My Sound Memory - Noah

  I used to be a sound designer for a low budget DIY theatre company with some friends in Portland, Oregon. I was charged with sound designing John Lennon's Gargoyle, the company's first show outside of our garage. The play traces the misfortunes of a 30 something father through a gritty 1980's "graphic novel-esque" New York as he tries to recover his memory and rid himself of a gargoyle that grows in size with his troubles. The title references the play's use of interwoven Beatles lyrics, music, and folk lore.   

I spoke with the director about design ideas and we decided to challenge ourselves to produce an actor run sound design entirely on cassete tapes. We agreed that the scratchy canned sound quality matched the aesthetic of the show and the business of actors carrying the deck around stage would be an innovative way to suggest changes in location. For days on end, we scoured Portland's thrift stores for vintage tape decks and eventually found "tina" our tiny pink, blue, and white tape deck wonder machine. We soon discovered that while she was perfect for pumping Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan tunes into our bathroom during showers, that she wasn't loud enough for an audience to hear during a performance. We returned to the thrift jungle and after several more days of digging through Goodwill's  distribution center, found Tina's much louder metallic silver counter part, "Tammy". 

To make the sound design, I spent hours transferring recordings from tape to tape, cd to tape, and computer to tape to produce several color coded cassette tapes. The actors would retrieve these tapes from strategically planned locations and play them throughout the performance. The music on the tapes was meant to mix with sound effects and additional music that would play over the PA.   

Every night without fail something would go wrong in the sound design. A tape would stop playing, a tape was misplaced, volume levels weren't set correctly, or an actor couldn't get Tammy's buttons to work. Every night I had a new headache to deal with and grew increasingly frustrated with my design choice.  

Then, just as I was about to give up on the entire idea and replace all the tape cues for the rest of the run... it worked! 

The actor pressed play and the correct Rolling Stones song played. As he gestured as if he was getting out of the car, the storm sounds came over the PA and the tape deck faded. He pulled the correct cassete out of his jacket pocket and replaced the current tape to trigger the bar music. The storm sounds faded perfectly with the lights and the bartender turned up the volume on the tape deck as the lights came back up. For those 45 seconds, it was like everything in the universe fell into place, time stopped, and the planets aligned. Tammy finally shined. From back in the booth, I wanted to jump up and applaud a tape deck. 

They make sound design software that allows you to manage and cue several effects with live performance, but the joy and ephemeral nature of that 45 second transition could not be replaced by technology. It was the orchestration of several different sound sources coming together to make the elegant transition that made it so beautiful. 

I recently saw Y La Bamba play live at the Cactus Cafe. There was a moment where every member in the band pulled out some sort of rhythm maker or shaker. The sudden eruption of the folky organic stripped down sound of the acoustic instruments mixed with the singers beautiful spanish vocals was absolutely gorgeous. I closed my eyes and it was as if every cell in my body was moving while I stood in place. After the show, I bought the record and brought it home to listen to the digitally mastered track of the same song. As you can imagine, it just wasn't the same as the live performance. 

I can't say that my sound design even came remotely close to Y La Bamba's beautiful live performance, but I can say that the magic and spontaneity of live sound components coming together triggered that same sort of tingly feeling that occurred when I wanted to stand and applaud a tape deck for coming in on cue.