I actually think a variation of the squealing brakes would work, but it would have to be re-sculpted from ear drum piercing to something that conjures up, say, a shooting star or a comet.
However, Commuter Transit and Information Delivery go hand in hand. We live in an age of small networks. We are inspired not just in how to get from point A to point B, but how to do so efficiently, not to mention economically and ecologically.
Obviously at this juncture, it would be premature to commission an aural image campaign, because any such message would land on the city's collective commuter ears with a dull, inauthentic thud.
Who believes the subway travel is safe? Timely? Comfortable? Efficient?
On the other hand, trains do provide a more or less economical and ecological method of transport relative to individuals in cars or trucks. So, one might very well commission a campaign that ignores the common complaints and announces our client's strength's and positives:
Commuter transit by rail: It's cheap and it's green.
I think we all agree, though, it behooves the MTA to first find a way to address the aforementioned issues, the problem of noise inclusive.
We don't just want to get there on time, or on the cheap. We want our trains to be clean and quiet. And we want important announcements regarding travel conditions to arrive on our ears in full comprehensible clarity.
Anything short of that lacks modernity and feels ancient. Time moves forward. Trains move forward. Our expectations move forward.
So, addressing issues related to sound only:
In the near field, the MTA needs to find a way to quash reverberations –albeit only in designated places– so that commuters can always be certain they can receive clear communication regarding the status of their commute.
Far field, the next commission of trains ought to be designed so that they provide a quieter experience for both passengers en transit and for those waiting on the platforms, whose ears are on the other end of an approaching train.
If and when the MTA can accomplish these two things, then the subsequent marketing campaign heralding the acoustic accomplishment might do well to include a Tonal ID or some other scalable construction born from the study of both sound and semiotics that delivers this message, in order that the client might reinforce –and commuters might acknowledge– the old model has faded out, and a new one has taken its place, one that is efficient, economical and ecological and evolved.
The Tonal ID would also prove a valuable asset for any broadcast advertising strategy, and possibly be conceived so as to be integral experiential asset to the information delivery itself.
One beautifully conceived sound to replace many random, often annoying sounds.
In the meantime, the MTA might consider delivering transit update announcements using communication means that are known to work in reverberant spaces.
Maybe it's time to bring on the yodelers!
Sunday, June 01, 2008
The Soho Grand – Lifestyle Branding with Music
In 1996, one of my favorite hotels, New York City's Soho Grand, opened its doors billing itself as "the first hotel to arrive in Soho in more than a century".
William Sofield's interior décor presented weary travelers and local executives alike with a suitably hip refuge from urban chaos. But otherwise the new hotel could hardly be described as a harboring a 'scene' –or a 'sound' for that matter.
In fact, a definitive part of the lobby's appeal, apart from its plush sofas and speedy table service, was that no matter what time of day or night one arrived, the space was relatively absent of all sound, save the murmur of conversation. Being that the Soho Grand was located in 'the city that never sleeps', it was therefore not unusual to find executives continuing a long day at the office with a casual meeting afterward at the hotel's lobby (over cocktails of course), before going home at ten or eleven PM.
But then, at the turn of the millennium, an abrupt shift in strategy:
Now, I don't know if management at the Soho Grand suddenly wanted to move more alcohol and at a faster pace, or if they just wanted to fill the lobby up with beautiful people. More than likely they –like many others– decided to experiment with a trend begun by the Hôtel Costes in Europe.
Stéphane Pompougnac, Hôtel Costes' house DJ explained to the New York Times in a 2005 article titled, Never Mind the Concierge, Where's the D.J.?:
"A lot of famous people, like Robert DeNiro, Madonna and French artists came to see me, to tell me they liked my music," Mr. Pompougnac said. "So I asked my boss to make a compilation CD, just like a present, for the clients of the hotel."
They did, and in 1997 a virtual industry was born out it.
In a 2001 New York Observer article, hotelier Ian Schrager explains what happened after that:
"The Hôtel Costes did a CD which was No. 3 in France... So it made everybody interested in doing it.”
Regardless, whether the initiative was made independently of Pompougnac's success, the decision by the Soho Grand to inject music into its own marketing strategy appears to have proved a good one.
Not only did music serve to create a new New York scene, it also fueled the transformation of the Soho Grand from a hotel downtown into a Downtown Hotel –a substantial differentiation point for the brand.
Eight years later the Soho Grand hosts a series of CDs, of which at least two titles appear to have been created in collaboration with 5 POINTS. 5 POINTS itself is an example of a how to do business running parallel to the music industry, and possibly reinventing it as you go.
From the 5 POINTS website:
"Grand Life Soho and Grand Life Tribeca are the first and second installments in 5 POINTS' Grand Life series, soundtracks to New York's cutting edge, trend setting glitteratti! Under the creative direction of Tommy Saleh, the hotel/underground music venues Soho Grand and Tribeca Grand have been key in launching the careers of The Rapture, Peaches and the Kaiser Chiefs. These compilations, created for and distributed exclusively at the Soho and Tribeca Grand hotels in New York, showcase the underground acts that will be hot tomorrow."
On the Soho Grand's own lifestyle blog, GrandLife, one learns that:
"In addition to the Tribeca and Soho Grand Compilations, we also have a selection of the following cd's in our guests' rooms where guests can simply listen to during their stay or if they like they can purchase the cd to take back home."
In fact there are at least eight titles available for purchase at a premium price of $20 per unit. Arguably that price reflects the fact that customers are buying a lifestyle souvenir as much as they are buying a given disc because of a specific track on it. If that's the case, the marketers have done their jobs well, and the artists featured on the discs can enjoy a new stream of income that simply didn't exist until relatively recently.
Unfortunately, you can't please everyone:
If you followed the link for the Ian Schrager quote you would have found that it came from an article by Elisabeth Franck who disparages the trend in an article titled 'Worst French Import Since Brie: Bad Ambient Music in Chic Hotels'.
It maybe that Ms. Franck (or her editor) felt some empathy for the displaced executives who can no longer rely on the lobbies of boutique hotels to provide a quiet respite from the New York noise.
To Ms. Franck's point, the music strategy executed by the Soho Grand was never supposed to turn the lobby into a disco. In that same New York Observer article, Tommy Saleh, director of industry relations at the Soho Grand and Tribeca Grand in 2001, and 5 POINTS lead, explains the vibe was conceived as being more like "...a sound you want to sit down and have a cocktail to: not boring, but not intrusive."
I haven't been to the Hôtel Costes, but I have been a customer of the Soho Grand brand since it opened over a decade ago. Based my own visits to the hotel, it's not the music that's 'intrusive' –if you're seeking an oasis from chaos– as much as it is the few hundred hipsters that have shown up to listen to it.
The funny thing is that if you asked anyone today what exactly brands the space, I don't think they would put music at the very top of the list, even though music arguably initiated a seismic shift in brand perception for the hotel beginning circa 2001.
In fact, I think music wouldn't even appear until after decor , which certainly would have been first when the hotel launched. Today, I think many would suggest the hotel's branding is a reflection of the PEOPLE who inhabit the space –with little realization that MUSIC is what actually brought many of those people in through the front doors in the first place.
* * *
Visit the Soho Grand's GrandLife blog to check out the current crew of resident DJs –among them, one of my favorites: DJ Jaclyn Marinese
William Sofield's interior décor presented weary travelers and local executives alike with a suitably hip refuge from urban chaos. But otherwise the new hotel could hardly be described as a harboring a 'scene' –or a 'sound' for that matter.
In fact, a definitive part of the lobby's appeal, apart from its plush sofas and speedy table service, was that no matter what time of day or night one arrived, the space was relatively absent of all sound, save the murmur of conversation. Being that the Soho Grand was located in 'the city that never sleeps', it was therefore not unusual to find executives continuing a long day at the office with a casual meeting afterward at the hotel's lobby (over cocktails of course), before going home at ten or eleven PM.
But then, at the turn of the millennium, an abrupt shift in strategy:
Now, I don't know if management at the Soho Grand suddenly wanted to move more alcohol and at a faster pace, or if they just wanted to fill the lobby up with beautiful people. More than likely they –like many others– decided to experiment with a trend begun by the Hôtel Costes in Europe.
Stéphane Pompougnac, Hôtel Costes' house DJ explained to the New York Times in a 2005 article titled, Never Mind the Concierge, Where's the D.J.?:
"A lot of famous people, like Robert DeNiro, Madonna and French artists came to see me, to tell me they liked my music," Mr. Pompougnac said. "So I asked my boss to make a compilation CD, just like a present, for the clients of the hotel."
They did, and in 1997 a virtual industry was born out it.
In a 2001 New York Observer article, hotelier Ian Schrager explains what happened after that:
"The Hôtel Costes did a CD which was No. 3 in France... So it made everybody interested in doing it.”
Regardless, whether the initiative was made independently of Pompougnac's success, the decision by the Soho Grand to inject music into its own marketing strategy appears to have proved a good one.
Not only did music serve to create a new New York scene, it also fueled the transformation of the Soho Grand from a hotel downtown into a Downtown Hotel –a substantial differentiation point for the brand.
Eight years later the Soho Grand hosts a series of CDs, of which at least two titles appear to have been created in collaboration with 5 POINTS. 5 POINTS itself is an example of a how to do business running parallel to the music industry, and possibly reinventing it as you go.
From the 5 POINTS website:
"Grand Life Soho and Grand Life Tribeca are the first and second installments in 5 POINTS' Grand Life series, soundtracks to New York's cutting edge, trend setting glitteratti! Under the creative direction of Tommy Saleh, the hotel/underground music venues Soho Grand and Tribeca Grand have been key in launching the careers of The Rapture, Peaches and the Kaiser Chiefs. These compilations, created for and distributed exclusively at the Soho and Tribeca Grand hotels in New York, showcase the underground acts that will be hot tomorrow."
On the Soho Grand's own lifestyle blog, GrandLife, one learns that:
"In addition to the Tribeca and Soho Grand Compilations, we also have a selection of the following cd's in our guests' rooms where guests can simply listen to during their stay or if they like they can purchase the cd to take back home."
In fact there are at least eight titles available for purchase at a premium price of $20 per unit. Arguably that price reflects the fact that customers are buying a lifestyle souvenir as much as they are buying a given disc because of a specific track on it. If that's the case, the marketers have done their jobs well, and the artists featured on the discs can enjoy a new stream of income that simply didn't exist until relatively recently.
Unfortunately, you can't please everyone:
If you followed the link for the Ian Schrager quote you would have found that it came from an article by Elisabeth Franck who disparages the trend in an article titled 'Worst French Import Since Brie: Bad Ambient Music in Chic Hotels'.
It maybe that Ms. Franck (or her editor) felt some empathy for the displaced executives who can no longer rely on the lobbies of boutique hotels to provide a quiet respite from the New York noise.
To Ms. Franck's point, the music strategy executed by the Soho Grand was never supposed to turn the lobby into a disco. In that same New York Observer article, Tommy Saleh, director of industry relations at the Soho Grand and Tribeca Grand in 2001, and 5 POINTS lead, explains the vibe was conceived as being more like "...a sound you want to sit down and have a cocktail to: not boring, but not intrusive."
I haven't been to the Hôtel Costes, but I have been a customer of the Soho Grand brand since it opened over a decade ago. Based my own visits to the hotel, it's not the music that's 'intrusive' –if you're seeking an oasis from chaos– as much as it is the few hundred hipsters that have shown up to listen to it.
The funny thing is that if you asked anyone today what exactly brands the space, I don't think they would put music at the very top of the list, even though music arguably initiated a seismic shift in brand perception for the hotel beginning circa 2001.
In fact, I think music wouldn't even appear until after decor , which certainly would have been first when the hotel launched. Today, I think many would suggest the hotel's branding is a reflection of the PEOPLE who inhabit the space –with little realization that MUSIC is what actually brought many of those people in through the front doors in the first place.
* * *
Visit the Soho Grand's GrandLife blog to check out the current crew of resident DJs –among them, one of my favorites: DJ Jaclyn Marinese
Saturday, May 03, 2008
Evolution of the Music Designer
Click on any link below to read all the articles in the six-part series detailing the changing relationship between Traditional Music Composition and Modern Music Production:
EVOLUTION OF THE MUSIC DESIGNER
Part 1: Top Down, Center Out and Bottoms Up
Part 2: Top Down Music Composition
Part 3: Bottom Up Audio Production
Part 4: Film Composer, Sound Maker or Music Designer?
Part 5: Songwriter Vs. Song Designer
Part 6: Music By Design
EVOLUTION OF THE MUSIC DESIGNER
Part 1: Top Down, Center Out and Bottoms Up
Part 2: Top Down Music Composition
Part 3: Bottom Up Audio Production
Part 4: Film Composer, Sound Maker or Music Designer?
Part 5: Songwriter Vs. Song Designer
Part 6: Music By Design
Friday, May 02, 2008
Songwriter Vs. Song Designer
A bit of cursory observation and experience has left me with the impression that in the last ten or fifteen years or so, we’ve heard more ‘Bottom Up’ construction from Music Designers producing non-scored works, than we might have realized, and by that I mean the songwriting process has given way to the Song Designing process.
If you're unfamiliar with the Top Down Bottom Up MUSIC DESIGN processes I've described in earlier posts, click on any of the links that follow this article for the necessary background.
In brief:
Bottom up constructions are marked by the establishment of TIME and RHYTHM before melody.
Likewise, any time a riff, incomplete melodic information ('complete' implies an entire phrase), or a pitch based sample is used as the conceptual seed from which a music production will evolve, we can say the work is being designed Center Out.
In contrast, Top Down composition is marked by melody (combined with lyrics, in the case of songwriting) first. In the Top Down process melody is defined first, after which all the other musical components are conceived in so far as melody defines their natural selection and direction.
Additionally, when music is conceived in the studio, and built from a loop up, with melody and lyric being afterthoughts to production, it strikes me that this music hasn't been composed at all. Rather, it's been designed.
Multiple points in case: Simpy consider the method by which much modern popular music –electronic, hiphop, dance, commercial pop, contemporary rock, etc– is created:
Fire up a graphic interface. Begin with a beat. Layer loops. Add a pad. Slice, dice and connect samples whose origin may be sourced from anything. The melody might not even become cohesive element until the moment the lyrics are written, sung and pitch corrected. –Or until the ‘right’ sample has been found, licensed and dropped into a the perfectly beat matched production. In fact, melody might be an after thought, or even an accident. You might even forgo the license. In fact, you probably will.
Anytime you're building a song up from a GRID, you're engaged in the act of design.
Of course, it’s not as simple as all that, –as both Top Forty Hit makers and Garage Band aficionados will rush to tell you. But I still think there is some truth to the suggestion that the described process may as well be the paradigm, and I wonder how long it will serve us? –Or when will a new technology come along that suggests yet another way of working?
There are still those who sit down with their musical instrument and create new musical works, performing melody and harmony –and even original lyrics, too– all at once, as though born whole from divine ether.
But in my daily professional experience –working with ad agencies, game developers, theme parks and other special venues, etc– most commissioned music today is designed rather than composed. That is to say, in the same manner a sound designer collages audio –layering sound bytes on top of other sound bytes, and from the bottom up and center out. How can it be otherwise when –on top of everything else– so much of it is also now informed by a Brand message or mandate; reviewed during its development by a collaborative hierarchy of other creative professionals; filtered through focus groups; and created for intended release to a target demographic?
Which brings to mind another defining point contrasting designed audio from composed music: Notwithstanding the licensing of non-designed compositions, Music Design –including Song Designs, generally imply conception for a functional or Utilitarian purpose. Whether conceived as part of an entertainment or marketing strategy –Use or User centered– is of little difference.
Of course, art springs from many sources and no judgment regarding any given process is implied. The author draws inspiration from all the techniques discussed here.
* * *
Click on any link below to read all the articles in the six-part series detailing the changing relationship between Traditional Music Composition and Modern Music Production:
EVOLUTION OF THE MUSIC DESIGNER
Part 1: Top Down, Center Out and Bottoms Up
Part 2: Top Down Music Composition
Part 3: Bottom Up Audio Production
Part 4: Film Composer, Sound Maker or Music Designer?
Part 5: Songwriter Vs. Song Designer
Part 6: Music By Design
If you're unfamiliar with the Top Down Bottom Up MUSIC DESIGN processes I've described in earlier posts, click on any of the links that follow this article for the necessary background.
In brief:
Bottom up constructions are marked by the establishment of TIME and RHYTHM before melody.
Likewise, any time a riff, incomplete melodic information ('complete' implies an entire phrase), or a pitch based sample is used as the conceptual seed from which a music production will evolve, we can say the work is being designed Center Out.
In contrast, Top Down composition is marked by melody (combined with lyrics, in the case of songwriting) first. In the Top Down process melody is defined first, after which all the other musical components are conceived in so far as melody defines their natural selection and direction.
Additionally, when music is conceived in the studio, and built from a loop up, with melody and lyric being afterthoughts to production, it strikes me that this music hasn't been composed at all. Rather, it's been designed.
Multiple points in case: Simpy consider the method by which much modern popular music –electronic, hiphop, dance, commercial pop, contemporary rock, etc– is created:
Fire up a graphic interface. Begin with a beat. Layer loops. Add a pad. Slice, dice and connect samples whose origin may be sourced from anything. The melody might not even become cohesive element until the moment the lyrics are written, sung and pitch corrected. –Or until the ‘right’ sample has been found, licensed and dropped into a the perfectly beat matched production. In fact, melody might be an after thought, or even an accident. You might even forgo the license. In fact, you probably will.
Anytime you're building a song up from a GRID, you're engaged in the act of design.
Of course, it’s not as simple as all that, –as both Top Forty Hit makers and Garage Band aficionados will rush to tell you. But I still think there is some truth to the suggestion that the described process may as well be the paradigm, and I wonder how long it will serve us? –Or when will a new technology come along that suggests yet another way of working?
There are still those who sit down with their musical instrument and create new musical works, performing melody and harmony –and even original lyrics, too– all at once, as though born whole from divine ether.
But in my daily professional experience –working with ad agencies, game developers, theme parks and other special venues, etc– most commissioned music today is designed rather than composed. That is to say, in the same manner a sound designer collages audio –layering sound bytes on top of other sound bytes, and from the bottom up and center out. How can it be otherwise when –on top of everything else– so much of it is also now informed by a Brand message or mandate; reviewed during its development by a collaborative hierarchy of other creative professionals; filtered through focus groups; and created for intended release to a target demographic?
Which brings to mind another defining point contrasting designed audio from composed music: Notwithstanding the licensing of non-designed compositions, Music Design –including Song Designs, generally imply conception for a functional or Utilitarian purpose. Whether conceived as part of an entertainment or marketing strategy –Use or User centered– is of little difference.
Of course, art springs from many sources and no judgment regarding any given process is implied. The author draws inspiration from all the techniques discussed here.
* * *
Click on any link below to read all the articles in the six-part series detailing the changing relationship between Traditional Music Composition and Modern Music Production:
EVOLUTION OF THE MUSIC DESIGNER
Part 1: Top Down, Center Out and Bottoms Up
Part 2: Top Down Music Composition
Part 3: Bottom Up Audio Production
Part 4: Film Composer, Sound Maker or Music Designer?
Part 5: Songwriter Vs. Song Designer
Part 6: Music By Design
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Film Composer, Sound Maker or Music Designer?
Some musical creators will naturally identify themselves as either Top Down composers or Bottom Up constructionists –both are terms I've introduced in previous posts (Click on the links at the bottom of this entry if you require background). The latter, it seems to me, must think more like sound designers than traditional composers.
In fact, the more I think about it, the fewer differences I notice between the modern compositional process and Sound Design (or sound EFX work).
I would like to suggest that this points to an as of yet unidentified trend:
A new kind of sonic artisan has evolved among us. It's as though the lizard has sprouted wings, and its scales turned to beautiful feathers, and we have only now realized that a transformation has taken place because instead of crawling in the muck, something new soars above us along the horizon, and the thing has taken flight.
So what is this new creature, anyway?
This newly emerged commercial sound artist is neither music composer nor EFX artist, but both those things and much more.
There is but a shade of difference here, nevertheless I think important to take note of it: I do not mean that he or she simply possesses a combined skill set, or that they are adept at mixing music and noise together in mix. That in and of itself would be unremarkable.
What I mean is that this newly formed modern audio professional approaches music and noise (and speech for that matter) as equally available sound sources and viable tonal information colors for any given audio work. There is no differentiation in kinds of sound, simply a palette whose spectrum extends to ranges of human hearing.
Sure, there have been composers before, and tape manipulators, and location recordists, and sound EFX artists, and beat makers, and engineers –but we've been looking at those respective skill sets as separate from one another. Fast Forward to the present and we noticed that these unique specialties, have become combined into a more or less unified, well informed, competent, new breed of audio professional.
I call this person by the hybrid label: 'MUSIC DESIGNER'.
A cursory web search will turn up several individuals who already embrace this nomenclature. For instance: Brian Williams, Robert Rich and Dhrubajit Gogoi.
I believe the term itself, 'Music Design', must have been coined sometime in the first part of the twentieth century, and from someone within the film community. In his book 'Film Music: A Neglected Art', first published in 1972, and with a 2nd edition in 1991, Roy M. Prendergast mentions technological advances in sound production initiated by music editing company that called itself 'The Music Design Group'. And then there is, of course, Soundelux Design Music Group, founded in 1985, meaning the appellation is at the very least now a quarter century old.
But today, as of this writing, the term 'AUDIO DESIGNER' appears to be much more common, especially as a designation in the Game industry.
I understand how 'Audio' might be chosen instead of 'Music'. It suggests a neutral term which embraces both music and sound design. However, there's nothing in the label Audio Designer to suggest musicianship. A job description listed on the THQ job site even assures applicants: "Understanding of Music and composition is an advantage but is not required".
Personally I think 'Audio Designer' is a fancy name for 'engineer', and otherwise misses the evolutionary mark. That's why I prefer the Music Designer designation over Audio Designer, given the context which I use it: My intent is to define a multifaceted musician who composes musical experiences using all sound, not describe an engineer who assembles the disparate sonic elements of a media production into a final mix.
You're welcome to come up with a niftier name, or to argue the practice is old hat in Hollywood. My point is not to create a new job title for you, but simply to identify and codify elements of an emerging trend. And this trend may be defined as the acceptance of a range of post production skills and techniques by even the conventional composer.
You already know people like this. Perhaps you are one of them. I'm inclined to think that if you read this blog with any regularity, you probably are. If you produce sound using raw code, MAX, soft synths and a Digital Audio Workstation, consider yourself enlisted. If you think of an electric guitar as less a musical instrument and more of a sound design tool, you absolutely fall into this category. Likewise, if you're one of those sound explorers who run a traditional instrument through a series of dynamic software filters –the way Robin Eubanks often does using Native Instruments Guitar Rig– in order expand tonal range well beyond the natural limitations of his trombone.
For a Music Designer, the actual instrument of tonal or sonic manipulation is considered incidental. That's because any instrument may be transformed by the addition of technology into an interface capable of sonic colors beyond its traditional or intended use, with the result being that any instrument can sound like any other instrument (and a whole lot more).
The distinction between musician and sound designer is blurring –has blurred–, while at the same time the distinction between composer and engineer, not to mention Graphic designer (which I'll discuss in a future article (MUSIC BY DESIGN)), also appears to be merging.
The final result of a Music Designer's work maybe but doesn't have to be described as audio collage or merely an interesting organization of sound. Rather, it works in such a way that it begs an informed audience to simply accept what they hear as MUSIC, whatever its components or sonic origins.
* * *
Click on any link below to read all the articles in the six-part series detailing the changing relationship between Traditional Music Composition and Modern Music Production:
EVOLUTION OF THE MUSIC DESIGNER
Part 1: Top Down, Center Out and Bottoms Up
Part 2: Top Down Music Composition
Part 3: Bottom Up Audio Production
Part 4: Film Composer, Sound Maker or Music Designer?
Part 5: Songwriter Vs. Song Designer
Part 6: Music By Design
In fact, the more I think about it, the fewer differences I notice between the modern compositional process and Sound Design (or sound EFX work).
I would like to suggest that this points to an as of yet unidentified trend:
A new kind of sonic artisan has evolved among us. It's as though the lizard has sprouted wings, and its scales turned to beautiful feathers, and we have only now realized that a transformation has taken place because instead of crawling in the muck, something new soars above us along the horizon, and the thing has taken flight.
So what is this new creature, anyway?
This newly emerged commercial sound artist is neither music composer nor EFX artist, but both those things and much more.
There is but a shade of difference here, nevertheless I think important to take note of it: I do not mean that he or she simply possesses a combined skill set, or that they are adept at mixing music and noise together in mix. That in and of itself would be unremarkable.
What I mean is that this newly formed modern audio professional approaches music and noise (and speech for that matter) as equally available sound sources and viable tonal information colors for any given audio work. There is no differentiation in kinds of sound, simply a palette whose spectrum extends to ranges of human hearing.
Sure, there have been composers before, and tape manipulators, and location recordists, and sound EFX artists, and beat makers, and engineers –but we've been looking at those respective skill sets as separate from one another. Fast Forward to the present and we noticed that these unique specialties, have become combined into a more or less unified, well informed, competent, new breed of audio professional.
I call this person by the hybrid label: 'MUSIC DESIGNER'.
A cursory web search will turn up several individuals who already embrace this nomenclature. For instance: Brian Williams, Robert Rich and Dhrubajit Gogoi.
I believe the term itself, 'Music Design', must have been coined sometime in the first part of the twentieth century, and from someone within the film community. In his book 'Film Music: A Neglected Art', first published in 1972, and with a 2nd edition in 1991, Roy M. Prendergast mentions technological advances in sound production initiated by music editing company that called itself 'The Music Design Group'. And then there is, of course, Soundelux Design Music Group, founded in 1985, meaning the appellation is at the very least now a quarter century old.
But today, as of this writing, the term 'AUDIO DESIGNER' appears to be much more common, especially as a designation in the Game industry.
I understand how 'Audio' might be chosen instead of 'Music'. It suggests a neutral term which embraces both music and sound design. However, there's nothing in the label Audio Designer to suggest musicianship. A job description listed on the THQ job site even assures applicants: "Understanding of Music and composition is an advantage but is not required".
Personally I think 'Audio Designer' is a fancy name for 'engineer', and otherwise misses the evolutionary mark. That's why I prefer the Music Designer designation over Audio Designer, given the context which I use it: My intent is to define a multifaceted musician who composes musical experiences using all sound, not describe an engineer who assembles the disparate sonic elements of a media production into a final mix.
You're welcome to come up with a niftier name, or to argue the practice is old hat in Hollywood. My point is not to create a new job title for you, but simply to identify and codify elements of an emerging trend. And this trend may be defined as the acceptance of a range of post production skills and techniques by even the conventional composer.
You already know people like this. Perhaps you are one of them. I'm inclined to think that if you read this blog with any regularity, you probably are. If you produce sound using raw code, MAX, soft synths and a Digital Audio Workstation, consider yourself enlisted. If you think of an electric guitar as less a musical instrument and more of a sound design tool, you absolutely fall into this category. Likewise, if you're one of those sound explorers who run a traditional instrument through a series of dynamic software filters –the way Robin Eubanks often does using Native Instruments Guitar Rig– in order expand tonal range well beyond the natural limitations of his trombone.
For a Music Designer, the actual instrument of tonal or sonic manipulation is considered incidental. That's because any instrument may be transformed by the addition of technology into an interface capable of sonic colors beyond its traditional or intended use, with the result being that any instrument can sound like any other instrument (and a whole lot more).
The distinction between musician and sound designer is blurring –has blurred–, while at the same time the distinction between composer and engineer, not to mention Graphic designer (which I'll discuss in a future article (MUSIC BY DESIGN)), also appears to be merging.
The final result of a Music Designer's work maybe but doesn't have to be described as audio collage or merely an interesting organization of sound. Rather, it works in such a way that it begs an informed audience to simply accept what they hear as MUSIC, whatever its components or sonic origins.
* * *
Click on any link below to read all the articles in the six-part series detailing the changing relationship between Traditional Music Composition and Modern Music Production:
EVOLUTION OF THE MUSIC DESIGNER
Part 1: Top Down, Center Out and Bottoms Up
Part 2: Top Down Music Composition
Part 3: Bottom Up Audio Production
Part 4: Film Composer, Sound Maker or Music Designer?
Part 5: Songwriter Vs. Song Designer
Part 6: Music By Design
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Bottom Up Audio Production
In a previous article I proposed that Top-down and Bottom-up Design approaches common to software development might also be applied to modern music composition and production.
This article expands on the concept of Bottom up Music Design.
If you're not familiar with the term, Wikipedia defines Bottom-up Design as follows:
"A bottom-up approach is piecing together systems to give rise to grander systems, thus making the original systems sub-systems of the emergent system. In a bottom-up approach the individual base elements of the system are first specified in great detail. These elements are then linked together to form larger subsystems, which then in turn are linked, sometimes in many levels, until a complete top-level system is formed".
In my experience as a producer of music, sound design and sonic branding for a variety of media:
Scoring to moving picture, whether to video or game, often requires a ‘Bottom Up’ construction rather than the Top Down process I've previously described as typical of traditional composition.
A final score may feel as though it in fact drives picture, or one may feel runs a perfect aural parallel with picture, but let us return to its inception. Scored music is created as reaction to events on screen –i.e. the pacing of the edit, and then the content itself, be it visible action or simmering emotion.
Setting pre-scores aside, many composers (when presented with moving picture) begin composing a score by finding a click track that works with the edit. That is, edits will thereafter occur on a click. To a uniformed eye, it looks as though the cuts or edits react to the click. If the editor cut to a temp track, then the composer will almost always match their click to the temp track. in any case, the natural result is a PULSE.
Bottom Up Design and Production is marked by a process whereby TIME and RHYTHM are established before MELODY and HARMONY.
Thus once a click has been created, the Bottom Up designer will as often as not, start by adding and layering RHYTHM parts. In my experience many contemporary video and game composers begin with one or more loops, all beat matched so as to move in sync with each other, the click and the picture.
Some composers might add a bass ‘line’ at this juncture, but most will first jump up the pitch range and indicate a simple harmony, usually in the way of a string pad or guitar rhythm. Only after sketching out the harmony, will they then drop back down the staff in order to add an appropriate bass part.
Only then, when the resulting rhythm bed and accompaniment are in place, will our Bottom Up Constructionist composer consider the melodic needs of the work.
Therefore, in Bottom Up Design, Melody is born out of Harmony and locked to Groove, which is not so unusual when one considers improvisation of any sort, but generally alien to the Top Down Composition process described in a previously.
In an improvised work, a melodic idea might kick off a jam, but new and alternate themes may soon enough evolve based on tonal information delivered via harmony, with the potential of spinning off in every direction.
Without melody, our improvisational jam is simply an extended groove or vamp, a musical bed but arguably not a wholly conceived composition. Add melody and we essentially introduce or enhance story or possibly provide (nonverbal) commentary. We can think of small sound bytes that deliver musical memes as Ear Candy, bursting with potential and exciting our senses with the promise of something else to come.
Ear Candy events are often created as musical cues to visual information, and a series of such events can give form to an apparent theme. And really, unless we are producing main titles or end credits, that might be all we need to satisfy the task of scoring a given scene or cut.
Once a Bottom Design has been established, a composer/designer can use the results as a sort of audio graph paper, a grid, upon which he may know change his process to layer Top Down (or even Center Out) information on it, further enhancing the material or modifying accompaniment to accommodate thematic development, if it’s warranted.
So when I describe ‘Bottom Up’ Audio Design or Construction, I mean a musical work composed in the following manner: Pulse, Beat, Rhythm as the first frame of reference followed by a layering of sonic assets, usually in the following order: Harmony, Musical cues, Theme.
Top Down composition, in direct contrast, evolves in the opposite direction. In Top Down Composition our conceptual seed is the establishment of a complete melody, which then implies harmony and rhythm –i.e., Melody maps out everything.
Practically speaking, I tend to compose Top Down, improvise Center Out and produce from the Bottom Up. Sounds hilarious out of context, I know, but that's how I orient the analysis of musical information for the described creative tasks.
Future Digital Artisans would do well to form an integrated Top-Down Bottom-Up approach to music development, though perhaps by doing so they would then better be described as Music Designers than composers or sound designers, an idea I'll explore further in the next article of this series.
* * *
Click on any link below to read all the articles in the six-part series detailing the changing relationship between Traditional Music Composition and Modern Music Production:
EVOLUTION OF THE MUSIC DESIGNER
Part 1: Top Down, Center Out and Bottoms Up
Part 2: Top Down Music Composition
Part 3: Bottom Up Audio Production
Part 4: Film Composer, Sound Maker or Music Designer?
Part 5: Songwriter Vs. Song Designer
Part 6: Music By Design
This article expands on the concept of Bottom up Music Design.
If you're not familiar with the term, Wikipedia defines Bottom-up Design as follows:
"A bottom-up approach is piecing together systems to give rise to grander systems, thus making the original systems sub-systems of the emergent system. In a bottom-up approach the individual base elements of the system are first specified in great detail. These elements are then linked together to form larger subsystems, which then in turn are linked, sometimes in many levels, until a complete top-level system is formed".
In my experience as a producer of music, sound design and sonic branding for a variety of media:
Scoring to moving picture, whether to video or game, often requires a ‘Bottom Up’ construction rather than the Top Down process I've previously described as typical of traditional composition.
A final score may feel as though it in fact drives picture, or one may feel runs a perfect aural parallel with picture, but let us return to its inception. Scored music is created as reaction to events on screen –i.e. the pacing of the edit, and then the content itself, be it visible action or simmering emotion.
Setting pre-scores aside, many composers (when presented with moving picture) begin composing a score by finding a click track that works with the edit. That is, edits will thereafter occur on a click. To a uniformed eye, it looks as though the cuts or edits react to the click. If the editor cut to a temp track, then the composer will almost always match their click to the temp track. in any case, the natural result is a PULSE.
Bottom Up Design and Production is marked by a process whereby TIME and RHYTHM are established before MELODY and HARMONY.
Thus once a click has been created, the Bottom Up designer will as often as not, start by adding and layering RHYTHM parts. In my experience many contemporary video and game composers begin with one or more loops, all beat matched so as to move in sync with each other, the click and the picture.
Some composers might add a bass ‘line’ at this juncture, but most will first jump up the pitch range and indicate a simple harmony, usually in the way of a string pad or guitar rhythm. Only after sketching out the harmony, will they then drop back down the staff in order to add an appropriate bass part.
Only then, when the resulting rhythm bed and accompaniment are in place, will our Bottom Up Constructionist composer consider the melodic needs of the work.
Therefore, in Bottom Up Design, Melody is born out of Harmony and locked to Groove, which is not so unusual when one considers improvisation of any sort, but generally alien to the Top Down Composition process described in a previously.
In an improvised work, a melodic idea might kick off a jam, but new and alternate themes may soon enough evolve based on tonal information delivered via harmony, with the potential of spinning off in every direction.
Without melody, our improvisational jam is simply an extended groove or vamp, a musical bed but arguably not a wholly conceived composition. Add melody and we essentially introduce or enhance story or possibly provide (nonverbal) commentary. We can think of small sound bytes that deliver musical memes as Ear Candy, bursting with potential and exciting our senses with the promise of something else to come.
Ear Candy events are often created as musical cues to visual information, and a series of such events can give form to an apparent theme. And really, unless we are producing main titles or end credits, that might be all we need to satisfy the task of scoring a given scene or cut.
Once a Bottom Design has been established, a composer/designer can use the results as a sort of audio graph paper, a grid, upon which he may know change his process to layer Top Down (or even Center Out) information on it, further enhancing the material or modifying accompaniment to accommodate thematic development, if it’s warranted.
So when I describe ‘Bottom Up’ Audio Design or Construction, I mean a musical work composed in the following manner: Pulse, Beat, Rhythm as the first frame of reference followed by a layering of sonic assets, usually in the following order: Harmony, Musical cues, Theme.
Top Down composition, in direct contrast, evolves in the opposite direction. In Top Down Composition our conceptual seed is the establishment of a complete melody, which then implies harmony and rhythm –i.e., Melody maps out everything.
Practically speaking, I tend to compose Top Down, improvise Center Out and produce from the Bottom Up. Sounds hilarious out of context, I know, but that's how I orient the analysis of musical information for the described creative tasks.
Future Digital Artisans would do well to form an integrated Top-Down Bottom-Up approach to music development, though perhaps by doing so they would then better be described as Music Designers than composers or sound designers, an idea I'll explore further in the next article of this series.
* * *
Click on any link below to read all the articles in the six-part series detailing the changing relationship between Traditional Music Composition and Modern Music Production:
EVOLUTION OF THE MUSIC DESIGNER
Part 1: Top Down, Center Out and Bottoms Up
Part 2: Top Down Music Composition
Part 3: Bottom Up Audio Production
Part 4: Film Composer, Sound Maker or Music Designer?
Part 5: Songwriter Vs. Song Designer
Part 6: Music By Design
Saturday, March 01, 2008
Top Down Music Composition
In a previous article I proposed that Top-down and Bottom-up Design approaches common to software development might also be applied to modern music composition and production.This article expands on the concept of Top-Down composition.
If you're not familiar with the term, Wikipedia defines Top-down as follows:
"...essentially breaking down a system to gain insight into its compositional sub-systems. In a top-down approach an overview of the system is first formulated, specifying but not detailing any first-level subsystems. Each subsystem is then refined in yet greater detail, sometimes in many additional subsystem levels, until the entire specification is reduced to base elements".
Traditional music composition is, by and large, a 'Top Down' process. Let me explain by first beginning with a postulation:
Melody is a series of pitches that relate to one another in a sequential and linear fashion. In traditional composition a composer is first inspired by a melody, or that melody is the result of inspiration resulting from impressionable thought, enlightenment or experience.
This initial melodic information may be small, a motif perhaps, or it may be a fully developed musical statement, comprised of several variations upon a single motif and include a series of phrases in its development and eventual conclusion.
Any melody –in fact, every melody– will by itself imply a suitable harmony, a result we intuit based on intervallic relationships we experience as we step through the series of tones.
Typically, melodic information is sounded using tonal information performed with higher pitches relative to the accompanying harmony. In fact, we perceive the tonal information that makes up the harmony as supportive of the melody and we call its specific arrangement an accompaniment.
Think of a singer, especially a soprano, delivering a vocal expression seemingly 'above' an orchestra or band. Beneath the singer we can hear the bass at the very bottom of the register. In between we have 'inner voices' inhabiting a mid range.
Whether you look at a notated score or use only your ears to judge, it is natural to sense melody as positioned ‘on top' of all other sonic information.
Clever composers, improvisers and songwriters will suggest or play around with chord substitutions, but for the purposes of this entry, let's stick with basic implied harmony.
However a work of music is arranged, a basic harmony part (or parts) is usually performed using tonal information below the register inhabited by the melody. We say harmony supports melody, and therefore think of harmony as beneath melody even though up and down is really just a construct of our own making.
So when I describe ‘Top Down’ Composition, I mean a musical work composed in the following manner: Melody as the first frame of reference followed by harmony made manifest in so far as it may be implied by the melody (albeit arranged into an accompaniment of the composer's choosing).
Bottom Up music construction, which I'll describe further in the next article, shares more in common with sound design than with traditional composition.
Center Out, meanwhile, is marked by organic meandering common in processes that expand outward from an undeveloped idea. Whenever the germ of the idea is less than a complete melody, the process is Center Out (or a combination of Center Out and Bottom Up if Time and Rhythm have been established).
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Click on any link below to read all the articles in the six-part series detailing the changing relationship between Traditional Music Composition and Modern Music Production:
EVOLUTION OF THE MUSIC DESIGNER
Part 1: Top Down, Center Out and Bottoms Up
Part 2: Top Down Music Composition
Part 3: Bottom Up Audio Production
Part 4: Film Composer, Sound Maker or Music Designer?
Part 5: Songwriter Vs. Song Designer
Part 6: Music By Design
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