Paint a Picture With Your Ears
Take a moment to enjoy this sound experiment with me to appreciate how you "see" sound.
The modern era focuses on video content.
Movies, television, Youtube, and other platforms all do well at entertaining the masses.
Entertainment is truly lacking without sound and audio design to complete a story.
Early Days of Audio Entertainment
Video pushes content to the viewer with a fixed output, intention, and design in mind. The viewer, in turn, absorbs the video content without having to lift a mental muscle.
Despite many excellent examples of video entertainment, our imagination doesn’t get an opportunity to flex its mental muscles.
American Radio, after its invention in the early 20th Century, was known as an entertainment marvel in that time period.
HG Wells successfully created pandemonium with the American people during his broadcast coined as War of the Worlds. Voice actors, sound effects, dramatic music, and believable voice actors actually tricked the American public into thinking that Aliens were on Earth and planning to destroy everything in their path.
Sound is often forgotten as the staple of entertainment.
Silent movies, also popular in the early 20th Century, were uniquely funny, quirky, entertaining, and often conveyed in short bursts. The actors relied on physical comedy and miming techniques to compensate for the missing sounds that would usually tell a story.
Audio Experiment
I put together a short video (~ 1:25) to take you on an audio journey. I assembled some sounds together for your ears to “see.” In reality, what your mind is doing is creating a visual element (with the help of your imagination) to create a world from the sound your ears are listening to. Without sound, you’re missing out on the full entertainment experience.
I recommend turning up your sound to about half or more to ensure your ears may capture all of the sounds (headphones or earbuds recommended).
What Did Your Ears “See?”
You may be tempted to provide a literal translation from the path between your ears and your mind.
Some people may allow their mind to run wild to pursue the most interesting parts of their observational cortex.
Others may be shocked, confused, and upset: only to ask, “what happens next?”
Unconventional Creativity
Whether or not you’re a creative with a podcast, movie company, studio, or an author of tall tales, I encourage you to think differently. Appreciate your craft. Allow your mind to run free - if only for a little while.
Looking past what is put in front of you and find the strength to ask, question, challenge, and try something new to create a spark, a left eyebrow lift, or even an “ah ha” from the receiving party.
As a podcast sidekick I transform spoken word into stories. Some feel that spoken word isn’t as exciting, interesting, or creative as sound design utilized to convey a story. Yet, once you consider pacing, what non-words to remove and/or keep, when a breath is in the way or adding to the story, and the audible quality of that spoken word can captivate a listener, or cause that same person to feel sick inside.
Your ears are powerful. The next time you’re in a situation to utilize sound I hope that you’ll be able to see the sounds around you in an unique and interesting way.
What did you experience after participating in today’s audio exercise? I’d love to hear from you.
Just want to say this title is brilliant!
And also, that I'm very much behind the unconventional creativity idea, getting out the box is harder than it sounds (on a Mnoday as I write this!) but we can all do it, in all our jobs.