History of Sound Design

Sound Design for the Theatre
History of Sound Design

History of Sound
o In the beginning…
1. Primitive rituals (burials, harvest festivals) were accompanied by
drums or other simple instruments

History of Sound
o In the beginning…
1. Primitive rituals (burials, harvest festivals) were accompanied by
drums or other simple instruments
2. Early theatre in China and India (4000 – 2000 BCE) used little scenery
but utilized music and sound for accompaniment and underscore

History of Sound
o The Greeks (c. 500 – 146 BCE)
1. Placed emphasis on actor’s voice in speech, recitative and song
2. Music was integral, accompanied choral odes
3. Amphitheatre architecture provided excellent acoustics
4. Some researchers think masks offered amplification, though this is
mostly disproven because of amphitheatre acoustics
Theatre at Epidaurus

History of Sound
o Italian and English Renaissance (c. 1300 – 1620 CE)
1. Built upon the musical conventions of Medieval drama
2. Commedia dell’arte used music before and after plays as well as to
support the action. Also used sound effects such as the slapstick to
heighten physical comedy.
3. Elizabethan theatre created atmosphere with music and used it for
scene transitions and pantomimed dumb shows during the play.
Scripts called for practical offstage sound effects such as bells,
chimes, thunder and gunshots.

History of Sound
o Realism (late 1800s) and Expressionism (early 1900s)
1. Realism, starting with Moscow Art Theatre’s 1898 production of
The Seagull, attempted to present the play as a “slice of life”,
required a large number of practical sound effects

History of Sound
o Realism (late 1800s) and Expressionism (early 1900s)
2. The first production of Our Town in 1938 used no recorded effects,
sound effects were created offstage by actors and stagehands

History of Sound
o Research into Sound
1. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) : sketched design for a tube speaker
2. Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (1778-1850) : determined velocity of sound
at sea level (1130 ft/s)
3. Felix Savart (1791-1841) : measured frequencies of musical pitches,
invented “Savart’s Wheel” that produced sound at specific
frequencies with a rotating wheel
4. Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894) : laws of harmonics, resonance

History of Sound
o PHONAUTOGRAPH (1857)
1. Invented by Leon Scott (1817-1879)
2. Visibly recorded sound vibrations on blackened paper

History of Sound
o PHONOGRAPH (1877)
1. Invented by Thomas Edison (1847-1931)
2. Fruit of experiments to develop a telephone signal repeater
3. Edison foresaw many uses such as the answering machine, dictation
4. Built with tinfoil cylinder as recording medium

History of Sound
o PHONOGRAPH (1877)
5. A.G. Bell patented the Gramophone using a wax cylinder (1881)
6. Emil Berliner developed a flat disc for recording (1887)
7. By 1900 the standard was a shellac disc spinning at 78 rpm,
allowed mass production of discs

History of Sound
o PHONOGRAPH (1877)
8. Western Electric developed the electric pickup (1918)
9. Sawyer created the crystal (piezoelectric) pickup (1931)
10. DC motors replaced by rim-drive system, increasing quality (1938)
11. Shellac replaced with vinyl plastic, allowed smaller groove and
higher speeds, 45 and 33 1/3 rpm (1944)
12. Stereo sound developed (1957)

History of Sound
o MAGNETIC RECORDING
1. Oberlin Smith suggested the wire recorder (1888)
Valdemar Poulsen made first working model in 1898

History of Sound
o MAGNETIC RECORDING
2. First audio tape (paper/FeO) created by Fritz Pfleumer (1928)
3. Different mediums experimented with including a tungsten/steel strip
so dangerous it had to be housed separately from the operator,
a reel of tape for a half-hour program weighed 25 kg (55 lbs)

History of Sound
o MAGNETIC RECORDING
4. Polyester replaced paper as substrate (1957), found wide use in the
music industry, easy to edit
5. Phillips introduced the 8-track cassette tape (1963)
gained popularity in car stereos

History of Sound
o MAGNETIC RECORDING
4. Polyester replaced paper as substrate (1957), found wide use in the
music industry, easy to edit
5. Phillips introduced the 8-track cassette tape (1963)
gained popularity in car stereos
6. Sony released the Walkman (1979)
used stereo cassette tape, was portable and easy to record on

History of Sound
o DIGITAL AUDIO
1. Charles Babbage (1791-1871) theorized analytical engine (1842),
his Difference Engine was the predecessor to modern computers

History of Sound
o DIGITAL AUDIO
2. Harry Nyquist (1889-1976) wrote about sampling theory (1928)
sampling is a method of turning analog signal into digital information
3. NHK demonstrated digital audio tape (DAT) recorder (1967)
4. Phillips introduced prototype compact disc (CD) player (1979)
5. Phillips and Sony developed CD standard for mass production (1980)
6. Semiconductor laser allows for smaller CD systems (1982)
7. First CD marketed in the US (1983)

History of Sound
o Sound in the Cinema
1. The first ‘talkie’ was The Jazz Singer which used a process called
Vitaphone where the projector had a mechanical interlock to drive
an attached phonograph playing sound in sync to the film.

History of Sound
o Sound in the Cinema
2. Optical recording on film was introduced in the 1930s, the edge of
the film had either variable density or width, optical sensor translated
the amount passing through into sound.

History of Sound
o Sound in the Cinema
3. In the 1950s magnetic tape was incorporated onto the film

History of Sound
o Sound in the Cinema
4. With the release of Jurassic Park (1993) Digital Theatre Systems (DTS)
format was introduced, contained a time code track that synced
with a separate audio CD

History of Sound
o Sound in the Theatre
1. Prerecorded sound effects become available on shellac records in
the 1930’s, Bertolt Brecht uses them in many of his productions.
Cues were played back on double turntables, often a production
had specially pressed records with cues on them

History of Sound
o Sound in the Theatre
2. By the 1950’s tape recorders came into widespread use
With no sound designer or audio crew, effects were found by the
stage manager and run by stage electricians
Directors with Hollywood backgrounds tried to emulate the sound of
the cinema, but tapes were often of poor quality and unreliable so
many cues were cut by the time a show reached Broadway

History of Sound
o Sound in the Theatre
3. Due to complicated, unreliable technology, sound design was often
left out or as a second thought
Dan Dugan was the first person to be called a sound designer at
ACT in San Francisco during the 1968-69 season; the Broadway
production of Hair (1968) credited “Sound by Bob Kernan”; On Jesus
Christ Superstar (1971) Abe Jacob was billed as “sound designer”

History of Sound
o Sound in the Theatre
4. In the 1990’s digital playback and recording was introduced to the
theatre with CDs, MiniDiscs, DATs, samplers and DAWs
With the continuing drop in prices and increase in quality of digital
audio equipment, the sound designer’s flexibility and control has
vastly improved and with this greater consideration and impact in
productions.