Research Guides: Drama: Sound Design

ABOUT Sound Design

Introduction to Sound Design with Vinnie Olivieri
Professor of Sound Design at UCI, Vincent Olivieri, explores the fundamentals of sound design through the lens of his work on the recent play "Safe House" by Keith Josef Adkins. Olivieri focuses in on the art of sound design due to technology's rapid advancement, exploring script analysis, the creation of soundscapes, spatial awareness in sound design, and development of diegetic and non-diegetic sound. Detailing the process for creating successful cue lists and loudspeaker plots, Olivieri shows how each document is dynamic, often changing performance to performance, and how successful sound designers can learn to make their sound designs a living part of the play.
On Sound: Finn Pfeffer
Finn Pfeffer's involvement with The Soap Myth was not only significant as part of the sound crew; as the only German native on the production team, his perspective on the play is unique. Finn offers an illuminating insight into the gulf between how Holocaust education is taught in different countries, and sheds light onto the soap myth itself.
On Sound Design: Andrea J. Cox
Andrea J. Cox was responsible for creating the aural landscape in Phillip Breen's revival of Sam Shepard's True West. Cox explains why the play's geographical setting is important to research, considers how sound can draw focus to changes in tone and atmosphere, and reflects on the difficulties in translating abstract noise to a physical space.
Practitioners on Practice - On Sound Design: An Interview with Gareth Fry
Having trained at Central School of Speech and Drama in theatre design, Gareth switched focus to sound and has since collaborated on a variety of hugely successful theatrical productions, including Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Waves, and Black Watch. Gareth talks of recording and utilising binaural sound to maximum effect, considers the distinction between sound and music, and describes creating the soundscape for Complicite's epic sensorial experience The Encounter.
Practitioners on Practice - On Sound Design: An Interview with John Leonard
John Leonard discusses in detail the revolution that has occurred in sound through his lifetime, both in technologies and attitudes. He reveals what theatrical sound designers can learn from other mediums, recalls working alongside a WW2 veteran director, who produced a battle plan in place of a call sheet, and suggests that the key to a long and successful career is learning to be a team player.
Practitioners on Practice - On Sound Design: An Interview with Paul Arditti
Paul explains his definition of sound design as ‘a dialogue with the director’, discusses working collaboratively with prolific directors such as Rufus Norris and Stephen Daldry, and reveals how, despite not being an innate technician, doing an arts degree gave him the training he needed to be able to speak to them as peers. He describes how sound often operates at a subconscious level for an audience, the need to be honest and objective about the spectators’ experience, and why The Royal Court is a sound designer’s perfect theatre.

This is a selection of physical and digital books available through UCI Libraries. Use the following subject searches in the library catalog to find other similar materials:

Aural/Oral Dramaturgies: theatre in the digital age by Duska Radosavljevic
Call Number: *ebook* and *Physical book*
ISBN: 9780367560768
Publication Date: 2022-10-26
Aural/Oral Dramaturgies: Theatre in the Digital Age focuses on the 'aural turn' in contemporary theatre-making, examining a number of seemingly disparate trends that foreground speech and sound -- 'post-verbatim' theatre, 'amplified storytelling' (works using microphones and headphones), and 'gig theatre' that incorporates live music performance.
Sound: a Reader in Theatre Practice by Ross Brown
ISBN: 9780230551879
Publication Date: 2010-01-01
*physical book*
Brown explores relationships between sound and theatre, focusing on sound's interdependence and interaction with human performance and drama. Suggesting different ways in which sound may be interpreted to create meaning, it includes key writings on sound design, as well as perspectives from beyond the discipline
Sound and Music for the Theatre by James LeBrecht; Deena Kaye
ISBN: 9781138023420
Publication Date: 2015-10-13
*physical & ebook*
Covering every phase of a theatrical production, this fourth edition of Sound and Music for the Theatre traces the process of sound design from initial concept through implementation in actual performances. The book discusses the early evolution of sound design and how it supports the play, from researching sources for music and effects, to negotiating a contract. It shows you how to organize the construction of the sound design elements, how the designer functions in a rehearsal, and how to set up and train an operator to run sound equipment. This instructive information is interspersed with 'war stories' describing real-life problems with solutions that you can apply in your own work, whether you're a sound designer, composer, or sound operator.
Sound effect : the theatre we hear by Ross Brown
ISBN: 1350045926
*ebook*
Sound Effect tells the story of the effect of theatrical aurality on modern culture. Beginning with the emergence of the modern scenic sound effect in the late 18th century, and ending with headphone theatre which brings theatre's auditorium into an intimate relationship with the audience's internal sonic space, the book relates contemporary questions of theatre sound design to a 250-year Western cultural history of hearing. It argues that while theatron was an instrument for seeing and theorizing, first a collective hearing, or audience is convened. Theatre begins with people entering an acoustemological apparatus that produces a way of hearing and of knowing. Once, this was a giant marble ear on a hillside, turned up to a cosmos whose inaudible music accounted for all. In modern times, theatre's auditorium, or instrument for hearing, has turned inwards on the people and their collective conversance in the sonic memes, tropes, clichés and picturesques that constitute a popular, fictional ontology.
Sound Effects: hearing the early modern stage by Laura Jayne Wright
Call Number: *Physical book*
ISBN: 9781526159182
Publication Date: 2023-06-27
This book shows that the sounds of the early modern stage do not only signify but are also significant. Sounds are weighted with meaning, offering a complex system of allusions. Playwrights such as Jonson and Shakespeare developed increasingly experimental soundscapes, from the storms of King Lear (1605) and Pericles (1607) to the explosive laboratory of The Alchemist (1610). Yet, sound is dependent on the subjectivity of listeners; this book is conscious of the complex relationship between sound as made and sound as heard.
Theory for Theatre Studies: Sound by Susan Bennett (Series edited by); Kim Solga (Series edited by)
ISBN: 9781474246460
Publication Date: 2019-05-16
*physical book*
Sound provides a lively and engaging overview of relevant critical theory for students and researchers in theatre and performance studies. Addressing sound across history and through progressive developments in relevant technologies, the volume opens up the study of theatrical production and live performance to understand conceptual and pragmatic concerns about the sonic. By way of developed case studies (including Aristophanes's The Frogs, Shakespeare's The Tempest, Cocteau's The Human Voice, and Rimini Protokoll's Situation Rooms), readers can explore new methodologies and approaches for their own work on sound as a performance component. In an engagement with the burgeoning interdisciplinary field of sound studies, this book samples exciting new thinking relevant to theatre and performance studies
Writing Music for the Stage by Michael Bruce; Josie Rourke (Foreword by)
ISBN: 9781848423930
Publication Date: 2016-09-27
*physical book*
Throughout the book, the author draws on his own experience of creating music for a wide variety of plays at the Donmar Warehouse, the National Theatre, in the West End and on Broadway, including detailed case studies of his work on The Recruiting Officer, Coriolanus, Privacy, The Winslow Boy, Noises Off and Strange Interlude, illustrated by online recordings from his scores. An essential companion for all composers – amateur, student or professional – Writing Music for the Stage is also invaluable reading for other theatre professionals, including directors, playwrights, producers, actors, designers and sound designers – in fact, for anyone seeking to understand how music helps to create worlds and tell stories on stage.

Performing Arts Periodicals This link opens in a new window
A good place to go to find both scholarly journals and trade magazines in the world of theater. It indexes and has full text for periodicals like:

IEEE Xplore This link opens in a new window
IEEE Xplore provides web access to full-text documents from some of the world's most highly cited publications in electrical engineering, computer science and electronics.
Music Periodicals This link opens in a new window
Full text articles from scholarly journals and trade magazines in the field of music. While good for topics in classic musicology, it particularly shines in music performance and popular music research.

General/Miscellaneous

British Library Sounds provides access to almost 100,000 digitized sound recordings from the vast British Library Sound Collection. Sub-collections include:

Environment & Nature - with categories of many different animal recordings, soundscapes, sound effects, water, weather, and other natural sounds.
Accents & Dialects - with categories of different English dialects, early spoken word recordings, children's games and songs, and evolving words
Sound Recording History- with categories of early records, oral histories of recorded sound, etc.
Sound Maps - drawing from other sub-collections, this is a unique interface to discover sounds and music specific to a geography rather than a specific type of sound
Also included are several different collections of music, including classical and traditional music

99 Sounds - an indie sound design label that provides free sound effects and sample libraries of commercial quality. A random assortment of collections includes Halloween, rain & thunder, underground sounds, etc.

Free Sound - digital library of over half a million sounds. Some are collected sounds while others have been digitally created.

Ambisonic Sound Library - 360 degree surround-sound audio recordings. Includes categories like Nature, Mechanical, Water, Sport, etc.

Animals/Nature

Insect Singers - song recordings and information on acoustically signaling insects, especially cicadas.

Cornell Lab of Ornithology - lots and lots of audio recordings of birds (seriously, there are over 1,000,000!)

Sounds of Earth - small collection of the audio recordings (of sounds from Earth) placed onboard the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft

Technology/Urban

Museum of Endangered Sounds - small collection of sounds from old (and quickly disappearing or now gone) technology, such as sounds of fingers on a QWERTY keypads, a VHS player doing its thing, and the sounds of a cathode ray tube TV

SoundCities - database of thousands of sounds from around the world that allows you to "visit" cities and create soundmaps

Radio Show and Programs Archive - a collection in the Internet Archive of several million digitized radio broadcasts, both historical and contemporary

Naxos Music Library * allows you to listen to almost 170,000 streaming albums. Many different record labels, including the prestigious Sony Classical, reside here. While mainly focused on Western art music, a decent selection of world music can be found here as well.

Classical Music Library * is similar to Naxos Music Library but a bit smaller (it still has over 60,000 albums, so not too shabby). It is generally easier to browse than Naxos.

Jazz Music Library * has almost 1,000,000 tracks (that's over 65,000 albums if you're counting) of jazz, swing, bop, dixieland, etc.

Smithsonian Global Sound * is known for providing recordings from the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings labels. Music found in this database represents traditional cultures across the world from Armenia to Zimbabwe.

American Song * allows people to listen to music from America's past. Includes songs by and about American Indians, immigrants, slaves, pioneers, and cowboys. Includes songs from the Civil Rights movements, political campaigns, the Civil War, and the Revolutionary War.