HOW MUSIC WORKS - A LITTLE SELF-TEST
There is hardly anything that can unconsciously influence and control us emotionally as much as music. Often it is difficult to talk about the right sound and you cling to terms like "tempo", "genre", "mood" etc. But what you completely forget is the fact that a combination of image and music has a completely different effect than music alone. So a positive, happy music (major scale) can also make a picture look sad or tragic, not only happy. Here is a little self-test:
Look at the picture. Then click on the different songs below and watch how your perspective on the picture changes depending on the different music.
How does the girl look? Cheeky? Funny? Sweet? How old is she? Summer or winter? Warm or cold? USA or Sweden? Nobility or middle class?
Now what? Is the girl still alive? If so, is she cheerful or in pain? Kindness or aggression? Watch her eyes.
How old is the girl now? Older or younger? Did she get a deeper voice? Is she wearing a dress or jeans and sneakers?
Nostalgic photo album or 2020? Country or city? Nature or industry? Soft or hard?
Sweet or rebellious? Pony farm or skater park?
I admit it - these are extreme examples, very bold and not even moving pictures. But it shows very clearly that there are many different variations on how to trigger a picture emotionally. For brands this is an incredibly powerful (and unfortunately far too often underestimated) way to position their company and clearly differentiate it from the competition. On a visual level, this has long been taken for granted - from typography to colour / image design via corporate wording or icon design, you develop a visual corporate design. My job is to support exactly that on an audible level, i.e. to create a corporate music design. Here a provocative negative example:
Car commercial or Germany's Next Topmodel? Insurance or the new Emmerich? Luxury brand or teaser on RTL2?
There's more. The room perspective is reverb and delay for me, color corrections are EQs, compressors and all sorts of curious tools to put audio in a different state of aggregation. The camera lens is my microphone and I work hand in hand with the editor to achieve the perfect timing and feeling for the frame. Together with the director, I become a dramaturge, with a customer I become a consultant. There are so many possibilities of design, much more than just quickly setting filters like "epic, dark, cinematic" and judging the music on its own.
What do you think about this? Feel free to write a short comment, I'm looking forward to it!
All the best
STEFAN BEN7.
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