Listening to Theatre
Teaching Aesthetics of Theatre Sound
Overview of Sound Program at Purdue
Performance
Intro to Theatre
Sound
Techniques
Intro to Sound
Studios
Music Computing
Sound
Production Crew
Production
Designer or
Engineer
Technology
Aesthetics
Intro to Audio
Technology
Sound Design I
Advanced Audio
Techology
Sound Design II
Audio for Video
Post
Recording Studio
Techniques
Composition for
the Stage
Overview of Aesthetics Course
Sequence
1. Theory
2. Elements of Music
3. Adding Language to Music
Theory
1. Music As a Foundation of Theatre
2. Dramatic Time and Space
3. The Function of the Soundscape
Music As a Foundation of Theatre
Music As a Foundation of Theatre
Basic Concepts of Music
Music is an art form separate from referential, semiotic meaning
that emphasizes the manipulation of time over space through the
organization of color, time, mass, space, line and form.
Sound Design is a subcategory of music
Music is a biological, evolutionary adaptation targeted by natural
selection
Fundamental processes related to those targeted by natural
selection work the same today as they have for tens of thousands
of years.
Inasmuch as music is fundamental to theatre, the same
fundamental processes of music apply to theatre.
Music As a Foundation of Theatre
Three Components of Artworks Identified as Theatre
Iconic images and signficiations, of which language is a
subset;
Music, which as we have already defined, is a non‐referential
communication involving the temporal organization of
elements such as color, rhythm, etc., and
The material world of the theatre upon which both language
and music are imprinted, especially including the actor.
Music As a Foundation of Theatre
Three Attributes of Greek Music Universal to Theatre
Music has special powers to arouse interest and to stir
emotions;
Music communicates from composer through performer to
listeners in a unique manner;
The experience of emotions in theatre provides pleasure to
listeners.
These last two points are part of the “cathartic” experience (i.e.,
pity and fear, “purging” of emotion).
Music As a Foundation of Theatre
The Relationship Between Music and Language
Language is referential; music is ambiguous;
Music is predominantly right brained, language, left
brained;
although music performance and analysis involves the entire brain;
Music is simultaneous and sequential; language is sequential
only;
Music is simultaneously untranslatable yet intelligible across
cultural boundaries.
Music As a Foundation of Theatre
Communication and Meaning in Music & Theatre
Music has special powers to arouse interest and to stir emotions:
The brain is an arousal seeking organ;
Arousal is activated by structures and energy distribution
(e.g., color, loudness, etc.) that produce habituation, arousal,
suspense, and resolution;
Emotions are stimulated by the direct connection between
the inner ear and the cerebellum.
Music As a Foundation of Theatre
Communication and Meaning in Music & Theatre
Music Communicates in a Unique Manner from Composers
and Playwrights Through Performers to Listeners:
Emotions are all about memories; Music stimulates the
hippocampus (brain’s memory center), but random tones
don’t;
Pulse is not imprinted on the listener; brainwaves in the
primitive cerebellum are entrained to audible pulses.
Communication in music is fundamentally dependent on
communication of pulse.
Music As a Foundation of Theatre
Communication and Meaning in Music & Theatre
The experience of emotions in theatre provides pleasure to
listeners:
Music stimulates emotion before analytical processes
complete;
Emotions are aroused, and then are analyzed; the
analysis triggers the reward centers of the brain (esp.
the ventral striatum), stimulating the production of
dopamine.
Dramatic Time and Space
Perception in both sight and sound is dependent on
frequency;
Both are subjective and relative;
Similar psychoacoustic properties: fatigue, color
blindness, etc.
Takete and Uloomu:
Dramatic Time and Space
Different Properties of Light and Sound
Frequency and Wavelength of perception;
Light reveals mass in space by defining it relative to time;
sound reveals time by defining it relative to mass in space.
One of the most important characteristics of music—
especially when compared with visual art forms—is its
strictly temporal character.
Dramatic Time and Space
Space-Time and Art
Time is not completely separate from and independent
of space, but is combined with it to form an object
called space-time.
Relativity: time is relative to each individual.
Relativity predicts the ability to travel through time;
theatre is a form of time travel.
Dramatic Time and Space
Frames of Reference
Frame of Reference: A “set or system (as of facts or ideas)
serving to orient or give particular meaning”
Two frames in theatre: the physical theatre space and the
dramatic theatre space;
Theatre changes our consciousness from one frame to the
other; reality (based on memory) changes accordingly.
Hearing and emotions stay in the dramatic frame, thought
moves back and forth between frames.
Dramatic Time and Space
The Importance of Relativity to Sound Design
Sound Design organizes time;
Sound compels us to experience time frames created by
others subjectively, i.e., as real experiences, even though
the intellectual communication or the visual
experience may have no bearing in truth or reality;
Visual art may provide the fantasy, but the audible one
makes the fantasy a reality.
The Function of the Soundscape
The Function of the Soundscape
Appia’s Hierarchy of Drama
Appia’s asserted that Music served as the foundation of
theatre, not text:
The Function of the Soundscape
The Duality of Language: Music and Ideas
Music communicates the “inner-life” of characters;
The general assumption seems to be that the ideas of a
play give birth to the musical expression. Appia
suggests that the nature of drama was the other way
around; language provides the musical manifestation of
the inner life with a practical dramatic form.
A symphonic performance can create the inner life
directly in an audience with just music. Drama attaches
important ideas to a similar “inner life” in the minds
of the audience.
The Function of the Soundscape
The Function of Sound in Drama
Analysis of prevailing theories of the function of sound
in theatre reveals that music really has only one
function in theatre: to makes us feel a certain way
about the world we are experiencing;
The Elements of Music
The Elements of Music
Color: Pitch and Timbre
Time: Tactus, Tempo, Rhythm
Mass: Loudness, Dynamics and Duration
Space: Location and Reverberation
Line: Melody and Speech contour
Form: Principles used in the organization of the other five elements
The Elements of Music
Processes of Investigation
For each element (color, time, etc.) we undertake four types
of investigation:
General discussion to limit attributes of the element;
Examination of Academy Award recognized film scores
providing examples of the effective use of element and
discovery of general principals that govern use of the
element;
Practical attempts of students to communicate emotion
using only the element under investigation;
Two minute student composition focusing on element.
The Elements of Music
Student Attempts to Communicate Emotion
Basic Process:
Each student creates five sonic samples that each communicate
one of five different emotions: happiness, anger, sadness, fear,
love;
Examples are sequenced and indexed on separate tracks of a CD,
prefixed only with vocal announcement: “Example 1,” Example
2,” etc.
Each student plays back all five examples with no comment or
discussion. Examples are repeated one time only.
Students provide written “ballots” on which they identify which
emotion they felt each example expressed.
The Elements of Music
Student Attempts to Communicate Emotion
Rules used to limit communication to single element:
Color: single timbre, less than five seconds, non-repeating;
Time: pencil eraser tapping on counter;
Mass: pink noise manipulated for dynamics;
Space: pink noise manipulated for location/reverberation;
Melody: monophonic melody performed on piano;
Form: free use of all five elements
Important: iconic and imagistic use of sound is disqualified, e.g.,
human crying for sadness.
The Elements of Music
Student Attempts to Communicate Emotion
Ballot Example:
The Elements of Music
Student Attempts to Communicate Emotion
Evaluation:
Project grades are determined solely on completion of
exercise, not on success of the communication;
Experience has shown that a score of 60 - 70% shows
strong communication, while scores below 50 %
indicate weak communication;
Because so many variables (both under control and not
under the control of the composers) are at play,
discussion of why communication succeeded, and why
it may not play a huge role in effective learning.
The Elements of Music
Final Project
The final project for the semester is the creation of a new piece of music
based on an existing poem:
Note that this is the first attempt by students to orchestrate language;
it comes about half way through the two semester (32 week) course;
We have primarily used Shakespearean Sonnets (sometimes in
collaboration with acting courses dealing with Shakespeare); we have
also collaborated with other disciplines to create soundscapes for art
exhibits, etc.
Students are not required to faithfully replicate dialogue in a linear,
naturalistic way; we do encourage them to use the text in one form or
another in their piece.
Grading is primarily based on project completion, rather than
evaluation of subjective attributes.
Adding Language to Music
Adding Language to Music
Components of the Investigation
The final project in the first semester creates a bridge to the
second semester, which focuses on adding language to the
inner-life of musical ideas. There are three gradated projects:
A sixty second sound story that attempts to communicate a
literal story without words (in response, the class has to work
to reach an agreement on the plot of the story;
A sixty second commercial, produced to illuminate
fundamental principles of music involved in storytelling;
A twenty minute radio drama that airs on campus NPR
radio affiliate on the last day of finals.
Adding Language to Music
The Radio Drama
The radio drama is completed in three stages:
A twenty minute script;
The multi-track master that includes (in order of
completion):
Recording of the dialogue stems;
Recording of the sound effects and foley stems;
Composition and recording of the music stems
The mixed, stereo master recording.
Adding Language to Music
The Radio Drama
The script for the radio drama is developed using the following
techniques:
Exploration of emotional-centric experiences expressed in
tensions between competing primal urges and conflicts
Fleshing out of musical ideas into literal ones through
analysis and implementation of story, theme and metaphor;
Thee page treatment that shows embodiment of emotional
(musical) journey through organization of actions in time;
Generation of 20 page script from emotional-centric
improvisation.
Adding Language to Music
The Radio Drama
The scripts require linear storytelling based on Susan Zeder’s method
(its close relationship to the art of reading Tarot cards is a very
musical method for developing linear structure):
Conclusion
In a one-year sequence of two courses, we
trace the roots of playmaking from their
primal roots in music to their full
realization in dramatic performance.
The process emphasizes at every step of the
way,
1.
2.
3.
Student developing a firm aesthetic
grounding in principles of music and
sound that apply to theatre;
Students developing specific techniques for
communication of aesthetic ideas,
Providing students with opportunities to
incorporate techniques into their own
developing aesthetics.