HAPPY LISTENING w/ SOUND DESIGNER, Maggie Hamilton
Sound design: it’s not just about microphones. Sometimes it’s not about microphones at all. (For those in the vicinity of my age, I could joke it’s not just orange juice for breakfast either, though I will talk about food in a bit).
Having both a personal and professional interest in the scientific community and being used to thinking about research papers, it might be an interesting psychology paper on the differences between directors and their utilization (or not) of a sound designer. The two ends of the spectrum being a director who makes all the choices on preshow music, scene change music, and which recording of a sound effect to acquire and where to put them, leaving no scope for creativity at all, to directors who include the designers and actors in an exploration of the world of the play in the earliest stages of rehearsal and allow for enormous creative collaboration.
The creative collaboration is a great deal more fun! It is also a bit (a lot) terrifying when you are not used to it. This is my 3rd play with Seat of the Pants, and I am finally starting to open to the possibilities. Alas, I also struggle with some ADHD tendencies and can get really stuck and have difficulty knowing where to start (or deciding which idea to go with). That’s where food comes in as it can be my entry point and serves several purposes. I love to bake anyway so I can let it be an icebreaker (I am shy and an introvert ) with the cast and the rest of the team. What to bake becomes my investigative starting point. I read about (yay internet) what kinds of food plants grow in an area, and therefore, what is the climate and terrain, what flora and fauna and insects are common. This can be the beginning of sound-scape ideas if any of that overlaps with the script. At the same time, I start listening to lots of music of different kinds with even a tenuous connection to any of the themes that have been identified, usually the overt ones first. Yay internet and YouTube for that. Once I have some kind of metaphorical thread to pull on, I can start crafting. As with a lot of other procrastinators I have to get something, anything, as a concrete starting point. (What was once, “down on paper”.) Accomplishing anything else flows from there. It’s much easier to revise and add, or even to throw out and start over than it is to get started in the first place.
So that is the point I am at with The First Snow of Summer. I’m in the process of separating out my ideas and tagged songs and materials into 3 potential approaches. One more standard or prosaic, one quite literal and, perhaps, a bit tongue in cheek, one more abstract and approaching metaphysical.
Whatever my degree of success or failure in this sound design, the directors, actors, and other designers, are stellar. Watching the directors’ techniques to help us all develop as the show takes shape is a fascinating process and tells me the final product should be a great experience for the audience. It is also thrilling to be part of a brand-new work, and I am in awe of what the playwright has crafted with his words. (He’s also a nice guy!)
Baking:
Bach at Leipzig: gingersnaps as a lebkuchen substitute and chocolate cupcakes with sour cherry jam, kirschwasser, and whipped cream as a black forest cake substitute.
The First Snow of Summer: Tahini honey almond cookies, walnut cookies, and a (sort of) coconut macaroon. One article said you could grow most anything in Colorado except tropical stuff so we had 2 kinds of cookies that could, and one that could not, be made from local ingredients (and also accommodated several food allergies).
www.everylastbite.com the tahini honey cookies
www.unicornsinthekitchen.com the walnut and egg yolk cookie and the coconut and egg white cookie. They are Persian recipes.
