Art of Sound - Creativity in Film Sound and Electroacoustic Music by Andrew Knight-Hill and Emma Margetson is the latest in Routledge/Focal Press’s Sound Design series, edited by Michael Filimowicz. The book takes as its focus interviews with and dialogues between international artists and professionals working in both film sound and electroacoustic composition, with the intention, according to the sleeve notes, of exploring the ‘creative principles that underpin how sonic practitioners act to compose, tell stories, make us feel and communicate via sound’.
The book is split into six sections:
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1. What, Why and Who: Introduction and Context (15 pages)
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2. Making Sense of Making: Our Approach (8 Pages)
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3. Mapping Stories of Creative Sonic Practice (37 pages)
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4. Interviews (107 pages)
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5. Dialogues (39 pages)
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6. Celebrating the Art of Sound (16 pages)
The first two sections could perhaps have been rolled into one, as they are relatively short and closely related thematically.
Section one lays out the context for the book, explaining why it exists, what it intends to do and why it is valuable that it both does it and does it in this way. It offers definitions – for the purposes of this book at least – of the terms ‘electroacoustic music’ and ‘film sound’ and details both who has been interviewed for the volume and why they were chosen, alongside some brief information regarding their experience and expertise. This section is clearly and carefully framed with regard to the choices that were made and the contexts the discussions draw from, and I particularly enjoy the notion that the book is trying to get at more nebulous and difficult-to-define ideas around why we make what we make, not just what comes out at the end of that both creative and often technical process.
The biggest question I had going into reading this book, which I’m not sure these opening sections fully explain, is why these specific fields – i.e. ‘electroacoustic music’ and ‘film sound’ – were chosen for discussion and dialogue. I do understand the commonalities and potential for dialogue that addressing both film sound and electroacoustic music could engender, but I’m still not completely sure I understand the rationale for bringing these two fields into dialogue, to the potential exclusion of other fields, and am not convinced the volume adequately addresses the potential differences between the fields alongside their points of resonance. Why, for example, did the sample of film sound practitioners not also include soundtrack composers, or composer/sound designer teams? Some further exploration of this would have been welcome.
Section two provides insight into the approach taken in assembling the volume, and in particular, the importance of embracing a wide range of approaches and perspectives through its invited participants. The authors take pains here to recognise the limitations of their approach, which is welcome, but also to point out the potential value of what they are seeking to do for other researchers attempting similar projects, which is important. As they themselves acknowledge, the testimony from participants in both the interview and dialogue sections represents only partial truths, but they have also been careful to try to include a dynamic and diverse cross-section of partial truths such that the volume is illuminating in a variety of ways.
Section three is the one I find least convincing, but this is, in itself, illustrative. Here, we are provided with an analytical distillation of some of the key themes and approaches that emerged amongst multiple of the interviewees; these appear both in the form of the Map of Sonic Creativity (pp. 28–29), in the three concentric circles of principles, approaches and techniques, and in subsequent longer form discussion that teases out sub-themes and demonstrates where these common threads can be found. There are some interesting points made here, and clear overlaps and resonances between multiple of the perspectives in the book, but I found the map itself somewhat arbitrary and a little difficult to connect to my own experiences in sonic creativity. As I say, though, this is illustrative of the messy, complex and nebulous nature of working creatively with sound in both of these contexts that the book is so careful to both address and attempt to accommodate; I have no doubt that other practitioners might find this to be a convincing way to understand how we navigate through these different elements of the creative process, but it just didn’t resonate with me.
Sections four and five are where the real meat of the volume is to be found, and they provide some fascinating insights into the working practices of a broad cross-section of artists in both fields. This kind of discussion will be enormously useful to students of both film sound and electroacoustic music; in both contexts, we encourage our students to spend time thinking through their process, connecting it to that of others and situating it in the broader field. Here, this is done in a range of different ways by a diverse group of voices, which is enormously valuable, and the insights provided into how each of the participants works creatively with sound, alongside how they explore this through dialogue with one another, represent a unique contribution to the field.
Finally, section six provides a summary of the key takeaways from the book, specifically foregrounding the value of the kind of dialogue that forms much of this volume. The authors are right to do so; the insights provided here are enormously valuable to both researchers and students alike, and I can imagine this book being of particular value as a teaching resource in a range of relevant contexts.
In summary, there is a lot to recommend this book to practitioners, theorists and students alike. Whilst I do have some reservations – outlined above – over certain elements of the discussion, this is nonetheless an ambitious endeavour with much to commend it.
