the ramble dump
Friday, May 28, 2010
Electroacoustics
I was thinking a short while ago about retrofuture '80s stuff like Blade Runner and how the Vangelis soundtrack for that film is not only very recognisable, but adds very much to the feel of that world. It wouldn't quite be Blade Runner without it. I got thinking about how the music sounds pretty dated, but what does that mean exactly? It means we identify it with a particular time, or a distinct cultural period. And it means, in the case of Blade Runner, that it's very good for sucking us right into that retrofuturistic world, even if at first we might find it a little jarring or quaint.
One reason that we might find it dated in the sense that it becomes distracting is that, like some notable hairstyles, its prominence in a particular period binds it to that time, so it becomes unfashionable along with everything else. Maybe we feel like rejecting it because the '80s is not a place we want our minds to be. But for better or for worse, a certain time and place is evoked. This kind of soundscape is common in the 'cyberpunk' genre: try listening to the soundtrack for Ghost in the Shell, or the ones for the original Bubblegum Crisis series, or those for its Tokyo 2040 remake a decade later. Try listening to the soundtrack for Deus Ex (I haven't even played that game yet). [Edit: I have now! It's AWESOME.]
All music has this effect in films in some way or another, and stick some songs from a period into a film and you'll probably get a similar timewarp effect, but there's something particular about this Vangelis soundtrack and others like it that makes this sense of being transported so powerful. And it's something to do with the synthetic stuff--those weird, unnatural sounds and electronically created ambiences. They give a world a simultaneously weird and immersive quality better than anything else, making it both unique and recognisable.
It doesn't always work. The artificiality of it can be a problem, and it can easily sound naff outside of an appropriate context like, for example, cyberpunk. The synthy instruments will often have an unintentionally parodic effect in terms of the instruments they're synthesising. But done right, it can add a lot of character. Some other examples: edging on cyberpunk territory is Akira, in which synth is infused with traditional folk instruments; Halo's New Wave-y drumbeats are accompanied by Gregorian chant; Sean Callery provides all kinds of electroacoustic incidental music for 24 (which works less well when trying to simulate orchestra outright); and the Oddworld games are extremely ambient and atmospheric.
Even something like the modest synthesised harpsichord-and-oboe music of the first Tomb Raider games is able to work its magic, giving the franchise back then a very distinctive sound with a slightly weird edge (manifesting almost comically in some of the action-oriented FMVs, but it was kind of appropriate for the overthetopness of this character who was clearly having fun being a not-quite-realistic virtual character).
It also has to be said that lot of this synthy stuff has a floaty and echoey, dreamlike, unreality quality to it anyway, which is always good for transporting you to strange places. Like in Donnie Darko, where Michael Andrews' piano-keys-in-cotton-wool-underwater thing makes it all very deep-inside-your-head and sleepy.
All these soundtracks and soundscapes are good at taking you places by contributing so much to the feel of them in their unique, texturally interesting ways, and these places are then easily triggered in the mind through recognition.
Usually by now I have made some mention of rabbit-hole theory. If you're trying to create an absorbing, immersive rabbit hole of your own, I recommend considering electroacoustics.
One reason that we might find it dated in the sense that it becomes distracting is that, like some notable hairstyles, its prominence in a particular period binds it to that time, so it becomes unfashionable along with everything else. Maybe we feel like rejecting it because the '80s is not a place we want our minds to be. But for better or for worse, a certain time and place is evoked. This kind of soundscape is common in the 'cyberpunk' genre: try listening to the soundtrack for Ghost in the Shell, or the ones for the original Bubblegum Crisis series, or those for its Tokyo 2040 remake a decade later. Try listening to the soundtrack for Deus Ex (I haven't even played that game yet). [Edit: I have now! It's AWESOME.]
All music has this effect in films in some way or another, and stick some songs from a period into a film and you'll probably get a similar timewarp effect, but there's something particular about this Vangelis soundtrack and others like it that makes this sense of being transported so powerful. And it's something to do with the synthetic stuff--those weird, unnatural sounds and electronically created ambiences. They give a world a simultaneously weird and immersive quality better than anything else, making it both unique and recognisable.
It doesn't always work. The artificiality of it can be a problem, and it can easily sound naff outside of an appropriate context like, for example, cyberpunk. The synthy instruments will often have an unintentionally parodic effect in terms of the instruments they're synthesising. But done right, it can add a lot of character. Some other examples: edging on cyberpunk territory is Akira, in which synth is infused with traditional folk instruments; Halo's New Wave-y drumbeats are accompanied by Gregorian chant; Sean Callery provides all kinds of electroacoustic incidental music for 24 (which works less well when trying to simulate orchestra outright); and the Oddworld games are extremely ambient and atmospheric.
Even something like the modest synthesised harpsichord-and-oboe music of the first Tomb Raider games is able to work its magic, giving the franchise back then a very distinctive sound with a slightly weird edge (manifesting almost comically in some of the action-oriented FMVs, but it was kind of appropriate for the overthetopness of this character who was clearly having fun being a not-quite-realistic virtual character).
It also has to be said that lot of this synthy stuff has a floaty and echoey, dreamlike, unreality quality to it anyway, which is always good for transporting you to strange places. Like in Donnie Darko, where Michael Andrews' piano-keys-in-cotton-wool-underwater thing makes it all very deep-inside-your-head and sleepy.
All these soundtracks and soundscapes are good at taking you places by contributing so much to the feel of them in their unique, texturally interesting ways, and these places are then easily triggered in the mind through recognition.
Usually by now I have made some mention of rabbit-hole theory. If you're trying to create an absorbing, immersive rabbit hole of your own, I recommend considering electroacoustics.
Labels: cyberpunk, deus ex, films, halo, i am the ramblemaster, music, oddworld, rabbit-hole theory, tomb raider
# posted by
Chris @ 3:22 AM 
Comments:
almost any good music can be that powerful, can't it? in different ways, I suppose.
i remember loving sitting at orchestra concerts, eyes half closed, imagining anything the music brought to mind. mostly plant-filled fantasies and mythical adventures and such.
and texture. that's interesting to think about. hmm.
i remember loving sitting at orchestra concerts, eyes half closed, imagining anything the music brought to mind. mostly plant-filled fantasies and mythical adventures and such.
and texture. that's interesting to think about. hmm.
Yeah, I did say all music can have that transporting effect. But when it comes to being a distinctive and recognisable part of a fictional world--part of the texture of that world--electroacoustic stuff proves to be especially good at it. Probably because it's easier to make strange sounds that aren't really heard anywhere else.
Deriving a whole fictional world from music that wasn't made specifically for that world is something else, but also pretty cool.
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Deriving a whole fictional world from music that wasn't made specifically for that world is something else, but also pretty cool.
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