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The Weight of Noise: One writer’s struggle in New York City

Art by Divya Tak.

Art by Divya Tak.

This episode was written and produced by Marissa Flaxbart.

When writer Paige Towers moved to one of the loudest cities in the world, she found herself overcome with anxiety and depression. She came to realize that the noise of the city itself, and the inability to escape from it, was having a huge impact on her mental health. With the help of the internet, Paige was able to discover a deceptively simple solution. But the negative health implications of noise pollution are anything but simple.


MUSIC FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE

Odd Wand by Sound of Picture
Reelings by Sunshine Recorder
Always Infinity (with goosetaf & Fourth Dogma) by Kyle McEvoy
An Inside Battle by Benjamin Gustafsson
Intermezzo by Sound of Picture
Discovery by Makeup and Vanity Set
In the Shattering of Things by Hammock
Paper Feather by Migration

Twenty Thousand Hertz is produced out of the studios of Defacto Sound and hosted by Dallas Taylor.

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View Transcript ▶︎

[SFX: Forest river ambience]

Paige: I grew up in Iowa, I grew up in a really quiet place and a really quiet family.

[SFX: Forest river ambience continues]

Paige: So, I think that might be part of the reason why I am hypersensitive to noise.

This is Paige Towers. She grew up in the midwest, and her childhood was filled with the sounds of nature. When she played outside she was surrounded by birdsong and rustling leaves. But as she grew up, Paige’s path towards becoming a writer took her far from her peaceful comfort zone.

[SFX: Airplane and city ambience]

Paige: When I grew up and I started traveling the world, and living abroad, and living in these major US cities, that was exciting, and it's what I needed and wanted to do for my career. But it was kind of a shock to my nervous system because I just grew up in a place where you can go outside at night and you listen to cicadas… [SFX: quiet country ambience replaces city noise]… and wind in the trees, it's very quiet. ... and although noise bothered me when I was moving to all these cities... It really wasn't until later that all these things kind of caught up with me.

You’re listening to Twenty Thousand Hertz.

[music in]

Paige has written in places like the Washington Post and the Guardian about her struggles with noise. Living in some of the loudest cities on the planet taught her a lot about her own mental health…

Paige: I, as a very young kid, remember just being completely overwhelmed by noisy environments, [SFX: Amusement park ambience] except the fact that I was a young child, and I was not able to express, like, "Hey, I am over stimulated." Instead, I was just labeled difficult. I think that they knew that I was shy, introverted, but really, what was really triggering for me was like if I was in a mall, or at a carnival or something [SFX: Carnival ambience; merry-go-round music children shrieking] , it could be really fun for about an hour. Then, I just started to feel panicky. Like, "I have to get out of here. I have to go somewhere quiet. I have to reset."

[SFX: Music and design crescendos into a stylized stop, then music continues]

Paige: The noise has always felt to me almost like it had physical weight. I could feel it vibrating [SFX] in my bones. It felt like no matter what I did to just try to distract myself or stay calm, or whatever, I knew what I needed was quiet.

[music out]

[SFX: Return to nature ambience]

Paige: I got to walk home by myself, which was very quiet. I would take myself down to the park. I would trespass on people's farms. I would go to the woods.

Paige’s need for quiet often meant seeking solitude. So it was easily mistaken for social anxiety. She couldn’t quite figure out why she was so desperate to leave noisy places.

Paige: We inherently think people who like quiet are old, and crotchety, and just like the antithesis of fun. And so, I never was able to express or maybe even identify, like, "Hey, I need quiet." [SFX: Fade in party music/ambience] when I was in college, I would have fun at a party for a while or at a bar for a while, and then, I just sort of felt like ...what I realize now and I didn't even know then...I was kind of having symptoms of a panic attack. And if I could get myself outside, or even like to the bathroom and just relax for a little bit and just take in the quiet, then, I was fine.

[SFX: Cut party sounds/music]

[music in]

Paige: I need to go somewhere where I can feel like myself, and feel calm, and then, I could come back and then, I'd be fine. It's not that I didn't love hanging out with my friends, and I loved music, and I loved doing all of these things, it's just that I'm somebody who does not feel like myself unless I can escape to nature at least daily. I've moved to all of these different big cities, and what I realize now, I wasn't just seeking out nature because I like nature. I was seeking out quiet.

[music out]

It wasn’t until Paige landed in New York that she realized that her anxiety wasn’t about being around other people. Maybe it wasn’t even about being in nature. It was really about the constant weight of inescapable noise.

Paige: In every other place I lived before New York City...I always had an outlet. I lived in Seoul, South Korea for a while, that's a really loud city, but I could go walking along the Han River, [SFX: Park ambience] or I could go visit a Buddhist Temple. I lived in Denver, Colorado, you could take one-hour drive to the mountains [SFX: Cold wind]. I lived in Boston, and I lived in Roxbury, that neighborhood. [SFX: Dog bark] I would go walking through Franklin Park. It's really desolate, and really lovely, and quiet. I've lived in a lot of places but it was the first time when I moved to New York City, [SFX: Traffic white noise] that's when I discovered, like, not even in Central Park or on Randalls Island could I find a place that was at least even free of traffic noise.

[SFX: Traffic noise crescendos into music]

[music In]

Paige: So, when I moved to New York City, the first three months were super exciting. It's stimulating, it's chaotic, especially if you're from Iowa like me, you are walking around going like, "I made it. I'm here. I'm doing it." You can go to the museum, you go out for drinks. You could stay all night. It's great.

But after three months, Paige started to fall apart. She felt overwhelmed, frazzled, and she wasn’t sleeping well.

[music modulates eerily and fades out]

She needed a break from the constant noise… but the noise was everywhere.

[SFX: Traffic white noise]

Paige: If you place yourself on any street in Manhattan, there's always this underlying whoosh of traffic, which if you are sensitive to sound, you'll probably pick up on pretty quickly. I always view that as the underlayer, was the constant sound of traffic. Then, layering on top of that are all the more startling sounds, the louder sounds. Obviously, there are ambulance and police sirens. [SFX: Sirens]

Paige: New York City is just chronically under construction, so there's always just a jackhammer happening, [SFX: Jackhammer] that you're walking by. There's nail guns. [SFX: Nail gun. Hammers. Construction workers shouting] There's machinery. There's a lot of garbage in New York City, so there's a lot of garbage trucks, so there's the rumbling garbage trucks going by. [SFX: Garbage trucks beeping] There's a lot of buses, and buses have those air brakes which let off that really loud whooshing sound. [SFX: Bus screeching, beeping as it kneels] You'll see people's dogs always like jerking when they hear that sound, because it's just very alarming. Then, the closer you get to the east river or Hudson, there's factory noise. [SFX: Factory noise hum]

Paige: In the summer, there's always the hum of air conditioners. [SFX: Additional low hum] There's exhaust fans. There's honking cars, obviously. [SFX: Extra honks] Then, of course, there's music streaming out of the bars. [SFX: Bassy, muffled music] There's people talking. [SFX: chatter, laughter of passing people] People talking on speaker phone while they walk down the street. There's the subway screech, [SFX: Subway approaching, then stopping] which it's funny because everybody just sort of stands there and endures the sound of the subway approaching, which it's well over 100 decibels, and can cause hearing damage over time.

Many New Yorkers take pride in being able to handle the noise… but just because you can handle it, doesn't mean it can’t affect you.

Paige: If you look, you always see little children placing their hands over their ears whenever the subway is approaching, because they don't have an image to uphold. They don't have to be cool. They don't have look tough, and their body is saying, "Hey, that sound is really loud. You should probably cover your ears."

[SFX: End city noise]

Alright, take a deep breath [SFX: inhale, exhale]. That was a lot of noise you just had thrown at you. Luckily, it was only for a couple minutes and you could turn down the podcast if you needed to. But if you live in a place like New York City, that level of noise isn’t temporary and you can’t turn it down.

Paige: It's a great city and there's so many wonderful things about it: it's diverse, and it's artistic, and you can be yourself there, but I cringe when I think about some of those things. My shoulders get tight. This sounds dramatic, but I literally, some days, I was like, I feel like I'm going to die. Like, "I have to get out of here."

Paige’s experience may sound a bit extreme, especially if noise doesn’t bother you personally. But noise affects all of us, whether we realize it or not. Studies show that continued exposure to loud noise can increase blood pressure and affect our sleep… not to mention it's just plain stressful. It’s something that we all need an occasional escape from, but escaping isn’t possible for everyone.

Paige: If you don't have the money to go to The Hamptons, or the Catskills, or have a car, or anything like that, then, you can't escape it. You're stuck with it, and a lot of research has shown, it's the people that are stuck with it that are affected the most. Unfortunately, that makes for a lot of poor, a lot of minority neighborhoods that are dealing with the most noise, and they're the ones that can't leave.

[music in]

Paige: About three months in...it was like a Saturday morning where I woke up and my husband Kumar had left for work. I woke up around 6:00 and I was like, "What am I going to do today?" It hit me that I couldn't hear bird song even though the window was open. I put on my shoes and went to Central Park, that was like 6:30 a.m., and it was already filling up with tourists. There were sirens [SFX: Sirens] going by, people were playing music and there's this traffic noise. I still couldn't hear a bird song.

Paige: Usually, if I'm feeling anxious, or I'm feeling down, in the past it's always been, "Okay, I'm going to go into nature somewhere and I'm going to walk it off, I'm going to breathe, and in an hour or so, I'm going to be okay." But this was a thing where it was like the more I kept walking, the more overwhelmed I became, because the louder the city was becoming. And so, I had the classic symptoms of panic, where it was like my shoulders were super tensed. I was starting to get a terrible stress headache. My heart rate, I couldn't get it to calm down. I broke out into cold sweats, and I felt like screaming. I felt like I just needed everything to shut up for a while. I just wanted human-made noise, all of these artificial noises to go away for a little bit.

[music out]

Paige was finding it hard to focus on her work, and honestly, just to get through the day. The whole situation was becoming unsustainable for her. Finally, she decided to seek help.

Paige: So, when I first went to see a therapist in New York City, I had hit rock bottom. I was not doing well, so initially, we're addressing just depression and how I can get myself off the floor. Pretty quick we discovered, "Okay, what's the trigger for your anxiety? What's the trigger for you panicking? What's the trigger for you going into these downward depressive spirals?" I would start to talk about how on my commutes home from work, when I [SFX: Construction noise] was passing construction workers using jackhammers, I was just feeling extremely weak, and I was feeling like I had to cry. And so it sounds ridiculous, but I hadn't completely realized that that was what was happening, because I was so low in mood all the time, that I wasn't really aware that it was triggered by noise.

[music in]

Paige had reached her breaking point. But she was also about to discover a way to cope with the noise around her… by fighting sound with sound. Also, how do we fix the noise that our cities are so reliant on? All that, after this.

[music out]

MIDROLL

[music in]

Today, writer Paige Towers can look back and connect the dots between her noise sensitivity and her anxiety. That realization though didn’t come easily. Paige had to reach her lowest point before she realized noise was the problem.

[music out]

Paige: So, my therapist suggested that I put on headphones, it sounds simple, like I should have known to do that. ...putting on noise canceling headphones and walking around the city was really unnerving for me at first, because I just felt so vulnerable because I can't hear anything, and somebody's going to sneak up from behind. But that risk alone was worth every benefit I got from canceling out the noise, or from putting on headphones and listening to nature sounds while I'm walking through the city, because when I got home, I didn't collapse on the floor.

[SFX: Lake ambience]

Paige: The first ever nature sounds video that I Googled was the sound of a loon call, because I was born in Minnesota and lived there until I was six. And that was just one of my favorite sounds, was the sound of loon calls echoing over a lake in Minnesota. [SFX: Loon calls] I turned the sound of loons on as a way of masking, all the artificial noise, originally. Then, I just noticed how incredibly calm it made me.

This first little peek into nature sounds sent Paige down an internet rabbit hole. Turns out, there are a LOT of resources for piping the sounds of natural environments directly into our ears.

[SFX: Forest ambience]

Paige: I started looking at all these different sound videos on YouTube. There's one channel I love, it's called the Silent Watcher, it just has all of these videos, I think from Bulgaria, but they're in the forest. They're next to streams, and rivers, and it's the sound of bird song.

Paige: That would completely put me in a concentrated meditative state, which as a writer, obviously, I need to be in that state in order to sit there and create.

Paige: It just became a pattern of every morning I'd get up. I make my coffee. I walk my dogs. I do whatever. Then, as soon as I sit down at my laptop, the nature sounds come on, and I enter into a state of, I don't have to react to anything. I'm not in a fight or flight response. I'm just here in my natural state, and I'm going to work.

Paige: Since then, I have a pretty prolific collection of nature sounds...so, I use them not only as like a therapeutic tool, but also as a workspace tool.

[SFX: End forest ambience]

Paige had discovered a simple tool that anyone can use to combat stress. And that’s great. But the world outside our headphones just keeps getting louder, and evidence shows that anxiety is just one of the many negative effects of noise.

[music in]

Paige: There is an increasing amount of research on noise pollution and many cities are so chronically loud, again, particularly in poor minority areas, that residents experience elevated heart rates, they experience elevated blood pressure. There's higher incidences of stroke, and sleep disturbances, and cardiovascular disease. There's higher incidences of depression.

Paige: It was really reassuring, when I was experiencing this elevated heart rate, and cold sweats, and headache, and anxiety, and depression...it was wonderful to learn, "Okay, I'm not crazy. I'm not the only one. This is widely researched throughout the US, and Asia, and Europe." If you live in a place with just a high density of noise, that you're just so much more susceptible to a variety of health issues.

[music out]

Many people who live in noisy urban areas have been fighting to make their surroundings quieter. One of their main requests is to create more green space, like parks and gardens. Research shows that these changes can have a big positive health benefit, but there is still plenty of opposition.

Paige: It's a hard thing to fight, not only because noise is invisible, but because noise is productivity. Noise is manufacturing. It's industry, and technology, and transportation. Noise is capitalism, noise is money. So, why would we want to change that? Especially if you have enough money and privilege, you can just escape the noise anyway by heading to The Hamptons for the weekend. So, there are a lot of anti-noise organizations out there doing amazing work, but they fight a hard battle.

These organizations aren’t just advocating for another park here and there. They want city officials to rethink how we treat noise from the ground up. It’s only then that we’ll see real progress. Now, the best time to fix these issues was years ago, but the next best time is now.

[music in]

Paige: It's sort of remarkable that we have allowed ourselves to get to this point where we are literally inundated with so much noise to the point where we have to talk really loud to be able to hear each other. We act as if this is just part of city living, you're like, "Suck it up." But in reality, it's insane. I don't know. I really do think that we're heading for a decibel breaking point, but that's just my opinion.

It’s my opinion too. Look around you: Unless you’re out in nature somewhere, I’m guessing most things in your vision were designed by people. The same goes for our senses of touch, taste, and smell. Think about it: if a fabric is uncomfortable to the touch, it doesn’t get made. If a food or drink has a bad taste, we avoid it. We’ve also done a lot to change how public spaces smell. Just a few decades ago, bars and restaurants were often filled with the smell of cigarette smoke. Now, laws have changed and that smell is much rarer in public spaces. That movement to stop people smoking indoors started with just a few persistent voices. Their concerns were dismissed, until more voices joined in. Then, research began to show the real negative effects of second-hand smoke, and finally the scales tipped. So why hasn’t this happened yet with noise yet?

Paige: On Twitter last year, there was some hashtag, that I’m not going to think of right now, where everybody was cleaning up litter, and they would show these before and after photos. Paige: That was wonderful, that's a great campaign, but it also is really easy because you can see the difference. It's right in front of your eyes.

But with sound and noise, we just don’t have that luxury.

[music fade out]

As a whole, we’ve simply accepted that our cities are really loud. The health implications of noise pollution have largely been ignored. There are things we can do in our own lives to limit noise, but Paige says that alone isn’t enough.

Paige: You can do a lot of things on your own. You can stop using a gas lawn mower. You can stop using a weed-whacker, and a leaf blower, and all these things, but ultimately, what's really the source of noise pollution is power. It's money. So, it's aircraft. It's military. It's oil drilling. It's factories. It's traffic and transportation. So, that takes a lot of collective action, but before we can get to the collective action, we have to have a lot more people on board. We have to have a lot more people thinking about, "Hey, how is all this noise around me affecting things?"

[music in]

Awareness is the first step towards change. Together we can make our world sound a little bit better. If you live in a noisy city, you can write your local representatives and tell them your concerns about noise. You can also support initiatives asking for more green space. Ask those in power to invest in structural changes that make our cities quieter. The good news is, human design can already offer real solutions. Buildings can be designed to act as noise shields... Better road surfaces can be used to limit traffic sounds... Cities can be designed to encourage more walking and biking. These are real changes that would make a world of difference to our society, and to us as individuals.

Paige: It just opens up this whole new world for you. You're not so inward focused. You're not ignoring the next person because you're just stressed. You're suddenly sort of hearing all these different things, and you're interacting with people. ...In the future, I would love to see everything taken down several notches. I think that we owe it to people to do that.

Paige: If I ever have kids, I do hope they look back at us all just sort driving around in cars and on motorcycles everywhere, and just all of this noise, all of this construction noise, everything, I hope they look back on it and be like, "Wow, that was crazy."

[music out]

[SFX: Return to nature sounds]

CREDITS

Twenty Thousand Hertz is produced out of the sound design studios of Defacto Sound. Find out more at defacto sound dot com.

This episode was written and produced by Marissa Flaxbart. And me, Dallas Taylor. With help from Sam Schneble. It was edited, sound designed, and mixed by Colin DeVarney.

Thanks so much to our guest, Paige Towers, for sharing her story and spreading awareness about our noise problem.

We could all use some anxiety relief right now. So for the next sixty seconds, we’re going to follow Paige’s advice and listen to the perfectly soothing sounds of the natural world. So take a moment to just let your mind calm and listen.

[SFX: Nature sounds continue for 1 minute]

Recent Episodes

Tudum! The story behind the iconic Netflix sound

Art by Jon McCormack.

The Netflix “Tudum” sound has quickly become one of the most iconic sound logos of our generation. I bet you can hear it in your head right now. This sound is heard countless times, every single day, all over the world. But the Netflix sound was almost very different than the one we know today. Hear the story of how one of the biggest sound logos of all time was made. Featuring Todd Yellin - VP of Product at Netflix, Tanya Kumar - Brand Design Lead at Netflix, and Lon Bender and Charlie Campagna from the Formosa Group.


MUSIC FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE

Conflicted by Ghost Beatz
Hopscotch by CommonKid
Mariposa (90) (Instrumental) by JB Lucas
Sneaker Smeaker by Avocado Junkie
Netherland by Sound of Picture
Perfect Night (Instrumental) by Eves Blue
We Got It All (90) (Instrumental) by Charm School
Slimheart by Bitters
Tuck and Point by Onesuch Village
Frontier by Shimmer
Respect Old Arrangements by Sam Barsh


THE FULL NETFLIX THEATRICAL SONIC LOGO, WITH VISUALS!


Twenty Thousand Hertz is produced out of the studios of Defacto Sound and hosted by Dallas Taylor.

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Join our community on Reddit and follow us on Facebook.

Become a monthly contributor at 20k.org/donate.

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View Transcript ▶︎

[music in]

Nowadays, it’s hard to imagine a world without Netflix, but it’s also easy to forget how relatively young Netflix is. It really wasn’t that long ago when you’d log in and load up a movie queue, then wait for 3 DVD’s to come in the mail. Fast forward to 2007, around the time they mailed off their billionth DVD, they decided to start streaming some of their content.

Since then, Netflix has grown into the household staple that it is today. But really, what I’m most interested in, is the story… behind this sound:

[music out]

[SFX: Netflix logo]

You’re listening to Twenty Thousand Hertz. I’m Dallas Taylor.

[music in]

The Netflix sound logo debuted in 2015. Since then, it's become the quintessential sonic brand of all sonic brands.

Todd: We actually call the sound ta-dum.

That’s Todd Yellin. He oversees what’s called the “product experience” at Netflix.

Todd: We have a wonderful content team that produces and licenses all of the comedies, and dramas, and TV shows, and movies that you see on the service. Our job is to take the baton from them and to create a great experience around it.

Before Netflix, Todd was a filmmaker and he had a particular love for sound design. So when Netflix started producing a lot of their own content, Todd immediately realized that they could use a sound logo. He ended up leading the process that eventually resulted in that iconic “ta-dum.”

[SFX: Netflix logo]

Todd: The thinking was, shouldn't we have a sound that, when you hear that, it makes you think of, wow, I'm about to get a treat. I'm about to get an amazing story that's very relevant to me. And that's most importantly, cinematic in my home.

[music out]

Recognizing that Netflix could use a sound logo was the easy part. Deciding exactly what that sound should be is way harder.

Todd: First off and arguably most important, it had to be really short. The reason it had to be short is... As opposed to in a movie theater, when you have a captive audience, and they're going to be there, and they paid their $10, and they're going to watch whatever you throw at them, so some of the grander sound idents, you can imagine, like THX... Great one... It's really long [SFX: THX logo]. The “da na, da na, da na, from 20th Century Fox… [SFX: 20th Century Fox logo] long. Even Leo The Lion was too long [SFX: MGM logo]. Because, in our age of click and play, you get to Netflix, you want to be able to click, and there's no patience, and you want that great experience, and you almost want it immediately. So, the first thing is it had to be short.

Todd: Past that, I said, "I don't want an electronic sound that is reminiscent of a game platform like X-Box [SFX: X-Box startup sound], or a computer like Apple [SFX: Apple startup sound], or an operating system like Microsoft launching [SFX: Microsoft Startup sound], because we are in the entertainment business." Even though we are the double helix of entertainment and technology coming together, wanted to make sure that it sounded more cinematic than electronic and computerish.”

Todd knew that when someone heard this sound, he wanted them to immediately think “Netflix.” Generally, in the world of sonic branding, there’s two ways to do that. The first way is just to say the name in the sound

[SFX: montage of CNN, Bad Robot, Playstation].

The other way is a lot harder. Where do you even start to make a sound that captures the entire spirit and heart of a company.

[music in]

Todd: I don't want Netflix, the name being said, but I want eventually the sound to be, you hear it and you think, aha, it's Netflix." [SFX: Netflix sound] We knew lots of repetition would do that. I thought some kind of call and response thing would be interesting and maybe something that builds up tension and then releases it, just like a story does, but you've got to do that in like three seconds [SFX: Ticking lock for 3 seconds].

Todd: One of the directions I would give is don't be afraid to be quirkier or different. An obvious one that comes to mind is the HBO static [SFX: HBO logo]. [music out]

Todd: That's not static. That's like the most annoying sound. But, they've made it into a positive thing. So, wanted to try all kinds of things.

[music in]

Todd: We started listening to a bunch of potential sound designers, composers, who might be the right person to do this for us.

After many, many, many different attempts, Todd decided to call up a sound designer he loved working with in the past.

Lon: I had a phone call out of the blue from Todd Yellin.

*That’s Lon Bender.

*Todd: He is just an Academy award winning sound designer. I wasn't even sure if they would do this kind of work, but he was interested. I gave him the direction of the kinds of things we were looking for. I said, "Try all kinds of bits and don't be afraid to be quirky."

[music out]

At this point, Todd had gone through tons of different composers and sound designers. He had folders full of demos, but none of them still sounded quite right. Todd was hoping Lon could help make a sound that checked all of the boxes - tension, release, not too electronic, quirky, something that screams “Netflix”, but without actually saying it… and all of that in a few short seconds... Seemingly an impossible challenge. Here’s Lon.

[music in]

Lon: We had all types of programming that this had to work for. So it couldn't be in any one genre, because there was dramas and comedies and romantic things and action things. So all of those things have very vast differences in terms of the type of audiences. And I think Netflix wants to be a company that's delivering all these different things.

Lon: We tried many different roads. There was a lot of work done with sound effects, straight sound effects. We had things that were funny, we had things that were irreverent. We had things that were about opening doors [SFX], things about time ticking [SFX]. There was all kinds of different approaches using sound effects.

Lon: I think we'd come up with 20 or 30 choices, we broke them down into groups, and each group was different areas of aesthetics. In terms of musical things [SFX], some sound effects things[SFX] and things that were a combination of the two.

Todd: Music boxes [SFX], and strange instruments [SFX], things I've never heard about coming from every corner of the globe. And then, he tried things that were like, here's actual sounds from the filmmaking process [SFX]. Here's sounds from old fashioned filmmaking [SFX]. So we tried all kinds of bits.

[music out]

After going through countless options, there were just a couple sounds that made it into the final round.

Todd: One thing I was initially attracted to was, if we're going to do that call and response, that create tension and then resolve it really quickly, I liked the sound of a goat.

Todd: It was funny. I thought it was quirky. It was our version of Leo The Lion. And so, for a while, we were stuck on that goat sound. I thought that would be a good time.



So, I can’t play the sound for you, but I did hear one of the goat options they considered… and it’s… um very goaty. It was basically an ending response to the ta-dum we already know and love… Here’s my best impression on what I heard… ahem…

[SFX: Netflix Sound with Dallas vocalizing a goat sound]

Yeah…

Todd: Then, we had another one where it was a little more electronic than I was wanting, but I kind of like it. It was ethereal, bubbly, sound from the depths of the oceans or something like that. I don’t even remember where he got it from. Sometimes it has nothing to do with what it evokes, where you actually get the sound from. But I remember liking that one as well.

Hindsight being 20/20, it’s easy to look back and think that these sounds clearly aren’t as good as the Netflix sound we know and love today. But when you’re listening to tons of options over and over again it’s easy to lose perspective. The right choice becomes a lot less clear.

Todd: How the heck do you decide which one to use? That's a lot of pressure, because this thing we knew is going to get millions, hundreds of millions, billions of impressions. People are going to hear this around the world. Oh my God, that's a lot of pressure.

[music in]

By this point, Todd needed outside opinions, so his team created an anonymous, blind survey that would go out to thousands of people. They didn’t tell these people what these sounds were for. They just wanted, in general, to get their opinion on the sound. Now, they could have just played every sound for every person and have them pick their favorite. But Todd wasn’t necessarily interested in which sound would be people’s favorites. He was more interested in how each individual sound made people feel. So instead, they decided to play a single sound for a bunch of people…

Todd: And then see what words come to their mind and what they associate. And then, thousands of other people try a different sound.

At this point they compiled all the words that came back for each sound. For instance, that rejected bubbly sound produced words like, “curious” and “relaxed”. But one of the most common words was “confused”.

Todd: It was like, ugh, I don't really like the confused.

But when they gathered the results from the “ta-dum” sound…

Todd: Overall impression, dramatic, interesting, beginning, good, short. When we go, what does it make you think of? By far, and this is what got me excited, and this is probably what led to this being the winner... And the biggest word by far was movie. They didn't know this was a Netflix sound. We were just asking consumers, what do you think of the sound? What does it evoke? And so, they put movie and great.

[music out]

Todd was getting very close. After an entire year of countless versions, iterations, first impressions... there were just a final few sounds left. These contenders still had to pass through one last test...and it was a big one.

Todd: I needed one more arbiter. This is a lot of pressure. Billions of people are going to hear this. I got home and sat down, did a little nighttime work. My 10-year-old daughter, she was wandering about, and I go, "Somara, I need some help. Get over here." I played for Somara our five top sounds. She was immediately, no hesitation, "It's so obvious, dad, it's this one." She was gesturing towards the sound file for the one that we use, the ta-dum.

[SFX: Netflix sound]

[music in]

Finally. After a year of work and trial and error, Todd and his team did it. They finally had a sound they were proud of. This sound would go on to define the Netflix brand. But we still haven’t found out how that sound was actually made? What were those two hits… [SFX: Netflix sound without blossom]and where did the resolve sound come from? [SFX: Netflix logo without knocks] Also, you probably don’t know that Netflix actually has a second sonic logo. All of that, after the break.

[music out]

MIDROLL

[music in]

Just like you, I’ve probably heard the Netflix sound thousands of times in my life. Compound that by every Netflix subscriber around the world, and almost like the digits of pi we can’t possibly calculate how many times this sound has been heard in total... But what we can do is break down what the sound is actually made of. Here’s sound designer Lon Bender.

[music out]

Lon: It's a combination of music and of the sound effects of these knocks, which were my wedding ring that I'm wearing knocking on the side of our cabinet in our bedroom [SFX: ring knocking on wood]. And in order to add different qualities to it I sweetened it with other things, which is normal for us in the film sound industry. Any sound is made up of four sounds, generally.

Lon: There was a slowed-anvil sound which had a deeper tone [SFX: slowed anvil hit].

In addition to the ring and anvil, Lon also added a couple of muted hits to give it a little bit more oomph.

[SFX: Netflix sound without blossom]

Lon was happy with the two hits… at least this part of the sound. But by itself, this percussive approach didn’t seem like it was enough.

Lon: As much as I liked the sound effects idea, it had its place, but it didn't give me the aesthetic, lean-in kind of feel that I was hoping for.

Lon needed a musical element that would help draw listeners in. The sound his team ultimately came up with was codenamed the “blossom”. It’s that tonal swell you hear in the final resolve.

[SFX: Netflix logo without knocks]

[music in]

That blossom sound is difficult to place. It’s both familiar and strange. You might think it was created by some sort of synthesizer... but it wasn’t.

Charlie: I had used mostly my electric guitar, which ended up being the sound for the blossom.

That’s Charlie Campagna. He’s a sound designer and composer who works with Lon.

Lon: One of the most important elements of this was the guitar material that Charlie came up with, because I wanted it to have a musical component, but any instrument that was played straight up, it was too specific because someone would instantly recognize it as that instrument.

They really needed a sound that was unique. They didn’t want it to be recognizable as a specific instrument. They definitely didn’t want it to be “that guitar sound”. They wanted it to be “that Netflix sound.” Ultimately, the blossom wasn’t even a new creation. It actually came from a recording that Charlie made decades ago.

[music out]

Charlie: Back in, I would say the '90s, I bought a piece of gear by DigiTech called the 2101 and it was kind of like a modern day approach to using heavy guitar amplifiers. So it had really cool reverbs and delays and such. I was trying to learn the unit and I plugged into it, and I also had another piece of gear called a Lexicon JamMan, which was a 42-second delay that could loop. And you could loop what you're playing, so you could play a phrase and it'll record it, and then you could press a button twice and it reverses it.

What you’re hearing right now is Charlie’s original recording.

[SFX: Charlie’s recording begins playing and continues under]

Charlie: One particular sound stood out at that time, which is the blossom sound that's used. And it's about a 30-second phrase of guitar playing that has been reversed and processed through that DigiTech, and I always had it because it's so beautiful, but I never was able to use it. And it just so happened that I decided to use that piece of audio for one of the submissions that I gave to Lon.



…and listen carefully right now. Buried in this recording… this happened.

[SFX: the section of recording that became the final Netflix sound is heard]

Charlie: It ended up being directly put in there without any extra sound design. It's literally just the reverse guitar doing its thing.

Lon: The reverse and forward nature of it, the fact that it takes you in and takes you out. It was really the perfect sound without it having to be more than one thing.

Charlie: That orphan sound found its purpose. It like found its parents.

[SFX: guitar recording bumps out]

This Netflix sound logo has become the gold standard for sonic brands. It's immediately recognizable and everyone knows that it means “Netflix”. Another amazing aspect of this is that the sound works for any genre. Think about it, this sound works just as well to introduce The Crown, as it does Stranger Things, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, True and the Rainbow Kingdom, Ozark, or BoJack Horseman. But there is one environment where this classic ta-dum sound doesn’t work so well. And that’s where we find Netflix’s other sonic logo.

[music in]

Tanya: We were sitting in the theater and the toudum would come on and then the film would start and it felt so short and so abrupt that you really didn't quite understand what you even saw before you just went, you dove right into the film.

That’s Tanya Kumar, she’s a brand design lead at Netflix. In addition to the traditional television series, Netflix has also been producing a lot of original films. They started playing them in theaters around the world. Originally they used that classic ta-dum sound to start the films, just like they would normally do with the shows on their streaming side. But a theater is a very different setting than your couch at home.

Tanya: So that was the first problem we were trying to solve is how do you really set the movie mood and set people up for this experience that they're about to see, we are separating our films from our series in a way. You're in a theater, you're here for the long experience, whether it's an hour and a half, whether it's two hours, you're here to hear the whole story to really sit down and experience it in a theater.

They needed something new for the theater, but that still sounded like Netflix. That means the ta-dum, or toudum as Tanya calls it, had to stay in some form.

[music out]

Tanya: Our toudum sound was extremely important. We didn't want to mess with it. We wanted to make sure that that was the tie back to our brand and that we didn't lose sight of something that our members and non-members really love. So how do you tie in something that's so iconic and only four seconds long into something that is a much longer experience. So the big brief really was taking the current sound and implementing it into something much longer.

The process for creating the theatrical sound was a lot quicker than the original toudum sound. Netflix already had a sound they loved. They just needed a way to transform it into something more cinematic, and for that, they needed a cinematic composer.

Tanya: Who had we worked with that we really liked and enjoyed working with, and also who had a brand tie to us? So someone who had actually worked on our original content or had experience on our production sets and we ended up working with Hans Zimmer mostly because he did a lot of work with us on "The Crown."

Hans Zimmer is a legend. He’s composed film scores for movies like The Lion King, Pirates of the Caribbean, Inception, Interstellar, Dunkirk… but I don’t need to keep going.

Tanya: I don't know if you've heard the soundtrack for "The Crown" [SFX: The Crown main theme] it's beautiful. It's very iconic. It just has the simplicity and elegance to it that we thought was perfect for bringing into our brand as well.

[SFX: The Crown theme bumps out]

Hans was told by Netflix that they wanted to maintain the ta-dum sound, but integrate it into something longer and more cinematic.

Tanya: We received about six or seven different various compositions in the first round, which we then narrowed down to about three. So it wasn't a lot of brainstorming. I think he immediately picked up on what we needed and we were able to narrow it down to about three different compositions that felt pretty different. After that there were a couple more brainstorm sessions and sharing and we landed on really one that we really liked.

There was some creative back and forth, but when you’re working with someone like Hans, it doesn’t take long to get the sound right. Here’s what Hans came up with. This is the final Netflix theatrical sonic logo in its entirety.

[SFX: Netflix Theatrical Sound]

[music in]

Even when they needed something new for the theater, Netflix stayed true to their original sound. It’s a testament to just how important sound is to Netflix.

Tanya: It's kind of a thing that we don't really mess with. We know people love it as is, even with the updated visuals that we rolled out last year. It was super important to the company that we keep the toudum sound as is, and the visuals might get an update to help with the story. But holistically, the sound really is kind of something that we don't really touch or play with at this point.

Todd: We noticed visual things, visual idents, tend to go out of style a lot more often than sounds, which tend to be a lot more long lived. That visual has already evolved since we made this around six years ago. It's already changed, and we expect it to change a lot more. Whereas, the sound has pretty much stayed the same since we created it, and I expect it to stay the same for a lot longer.

The Netflix sonic logo is enormous. It’s heard countless times, every day, all over the world. Every other company out there wants a sonic logo that’s this impactful. When I originally spoke with Todd, I mentioned to him just how huge this Netflix sound is in the world of sonic branding.

Dallas (from interview): So every single sonic branding brief that I’ve ever received or seen, every one of them refers to Netflix sound. This is the most influential, popular, sonic brand in the entire world. Like how does that feel?

Todd: When you say that, honestly, my chest gets a little tighter and I go, "Oh my God, that's a lot of pressure...

[fade music out]

Todd: Thank God I didn't go with the goat."

[SFX: Dallas making a goat sound]

[music in]

Twenty Thousand Hertz is hosted by me, Dallas Taylor, and produced out of the sound design studios of Defacto Sound. Find out more at defactosound.com.

This episode was written and produced by Colin DeVarney. And me, Dallas Taylor. With help from Sam Schneble. It was edited, sound designed, and mixed by Colin DeVarney.

Thanks to our guests Todd Yellin, Lon Bender, Charlie Campagna, and Tanya Kumar. And a huge thanks to Sarah Jones from Netflix for all of the help with this episode.

If you’d like to see the full Netflix theatrical animation, we’ve embedded that to this episode’s page on 20k dot org.

Finally, what does the Netflix sound make you think of, and what are your other favorite sonic brands? If you think we should do a story on it tell us, you can chat with me, and the rest of the 20k team through our website, facebook, twitter, reddit, or by writing hi at 20k dot org.

Thanks for listening.

[music out]

Recent Episodes

McElroys, Mysteries, and Me: Guess That Sound! w/ MBMBAM

Art by Jon McCormack.

Join Dallas and the McElroy Brothers (hosts of My Brother, My Brother and Me) as they compete to see which brother has the best ear. We dust off our old mystery sounds to test the McElroy's on their knowledge of pop culture, science, and the mundane. Which brother has the best ear? Find out, in this heated and hilarious game... of mystery sounds.


MUSIC FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE

Highlife (Instrumental) by Chris Valentine
Jane by Alexander Lewis
Thinking About You (Instrumental) by Cody Fry
Feels Good (Instrumental) by Cass XQ


Twenty Thousand Hertz is produced out of the studios of Defacto Sound and hosted by Dallas Taylor.

Follow Dallas on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and LinkedIn.

Join our community on Reddit and follow us on Facebook.

Become a monthly contributor at 20k.org/donate.

If you know what this week's mystery sound is, tell us at mystery.20k.org.

To get your 20K referral link and earn rewards, visit 20k.org/refer.

Check out SONOS at sonos.com.

Check out the McElroy brothers' podcasts My Brother, My Brother, and Me and The Adventure Zone at themcelroy.family or wherever you get your podcasts.

View Transcript ▶︎

Griffin: One, two, check, check, check, check.

Justin: One. Check, check, check. Yes. I'm recording.

Travis: Check. One, two. Check. One, two, three, four.

So, everyone's recording?

Travis: One, two. Yes.

You’re listening to Twenty-Thousand Hertz.

Griffin: One. Check. One. Yes, yes. Check, one, one. Ha ha ha. Great jokes, everybody. Okay. Yeah. I am recording.

Perfect.

[music in]

So this episode is going to be a little different. Long time listeners know that in every show we have a segment in the middle called the Mystery Sound. During the ad break, we play a sound and have listeners write us, telling us what they think that sound is. It’s a fun game and it's always a blast hearing people’s thoughts. Well, we have a long back catalog of Mystery Sounds that many of you might not have heard before. Or, if you haven’t listened all the way through the credits, you may have not heard the reveal. So that’s what this entire episode is all about.

I had the pleasure of playing our past Mystery Sounds for the McElroy brothers, they’re the hosts of the fantastic podcast My Brother, My Brother, and Me, and it was so fun. This show is that conversation. If you’ve already heard all our Mystery Sounds, you’re going to love hearing them try to decipher these clips. And if you’ve missed them in the past, then this is a great time to play along. So without further ado, here are the McElroy brothers in a heated competition over Mystery Sounds.

[music out]

Sweet. So, let's just get warmed up. Play mystery sound number one, and tell me what you think it is.

[Mystery Sound 1 - Zelda Cartridge]

Justin: [Laughs]

I’ll tell you, it's so common that once you hear it you’re gonna…

Justin: Are you messing with me right now?

I’m not, no. I suspect you've heard this a lot. I know I have.

Justin: It sounds like someone knocking over a snare drum. That's my hot take.

Travis: Oh. Really? No. I think it's somebody opening like, a microwavable meal.

Justin: Oh, okay. Yeah. I can hear that.

Travis: Like peeling the plastic back or...

Griffin: I think it's a broken cash register. But, why would I have heard that?

Travis: Yeah, Griffin. That was my next question.

Griffin: Why would I have heard a broken cash ... I don't have a working cash register, around the house.

Justin: Yeah. Let alone one that you'd know if it's malfunctioning or sick.

Griffin: Right. I'll get better at this.

Yeah. We'll get better at this. So, I'll tell you what that is. That is the sound of a Nintendo cartridge going into a Nintendo.

[Mystery Sound 1 - Zelda Cartridge]

Travis: Oh, man.

Griffin: Oh.

Yeah. And then being pushed down.

Justin: Ah, dunk. I look like a real horse's patoot.

Specifically, not that this matters, but it's the original gold Legend of Zelda going into a Nintendo.

Travis: That was my next guess.

Justin: No. Okay. I didn't know that metal cartridges could be part of it. And, the gold is a very different sound. If you had said gold cartridges were part of this at all, that would've been my instant guess.

Of course.

Griffin: Also, we were a Sega family. So, if it would've been the Sonic the Hedgehog 2 plugging into the Sonic & Knuckles expansion cart, we would have nailed that.

Justin: Absolutely.

Travis: Because, Sega does what Ninten-don't.

Griffin: Yeah. We're huge on that.

Okay. Number two has got to be a lot easier. So, okay.

Justin: A lot easier. Okay. Perfect.

[Mystery Sound 2 - AOL Login]

Travis: That's a door.

Justin: No. It's not a door. It's the sound in AOL Instant Messenger when one of your friends logs on to the service.

Griffin: That's babytown easy shenanigans.

Travis: Yes. 100%, that's a ...

Justin: Tell me I nailed that.

That’s it. That's it. Yeah. I need to add a "ding, ding, ding, ding, ding”* [SFX: Bell] *or something.

[Mystery Sound 2 - AOL Login]

Justin: I used to work for AOL, so that one's deep in my heart. We were using that thing way longer than a lot of other people abandoned it. Sort of like people who work for Myspace now are like, "Check out my Myspace. It's right here." Like, "What? Are you kidding?"

Travis: Does more than one person still work for Myspace?

Justin: I'm sure it's Tom and his dad.

Travis: I just assumed there was one person who went in every day, flipped on the Internet switch, let people use it, and then turned it off at night so they didn't waste any power.

So, three is one that I'm not familiar with, but my entire team knew immediately. So, I'm curious where this is going to land with you all. We're on a theme, sort of, right now. So, check out three. [Mystery Sound 3 - Gen 1 Pikachu]

Griffin: That's one of them gen-one Pikachu sounds.

Well there you go. [SFX: Bell]

[Mystery Sound 3 - Gen 1 Pikachu]

Travis: I knew it was a Pokéman, but I'm not surprised that Griffin knew it exactly.

Justin: Dallas, from now on, can you say, "One, two, three, go," so people don't just start listening to it and blurt it out too quickly and kinda cheat?

Oh. That's probably a good idea.

Travis: I thought we were all on the same team. Are we competing? Wait.

Oh, no. This is a comp... I haven't even taken score on this. Actually, that's what we need to do.

Justin: So far, it's Travis zero, me one, Griffin one.

Travis: What?

Justin: Yeah. Sorry.

Okay. What's the score?

Justin: The score is one for Justin, one for Griffin, zero for Travis, a big old stinky goose egg.

Travis: Okay. All right.

There we go. Okay.

Travis: I thought we were just doing a team fun thing, but...

Griffin: Oh. God, no.

Oh, no. It's a competition now.

Travis: Okay. Fine. Cool. Cool.

Okay. So, we're going to move to four, but I'm going to do the "three, two, one.”

Justin: Okay

Okay. So, three, two, one, listen.

[Mystery Sound 4 - The Bloop]

Travis: Oh. That's an ultrasound.

It’s specific.

Griffin: More specific than ultrasound?

Uh-huh, Yeah. I'll give you a hint. It's a scientific sound. I could go further.

Travis: Oh. It's an ultrasound of a fart.

Uh… Maybe.

How about this? I'll say it's underwater.

Travis: Is it an ultrasound of a whale fart?

It could be. We're getting closer. It's in the ocean.

Travis: An ultrasound of a dolphin fart.

It could be. Yeah.

Travis: You can't say, "It could be." It could be anything.

Justin: I'm going to go with dolphin fart so we can move on with our lives.

Griffin: I think it's somebody underwater saying hello.

It could be. So, what this is is the Bloop, which is a very famous underwater sound recorded in the '90s. NOAA had no idea what it was for a while, but they think it's an iceberg that broke away from an Antarctic glacier, and was heard from thousands of miles away on an underwater microphone.

[Mystery Sound 4 - The Bloop]

Justin: So, I'm going to give all of us a point.

Travis: Yeah. Because it could be.

Justin: Because it could be anything, so we all get a point.

Griffin: It sounds like nobody really knows what this sound is.

It could have been a whale fart. It could have been a dolphin fart. It could have been just something birthing underwater. We don't know. So, everybody gets a point.

Justin: Okay

Travis: Okay.

Okay. So, this next one's a person, a voice of a person.

Travis: You just gave it away!

Oh. That is true [laughing].

Travis: You just said ... Hey. It's a voice of a person. I just got a point.

Okay. Who is this person? Three, two, one, listen.

[Mystery Sound 5 - Teller]

Justin: Carl Sagan. [Mystery Sound 5 Continued - Teller]

Travis: Oh. That's Teller.

That’s true. Ding, ding, ding. [SFX: Bell]

Griffin: Oh.

Justin: Wow. Dang. That was good, Trav. Good pull.

Travis: Thank you. Thank you.

Justin: Tied it up. Two all around.

All right. Mystery Sound number six. Three, two, one.

[Mystery Sound 6 - Waterphone]

Travis: It's a singing bowl?

No.

Travis: A theremin.

No.

Justin: No. It's a ...

You’re orbiting it for sure.

Justin: Oh my gosh. I know this. It's a weird instrument.

Travis: Is it a saw?

You’re so close.

Justin: No. It's not a saw.

Travis: Oh. It's a vibraphone?

I’m going to give you a point because that's so close. [SFX: Bell] It's a waterphone.

Justin: Waterphone. Yes.

Which is this metal thing. You put some water at the bottom of it. That's why it goes, "Wobble, wobble, wobble.”

[Mystery Sound 6 - Waterphone]

Griffin: And, we're giving out points for that, huh?

Justin: I got phone.

Griffin: I feel like the metrics for how we're awarding points is changing on the fly.

Justin: I remember this because waterphones are very prominent in ... They use them in horror movies a lot to give that suspenseful sound.

All right. So, back to science.

Justin: Okay. Science category.

This is a tricky one. Okay. So, mystery sound number seven. Three, two, one. Check it out.

[Mystery Sound 7 - Black holes colliding]

Travis: Okay.

Griffin: This is two ultrasounds. How about this? I'll give a point if you can just pinpoint where it would be coming from.

Griffin: Is it outer space? I’m going to give you a point for that. [SFX: Bell]

This is too hard. This is two black holes colliding, and then pitched up.

Travis: That's what I was about to say.

Obviously.

Travis: I was about to say, "Two black holes colliding."

Griffin: What we are hearing is two black holes going, "Oh. Excuse me. Sorry."

[Mystery Sound 7 - Black holes colliding]

Justin: I want to lodge a protest, Dallas, if I may. Can I lodge a formal protest? Is there a spot for that in the program.

Sure. We can make that spot right now. I do see that you are down one point, so I can understand.

Justin: Yeah. And, it's going to get worse. When we agreed to do this, never was I told that nerd stuff would be so important. Could I get one sound of a saw, or like a sports sound, like the sound of a touchdown being occurring?

Travis: Or the sound of a high-five, or the sound of a Corvette with the top down.

Justin: A Corvette revving up.

Griffin: Or just John McEnroe yelling.

Justin: The sound of a Kathy Ireland calendar falling off the wall. These are sounds that I know.

Travis: Yeah. Or just even a cool Pepsi-opening sound.

Justin: Like a cool beer opening, you mean. See? This is the problem with you nerds trying to pretend that you're into cool jock stuff like me. Next sound!

Next sound. Where were we at? Okay. Eight. Three, two, one.

[Mystery Sound 8 - Bald eagle]

Justin: Hugely unpleasant. Seagulls?

Griffin: Capuchin monkey.

No.

Justin: Ooh.

Travis: That is a baby hawk.

No. That's so close.

Justin: Ooh. I like that.

Travis: A baby bald hawk. Baby bald eagle.

There you go. [SFX: Bell] It might be a baby, but it is a bald eagle. So, a point for you.

[Mystery Sound 8 - Bald eagle]

Justin: Good one, Trav.

Travis: Well, I just put a birdbath in my backyard, so I'm kind of an expert now.

Justin: Getting a lot of eagles, are you?

Travis: A lot of eagles.

Griffin: The birdbath is full of dead rats, so ...

Travis: Yeah. No. That's true.

Okay. Number nine. A very common sound for a lot of people. We'll find out if you own any of these things. So, number nine. Three, two, one.

[Mystery Sound 9 - K-Cup]

Justin: Is it a copier or a printer?

No. I'd say you'd find this in your kitchen.

Justin: Oh. In the kitchen. Okay. Is it a mandoline?

Do you find mandolins in your kitchen?

Travis: Like a mandoline slicer, Dallas.

Justin: A mandoline slicer.

Oh. A slicer. I was thinking like Bluegrass.

Justin: Oh. Gotcha. Yeah. No. That wouldn't be in the kitchen. Please.

Griffin: Is it a coffee maker?

I think that's good enough. It's a K-Cup. [SFX: Bell]

Travis: Oh.

Justin: Oh.

[Mystery Sound 9 - K-Cup]

Griffin: You mean a K-Cup that makes coffee?

Exactly.

Griffin: I think that's pretty darn close.

All right. So, number 10. Three, two, one.

[Mystery Sound 10 - Herring fart]

Travis: A rotary phone.

Not close.

Travis: Not close.

Griffin: Is it some sort of living organism making this sound?

Yup.

Griffin: Yes

Justin: Oh. It's a cicada.

It is underwater.

Griffin: Is that a dolphin-

Travis: Fart.

Griffin: -cackle? Travis, I swear to god.

Travis: One of these times, I'm going to be right.

Justin: It's never going to be a dolphin fart.

It’s so close, though.

Justin: Cicada fish.

You know what? The score here is Travis three, Griffin three, Justin two. I think I'm going to give this one to Justin [SFX: Bell], because you did say a dolphin fart, but this is actually a herring fart.

Travis: I said dolphin fart.

Justin: Travis said dolphin fart. Give him the point Dallas, I don’t need charity.

I thought that was Justin.

Travis: I said dolphin fart.

Griffin: It's fine. People get us confused all the time.

Justin: We've been talking for 20 minutes. You should be able to tell our voices apart perfectly at this point.

Okay. That's a herring fart. These fish gulp the air at the surface, and fart. And, scientists think that it's used for communication.

[Mystery Sound 10 - Herring fart]

Justin: I can't believe Travis was right about some sort of aquatic life farting.

Travis: Well, now I can stop guessing it. That's the upside for everyone.

Justin: Yeah. Everyone wins.

As far as I know, there's no more farts in the rest of these.

Travis: A likely story.

Okay. Number 11. Three, two, one.

[Mystery Sound 11 - Koala]

Justin: Oh. That's a pig.

Griffin: I think it's actually a large dog that's struggling with something.

It’s just as cute as a large dog, or cuter.

Griffin: Is that a moose?

No. It's cuter than that. What's the cutest animal?

Travis: The cutest animal.

Yes.

Travis: A baby gorilla.

Not in the Northern Hemisphere. Australia specifically.

Justin: Ah. It's a kangaroo, innit?

No. It's not that either. It's a koala bear.

Justin: It's a koarla.

There it is.

Justin: It's a mongoorse.

Travis: No points for anyone.

No points.

Justin: A koarla. What was it?

Griffin: What was it?

That was a koala bear. Yeah.

[Mystery Sound 11 - Koala]

Justin: So, I got that.

Travis: No, he said koala before you did!

Griffin: Dallas did say it before you said it.

You know, Zoom does funny things. What do you think?

Griffin: Zoom's not a time machine.

That is true.

Travis: I'm going to give it to Justin because I think he needs it. It's a pity point.

Justin: I don't need it.

Justin: I don't need your charity.

You don't need it? You only have two points, though.

Justin: Yeah. I want to keep them just like they are. They're perfect. I don't need them. I'm just going to make a huge comeback right now.

All right. Number 12 in three, two, one.

[Mystery Sound 12 - Baby crocodiles]

Griffin: This is a lot of monkeys.

No.

Travis: Is it a living creature?

It is multiple living creatures.

Travis: That is what a panda bear sounds like. I don't know.

Justin: Is that what a panda bear sounds like?

Travis: I don't know. I haven't had a chance to meet one.

Justin: I don't know.

Travis: Wait. Hold on. Hold on. I'm going to say penguins.

I could see that. But, it's actually a bunch of baby crocodiles, of all things.

[Mystery Sound 12 - Baby crocodiles]

Griffin: Whoa . Travis: Oh. You know what? I actually ... Ah. Fart. I knew that. I knew that baby crocodiles sound like laser guns. But, I still don't deserve the point.

Justin: No. Not at all.

Travis: I'm just saying.

Justin: Not at all. So, 13, is that where we're at?

Yeah. The key here is you know the sound, but you've got to say what the thing is that makes it. So, three, two, one.

[Mystery Sound 13 - Klaxon]

Griffin: A car horn.

Travis: Klaxon.

There it is. [SFX: Bell] Yeah. Travis got it.

Griffin: A klaxon?

Travis: A klaxon.

Justin: Klaxon!

Griffin: Is that a brand? Is that like Kleenex? I've heard the word before.

Travis: Yeah. That "awooga, awooga" is specifically a klaxon.

[Mystery Sound 13 - Klaxon]

All right. Let's see. So, let's go to 14. Three, two, one.

[Mystery Sound 14 - Brick down an ice bore hole]

Travis: An Old Western.

Justin: Yeah. It sounds like an Old West gunfight.

Or baby crocodiles being shot through a tube. That's not it.

Travis: You're not allowed to guess.

Justin: It's the Large Hadron Collider, particles bouncing all around, doing their thing.

Oh. That'd be cool.

Griffin: I would love it if that's what the Large Hadron Collider sounded like.

Justin: Pew pew, pew pew..

Travis: Oh, wait. Is that the inside of a popcorn maker?

Griffin: Ooh.

Oh. That's a great guess. I never thought of it that way.

Travis: Okay. But, it's not a great guess if it's not right. I appreciate the feedback. I like the positivity. But, if it's wrong, it's not a great guess.

There is a theme here of me just seeing something cool, some viral video on Twitter, and making it the immediate next mystery sound. So, this went all over the Internet a couple of weeks ago.

Griffin: Pizza Rat.

Travis: Is this Pizza Rat playing a djembe? No. Pizza Rat playing a hammered dulcimer. Final answer.

Griffin: Mentos and Diet Coke.

Justin: Pizza Rat playing a waterphone.

I like all of them. So, what that is, somebody drilled a giant ice borehole, and dropped a brick down it. And, that's why you hear “pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew’.

Travis: Oh. That's a cool sound.

Yeah. High frequencies travel faster than low frequencies, “pew”, so you hear that sound.

[Mystery Sound 14 - Brick down an ice bore hole]

Okay. So, based off of the ones you have gotten, I think that 15 is going to be a race. So, three, two, one.

[Mystery Sound 15 - Ringwraith]

Griffin: That's a Dementor?

Travis: Huh.

Griffin: Is it not a Dementor?

I’m going to say it's from a movie.

Griffin: Yeah.

Travis: Oh. Is this The Mummy?

It’s from a trilogy.

Travis: Oh. It's the Ringwraith.

There it is. Yeah. [SFX: Bell] That’s it.

[Mystery Sound 15 - Ringwraith]

Justin: Nice. Good one, Trav. You're great at this.

Griffin: I mean, Ringwraith is basically ...

Travis: It's not.

Griffin: Basically a Dementor, if you think about it.

Travis: It's not.

Griffin: It's basically ...

Justin: Based off.

Griffin: It's basically the same thing.

Justin: Inspired by.

Travis: It's not.

All right. So, 16. Matter of fact, this was the very first mystery sound we ever did. So, three, two, one.

[Mystery sound 16 - Butter being spread on toast]

Griffin: Is that butter being spread on toast?

Travis: That's butter on ... Oh. Griffin got it.

What’d you say, Griffin?

Griffin: Butter being spread on toast?

How’d you know that so perfectly? [SFX: Bell]

Griffin: Because it sounds like butter being spread on toast, like a lot.

[Mystery sound 16 - Butter being spread on toast]

From a half-inch perspective. So, when you butter toast, do you stick it right up to your ear?

Griffin: Yeah. I love the sound of it. I'm nasty like that.

Travis: Maybe I'm just buttering harder, because I don't get that close, but it sounds exactly like that to me. Perhaps I'm applying too much force when I'm buttering my toast.

It’s funny. Internally, we couldn't even guess what that sound was. So, I guess I don't butter toast enough.

Travis: Oh. I do every hour.

Justin: Or, at least you're not close enough.

Not close enough. Yeah.

Okay. 17. In three, two, one.

[Mystery Sound 17 - Measuring tape respooling]

Griffin: Measuring tape re-spooling?

That’s it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. [SFX: Bell]

Travis: Nice.

Justin: God.

[Mystery Sound 17 - Measuring tape respooling]

Travis: The sad part is Justin's been doing a lot of woodworking lately, and I was a professional carpenter for a while, and Griffin's never touched tools in his life.

Griffin: That's a falsehood. Actually, if you want to know the truth, our dad got my three-year-old son a set of little ... well, kind of little tools, a whole toolbox that is meant for eight- and nine-year-olds that includes just a hammer, a full-blown hammer. But, it also includes a tape measure. That is Henry's favorite toy. Which is awesome because, sometimes, the tape measure is a bad toy for a three-year-old because it'll get ya. It'll get ya.

So, we have Travis with seven points, Griffin with six points, Justin with two points.

Justin: Yeah. I feel a small comeback.

[music in]

We’re about halfway through our mystery sounds right now and things are getting heated, so let’s take a breather.

[music out]

MIDROLL

[music in]

Now back to our Mystery Sound marathon with the McElroy Brothers. A quick recap; Travis is in the lead with seven points, Griffin is in second with six points, and Justin has two points.

[music out]

Okay. Let's do number 18. Three, two, one.

[Mystery Sound 18 - Can opener]

Justin: Somebody grinding pepper.

No.

Justin: Are you sure?

It’s in the kitchen, though.

Justin: It felt right. Yeah. That's pepper. 19. Moving on. Point for Justin. That's pepper, baby.

Travis: Is it somebody grating cheese? No.

Justin: Is it somebody eating something?

No. It is a tool in the kitchen. I'll give you that.

Justin: It's a grater.

Travis: Is it a mandoline?

Justin: No. It's a juicer.

No. No.

Justin: A French press.

No. It's an opener of metal objects.

Travis: A can opener.

Justin: Oh. A can opener. Okay.

There you go. Got a point. Sweet.

Justin: Absolutely not.

Griffin: Oh. Sheesh.

Justin: Absolutely not. I won't accept it.

Travis: You did it, Justin.

Justin: Will not accept it. Will not accept it.

That’s two points that you have not accepted.

Justin: I'm more noble. I would rather have a noble loss than a suspect win.

[Mystery Sound 18 - Can opener]

Let’s see what we have here. Okay. So, 19. Three, two, one.

[Mystery Sound 19 - San Diego Central Library wind]

Travis: A train pulling into the station, or subway.

No.

Griffin: Is it train related?

It’s not train related.

Griffin: Huh.

Travis: Existential dread.

Griffin: Oh. Oh, oh, oh. Is that the Golden Gate Bridge?

That’s so close. Similar thought, though. Because I was going to give an anecdote of the Golden Gate Bridge after this.

Griffin: It's wind going through some sort of large structure?

That is the closest you can get. That's going to be a half point. I'm going to give that as a half point. [SFX: Bell] So, specifically, that is the sound of heavy wind blowing through the San Diego Central Library.

[Mystery Sound 19 - San Diego Central Library wind]

It was one of those things that happened with the Golden Gate Bridge, where they built something, and never really took into account that, when wind goes through it, it makes a super, super creepy sound. So, yeah, that’s what that is..

Griffin: Can you imagine living in San Francisco and hearing that ghostly wail every time the wind picks up? It is the most haunted, scary thing I could imagine.

Travis: And paying all that rent. Am I right?

Griffin: Yeah.

Travis: It's an expensive city.

I think 20 is something you're very familiar with too.

Travis: Is it my own voice?

That’s what it's going to be. Okay. Three, two, one, mystery sound 20.

[Mystery Sound 20 - Lego]

Griffin: Are those checkers?

I think you're in the ballpark.

Justin: Dice?

Justin: Poker chips?

Close, but younger, a much younger toy.

Justin: Younger toy, or for younger people?

Younger people, unless the kids are playing poker.

Griffin: Legos?

There it is. Yeah. [SFX: Bell] Another point.

[Mystery Sound 20 - Lego]

You are now up by a half point, by the way, Griffin.

Griffin: Woo-hoo.

Justin: Wow. This is a real barn burner. We've got a three-way, dead heat.

All right. What do we have here? Okay. 21. Three, two, one.

[Mystery Sound 21 - Mouth pops]

Griffin: That's someone's mouth going popping noises..

That’s it. [SFX: Bell] Yeah.

Justin: Yeah.

[Mystery Sound 21 - Mouth pops]

So, the whole reason we did that one is because there's so much sound design done in animation that just, any time there's a bubble pop, it's always “popping noises”. There's no other sound for it. So, that was easy.

Okay. 22 is another one of those race things, at least I hope so, because it's near and dear to my heart. So, 22. Three, two, one.

[Mystery Sound 22 - Breath of the Wild ping]

Griffin: Oh. Oh my god. What is that?

Travis: Oh, Jesus.

Griffin: I'm pretty sure it's from a game.

Mm-hmm (affirmative). You're warm.

Travis: I know it's not the actual one, but some kind of notification from a fairy in Zelda?

That is so close, as close as you can get. I think that's point-worthy. I think that's point-worthy. Unless, specifically, Griffin can say exactly what that is, then that point's going to go to Travis.

Griffin: If you gave me a half hour to really sit here and enter my mind palace, I could probably pull this up. It's a Metal Gear Codec ... It's some ...

Oh, no.

Griffin: No? What is it?

You’re going the opposite direction.

Griffin: What is it?

It is the Sheikah Slate ping from Breath of the Wild.

Griffin: Oh, god.

So, as soon as you start playing it, you get the Sheikah Slate, and it tells you where you're going, and you hear…

[Mystery Sound 22 - Breath of the Wild ping]

Griffin: Yeah.

So, you hear it the whole time. All right. 23. Three, two, one. [Mystery Sound 23 - Nokia SMS notification]

Justin: It's Morse code for SMS.

It’s close. It's a specific sound from a specific thing.

Griffin: You want to know the thing that is making the Morse code sound?

Mm-hmm (affirmative). I think, if somebody knew the sound, they'd be like, "Oh. That's exactly from this specific thing.”

Justin: Yeah. That's pretty much how the game works, for sure.

Travis: It's not the emergency sound from an iPhone, is it?

No. Older. Travis: It's a beeper, a pager SOS.

So close. So close. I'll give this one away. You know the old Nokia phones? We know the sound. We know that one. But, what this is is when you actually got an SMS text message, it would do this Morse code beepy sound.

[Mystery Sound 23 - Nokia SMS notification]

Travis: To be fair, Justin did say Morse code from SMS.

Griffin: I'm going to give that to Justin. I feel like that's a Justin point.

Justin doesn't accept points, though. Would you accept this one?

Justin: No. I accept the point if I got it right, which, in this case, I did.

But, you said SMS ... No. You did say SMS, didn't you?

Justin: Yeah.

Oh. Then, I think that works. [SFX: bell]

Justin: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Yeah. All right. Where are we?

Griffin: What are we on, 24?

We are on, yeah, 24. This is also from another random viral video.

Three, two, one.

[Mystery Sound 24 - Kid says ‘wow’ in auditorium]

Justin: Is that at a swimming pool, a kid at a swimming pool?

Not a swimming pool. It kind of sounds the same, though.

Justin: A kid in an ... Is he at an auditorium?

Yeah.

Griffin: Is it at a concert?

It is, yeah.

Griffin: A kid saying "wow" at a concert?

Yeah. There's a specific scenario where he would say that where it would be very awkward.

Griffin: Like a recital or an orchestra-

Uh-huh (affirmative).

Griffin: -thing? That’s all I got.

You know what? I think I'm going to give a half point for that, unless anybody has a strong feeling. Because, then, that would round you back up, and put you in the lead by a whole point.

Griffin: Okay.

That’s close enough [SFX: bell]. We’re going to go with that. Done. So, what that is is a kid ... This went viral. This kid was at an orchestra concert. And, in between movements of an orchestra, he just goes, "Wow." And then, everyone reacts to that.

[Mystery Sound 24 - Kid says ‘wow’ in auditorium]

One of my peeves about the orchestra in general is that you have to sit on your hands when you're moved between these symphonic movements. And, it's one of the reasons I think that the symphony is in trouble, is because there's this whole etiquette that's unspoken that you're not supposed to clap or do anything between movements, no matter how good it was.

Justin: You know? It's funny. I haven't been to as many symphonies and operas and stuff mainly because of what you're saying.

Yeah.

Justin: It's not because of disinterest in classical music at all. It's basically I get so bleeping into it.

Griffin: Yeah.

Justin: I'm losing it. I'm rending its clothes like, "Yes, Vivaldi. Take me away."

Griffin: Right.

Justin: You know what I mean? Thus Spake Zarathustra? No. Thus spake me in the middle of the symphony because I was loving it so much, and I had to be escorted out.

Travis: I remember, the last time I went to a Rachmaninoff symphony, in the beginning, I was whooping and hollering, and all the people in their furs and pearls and cummerbunds, they were kind of glaring at me. But, by the end of the symphony, they were all into it too, and we were throwing popcorn around, and we were shooting our revolvers into the ceiling, and having a great time. And, I kind of fixed everybody.

Griffin: And, in my defense, they didn't have a sign up at the symphony that said, "No vuvuzelas."

Travis: That’s true.

Griffin: So, I feel like, there's no precedent for it, I shouldn't have been so violently kicked out.

Justin: The last one I went to, I went to see Carmina Burana. I love it. But, they're taking forever. The pace of it is just so terrible. And, I stand up, and I'm like, "O Bortuna!" And, everybody is losing it and busting up because I made a classical music joke. And then, I was escorted out again.

Travis: I remember, I went to a symphony, and I was really enjoying the symphony, and then James Bond showed up and killed a bad guy right in the middle of it, and kind of ruined the whole thing for me.

Justin: Hate that.

Travis: I was this close to emotional catharsis, and then James Bond was like, "Looks like you hit a sour note, and then shot the guy right in front of me." And, I was like, "Huh. That really kinda took me out of it."

Griffin: So, that was 10 minutes of orchestra gags. You needed that, right?

Yes, yes.

Justin: Yeah.

Absolutely.

Justin: Just lay that in.

Okay. So, 25. Three, two, one.

[Mystery Sound 25 - Bess Beetle]

Justin: Somebody blowing up a balloon?

No.

Travis: Styrofoam.

Griffin: Is it someone tightening something?

It’s not a person.

Travis: That's the sound a moth makes.

It’s the insect world. Yeah. So, if you heard that in the insect world, you were like, "It's got to be this insect doing this specific thing.”

Travis: A grasshopper pooping.

I could see that. Yeah.

Justin: If there are pooping sounds, but you swore no farting sounds, I think that's a technicality.

Griffin: I think it's the sound of a stink bug caught in a spiderweb.

Travis: I'm going to say the sound of a fly being eaten by a spider.

Griffin: I'm going to change mine. It's a bagworm.

Okay. Justin, do you have a final answer on this?

Justin: Yeah. I was about to say bagworm, and then he ...

Okay. So, what that was is a bess beetle. They make this sound by rubbing the body segments together in a process called stridulation.

Travis: Oh. Of course. [Mystery Sound 25 - Bess Beetle]

Bess beetles can actually make 17 different sounds, giving them this whole complex communication system. So, that's that.

Travis: Okay. You said that like that's impressive, but I can make way more than 17 sounds with my body.

Justin: Mmmm good point.

Travis: Yeah. So, I guess I'm the best beetle.

Justin: One of the top beetles.

Travis: At least.

All right. 26. Three, two, one.

[Mystery Sound 26 - Giraffe]

Justin: Is it an animal doing something nasty?

I think it's just an animal being an animal.

Justin: Okay. That's a whale. We've got a whale, folks. This one's a whale.

It’s on land.

Justin: Oh. Elephant.

Travis: That is a hippopotamus.

Justin: Hippo. Hippo.

If you were walking through the zoo, this animal might be close to those animals you just mentioned.

Justin: Giraffe.

That’s it. [SFX: Bell] Yeah.

Justin: Yes.

Travis: Oh.

[Mystery Sound 26 - Giraffe]

Justin: They sound weird. They don't talk a lot. When they do, it sucks. Kind of like Griffin.

Travis: Oh. Oh, wow.

Griffin: Aw, neat.

Justin: Just having fun. Travis talks a lot, so I couldn't do him, and you're the only other one that I'm related to.

Griffin: Yeah. No. It's neat.

All right. 27 in three, two, one.

[Mystery Sound 27 - Car turn signal]

Travis: It's a turn signal.

That’s it. [SFX: Bell] Yeah.

Griffin: Ah. Shoot. [Mystery Sound 27 - Car turn signal]

Justin: Nice pull. We have got a squeaker here.

Yeah.

Travis: So, Justin, who are you rooting for?

Justin: Myself to make a big comeback.

Travis: Oh. Sure. Uh-huh.

Justin: Let's lightning-round the rest of these.

Sure. Let's do it.

Justin: Let's lightning-round them. Let's get some points.

Yeah. We have about 10 to go, so I think we can lightning-round this.

Justin: Yeah.

Okay. So, 28. Three, two, one.

[Mystery Sound 28 - Elevator going down]

Griffin: Elevator.

More specific.

Justin: Penthouse floor arrival.

No. It is an elevator but there's a specific reason it played like it did.

Travis: Oh. Because someone's blocking the doors.

No.

Justin: Doors closing. Doors stuck.

No. No.

Justin: The power went out.

Travis: The elevator's scared.

In the spirit of the speed round, I'll have to give this one ... That is an elevator going down. Because, for accessibility, when you hear a ding, "Ding," that means it's going up. When you hear “Ding, Ding," that means it's going down.

[Mystery Sound 28 - Elevator going down]

Griffin: Huh.

Justin: Huh.

Yeah.

Griffin: Interesting.

Justin: I did not know that.

And, you'll hear that everywhere now.

Okay. 29 in three, two, one.

[Mystery Sound 29 - DC Metro doors-closing alert]

Travis: It's a subway?

It is. A specific sound for a specific subway.

Travis: The doors closing.

Griffin: Oh. Is that a ticket machine?

Justin: Subway going down. The door is ajar.

You know? You tell me if you get this point. But, it is a DC Metro doors-closing alert.

Justin: Okay.

[Mystery Sound 29 - DC Metro doors-closing alert]

Do you think that you would accept that point?

Justin: Yeah. I get that. [SFX: Bell] I get that for sure. I'll take that point.

Okay. Next one, 30. Three, two, one.

[Mystery Sound 30 - Pulling tissue]

Travis: Taking a lapel mic off. It does sound like that, but it is not.

Travis: Tearing paper. You’re so close. Your words, I think if you reorganized some of the stuff, it would be right on.

Justin: Pearing taper.

All right. In the spirit of speed round, that is pulling a tissue from a tissue box.

Justin: Very good.

[Mystery Sound 30 - Pulling tissue]

Okay. 31. Three, two, one.

[Mystery Sound 31 - Breaking celery]

Travis: Breaking a stick.

Oh. So close. It is breaking.

Travis: Breaking a spirit.

If you heard this in a movie, what would you think would be happening?

Travis: Oh. Stepping on a twig?

No. It's a really classic sound for a specific action in movies.

Travis: Neck break.

Yes. Now, what would make that sound?

Travis: Breaking spaghetti.

So close.

Justin: Breaking Spaghetti. I love that show. I'm sad that it's off the air, but I love the spinoff, Butter Call Saul.

Okay. So, what that is is the classic sound for breaking bones, which is breaking celery.

Griffin: Ah.

Yeah.

[Mystery Sound 31 - Breaking celery]

All right. 32. I love this one. Okay. 32. Three, two, one.

[Mystery Sound 32 - The Sun]

Griffin: Is that an airplane sound, inside of an airplane?

Justin: It's white noise.

This one's kind of unfair because it's a sound that doesn't actually exist in nature.

Justin: Perfect. Okay. Good. Perfect job.

It is very scientific, and does not actually happen in nature, so it's a little bit out there.

Griffin: Is it a deep-space radio-signal sound?

That’s the closest you're going to get. [SFX: Bell] *So, what that sound is is, if our sun had air between the sun and us, that's what the sun would sound like all the time on Earth. The only reason we can't hear the sun is because there's no medium, air, in space to transmit it.

Travis: That's pretty cool.

Yeah.

[Mystery Sound 32 - The Sun]

Okay. A few more here. All right. 33. Three, two, one.

[Mystery Sound 33 - Ice breaking]

Griffin: Is that a glass window breaking?

Mm-mm (negative).

Travis: It's peanut brittle.

Very common sound. I'll say that. So, it's going to be even more common than what everyone's thinking.

Travis: Even more common than peanut brittle?

Even more common.

Griffin: Ice breaking?

There it is. Yeah.

[Mystery Sound 33 - Ice breaking]

You’re now in the lead by one point.

Justin: What's the score right now?

It’s Travis nine, Griffin ten, Justin five.

Travis: And, there's four left?

There’s four left.

Justin: I need a big run.

Griffin: You could tie Travis.

Okay. 34. Three, two, one.

[Mystery Sound 34 - Peacock]

Justin: Adult man pretending to be a cat as part of a cat-man play.

Griffin: Is that a howler monkey?

No.

Griffin: Oh. Is that a duck call?

No.

Travis: Is it a type of bird?

It is a bird. Yeah. It kind of sounds like a bird saying, "Help." But, it's not that. It is a peacock call.

Travis: Oh.

Griffin: Ah.

Justin: Oh, wild.

[Mystery Sound 34 - Peacock]

Travis: That is a thing that's used in murder mysteries sometimes, to explain, "Oh. You thought you heard someone calling for help, but that was just the peacocks on the grounds."

Okay. 35. Three, two, one.

[Mystery Sound 35 - Coral reef]

Griffin: Bacon frying.

It does sound a lot like bacon frying.

Griffin: Fire? Just fire burning?

Mm-mm (negative). We're back underwater again, of all things.

Griffin: Oh.

Travis: Is that coral growing?

That counts. [SFX: Bell] It’s a coral reef.

Justin: Wow.

The popping and chewing sounds are from tons of organisms chewing and moving and vocalizing on the reef.

Justin: Wow.

[Mystery Sound 35 - Coral reef]

So, we are back to a tied game. Travis 10, Griffin 10, Justin …

Justin: Justin 10. Three-way tie.

Travis: Three-way tie.

All right. 36. Two more. Three, two, one.

[Mystery Sound 36 - Llama]

Justin: Seagulls?

Mm-mm (negative).

Travis: No. A zebra braying.

I think you're closer. Yeah. It does live in a field, I think.

Travis: It lives in a field, you think.

Griffin: Is that moose?

No.

I would imagine this animal being kind of a jerk.

Travis: Is it man?

It could be.

Travis: Man is kind of a jerk.

Okay. That's a llama.

Griffin: A llama.

Yeah.

Travis: Now, do you think it's kind of a jerk based purely off of Emperor's New Groove?

Well, and spitting.

[Mystery Sound 36 - Llama]

Okay. This could break it, or we could just leave this as a tie. So, 37, three, two, one.

[Mystery Sound 37 - Lion cub]

Griffin: Is that a porcupine?

No.

Justin: Is it an animal?

It is an animal. Yeah.

Travis: Is that a cat sneezing?

Justin: Is it a sneeze?

I don't know. I don't think it's a sneeze, but I don't know. It could be a sneeze. But, it is from an animal, a very cute animal. That turns into a very scary animal.

Justin: Oh. Gizmo. Gizmo from Gremlins.

I don't think Gizmo's a real animal.

Justin: Says the guy that played the sound of two black holes. Unbelievable.

Griffin: Is it a skunk?

It is not, no.

Travis: Could it be a skunk if it tried hard enough?

What’s that?

Travis: Don't worry. Is that a baby tiger?

You are so close. If you just flipped that-

Justin: Taby Giger.

Travis: Baby lion.

That’s it. You got it. You win. [SFX: Bell, party whistle, cheer]

Travis: Yes!

Justin: Wow. Wow. Unbelievable.

Griffin: What is it?

It was a lion cub.

Griffin: Oh. Doing what?

Travis: Just existing, man.

[Mystery Sound 37 - Lion cub]

Okay. So, last question just for everybody. I usually ask people what the best sound in the entire world is to them personally. But, I figured it might be fun to ask, what is the worst sound in the entire world to you?

Travis: Oh. That's easy for me. There's this kind of material that ... I believe it's called reticulated something. But, it's plastic, and they used to put it on covers of agendas for kids in middle school and high school and stuff. And, if you moved it, it would make the picture move.

Justin: Lenticular.

Travis: Yes. And, if you rub your fingers across it, it makes this sound that makes my skin crawl.

Does it make the “zzz” sound?

Travis: Yeah. Yeah. I hate that sound so much.

Griffin: I'm not a fan of eating noises right in my ear, which is really unfortunate being a podcasting professional, because I get that from time to time.

Justin: My number-one is when someone is eating, and they scrape their fork across their teeth as they eat. I have tried to overcome this. I've tried to make myself immune to it, and I am incapable. It goes all over me every single time. I want to scream.

Ugh. I think we got it. Thank you, guys.

Travis: Thank you.

Justin: Well, it was our pleasure. That was actually really fun.

[music in]

Twenty-Thousand Hertz is produced out of the sound design studios of Defacto Sound. Find out more at Defacto Sound dot com.

This episode was produced by Colin DeVarney. And me, Dallas Taylor. With help from Sam Schneble. It was edited and sound designed by Soren Begin. And mixed by Colin DeVarney.

A huge thanks to the McElroy brothers for joining me on today’s episode. I had an absolute blast. The McElroys host multiple fantastic podcasts including My Brother, My Brother, and Me, and The Adventure Zone. You can check those out, along with the rest of their amazing content, on their website which is: The McElroy dot Family. Be sure to listen and subscribe to their podcasts in your favorite podcast player.

What are some great mystery sounds you’ve been hoping we’d play but haven’t? Let us know on Facebook, Twitter, or on our subreddit; r/two zero kay. You can also reach out directly at hi at 20k dot org.

Thanks for listening.

[music out]

Recent Episodes

Hamilton’s Sonic Secrets: Behind the Broadway phenomenon

Art by Lauren Davis.

Art by Lauren Davis.

This episode was originally written & produced by James Introcaso.

Broadway’s award-winning, record-breaking, smash hit, Hamilton, is a musical unlike any other.  In this special episode, we have re-voiced, remixed, and remastered one of our shows about our favorite broadway musical! Featuring Nevin Steinberg, Hamilton’s Tony-nominated sound designer, Benny Reiner, Grammy-winning Hamilton percussionist, Anna-Lee Craig, Hamilton on Broadway A2, and Broadway sound design legend Abe Jacob.


MUSIC FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE

All music in this episode is from the “Hamilton, An American Musical Original Broadway Cast Recording” soundtrack.


Twenty Thousand Hertz is produced out of the studios of Defacto Sound and hosted by Dallas Taylor.

Follow Dallas on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and LinkedIn.

Join our community on Reddit and follow us on Facebook.

Become a monthly contributor at 20k.org/donate.

If you know what this week's mystery sound is, tell us at mystery.20k.org.

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Check out SONOS at sonos.com.

Consolidate your credit card debt today and get an additional interest rate discount at lightstream.com/20k.

View Transcript ▶︎

[MUSIC: “Alexander Hamilton Instrumental”]

You’re listening to Twenty Thousand Hertz.

Even if you haven’t seen Broadway’s eleven-Tony-winning, box-office-record-breaking smash hit, Hamilton, odds are... you’ve heard of it. It’s well known for the price - and rarity - of its tickets.

[SFX: News sound bite]

“Tickets for the universally acclaimed musical, Hamilton, are constantly selling out… almost 900 hundred dollars a pop.”

[SFX: Oscar Clip at 02.08.04]

“Lin-Manuel Miranda is here with us. I have to say, it’s weird to see you in a theater without having to pay $10,000.”

[CLIP: Stephen Colbert]

“I went and saw it… and then two hours later I’m going, ‘Why am I crying over Alexander Hamilton?’”

[CLIP: Obama]

“In fact, Hamilton, I’m pretty sure is the only thing that Dick Cheney and I agree on.”

Every element - from the performances to the lighting, to the staging, to the costumes - comes together to create a moving, inspiring, and unconventionally patriotic story that stays with you long after the curtain closes. Each piece of the production is meticulously crafted... and sound design - is no exception.

Abe: There were some moments in Hamilton, which only work so very well because of the subtlety of the sound design and the soundscape.

That’s Abe Jacob, a Broadway sound design legend.

Abe: I've been a sound designer for the last almost 50 years.

Abe is considered the godfather of sound design on Broadway. He worked on the original productions of revolutionary shows like Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Chicago.

Abe trained many of the industry’s working sound designers today, or he trained the people who trained them.

[music out]

Abe: At the time when I started, nobody else was credited or titled sound designer, so I sort of started that industry. That's probably one of the things that I'm most proud of.

When Abe says that Hamilton has remarkable sound design, it’s a huge compliment.

Abe: The sound of Hamilton has got to be very difficult because you're listening to a hip-hop sort of musical style, as well as dialogue, as well as legitimate Broadway show tunes. The combination of all three of those elements coming out with a coherent whole, is a very good example of the talent the sound designer came up with up. There are a number of moments in the show where sound is very subtle, and yet it tends to solidify the whole meaning of the piece.

So, just who is the sound designer of Hamilton?

Nevin: I'm Nevin Steinberg and I'm a Broadway sound designer.

Nevin’s been working on Broadway shows since the 90’s. His work is extensive. He’s been working with Lin-Manuel Miranda on Hamilton from the beginning… and even before that.

[Music clip: “In the Heights”]

Nevin: I worked on a Broadway show called In the Heights which was written by Lin-Manuel Miranda and directed by Tommy Kail. And I was part of a creative team that brought it to Broadway and the show won a Tony award and did very well.

Nevin: When Hamilton was beginning its development, Tommy would occasionally just drop me an email or a phone call with information and kind of a little backstage look at what Lin was working on and what the plans were for this piece. I knew it was gonna be something interesting and exciting to work on, not to mention a lot of fun.

Nevin started his journey with Hamilton where every member of the creative team began - with the script.

Nevin: I'm given the text. And then after I've read it, the first conversation with the director happens. That's the beginning of the sound design for a show.

Nevin: The director and I and representatives from the music department including the composer or the orchestrator, music supervision, we talk about architecture, about the what it looks like and how it moves and then we talk about the venue. Is it a 200 seat venue? Is it a 2,000 seat venue and we start to put ourselves in the position of an audience encountering this story and start to think about how sound can help communicate it.

Nevin: And that process can go on for years, when it does, usually the sound design turns out better.

That’s exactly what happened with Hamilton. Nevin and the rest of the creative team talked about the show for years. He was there when the show was in pre-workshop mode with just a few actors and a piano.

[Music clip: White House Poetry Slam Performance]

Nevin’s job as sound designer is to create the show’s soundscape. He puts the team in place that cares for all of the microphones, on both actors and the orchestra, as well as all of the sound equipment. Nevin balances the volume and sound quality of all of the audio elements in the show to communicate the narrative. He doesn’t just make the show louder, he dictates the story’s dynamic range and makes decisions on how to process the actor’s voices to serve the mission of the story. It’s his team who blows the roof off of the theater with the introduction of this bombastic American spy…

[Music clip: Yorktown]

[“HERCULES MULLIGAN!

A tailor spyin’ on the British government!

I take their measurements, information and then I smuggle it”]

Nevin’s team also sucks the life out of the room when the story gets intimate, to draw the audience in.

[Music clip: Burn]

[“I saved every letter you wrote me

From the moment I read them

I knew you were mine

You said you were mine

I thought you were mine”]

It’s not just about volume. Sometimes Nevin and his team are asked to do something that’s never been done before, like in the song “Wait for It” sung by the character Aaron Burr.

Nevin: We had talked about Burr and his relationship to time and how sound might play a part in that.

Nevin: In the top of “Wait for It,” Burr sings [music clip: “Wait for It”] the question was could we repeat the word day and just capture that one word and repeat it. Of course the easy way to do that is to lock the tempo of the song, pre-record the actor singing day, and just tap it out as many times as you want using playback after he says it.

...but Alex Lacamoire, who wrote the orchestration and did the music direction for Hamilton, didn’t want to pre-record the actor singing. This is because every live performance is different. Different audiences, their reactions, different actors, or sometimes different individual interpretations. Capturing this word from the live performance gives the actor the freedom to interpret the piece that night. So, Lacamoire asked Nevin to capture the single word, “Day,” and do that live during every performance… something that hadn’t been done before.

[Music clip: “Wait for It”]

Nevin: With the help of my extremely talented and very creative game audio engineer Justin Rathman, who continues to mix the show on Broadway, we tried to sort out a way to grab just that one word and send it to an electronic delay and feed it back into the system at just the right moment so that we could capture that word and a few others in that song.

Nevin: One of the things we discovered was that we could do it live.

[Music clip: Wait for It]

[“Theodosia writes me a letter every day”]

Nevin: Once we knew we could do it, then it became an idea. It comes back in the coda of “We Know” in which Burr says...

[Music clip: We Know]

[“We both know what we know”]

Nevin: This reinforces the idea that this character has a very special relationship to time.

Every second of Hamilton has been designed to pull you into the story… and, all of Nevin’s skills were put to the test in the show’s climax, where Hamilton and Burr finally duel.

I should warn you though that we’re about to spoil the end of this duel, but if you paid attention in history class, you should already know this.

[Music clip: 10 Duel Commandments]

[“One, two, three, four

Five, six, seven, eight, nine…

It’s the Ten Duel Commandments”]

Nevin: Lin cleverly puts a duel early in act one so that the audience can understand both the rules of duels which are explicitly told in the lyric of the song, in the lyric of the song, but also the style in which we're gonna present them so that later when we encounter it, we're already familiar with how the duel is gonna work.

Nevin: From a sound point of view, we do the same thing. We sort of set up the duel early in act one with what I like to call a vanilla gunshot which is when Lawrence shoots Lee.

[Music clip: 10 Duel Commandments]

[SFX: Vanilla Gunshot]

Nevin: That gunfire is pretty generic. It's sort of unremarkable that's intentional.

Nevin: One thing to know about that final duel, the final gunshot is rather shocking both in its volume and scale and its kind of complexity.

[SFX: Final Gunshot]

Nevin: The lead up to it, I mean, really, all credit to the music department in terms of the way it's written.

[Music clip: The World Was Wide Enough]

[“One two three four

Five six seven eight nine—

There are ten things you need to know”]

Nevin: The swells and the tic toc sound and the bells, all of that is actually part of the orchestration and brilliantly orchestrated by Alex Lacamoire. There were two other important participants, Scott Wassermann who is, our electronic music programmer and Will Wells who is an electronic music producer, these guys were responsible for crafting the samples you hear in that score.

[Music clip: The World Was Wide Enough]

[“They won’t teach you this in your classes

But look it up, Hamilton was wearing his glasses”]

Nevin: A lot of what you're hearing is just coming straight out what the band is doing and as we lead up to the final encounter between Burr and Hamilton and Burr goes to fire his gun and we stop time.

[Music clip: The World Was Wide Enought]

[“One two three four five six seven eight nine

Number ten paces! Fire!—

SFX GUNSHOT”]

Nevin: The gunshot is actually reversed and choked so that we get the sense that we've stopped that bullet and all the staging supports that idea.

Nevin: We see the characters freeze, we see one of our ensemble members who is actually referred to as the bullet, sort of pinch the air as though she's slowed the bullet down as it crosses the stage and is heading towards Hamilton. The ensemble dances the path of the bullet as Hamilton begins his final soliloquy which is one of the only moments of the show that there is no music.

[Music clip: The World Was Wide Enough]

[“I imagine death so much it feels like a memory...”]

[“...No beat, no melody”]

Nevin: The only sound here is the sound of wind which again has been produced from the orchestration and we take that sound and actually bring it into the room as Hamilton turns and talks, basically as he sees his life flash before his eyes.

[Music clip: The World Was Wide Enough]

[“My love, take your time

I’ll see you on the other side”]

Nevin: When we release time, we repeat the last phrase. He aims his pistol at the sky where he yells, "Wait," and then we have the final gunshot which reverberates through the theater.

[SFX: Hamilton yells, “Wait!” and then Final Gunshot]

[Music clip: “History Has Its Eyes on You INSTRUMENTAL”]

Nevin’s work on Hamilton is a massive labor of love. He continues to work on the show as it premieres in new cities all over the world. Back on Broadway, he’s left an incredible team in place to run the show every night along with some incredible musicians. We’ll hear from a few of them, in a minute.

[music out]

MIDROLL

[Music clip: The Room Where It Happens]

[“I wanna be in

The room where it happens

The room where it happens

I wanna be in

The room where it happens

The room where it happens”]

So, what’s it like to do audio for Hamilton live? To be in the room where it happens?

Anna-Lee: No show is the same every night because there's a different crowd, they're responding differently, the energy is different.

That’s Anna-Lee Craig, Nevin hired her to work on Broadway’s Hamilton as the A2, also known as deck audio.

Anna-Lee: Deck audio is whoever is backstage supporting the audio team while the show is going on. I mic the actors, I make sure that the band is helped. I make sure that the system is working.

A typical day for her is pretty busy.

[Music clip: “Non-Stop”]

Anna-Lee: We come in an hour and a half before the show starts. The first thing we do is turn on the system, make sure everything boots the way that we expect it to.

Anna-Lee: I'm going through each one of the mics and checking the rigging, checking the connectors, checking any custom-fit parts making sure they're clean and making sure that they sound consistent with how we expect them to sound based on whatever mic that is.

<span data-preserve-html-node="true" style=“color:rgb(150,57,152)">Anna-Lee: I have 30 wireless transmitters, that's the number of mics like on people, there are probably 70 mics in the pit. While I'm doing all that with the wireless mics, the mixer will also go through the pit and do a mic check on each one of the mics and make sure that they are going through the monitors. We're just like checking all the microphones and then once they're set and once we've done the mic checks, we chill until half hour.

<span data-preserve-html-node="true" style=“color:rgb(150,57,152)">Anna-Lee: We have 10 minutes of downtime just in case there's an emergency.

<span data-preserve-html-node="true" style=“color:rgb(150,57,152)">Anna-Lee: At half hour, we assist the backstage crew, assist mics getting on to actors.

That’s all BEFORE the show. During the show, she’s putting out fires.

Anna-Lee: I run interference.

<span data-preserve-html-node="true" style=“color:rgb(150,57,152)">Anna-Lee: Like a microphone broke on an actor and we need him to have another mic before his next line, but we can't fully take his wig off so I put a halo one him and an extra transmitter in his pocket until the show gives me a long enough break to like put a real new mic on him.

<span data-preserve-html-node="true" style=“color:rgb(150,57,152)">Anna-Lee: A halo is an elastic loop that is tied to a microphone and you just put it on your head like a headband and then you get like perfect placement. It doesn't look as nice as like our custom-built mics but in a pinch like it will do the job.

[music out]

Justin Rathbun usually mixes Hamilton on Broadway. On his days off Anna-Lee takes the reigns and mixes the show, a job just as busy as being an A2.

Anna-Lee: The way that we mix the show, it's a line by line style. There's not more than one mic open unless everyone is actually singing. Hamilton, Burr, Hamilton, Burr, Hamilton, Burr, Angelica, Hamilton, Burr. It's just one mic open one at a time so that you just have a very clean direct sound and you're not being distracted by any other noise going into our mics.

Mixing audio line by line means Anna-Lee has to be locked into the show for every second of the performance. She’s constantly moving.

Anna-Lee: I'm controlling the band and the reverb with my right hand and the vocals with my left hand and sometimes I'm controlling them all with all 10 fingers. There's not any downtime. I couldn't go to the bathroom, it's impossible.

[Music clip: “Aaron Burr, Sir”]

For Anna-Lee, being that busy and focused on the show is one of her favorite parts of the job. One of her favorite songs to mix is “My Shot.”

Anna-Lee:"My Shot" is like the introduction of Hamilton and also the spot where he decides that he's going to put himself out there and he meets these guys in a tavern.

[Music clip: “Aaron Burr, Sir”]

[“I’m John Laurens in the place to be!

Two pints o’ Sam Adams, but I’m workin’ on three, uh!”]

Anna-Lee: You have to start like again relationship building. It's first just like four guys and they're beating on the table, they're table-rapping. That should feel like it's coming from the stage, but as Hamilton starts to proclaim his like manifesto or like he's going to do great things, the sound starts to expand with him and it gets louder.

[Music clip: “Aaron Burr, Sir” right into “My Shot”]

[“If you stand for nothing, Burr, what’ll you fall for?...”

“Ooh

Who you?

Who you?

Who are you?

Ooh, who is this kid? What’s he gonna do?

I am not throwing away my shot!

I am not throwing away my shot!

Hey yo, I’m just like my country

I’m young, scrappy and hungry

And I’m not throwing away my shot!”]

<span data-preserve-html-node="true" style=“color:rgb(150,57,152)">Anna-Lee: Then Lauren says, let's get this guy in front of a crowd. Then the ensemble comes in. The level, the dynamic level takes a step up.

[Music clip: “My Shot”]

[“Let’s get this guy in front of a crowd

I am not throwing away my shot

I am not throwing away my shot

Hey yo, I’m just like my country

I’m young, scrappy and hungry

And I’m not throwing away my shot”]

Anna-Lee: We don't go all the way yet because we've got another journey to go on. Then the town's people get added in and they're running through the streets. Laurens is saying, whoa. He's telling everybody else to like jump in, then we add like some reverb in and it's all through the town.

[Music clip: “My Shot”]

[“Ev’rybody sing:

Whoa, whoa, whoa

Hey!

Whoa!

Wooh!!

Whoa!

Come on, come lets go!”]

Anna-Lee: You can hear the sound surrounding you in the audience because the reverb is in surround. Llike you're a part of it. Then we suck back down into just like Hamilton's monologue.

[Music clip: “My Shot”]

[“I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory

When’s it gonna get me?

In my sleep? Seven feet ahead of me?”]

Anna-Lee: When he finally starts talking to a crowd again and it builds to the fullest height and then we like go through the whole final chorus. Everybody who's in the show is singing and I am not throwing away "My Shot."

[Music clip: “My Shot”]

[“And I am not throwing away my shot

I am not throwing away my shot

Hey yo, I’m just like my country

I’m young, scrappy and hungry

And I’m not throwing away my shot”]

Anna-Lee: You're like living that huge, loud, big moment for the rest of the song and then we like slam it for the button.

[Music clip: “My Shot”]

[“Not throwin’ away my—

Not throwin’ away my shot!”]

For Anna-Lee, mixing the show live is about staying true to Nevin’s soundscape, but it’s also about feeling out actors and the audience during every performance.

Anna-Lee: You're also building with the actor's intensity. He's starting to like believe that everyone is onboard.

Anna-Lee: As you feel like you're like winning people over that are in the cast, you're also winning over the audience and the audience can take more decibels. If they're not won over yet you have to slowly build, sometimes if you feel like the crowd is not quite ready for that loud level yet you can hear people start to rustle and you can almost feel people want to get up out of their seats. Once you reach that kind of fever pitch feel, that you can really just go for it.

We can’t have an entire episode about sound in a musical like Hamilton without talking to one of the musicians.

Benny: My name is Benny Reiner and I play percussion.

Benny is part of Hamilton’s Grammy-winning orchestra. When he says he plays percussion, you might be thinking he sits behind a few drums and obscure instruments, but his job entails so much more than that.

Benny: My setup consist of different weird things. I have a MOTIF keyboard which is an electric piano basically. I play little patches like vibraphone [SFX], I have a sampler that I basically play anything that would be from a drum machine [SFX] or a sample.

Benny: Then there's also what you just think of percussion, just tambourine [SFX], shakers [SFX], concert bass drum [SFX], random stuff like that.

That’s not all Benny does. Another big part of his job is running a piece of software called Ableton.

Benny: The fundamental function of it would be precise timekeeping. Most of the show is in the vain of hip hop and RNB and pop and a lot of contemporary elements. Since there is so much of that in Hamilton, the role of the metronome is to really keep that time together.

Benny: As a human, we don't have perfect time, no show is the same because everything we do has variance in it.

The audience and actors on stage never hear the click track. It’s just for the orchestra to keep time. This is what the audience hears this…

[Music clip: “What’d I Miss”]

[“There’s a letter on my desk from the President

Haven’t even put my bag down yet

Sally be a lamb, darlin’, won’tcha open it?

It says the President’s assembling a cabinet...”]

And this is what the musicians in the orchestra hear…

[Music clip: “What’d I Miss” with added 178 BPM metronome]

[“There’s a letter on my desk from the President

Haven’t even put my bags down yet

Sally be a lamb, darlin’, won’tcha open it?

It says the President’s assembling a cabinet...”]

Ableton keeping time for the pit is important, but it has other functions as well.

Benny: There are certain track elements, stuff that really is impossible to play live. Stuff that's going through phasers or effects or there's information that gets sent from it to control certain lighting things.

Controlling lighting cues through the same software that keeps the orchestra in time means that vocals, orchestra, choreography, and lights will all sync perfectly. That’s an important part in creating Hamilton’s moments of sensory immersion.

While Benny has a lot of technical responsibility, when it comes down to it, he’s a musician at heart. You can tell that from the way he talks about his favorite song to perform, the love song “Helpless.”

[Music clip: Helpless]

[“Ohh, I do I do I do I

Dooo! Hey!

Ohh, I do I do I do I

Dooo! Boy you got me helpless”]

Benny: I love "Helpless" just because it just feels great. You're in there, you're playing, you're just making things feel good essentially and that's one of my favorite things about music is just making people feel happy and making people feel warm.

[Music clip continues]

[music out]

[Music clip: “Quiet Uptown Instrumental”]

Anna-Lee: Our main job is serving the story and the narrative.

Anna-Lee: When I'm mixing, I'm really a part of the show like an intimate, intricate cog in what makes Hamilton work. I know that everything that I do is very directly affecting the 1300 people watching the show.

Anna-Lee: I’m also an extrovert and a people person I get to be backstage. I make really strong friendships with actors and crew members and musicians.

Benny: The ultimate reason why I love doing what I do is the ability to connect with people.

Benny: You got to really bring it if you want to really connect and relate to somebody. That's really fulfilling to me. It’s like, if you put enough of yourself into something honestly and have that reciprocate, somebody listen to it or witness it and really have them feel something, that's it for me.

Nevin: In some ways, Hamilton is one of the hardest things I've ever worked on and in other ways, it was also one of the easiest things I've ever done because it is so well written and so beautiful directed and staged and orchestrated that my job was simply to respond to it in a credible and exacting way.

Nevin: This extends to everyone who worked on it. I mean Howell Binkley's lighting is exquisite and sharp and just so focused and Paul Tazewell's costumes tell the story so beautifully and so subtly throughout the play. It's extraordinary.

Nevin: The set moves in such a way and gives you a background in such a way that you're never unsure about how you're going to encounter these characters and the story.

Nevin: I love the people. They're some of the smartest people I know, in any field. I love the banter. I love the fact that part of my job is having conversations, laughing, making things, criticizing things, and striving to make things better all the time. I love the knowledge that an audience really has no idea what it is that I've done or even what we've done as a team to get them to feel a certain way or get them to look in a certain direction or get them to experience a moment in the way we've crafted it because we've done our job so quietly.

Nevin: I love that. I like the theater. I like going to the theater. I like plays and musicals, so that I get to do this for a living is pretty exciting for me.

[music out] [Music clip: “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story”]

CREDITS

Twenty Thousand Hertz is hosted by me, Dallas Taylor and produced out of the studios of Defacto Sound. A sound design team dedicated to making television, film, and games sound incredible. Find out more at defactosound.com.

This episode was written and produced by James Introcaso… and me, Dallas Taylor. With help from Sam Schneble. It was edited, sound designed and mixed by Colin DeVarney.

Thanks to our guests Nevin Steinberg, Anna-Lee Craig, Benny Reiner, and Abe Jacob. Thanks also to the producers of Hamilton for their immense help with this episode. If you’re interested in seeing Hamilton, which I highly recommend, you can do that right now on Disney Plus. And I would love to hear your thoughts on Hamilton. You can tell me on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, or by writing hi@20k.org.

Finally, we need your help to spread the word about Twenty Thousand Hertz. So tell your family members, tell your friends, tell your kids, tell your grandparents, tell everybody! If you have to show them how to subscribe to a podcast, we would be honored if we were their first subscription.

Thanks for listening.

[music out]

Recent Episodes

Stop, Collaborate and Listen: Can you copyright a vibe?

Art by Jon McCormack.

This episode was written and produced by Fil Corbitt.

Can you steal from yourself? Can you copyright a mood? We look back on some important copyright cases that could have an impact on the entire future of music making. Featuring Adam Neely and Sandra Aistars.


MUSIC FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE

Mercurial Vision by Marble Run
Rafter by Speakeasy
Chromium Blush by Ray Catcher
Allow Me (Instrumental) by Kilgore
Keffel by Sketchbook 2
Vienna Beat by Radiopink

MUSIC DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE

Under Pressure by David Bowie & Queen - EMI, Elektra
Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice - SKB Records
U Can't Touch This by MC Hammer - Capitol Records
Super Freak by Rick James - Gordy Records
It Was a Good Day by Ice Cube - Priority Records
Footsteps in the Dark by The Isley Brothers - T-Neck Records
Alone Again (Naturally) by Biz Markie - Cold Chillin, Warner Records
Alone Again (Naturally) by Gilbert O'Sullivan - MAM Records
Paper Planes by MIA & Diplo - XL Records, Interscope
Straight to Hell by The Clash - CBS Records
Run Through the Jungle by Creedence Clearwater Revival - Fantasy Records
The Old Man Down the Road by John Fogerty - Warner Records
Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke & Pharrell Williams - Star Track, Interscope Records
Got to Give it Up by Marvin Gaye - Tamla Records

ONLINE CLIPS USED IN THIS EPISODE

Additional Clips Used in this episode

The Hollywood Reporter - 'Pharrell Williams' Contentious 'Blurred Lines' Testimony Unsealed (Exclusive Video)'


Twenty Thousand Hertz is produced out of the studios of Defacto Sound and hosted by Dallas Taylor.

Follow Dallas on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and LinkedIn.

Join our community on Reddit and follow us on Facebook.

Become a monthly contributor at 20k.org/donate.

If you know what this week's mystery sound is, tell us at mystery.20k.org.

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View Transcript ▶︎

[Music Clip: Ice Ice Baby]

You're listening to Twenty Thousand Hertz.

Probably the most famous case of music plagiarism is still Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice. The song copied the exact intro from Under Pressure by David Bowie and Queen.

[Music Clip: Under Pressure]

When Ice Ice Baby came out [Music Clip: Ice Ice Baby], people would hear that iconic bass line and be totally jarred when some guy yelled “let’s kick it!” instead of the piano coming in [Music Clip: Under Pressure].

Initially, Vanilla Ice famously claimed that the songs were different.

[SFX: Vanilla Ice demo: [Mouths Under Pressure riff] that’s the way their’s goes, ours goes [mouths Ice Ice Baby riff]... that little bitty change, it’s not the same.]

He later admitted to simply sampling the song. He claimed that he was just joking about them being totally different. Queen and David Bowie threatened a lawsuit, but settled out of court. Now they get royalties and all of them were added to the songwriting credits.

[SFX: Vanilla Ice interview: Vanilla Ice: “Rap Music is Sampling and people who don’t understand rap music they say ‘oh he borrows this or steals this…’ rap music, every major rap artist in the world samples music, you know?”]

Adam: The Vanilla Ice thing became such a joke because he wasn't approaching it with any degree of sophistication.

That’s Adam Neely.

Adam’s a bass player and also makes music education videos on Youtube.

Adam: It’s not the best song, but I do on an intellectual level agree with, I do think that Vanilla Ice, when he did that, is very much continuing in the tradition of Mozart and Beethoven and anybody who has built a new melody, a new structure, off of old material. That is what music is. That is what remixing is, and that is an integral part to the lifeblood of music-making.

But Mozart and Beethoven wrote the notes down and new musicians played new music. In the case of Vanilla Ice, this sample is a direct copy of Queen’s original recording. That’s why sampling caused a big stir in the copyright world.

Another famous example of extremely obvious sampling is MC Hammer’s 1990 song “U Can’t Touch this”...

[Music Clip: U Can’t Touch This]

The beat in MC Hammer’s track is sampled from the Rick James Song “Super Freak”...

[Music Clip: Super Freak]

Rick James sued, but the case was settled out of court.

Sampling threw a giant wrench into the gears of copyright law. In acoustic music, you could argue that this chord progression or this vocal melody is similar to that one. In sampling they are exactly the same. It’s literally a copy and paste. It’s a bit of a recording of a song being played within another song.

Sampling has a rich history especially in early hip hop. Many songs even had layers of samples. So in the early days, figuring out who borrowed what, and who got credit, was difficult.

Here’s another example called “It was a Good Day” by Ice Cube:

[Music Clip: Ice Cube]

That was sampled from “Footsteps in the Dark” by the Isley Brothers:

[Music Clip: Isley Brothers]

Ice Cube just used a small part of the intro from that record and built a whole new track out of it.

There are literally thousands of examples like this. Entire new genres of music developed out of sampling and reimagining older music into something new. But over time sampling came under legal scrutiny and became much harder to do.

In 1991, rapper Biz Markie lost a copyright lawsuit to Gilbert O' Sullivan for the song “Alone Again.”

[Music Clip: Biz Markie’s Alone Again ]

And here’s Gilbert O’Sullivan’s Original Song:

[Music Clip: Gilbert O’Sullivan’s Alone Again]

The songs share a beat, a piano chord progression, and the title and lyrics “Alone Again”.

In the end, this case really scared the music industry. After this point, it started to become much more difficult to get samples cleared when producing music for commercial release. Some people even say this case marked the end of the golden age of sampling.

Today, sampling has become much more standardized….and also more expensive. Even a small sample can cost a huge amount of money. Sometimes paid up front, and sometimes paid over time through royalties.

Here’s a hit song from 2007, “Paper Planes” by M.I.A.:

[Music Clip: MIA]

And here’s “Straight to Hell” by the Clash:

[Music Clip: Clash]

M.I.A. and producer Diplo built an entire song out of this short instrumental part that the Clash only play twice in their own track.

M.I.A. and Diplo simply got permission, and The Clash were all named as songwriters in advance. No lawsuit, no charges of theft. The Clash embraced the M.I.A. song, saying it was a great use of their work. But the creative possibilities of sampling are still challenged by the legal requirements of copyright.

[music in]

The ownership of a song is broken down into two parts. First is the underlying composition: This is all of the elements that someone wrote, basically the sheet music. Then, there’s the physical recording of the song; which is the performance of the musicians and the tones of their gear.

Sampling requires an artist to get both types of copyright permission.

For the recording, a record label will usually own those rights because they paid for the recording session. So that specific recording of the song belongs to them, but they don’t own the idea of the song. The IDEA on the other hand, is frequently co-owned by the artist and the publisher. So a musical artist might only own a small portion of their own work.

[music out]

In the early 90s John Fogerty was sued for plagiarism.

Fantasy Records, the Publisher of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s song Run Through the Jungle, claimed that John Fogerty’s solo song Old Man Down the Road infringed on their copyright.

But John Fogerty was the singer of Creedence Clearwater Revival. So that literally means he was sued for plagiarising himself.

Here’s Run Through the Jungle:

[Music Clip: CCR - Run Through the Jungle]

And here’s Old Man Down the Road:

[Music Clip: John Fogerty - Old Man Down the Road]

So John Fogerty wrote and sang in both songs, but that doesn’t mean he’s the only copyright holder. Remember there are separate rights for writing and recording, and any mainstream artist has to split their earnings with publishers and record labels.

John Fogerty had left with Fantasy records and started a solo career. He spoke in detail about this case during an interview at the grammy museum.

[SFX: Fogerty interview: John Fogerty: “Okay you got the old song, the new song. Fantasy Records is the publisher of the old song. They still have to pay that songwriter, me, right? It’s roughly 50-50. The new song, which was written also by me, called Old Man Down the Road, I’m the songwriter but I’m also the publisher. So if Fantasy prevails, then the new song is nothing and those guys own the whole thing”]

As Fogerty put it, he was being sued for sounding like himself. The melodies were similar but not exact, the guitar riff was related but not the same…

In court, Fantasy Records hired somebody to program the melodies of each song into a computer to compare them. Remember this is in the mid 90s.

[SFX: Fogerty interview: John Fogerty: “What he did was, he programmed the melody of Run Through the Jungle into the computer… beep boop boop...it really sounded like that folks. After that they played, now here’s Old Man Down the Road… beep boop boop… right.”]

Fogerty said the jury looked… confused. When it was his turn to demonstrate, he famously pulled out a guitar and played it in court. He explained how they were different, and that the similarities existed because he was the same person playing the same genre of music.

And...he won the lawsuit.

Some saw this lawsuit as an attempt by Fantasy Records to silence one of their former artist’s. Fogerty as a solo artist was successful enough to mount a defense, but not all songwriters have that kind of money. He countersued and eventually won a supreme court case that basically said, if companies like Fantasy Records lose a copyright lawsuit, they have to cover the lawyers fees of the defense.

[music in]

But even with that ruling, this stuff is expensive.

Sandra: You'll often hear people say that a right without a remedy is no right at all. And I think that's been true for a lot of individual creators and small businesses.

This is Sandra Aistars, a law professor at George Mason University. She sees the current system as cost prohibitive for many small creators.

Sandra: For instance if you are a individual or a small business, and you don't have an army of lawyers at your disposal to deal with all of your business matters, you're going to have to make the decision on a daily basis, "Do I sit down and compose or do I sit at home crawling through the internet trying to find infringements, and then trying to track those people down and deal with them to be able to remain viable as a small business."

You can probably guess what most artists choose.

Sandra: They just try and shoot more images, write more songs, go on tour to try and keep themselves afloat as creative businesses, and they let the copyright protection aspects go by the wayside.

[music out]

Sandra says it can be incredibly expensive to defend yourself against a copyright suit, or to even bring one to court to begin with.

Sandra: That's because copyright is a body of federal law, and so you have to go to the federal courts. There's no small claims proceeding, it's not like when you have an argument with your landlord and you can both go to small claims court. You know, you don't necessarily have to have lawyers, and it doesn't cost you much to resolve this dispute fairly. That doesn't exist in copyright.

But there is a push to change this.

Sandra: There has been an effort over the past couple of years to pass legislation that would create such a system within the copyright office, where whether you are a plaintiff or defendant, you could have access by voluntary agreement to this forum that would act essentially as a small claims court.

[music in]

Copyright law has been getting a lot of public attention. In recent years there have been a spat of high profile cases. The one that’s made the most headlines and seemed to send shockwaves through the music community was Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke vs. Marvin Gaye.

[SFX: Montage of people on the news and youtube saying “Blurred Lines” Rick Beato - “blurred lines”

CNN - “Blurred Lines”

MSNBC - “blurred lines”

Berklee -“blurred lines” ]

We talk about Blurred Lines, and what it might mean for the music industry, after the break.

[music out]

[MIDROLL]

[music in]

In 2015 Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams released a song called “Blurred Lines”. It received public scrutiny for many reasons. Pharrell Williams has even gone as far as saying that he regrets writing the song.

But outside of the lyrics, there is more to this story. The estate of Marvin Gaye asked for a songwriting credit on “Blurred lines” because they said it was similar to Marvin Gaye’s 1977 song “Got to Give It Up”. Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke actually sued first to get a ‘declaration’ that their song did not infringe Marvin Gaye’s work. And then Marvin Gaye’s family were forced to defend.

[music out]

There was a corner of the internet that seemed elated that these flashy new pop stars were getting called out for being unoriginal. Proof that “they don’t make ‘em like they used to.” Then there was another group that was seriously concerned. This case wasn’t for a melody, lyrics, or any specific element. It was for the “feel” of a song. The style itself. This is unprecedented. Let’s listen.

Here’s the beginning of Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams.

[Music Clip: Robin Thicke & Pharrell - Blurred Lines]

And here’s the beginning of motown classic Got to Give it Up by Marvin Gaye:

[Music Clip: Marvin Gaye - Got to Give it Up]

Now, there are some obvious similarities.

The two songs are about the same tempo - roughly 120 beats per minute - and they have basically the same instruments; Drums, some high pitched percussion, bass, and energetic voices.

Let’s zoom in on the different parts. We recreated each part and layered it on top of the original songs to help focus on each sound.

Let's start with the percussion. Here’s Blurred Lines:

[Music Clip: Robin Thicke & Pharrell - Blurred Lines]

And here it is in got to give it up:

[Music Clip: Marvin Gaye - Got to Give it Up]

So Blurred Lines uses cowbells, and Got to Give it up uses a coke bottle. They’re playing different grooves but achieve a similar feeling.

The next thing is the Drums. Here’s the drum kit in Blurred Lines:

[Music Clip: Robin Thicke & Pharrell - Blurred Lines]

And here’s Got to Give it up:

[Music Clip: Marvin Gaye - Got to Give it Up]

Also similar, but not exact. The kick and snare drum are pretty much the same [SFX], but this is a super common drum beat. You can probably find a million songs that use the same kick-snare-kick-snare pattern [SFX].

The little drum fills at the end of the phrase are also similar, all of these are common expressions in drumming, so you can’t copyright them.

Up next is the bass line. Here it is in Blurred Lines:

[Music Clip: Robin Thicke & Pharrell Blurred Lines]

Here it is in Got to Give it up:

[Music Clip: Marvin Gaye - Got to Give it Up]

Similar but not the same.

Next is the vocals. Marvin Gaye’s song uses a recording of people at a party. Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams used their own woops and shouts. So again, different but achieving a similar feeling.

To wrap up, let’s listen to the originals one last time.

Here’s Blurred Lines:

[Music Clip: Robin Thicke & Pharrell - Blurred Lines]

And here’s Got to Give it up:

[Music Clip: Marvin Gaye - Got to Give it Up]

Ok, that was a lot of close listening. But it’s important to remember that these songs didn’t exist in a vacuum. Drums, percussion, bass, and vocals at 120 beats per minute describes hundreds, if not thousands of songs. And this is just in the Motown and Pop genres. And that’s exactly what makes this case important.

These elements are almost universal, and each part in isolation could be considered common expression. So how is it that anything we just played for you can be copyrighted?

A lot of musicians were shocked this case went to court in the first place. In every genre, the music that came before helps to give new music context and meaning. So it’s not surprising that Marvin Gaye would have a huge influence on today’s artists.

[music in]

Pharrell was asked about this influence in court. Here’s a clip from his deposition, published by Hollywood Reporter back in 2015.

[SFX clip: Pharrell Williams

Lawyer: Is it your testimony that you and Mr. Thicke never once during the creation of Blurred Lines spoke about, discussed, referenced the song “Got to Give it Up” by Marvin Gaye?

Pharrell: I did not go into the studio with the intention of making anything feeling like, to sound like Marvin Gaye.]

However, before the trial Pharrell gave an interview about the song and said that he was inspired by Marvin Gaye. [SFX clip: Pharell Williams

Lawyer: do you remember, I asked you if Marvin Gaye at all came into your mind at all during the creation of Blurred Lines, and you said no. Do you remember that?

Pharrell: Yeah.

Lawyer: You say in this interview “I was trying to pretend that I was Marvin Gaye”.

Pharrell: mmhmm.

Lawyer: So I guess Marvin Gaye did in fact come into your mind.

Pharrell: You asked me about Got to Give It Up.

Lawyer: I asked you about Got to Give It Up?

Pharrell: Yeah, you asked me about Got to Give It Up.

Lawyer: So Marvin Gaye came into your mind when you were creating Blurred Lines, but not Got to Give It Up…

Pharrell: No, when I look back.

Lawyer: Do you see here anywhere where you say “when I look back”?

Pharrell: No, no, no… I’m telling you, I’m answering you.]

[music out]

Ultimately, Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke lost this case. The verdict was a 5.3 million dollar payout to the Marvin Gaye family, plus 50 percent of the royalties of the song. They appealed...but they lost again.

The judge wrote in the majority opinion that the decision was quote “Far from heralding the end of musical creativity as we know it...” unquote.

In a dissenting opinion another judge wrote that this decision quote “allows Marvin Gaye’s Family to accomplish what no one has done before: copyright a musical style.”

Adam: Well now you can just own a style of music, which is absolutely ridiculous.

This is Adam Neely again.

Adam: The problem is, in recent years, intellectual property holders have started bringing in musicologists and music theorists into the courtroom, and then those music theorists and musicologists do that same thing of finding connections between songs and finding, hey, yeah, you know, Blurred Lines really does kind of sound like Got To Give It Up, and here's why.

Musicology at a basic level, is the study of music in a cultural context. And musicologists often try to find common ground between different musical styles. Adam thinks this field is being misconstrued in court.

Adam: Musicologists and music theorists are kind of gleefully doing what they've always done in the classroom, but now in the courtroom it has very real world effects that are deleterious to the entire craft and the entire history of music-making.

But musicology is not the only thing considered in a copyright case. The testimony of the artist can play a huge role.

Here’s Sandra Aistars again.

Sandra: I think there is some obligation, on creators of all stripes, that where you're going to incorporate the work of someone who came before you, you should give a nod of credit to them.

Sandra: When you have a jury that is in place to hear all of the arguments of the parties, understand all the testimony of the experts, and then apply their own understanding and experience in the world... And one might agree or disagree with the jury's ultimate conclusion...but that to me is how the process is supposed to work.

[music in]

As an audience, and as a culture, we share a common goal.

We want artists to freely express themselves, and be able to male make a living doing that. But the line between inspiration and theft is just… blurry. Who owns what part of which song, and what parts belong to all of us…

Adam: At the end of the day, the whole system probably should be rebuilt in a very, very different way than it exists right now, but I'm not going to call for that, because that's way beyond the scope of me, lonely bass player, music YouTuber, who just has opinions about music.

Sandra: In terms of the basics of copyright law, the structure is there and it's worked for hundreds of years and there have been controversies for hundreds of years.

Sandra: But look how creative our culture is, look how exponentially we expand our creativity year over year, decade over decade.

Sandra: Over the past several years there's been a review by Congress of every aspect of the copyright laws. And they had something like 20 hearings, and heard from a 100 witnesses in those hearings, and then had public round tables all around the country

Sandra: And now they're in the phase of thinking about, well, are there things that should be changed about the law to update it for the future?

In the muck of lawsuits and red tape, creating art can be... confusing. Most everything is inspired by something else. If we're scared to create something because it might accidentally be similar to something else, we’re stifling our creativity.

Sure, the law needs to protect work, but creatives can’t be terrified of being inspired. And just in case, for my own legal safety, maybe I should tell you that this whole Twenty Thousand Hertz podcast is heavily inspired by Radiolab, 99 Percent Invisible, and Song Exploder. So, Jad, Roman, and Hrishikesh, please don’t sue me.

[music out]

[music in]

Twenty Thousand Hertz is hosted by me, Dallas Taylor, and produced out of the sound design studios of Defacto Sound. Find out more at defactosound.com.

This episode was written and produced by Fil Corbitt and me, Dallas Taylor, with help from Sam Schneble. It was sound edited by Soren Begin, it was sound designed and mixed by Nick Spradlin.

By the way, that whole blurb where people record their own credit… that was inspired by Studio 360. The writer of this episode, Fil Corbitt, is also the host of another podcast called Van Sounds, it’s a unique blend of music journalism, travel writing, and experimental radio. Find Van Sounds right here in your podcast player.

Thanks to Sandra Aistars and Adam Neely for speaking with us. And I highly recommend you go immediately subscribe to Adam Neely’s fantastic YouTube channel.

Also, if you’re a teacher or professor and you want to use Twenty Thousand Hertz in your classrooms - go for it! Our mission is to make the world sound better, and to help everyone understand sound in a deeper way.

Finally, there are sooo many examples of other songs that sound similar. There are also sooo many other lawsuits we couldn’t get to. If there’s another case you’d like to hear us cover in the future, tell us all about it. We’re on Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit. Our subreddit is r/20k. ...and as always, if you’d like to contact us directly, you can do that at hi at 20k dot org.

Thanks for listening.

[music out]

Recent Episodes

Copyrights & Wrongs: Musical Inspiration vs. Plagiarism

Art by&nbsp;Jon McCormack.

This episode was written and produced by Fil Corbitt.

 Most western music is built on the same 12 notes. Sometimes the arrangement of those notes sounds similar, which raises the question: Theft or Inspiration? We listen to some famous copyright disputes and try to decode them. Featuring Adam Neely and Sandra Aistars.


MUSIC FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE

Highride by Radiopink
A Path Unwinding by 4K
PlataZ by The Fence
Tarte Tatin by Confectionary
The Molerat by Little Rock
Moon Bicycle Theme by American Moon Bicycle
Slider by Grey River
Kid Kodi by Skittle

MUSIC DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE

This Land is Your Land by Woody Guthrie - TRO-Essex
Stay With Me by Sam Smith - Capitol Records
I Won't Back Down by Tom Petty - MCA Records
Creep by RadioHead - Parlophone, EMI Records
Get Free by Lana Del Rey - Interscope, Polydor
The Air That I Breathe by The Hollies - Epic Records
Thinking Out Loud by Ed Sheeran - Asylum, Atlantic Records
Let’s Get It On by Marvin Gaye  Tamla Records
When the World's on Fire by The Carter Family - Epic Records, The Carter Family
Oh My Loving Brother - Gospel Hymn
Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin - Atlantic Records
You Need Love by Muddy Waters - Chess Records
The Lemon Song by Led Zeppelin - Atlantic Records
The Killing Floor by Howlin' Wolf - Chess Records
Dazed and Confused by Led Zeppelin - Atlantic Records
Dazed and Confused by Jake Holmes - Tower Records
Dark Horse by Katy Perry - Capitol Records
Joyful Noise by Flame - Cross Movement
Moments in Love by Art of Noise - ZTT, Island Records


CLIPS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE


Twenty Thousand Hertz is produced out of the studios of Defacto Sound and hosted by Dallas Taylor.

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View Transcript ▶︎

You're listening to Twenty Thousand Hertz.

[Music Clip: Woody Guthrie - This Land is Your Land]

This Land is Your Land is one of the most famous American folk songs ever written. It’s even been called the other national anthem...but this song, somehow, does not belong to you and me.

You can’t sing it on stage, or put it on a record or in a movie without paying someone to use it. The only way I can even play it is because of fair use - And this song has been enveloped in a growing national debate about copyright law.

[music in]

For thousands of years people have been making and sharing music. And for thousands of years, nobody really owned it. It just existed. But with the rise of our ability to sell music, the way we determine who owns it has changed dramatically.

Sandra: My name is Sandra Aistars.

Sandra’s a professor at George Mason University.

Sandra: And I teach a class here where we represent artists and entertainers on copyright and entertainment law issues.

To start with the very basics... copyright law is intended to protect authors of creative work.

Sandra: Whether those are musicians, or literary authors, or software programmers, visual authors...

To create work, you just have to record it or write it down. You don’t even necessarily have to sell it or market it to own the copyright.

Sandra: A lot of people don't realize that you don't need to go to a government entity and register for a copyright in order to own a copyright in your work. You as the author own the copyright in the work from the moments that it's set down in some sort of tangible medium.

[music out]

If you come up with a melody and lyrics in the shower [SFX: shower running, singing], and you record it on your phone, you own the copyright. If you post it online [SFX: mouse click], and some famous singer rips it off [SFX: crowd cheering, produced version of shower song], you could theoretically sue and legally co-own that song. That is, assuming you could afford to take it to court.

But since music is art, and art is confusing, it’s usually not that easy to tell what’s a rip off and what is just inspired by somebody else.

Sandra: Everybody understands that people are inspired by other people's works, maybe even unintentionally. They've got some earworm that shows up after they've been concentrating on composing something and it sneaks into the work totally unintentionally.

So is it inspiration or theft? That’s the basic question behind a copyright lawsuit.

One recent copyright dispute was the hit song Stay with Me by Sam Smith which came out in 2014. It goes like this:

[Music Clip: Sam Smith - Stay with Me]

The chorus uses the same melody as Won’t Back Down by Tom Petty.

[Music Clip: Tom Petty - Won’t Back Down]

Tom Petty’s publisher got in touch with Sam Smith, who listened to both and acknowledged the clear similarity -- they said it was a complete accident -- and that was it. Tom Petty was given co-songwriting credits, which means he’s also entitled to royalties.

Let’s hear them back to back one more time…

[Music Clip: Sam Smith - Stay with Me]

[Music Clip: Tom Petty - Won’t Back Down]

Tom Petty was quoted in Rolling Stone Magazine as saying, quote “I have never had any hard feelings towards Sam… Most times you catch it before the song gets out the door but in this case it got by.”

So this case was solved easily, both artists agreed on the result. And Like many of these cases, it was settled out of court, so we don’t have much information about it. But what we do know that it's not uncommon for cases to get a lot messier than this.

And unsurprisingly, many artists don’t like being accused of theft.

For example, in 2018 Lana Del Rey posted a tweet claiming that Radiohead was suing her for ownership of the song Get Free, alleging it was similar to their 1992 song Creep.

Here’s Creep by Radiohead:

[Music Clip: Radiohead - Creep]

And here’s Get Free by Lana Del Rey:

[Music Clip: Lana Del Rey - Get Free]

Lana Del Rey tweeted that Radiohead sued her looking for a hundred percent of the publishing rights. Radiohead’s publishers shot back, saying that in fact no lawsuit had been filed, but that they had been in talks with Lana Del Rey’s publisher about the similarities.

Musical copyright is split into two categories. First - “master rights” control how music is used in film or television, and who can use it. And second - “publishing rights” which protect the actual songwriting, music, and lyrics.

Radiohead and Lana Del Rey apparently settled, though neither side has said exactly what agreement they came to. These cases are rarely public. The only reason we know anything, is that Lana Del Rey performed it in Brazil later that year and said this:

[Live Clip: Lana Del Rey “I mean now that my lawsuit’s over I guess I can sing that song any time I want right?” ]

But here’s the twist… in 1992, after Creep was released, Radiohead was sued for plagiarizing Creep from an early 70’s song by the Hollies.

Here’s Radiohead Again:

[Music Clip: Radiohead - Creep]

And this is The Air that I Breathe by the Hollies:

[Music Clip: The Hollies - The Air that I Breathe]

In the early nineties, the two songwriters of The Hollies successfully sued Radiohead and are now credited as songwriters on Creep.

Every copyright claim has to be looked at case-by-case. And to actually make decisions about violations it’s important to zoom in and look at the elements that music is made of.

[music in]

Music is a shared language. So there are tons of parts of music that everybody owns.

Like, you can’t copyright a single musical note. In western music, there are only 12 of them [SFX]. So if somebody were to own the note G [SFX]... it would be almost impossible to write music. It’s a common form of expression, like a letter of the alphabet. So you can’t own it.

Non-ownable forms of expression exist in other media as well. In visual art, you can’t copyright a simple shape - like a circle or a square. And in literature you can’t copyright emotions.

You can take that idea pretty far too. For example - if you were to write a play where boy meets girl, but their families were in a blood feud, so they try to run away with eachother and it goes horribly wrong… that’d be fine. Even though that’s the same basic plot behind Romeo And Juliet.

Sandra: On the other hand, if someone were to copy a Shakespearian ballad from beginning to end, that would clearly be a copyright infringement.

[music out]

Basically, you can’t own things that are considered common. So in music, a 4/4 rock beat [SFX] or a simple bass line [SFX] are pretty common, and almost impossible to copyright.

Likewise - Many folk melodies include scales and even lyrical phrases that are simply too common to own. So when these cases go to court, each side has to prove if something is a “common expression”, or if it’s actually unique intellectual property.

[music in]

Sandra: The parties bring in musicologists that explain various subtleties of music composition, and try to help the jury understand which areas are protectable and which areas are not. Not surprisingly, the musicologist for the plaintiff will typically disagree with the musicologist for the defendant, and so you'll have two competing assertions of what's protectable and what's not protectable.

So in a hypothetical case like Radiohead vs. Lana Del Rey - Lana Del Rey’s lawyers would likely argue that the chord progression isn’t unique enough for Radiohead to own. Radiohead’s lawyers would argue the opposite. And, what’s surprising -- is that it would be up to a jury to decide. Not experts, but a regular old jury.

Sandra: Music is really an interesting area of the law here because we as listeners, audiences, we have our own ideas of what sounds similar, what doesn't sound similar…

So, a group of people who might not know anything about actually writing or playing music get to make the decision.

Sandra: The harder question is where to draw the line when you're talking about something that incorporates common types of musical expression.

And that line has been making some musicians very nervous.

[music out]

Adam: It leads to some pretty dark places, because if you can own one specific simple chord progression, you can own basically anything, and anybody can sue anybody else for any kind of little chord progression that is in any song.

This is Adam Neely.

Adam: I'm a bass player and also a music education YouTuber.

[music in]

Adam has a great youtube channel and has made a couple popular videos about music plagiarism. Adam says that recently the interpretation of copyright law has started finding plagiarism - but he thinks many of these cases should just be considered inspiration.

Adam: So historically, musicians have always built on what other musicians have done. We use the same scales, we use the same chord progressions, we use the same kinds of rhythms. And to say that you can own one of those elements in such a specific manner is just disingenuous to the entire art form and the entire craft.

In the last couple of years, there have been a few cases that have made huge waves in the world of songwriting. Cases that have changed the way we think of music ownership entirely.

We’ll talk about those cases, after the break.

[music out]

[MIDROLL]

[music in]

In the last couple of years, A few massive cases have rocked the world of songwriting. Contemporary pop stars have gone up against giants of music and unknown artists alike.

In 2018 Ed Sheeran was sued for the similarity between his song Thinking Out Loud and Marvin Gaye’s song “Let’s get it on.”

This lawsuit is mainly interesting because it isn’t about the melody, like most copyright cases.

Instead, this one is about the bassline, the chords and the drum grove.

[music out]

Here’s Thinking Out Loud by Ed Sheeran. Pay attention to the bass and drums.

[Music Clip: Ed Sheeran - Thinking out loud]

And Here’s Let’s get it On by Marvin Gaye:

[Music Clip: Marvin Gaye - Let’s Get It On]

So let’s dissect this - the bassline and drum groove are definitely similar. But the vocal melody is different, and the lyrics are different, the musical key is also different - but the chord progression is basically the same.

I’m going to layer these two songs on top of each other - Ed Sheran’s song has to be pitched up a little bit so they are in tune together. Listen to how the basic framework of the songs is the same, but all of the details in between are different…

[Music Clip: Ed Sheeran -layered with Marvin Gaye]

So the chords and the drum beat match. [Music fades to basic piano and drums] But neither Marvin Gaye or Ed Sheran invented these elements. The chords are a progression known as “one three four five”, and the drum beat is a basic rock drum pattern like you might learn in your first few drum lessons.

[music out]

[music in]

Marvin Gaye pretty much reshaped the way our culture sings about love. In many ways, what we think of as a smooth, romantic song can be attributed to his sensibilities. And it’s hard to create a contemporary romantic song without nodding to Marvin Gaye.

But inspiration isn’t illegal. And According to Adam, musicians have always built on what other musicians have done. So the context of what comes before gives new music part of its meaning. Adam argues that this is just a contemporary version of a very old musical concept called Cantus Firmus.

Adam: Cantus firmus was basically the technique of taking a melody that had already been written, and then writing other melodies on top of it.

Adam says this has been standard composition technique for hundreds of years.

[music out]

Adam: This is how Mozart learned how to compose. This is how Beethoven learned how to compose. Everybody learned to write by basically stealing other people's melodies and then writing other stuff on top of that.

And that’s not just for classical music. Think about folk songs. It was super common for people to learn songs from their parents or at church, add new verses and pass them on. Or, people would just take a melody they already knew and change the lyrics.

Which brings us back to Woody Guthrie’s This Land is your Land:

[Music Clip: Woody Guthrie - This Land is Your Land]

So that song that all of us know, simply repurposed a melody from The Carter Family. Here’s their song, “When the World’s on Fire”, from about 10 years before.

[Music Clip: When the World’s on Fire - The Carter Family]

Pretty similar, right? Well, the Carter Family didn’t make it up either. It was originally a Baptist gospel hymn called “Oh My Loving Brother”.

[Music Clip: Oh My Loving Brother]

The Carter Family even repurposed this same melody again for other songs. But none of this was unusual. These weren’t seen as plagiarism and the original songwriters were often anonymous or long, long gone.

[music in]

The first US Copyright Law passed in 1790. At that time, a copyright lasted 14 years, and you could renew it once. After that it was in the public domain, which means anybody could use it. Commercial, private, whatever. In 1909 Copyright was extended to 28 years, then extended again in 1976, and again in 1998. It keeps expanding.

So, when Woody Guthrie released This Land is Your Land, it wasn’t like copyright didn’t exist...people just treated music compositions differently, and a lot more of it was considered common expression. There were references to references to references -- an inception level of copyright violations in all types of music.

In fact, the note that Guthrie submitted with his copyright application read, quote “anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do” end quote.

[music out]

Keeping that in mind, in 2004, the comedy website JibJab posted a video with parody lyrics of the song.

[Music Clip: Jib Jab]

A company called The Richmond Organization claimed that they had purchased the copyright of This Land is Your Land, and threatened legal action.

To be proactive, JibJab sued first, claiming not only that parody was fair use, but that The Richmond Organization didn’t own it at all. Jib Jab won the parody part, but The Richmond Organization still claims ownership.

But how? If a song was copyrighted in the 1940s, and could only be held for 28 years, it seems like it should be in the public domain today.

[music in: Slider by Grey River]

By the mid 70s, copyright was extended to 70 years, OR the life of the author plus 50 years.

And THEN in the late 90s, that was extended to a whopping 120 years or the life of the author plus 70.

Just to reiterate that, what started as a law to protect a work for 14 years now will keep a work as private property for 120.

This is exactly how the Happy Birthday was held for so long. For years chain restaurants would sing some weird version of a birthday song…

[Music Clip: Applebees Happy Birthday]

And that was because the one we all know was protected by copyright, despite the fact that it was written sometime around 1912. The company that owned it was successfully sued recently and now anybody can use Happy Birthday for anything. Finally we can get rid of those uncomfortable happy birthday songs and get back to the real one.

After Happy Birthday was released into the public domain, This Land is Your Land came up in court again. It appeared as if it might be released. But….It wasn’t. The judge ruled that the Richmond Organization still retained ownership of the song, and it will not be in the public domain anytime soon.

Adam: The idea behind intellectual property is the protection of the artist, and as an artist and as a musician and talking to people around me, nobody feels protected by this. The only people who feel protected by this are the estates of pop artists who have passed.

On the other hand, Woody Guthrie’s daughter Nora, told the New York Times that this isn’t about the money, it’s about protecting the song from abuse and political use.

[music out]

Copyright is meant to allow artists to create work -and legally own it. Then you can prevent other people from stealing it and claiming it as their own. And that makes sense, because who wouldn’t want their work to help support their family - even after they’re gone.

This brings us to Led Zeppelin. Led Zeppelin was notorious for brazenly (ahem) borrowing from other songs. There’s even a wikipedia page called “Led Zeppelin songs written or inspired by others.”

Here’s Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love from 1969:

[Music Clip: Led Zeppelin - Whole Lotta Love]

And here is You Need Love by Willie Dixon, sung by Muddy Waters from 6 years earlier.

[Music Clip: Muddy Waters - You Need Love]

Here is The Lemon Song by Led Zeppelin:

[Music Clip: Led Zeppelin - Lemon Song]

And Here’s Killing Floor by Howlin’ Wolf:

[Music Clip: Howlin’ Wolf - Killing Floor]

Covering songs or attributing parts of a song are normal...but Led Zeppelin released these as their own, with themselves listed as the sole songwriters. They had actually even covered that Howlin’ Wolf song before, but when they released Lemon Song, they didn’t credit him, until they were sued and forced to.

Here’s “Dazed and Confused” by Led Zeppelin:

[Music clip: Led Zeppelin - Dazed and Confused]

And here’s “Dazed and Confused” from a few years earlier by Jake Holmes:

[Music Clip: Jake Holmes - Dazed and Confused]

On this one, Led Zeppelin didn’t even bother to change the name, and this song was originally credited just to Led Zeppelin. It was later changed to “inspired by Jake Holmes” and settled out of court.

Many of the world’s most famous musicians, from Bach to BB King, embrace the practice of borrowing bass lines, melodies and drum beats. But when does it cross the line from borrowing to outright stealing?

Some argue that this line is starting to move toward finding infringement too freely. In 2019, Katy Perry lost a lawsuit to the Christian rapper Flame. A jury found that her song Dark Horse featured an element that was too similar to Flame’s song Joyful Noise.

Here's the beginning of Katy Perry’s Dark Horse:

[Music Clip: Katy Perry - Dark Horse]

Here is the beginning of Flame’s Joyful Noise:

[Music Clip: Flame - Joyful Noise]

The similarity wasn’t the melody, or a lyric or a beat -- it was something called an Ostinato -- a repeated musical phrase, which in this case was a short synthesizer line.

Here’s Adam Neely’s youtube video Demonstrating Flame’s ostinato in Joyful Noise:

[SFX: Adam Neely Demo

“It Sounds like this:”

[music]

“Dark Horse’s Ostinato sounds suspiciously similar…(cut transpose line)”

[music]

“Oh wait I’m sorry, that’s actually not the Katy Perry -- that’s the adagio from Bach’s Violin sonata in F Minor. This is Katy Perry’s Dark Horse.”

[music]

“Wait sorry got confused again, that’s the traditional Christmas Carol Jolly Old St. Nicolas. THIS actually is the Katy Perry.”

[music]

“So the question is, is this similar enough to Joyful Noise to legally be the same piece of music? The jury seems to have ruled that IS the case.”]

In these examples Adam plays these notes on a synthesizer that sounds like the Katy Perry and Flame songs.

So theoretically you could argue that it’s not just the notes, but it’s also the presentation of the notes -- in this case an airy sounding synth instrument.

With that in mind, here is a song from the early 80s called Moments in Love, by the band Art of Noise:

[Music Clip: Art of Noise - Moments in Love]

Clearly, Flame was not the first person to play a minor key Ostinato like this in music. But, the case wasn’t about where Flame got the idea, it was whether Katy Perry had plagiarized it from Flame.

This ruling was actually reversed in 2020, in favor of Katy Perry. But Adam still worries these kinds of cases can paralyze creativity.

Adam: I really dislike the fact that this is being turned against people who are actually writing and creating music. Will I be protected? Will I be sued because I used a certain chord progression? Like what is the new law? I don't know.

And he says a lot of musicians feel confused and incredibly frustrated by the way this works.

Adam: So add onto that, the internet, and how remix culture and remixing of music has just exploded because of that, in meme culture and everywhere else. Copyright as a whole system just doesn't work the way that it's supposed to. It's supposed to protect people, but it doesn't. There are so few examples I can see of people genuinely needing copyright and genuinely relying upon copyright to protect them…

As if copyright and song ownership wasn’t complicated enough, hip hop in the 80s threw a whole new wrench in the gears with sampling.

We’ll deconstruct a whole new batch of cases - next time.

[music in]

Twenty Thousand Hertz is hosted by me, Dallas Taylor, and produced out of the studios of Defacto Sound, a sound design team dedicated to making television, film and games sound incredible. Find out more at defactosound.com.

This episode was produced by Fil Corbitt and me, Dallas Taylor, with help from Sam Schneble. It was sound designed and mixed by Soren Begin, and Nick Spradlin. The writer of this show, Fil Corbitt, is also the host of the fantastic podcast Van Sounds, a unique blend of music journalism, travel writing and experimental radio. You can find Van Sounds on apple podcasts or wherever you listen.

Thanks to our guests Sandra Aistars and Adam Neely for speaking with us. I am a huge, huge, huge fan of Adam Neely’s Youtube channel, and it was the Katy Perry / Flame video that made me want to do this entire episode.

Finally, what do you think about music copyright law? Do you think it stifles creativity, or do you think it protects an artist’s work without overreaching? Tell us what you think on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, or by writing hi at 20k dot org.

Thanks for listening.

[music out]

Recent Episodes

Makin’ Whoopee: The hilarious history & science of fart sounds

Art by Divya Tak.

Art by Divya Tak.

This episode originally aired on Brought to You By.

Farts have been funny to humans for thousands of years. This basic bodily function has countless nicknames around the world, but our fascination with farts is probably best illustrated by the simple whoopee cushion. In this episode from the podcast Brought to You By, Charlie Herman reports on the history of the whoopee cushion and why we can't help but laugh when we hear that sound.


MUSIC FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE

Thick Irony by Sound of Picture
March of the Clowns by Lincoln Grounds
Small Town by Lincoln Grounds
Tender Dignity by Paul Mottram
No Dramas by David Kelly and Paul Michael Harris
In the Parlour by Julian Gallant
Liberty by William Davies
Zany Jany by Alexander L'Estrange and Ben Parry
Stick Or Twist by Lincoln Grounds
Tuba Chase by Neil Sidwell
Rooty Toot by Paul Mottram
What A Laugh by Bob Bradley, Adam Dennis, Chris Egan, and Dave Bishop
Bad Vibes by Paul Mottram
Moody Blue by Paul Mottram
Dashing About by Christopher Baron
Misfit by Paul Mottram
Humour Games by Neil Sidwell
Mother of Pearl by Sam Wedgwood and Chesney Hawkes
In a Muddle by Neil Sidwell

Twenty Thousand Hertz is produced out of the studios of Defacto Sound and hosted by Dallas Taylor.

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View Transcript ▶︎

You’re listening to Twenty Thousand Hertz.

[music in]

Sound is used for so many different things in our lives. Alarms get our attention [SFX], notification sounds help us navigate [SFX], and music can relax us or hype us up. It can also be used as peak comedy.

[SFX: Fart noise]

Yep, farts.

...and even the word fart is funny. It feels like a curse word when you say it out loud. Fart Fart Fart Fart Fart. All the derivatives of the word fart are funny too:

Toot, Blurt, Cutting the Cheese, Passing Gas, Trouser Cough, Letting One Rip, Stepped on a Duck, Stepped on a Frog, Barking Spider, Back-end blowout, Butt Bazooka, Booty bomb… I could keep going but I think you get the point.

There’s something about the fart sound. And there’s probably no better example of this than the simple whoopee cushion. You know, that’s the pink rubber cushion you fill with air, then sneak onto someone's chair when they aren’t looking. Then, when they sit down…

[SFX: Whoopee cushion fart]

While kitschy prank gags come and go, the whoopee cushion has stood the test of time. This story is brought to you by a podcast called, Brought to You By. A warning, there are a lot of fart jokes ahead…

[music out]

Mardi: Oh my gosh, we have a giant pencil which is huge.

Mardi Timm is a novelty collector in Wisconsin.

Mardi: A giant rabbit 's foot, and a super colossal jumbo olive...

Charlie: Her house is packed with boxes, filled to the brim with every novelty item you can imagine.

That’s Brought To You By’s Host, Charlie Herman.

Mardi: One of my favorites in the collection, one of my absolute favorites is, it's a comb...and what it does is it puts dandruff in your hair. It's awesome.

[music in]

Charlie: For the past 35 years, she and her husband Stan have built up this treasure trove of gadgets...

Mardi: We have ant farms…

Charlie: And gizmos...

Mardi: We have costumes!

Charlie: And toys...

Mardi: Everyone has heard of, yackity yack the chattering teeth?

Charlie: And magic tricks.

Mardi: The x-ray glasses that supposedly you can put those glasses on and look at your hand and see your bones. It doesn't work. But they’re there.

Charlie: Today, they have about one-thousand-800 items in their collection. And for Mardi, these aren’t just old knickknacks. They’re artifacts.

Mardi: It's Americana. It's really a history of the growth and the changes of the people of America. It's popular culture.

Charlie: She and Stan don’t just collect these things, they try to uncover the history behind them. And one of their most prized items is, you guessed it.

Mardi: So this is the original whoopee cushion. And the original whoopee cushion is a lovely little thing.

Charlie: It’s from 1932. When Mardi and Stan spotted this cushion on eBay, they were willing to wager $94 on it. But, much to their surprise, there were no other bidders.

Mardi: And we got that whoopee cushion for $5.

Charlie: And when you got it and it arrived at your home, I mean…

[music out]

Mardi: We did a happy dance. It was, it was the coolest thing ever. We just couldn't believe it. Now, you couldn't use it because it was too old, but it's original. It's just beautiful.

[music in]

Charlie: I have to say, beauty is not the first word that comes to mind when I think of a whoopee cushion. But to hear Mardi talk about it, you would think she’s describing a Picasso.

Mardi: It's, it's interesting, the green is like army green. And it has um a scalloped edge like if you used pinking shears…

Charlie: And like any good work of art, to truly understand the whoopee cushion, you have to look back at the many historical and cultural influences that led to its creation. It took hundreds of years of history to get that whoopee cushion onto the chairs of unsuspecting teachers and old maid aunts across the United States. And it starts, of course...

[SFX: Whoopee cushion sound]

Charlie: ...with the noise itself.

Jim: An archeologist actually found the earliest joke from the Babylonian period and it was a fart joke.

Charlie: That’s Jim Dawson. He considers himself a “fartologist” because of three books he’s written.

Jim: The first one was “Who Cut the Cheese, A Cultural History of the Fart”. The second one was “Blame it on the Dog, A Modern History of the Fart”. And then “Did Somebody Step on a Duck?, A Natural History of the Fart”.

Charlie: Dawson told me that flatulence has a rich and storied history. People have been talking about farts for ages—I’m talking everyone from first century authors:

Jim: Josephus who was a Jewish Roman writer.

Charlie: To prized playwrights:

Jim: Shakespeare.

Charlie: To the father of English literature:

Jim: Chaucer's the Canterbury Tales.

Charlie: Mark Twain wrote a satirical play called “1601” based on an elaborate fart joke. And Joseph Pujol, Paris’ top entertainer in the 1890s, brought flatulence to the masses...

[music out]

Jim: He was able to control his stomach in a way that he could suck air in through his anus and then blow it back out again. And he had such control, and he would do imitations, and, apparently it, people would be rolling, in laughter at the Moulin Rouge where he performed.

[music in]

Charlie: The whoopee cushion itself dates back centuries as well. Legend has it that an ancient Roman emperor, Elagabalus, was a big fan of using proto-whoopee cushions at dinner parties. By the Middle Ages, it was looking closer to a whoopee cushion you’d recognize.

Jim: The old jokers, the court jesters, would come up with the lowest forms of humor to make the King and the Queen and their court laugh. And one would be like the pig bladder full of air and then you can control the air coming out of it and make all these funny sounds. And that's really where the idea came from.

[music out]

[music in]

Charlie: But it wasn’t until the 1920s that the commercial whoopee cushion you know today hit the shelves. For that, you can thank the Canadian rubber company, “JEM”. Again, novelty collector Mardi Timm:

Mardi: The claim to fame that they had, the JEM rubber company was this valve that they created that allowed the whole mechanism to work. So you blow it up and the valve stops the air from coming back out again. So then it expands and then when you sit on it, it makes that wonderful noise.

Charlie: The Canadian rubber company approached a couple of American novelty companies about selling the cushion in the U.S. And the one that smelled a hit, was Johnson Smith. Now, Johnson Smith made some of its own products, but it was most famous for its enormous catalogue — it was like the Sears catalogue of novelty toys. Seriously, it’s been called “the Rosetta Stone of American culture.”

Charlie: These catalogues were actually what got Mardi and her husband into novelty collecting in the first place. They have an almost complete collection of catalogues from 1914 through the 1950s, and that includes one of the company’s biggest ever: the one from 1932 that broadcast the whoopee cushion’s US debut.

[music out]

Mardi: Here's what it says. The whoopee cushion is made of rubber, it is inflated…

Charlie: Except for the color, which went from military green to that bubblegum pink you know today, the whoopee cushion really hasn’t changed much over the years.

Mardi: When the victim unsuspectingly sits upon the cushion, it gives forth the most indescribable noises, made in two.

Charlie: The whoopee cushion was sold under a handful of nonsensical names at first — everything from the poo poo pillow to the boop-boop a doop (a fan favorite here at BTYB). But one name stuck. Again, fartologist, Jim Dawson:

Jim: The big word in this country was, whoopee. And there was a big play on Broadway called Whoopee. And, Eddie Cantor had a huge hit, “Makin’ Whoopee”.

[SFX: Makin Whoopee Cantor ‘29]

Charlie: “Whoopee” epitomized the 1920s, and papers across the continent wrote about the rise of this new hot slang.

Jim: You know, whoopee!

Charlie: As the Roaring Twenties crashed into the Great Depression, people wanted to hold onto the spirit of whoopee. So when Johnson Smith started selling a “whoopee cushion,” this silly prank product took off.

[music in]

Mardi: What they offered people was humor. And the whoopee cushion and a lot of the novelties and pranks and jokes that they had offered people some levity and a way to get away from the seriousness of what was going on around them.

Charlie: Johnson Smith had a captive audience that was hungry for its products. But there’s a reason you know the name “whoopee” cushion, and not the name of the companies that sold it.

The whoopee cushion was a hit, but it would also become a case study into the unique and sometimes shady novelty business. We’ll hear all about that, plus why exactly people find whoopee cushions so funny, after the break.

[music out]

MIDROLL

[music in]

While the whoopee cushions we’re familiar with didn’t appear until the 20th century, fart gags have been around for literally thousands of years. It’s pretty impressive that something so simple has remained funny to people for this long.

[music out]

Here’s Charlie again.

Charlie: Before we go any further, I want to take a second and talk about why whoopee cushions are funny in the first place. I mean, they are funny, it’s a scientific fact, at least, that’s according to this guy:

[music in]

Trevor: I'm Trevor Cox, I'm professor of acoustic engineering at the University of Salford in England.

Charlie: In 2009, Cox embarked on a unique course of research as part of a fundraising campaign for the organization Comic Relief. That work was to systematically test what makes the funniest whoopee cushion sound.

Trevor: First of all we needed a range of whoopee cushion sounds to test so I sent off a very experienced researcher with a recording system and said "see how many sounds you could make out of this whoopee cushion." And he came back with this huge cornucopia of recordings, you couldn't quite believe the range of sounds you could make but if you give it to a really good acoustician, they can make some really strange sounds.

[music out]

[SFX: Whoopee cushion sounds]

Charlie: By the way, these are the actual sounds from his study. (How could you actually take notes while they’re laughing?!)

[SFX: Whoopee cushion sounds]

Charlie: OK, Charlie. Compose yourself. So Cox and his team reviewed this library of noise they’d created. They ran statistical tests to determine which noises were the most different. Then they uploaded them onto a website and asked people to rate them on a scale of 1 to 6, or no smile to a big, open mouthed grin.

Trevor: And we got a really large number of people, I think we ended up with hundreds of thousands of ratings, and about 70,000 people did this experiment so it was big data.

Charlie: When they crunched the numbers, they found a few takeaways. If you’re like most people, then this:

[SFX: Whoopee_Sound_5]

Charlie: Just does not have the same comic effect as:

[SFX: Whoopee_Sound_18]

Trevor: I have this graph which shows you how funny it is versus time and clearly as the whoopee cushion sounds get longer and longer they get funnier, so maybe if you're sitting down on the whoopee cushion, you should do it quite slowly.

Charlie: Just like any good joke, the whoopee cushion abides by the rules of comedy.

[music in]

Trevor: In comedy, the unexpected is often funny and so actually the longest whoopee cushion sound we made. It goes on and you think "oh it's going to stop soon" and it goes on, and on and on and on and it goes on to ridiculous lengths and that makes it very very funny.

Charlie: Some sounds were funnier than others — the whinier the better. Some people were more amused than others — the younger you were, the funnier you found the sounds. And the more sounds you listened to, the funnier you thought they were:

Trevor: If it's a good joke, it gets funnier and funnier doesn't it?

Charlie: Cox actually didn’t mind having to listen through fart sound after fart sound to design his research.

Trevor: Actually in acoustics you spend a lot of time researching noise and how it has a detrimental effect, you know traffic noise, plane noise, all those sorts of things. So it's quite nice to turn it around and think of things, which sounds which create joy and whether you find whoopee cushions funny or not, you know that sound creates a lot of joy in a lot of people, for better or for worse.

[music out]

[music in]

Charlie: And back in the 1930s, it did not take long for companies to catch on to this. Soon after the whoopee cushion’s debut, it was selling like crazy! And one company in particular realized it had made a big mistake. It had the opportunity to be the first to sell the whoopee cushion in the US, but it said, “No. We’ll sit this one out.” That company was S. S. Adams, the guys who pioneered the American novelty industry.

Kirk: Supposedly, it was rejected because the whole concept was said to be in poor taste.

Charlie: Isn’t that kind of the point?? Kirk Demarais has designed packaging for S. S. Adams and he wrote a book about the company’s first 100 years. He says it was Samuel Adams, the founder, who passed on the whoopee cushion.

Kirk: It's kind of funny that he would, you know, turn his nose up at this thing because he'd already put out like, you know, fake doggy doo and things like that.

Charlie: Classy.

[music out]

Charlie: After Samuel blew off the whoopee cushion, the Canadian rubber company struck a deal with Johnson Smith, the ones with the catalogue. However, once the whoopee cushion started selling, Samuel realized his mistake. He supposedly said this bad decision cost him $50,000 in profits the first year alone, or nearly a million dollars in today’s money.

Kirk: Once Samuel noticed the success, he produced what's called the razzberry cushion, which is just, the exact same thing really.

Charlie: He was not the only one to make a copy of the whoopee cushion.

[music in]

Kirk: Knockoffs are extremely common in the novelty industry. And this is probably one of the first times, where Adams did, did the knocking off.

Charlie: Here’s the thing about novelty makers: they’re jokesters. They’re not sitting around talking about how to, protect their assets, they’re thinking about how they are gonna get their next laugh.

Kirk: Samuel said, “by the time one of our products has been ripped off, it's already passe, and it's not really worth, you know, pouring money and time into, you know, any legal entanglements.”

[music out]

David: The legal part of the novelty industry is probably the least interesting part of the novelty industry.

Charlie: This is David Wahl, the “Director of Awesome,” a pretty awesome job title if you ask me, for a company called Archie McPhee. It’s like a modern day S. S. Adams.

David: It's much more interesting to talk about unicorns than it is to talk about lawyers.

Charlie: If Wahl wanted to talk about patents and trademarks and copyrights all day, he would have become a lawyer. It’s not why he got into the novelty joke business. For many in this always innovating, always evolving industry, all that paperwork is a real buzzkill.

David: We put out, you know, 150 new products a year. So, what we would become is a law firm if we decided we were just all of a sudden going to try and protect every idea that we had from every glimmer of a copy that could possibly come from it. And that’s just not our focus.

Charlie: But sometimes you have to talk about lawyers. Because this is an industry in trouble.

[music in]

Charlie: The mindset that drives novelty makers, you see it right there in the name: novel, it’s all about the next best idea. So you have companies that spend decades investing time and money into making new products, nailing the spring in the “snake in a can” or getting the recoil just right on that “dollar bill snatcher.” But many of those companies do not spend the same resources protecting their rights to those products through, say, patents and trademarks.

Charlie: What that means is many of these companies do not have name recognition, but their great products do. That's why you know the "whoopee cushion," but probably can't name a single company that makes one.

Charlie: And it could be why so many novelty companies and stores have been closing.

[music out]

Charlie: Today, if you Google “whoopee cushion,” there isn’t just one item that pops up. There are tons and tons of the exact same product, sold under the exact same name sold by a ton of different businesses. No single company has the patent to exclusively sell whoopee cushions.

[music in]

Michael: You know, it's really odd. So we did a search and we couldn't find anything that came up.

Charlie: This is attorney Michael Cohen. No, not the one you’re thinking of, this Michael Cohen specializes in intellectual property: things like patents and copyrights.

Michael: As far as we know, no one put the effort to put a fight up in regards to the ownership of the name and it just became a generic term.

Charlie: What he means is, “whoopee cushion” describes a category of goods, not one product in particular. It’s not a brand name. It's like the words “automobile” or “cell phone.”

Michael: Anyone can utilize that term because it simply describes what it is. It's a whoopee cushion

Charlie: But it did not have to be this way.

[music out]

Michael: So in a perfect world, if there was a hypothetical, what should they have done? Patents for sure. And trademarks for sure. And possibly even copyrights to some extent.

Charlie: Cohen says the first person to make the whoopee cushion might have been able to protect its shape, appearance and function using patents, and its name, using trademarks. It might have even been able to prevent others from making knock offs of the product by arguing its shape is what people associate with the brand.

Michael: It kinda has that iconic shape to at least when it's an inflated and so maybe there could’ve been, there's an argument that there could have been a trade dress protection for that.

Charlie: But that’s not what happened. In the novelty industry, the focus has been more on inventing new things instead of investing in legal protections for old ones. That means, sometimes people imitate or plain rip off ideas other people created. It’s the nature of this business, though, it’s not always a bad thing.

[music in]

Charlie: When it comes to novelty toys and products, there are a few different types of imitation. The first type, the one the industry is built to support, let’s call it “iteration.” It’s like when someone comes along and says “How about I design a whoopee cushion that inflates on its own?” Novelty makers are all for that. David Wahl, the director of awesome, says it’s kind of like writing jazz music.

David: You have traditional tunes and what happens is you put your own spin in that tune and you record it. And I think that having a novelty product that's an echo of another novelty product is good. Making this beautiful new music out of a reflection of what someone else has done is, you know, that's what creativity is.

Charlie: Using better rubber or developing a new valve that releases the air to make a new, symphonic whoopee cushion melody, that’s all fair game. But problems come up when you get to the second type of imitation. That’s when other companies start straight up ripping off your song.

[music out]

David: There are companies that exist only as a shadow of other companies. They just copy what other companies do as soon as they see what's popular.

Charlie: And when another company comes along and starts selling your exact same product, if you haven’t legally protected it, there’s not much you can do. And that matters when a product, like the whoopee cushion, becomes a household name, but the company that created it, is not.

David: It obviously affects our sales. And, there is customer confusion, which is the worst part about it.

Charlie: There’s one more kind of imitation and it is bad news for the entire novelty industry. That’s when other companies don’t just steal your idea and your customers and then make money; it’s when their product is a cheap knockoff and even ruins the joke. Wahl has seen this happen with the razor blade through the thumb trick: a classic.

[music in]

David: I saw one, not too long ago that wouldn't even fit on my pinky, in the shape of a thumb cause it was so small. And it, and it had no blood on it and it was just, you know, a gray razor sticking in the side of the little tiny thumb finger. So it takes away what the original object was until it just becomes this, you know, it's like a Xerox copy of a Xerox copy of a Xerox copy.

Kirk: It renders the product useless.

[music out]

Charlie: This again is Kirk Demarais. He’s studied how novelty items are sold, and he says this phenomenon, what’s called “quality fade,” has actually hurt novelty companies across the country.

Kirk: I think over time they became associated with cheap junk. I mean, if you go back to...the dawn of the, the prank novelty industry, a lot of that stuff, you know, was made of metal and made of higher quality materials.

Charlie: As low quality imitations began to flood the market, it got harder and harder for consumers to tell the difference between the well-made, say, whoopee cushion.

[SFX: Whoopee sound]

Charlie: And some cheapo “whoopee cushion.”

[SFX: Whoopee sound]

[music in]

Charlie: People don’t really know which brands of novelty products are better than others, or which ones they prefer, like their favorite shampoo or peanut butter. If you want to buy a “whoopee cushion,” you don’t care if it’s made by JEM Rubber Company or Johnson Smith or S. S. Adams. Novelty companies know this, and it’s reflected in how they advertise.

Kirk: I think they were selling an experience and they are selling this moment of astonishment when it comes to magic tricks or this moment of humiliation when it comes to pranks. The way that so many prank and novelty items were sold, it took the brand name out of the equation.

Charlie: So when someone buys a dinky, unconvincing razor blade thumb from one company or a cheaply made whoopee cushion from another, it hurts every other company selling the same prank. This reality, along with the focus on innovations instead of legal protections, means that in the end, the novelty toy business is struggling.

[music out]

Kirk: After the 80s, even the shops, standalone novelty shops and joke shops, they started closing down and now they're almost nonexistent.

[music in]

Charlie: S.S. Adams, the company that spearheaded the American novelty industry, was sold to an online store in 2009. And at the end of 2019, Johnson Smith, the company that put the whoopee cushion on the map in the U.S., it shuttered its doors after 105 years.

Mardi: Which I have to tell you, makes me incredibly sad.

Charlie: Again, novelty collector, Mardi Timm.

Mardi: Because they've been a part of my life for 35 years and I feel like I've just lost an old friend.

Charlie: After all those years of collecting, Mardi and her husband are selling their collection. She hopes they’ll find a new home for it in one piece, so it doesn’t just become a hodgepodge of stuff. Because she believes there’s something to be learned from all those toys and pranks and jokes.

Mardi: People have a natural funny bone and they need a release of some sort to just not look at life so seriously.

[music out]

Charlie: To be honest, before we started working on this story, I hadn’t really thought about the whoopee cushion in a while. But I could immediately picture one. Round, pink, scalloped edges...and I thought...who would be the perfect person I could use that on today. Because I’d like to think, no matter how old you are or how sophisticated you think you are, there are some practical jokes, if done right, are always funny. But to confirm this, I decided to check with some experts…

[music in]

OSCAR: My name is Oscar, I'm in fifth grade and I'm 11.

CHRIS: My name is Chris.

CAMI: My name is Cami.

LUKE: Luke

JOSH: Joshua.

STEVEN: Steven.

NATE: My name is Nate, I'm in fifth grade and I'm 10 years old.

LUKE: A fart is funny because of the sound.

OSCAR: [imitates fart sounds]

OSCAR: They're funny and stinky and sometimes loud.

CHRIS: and they're kind of inappropriate.

CAMI: they come from a silly part of your body.

LUKE: I've actually thought of them more as human nature as I've gotten older but I still think that they're funny.

JOSH: In movies, like comedic movies when there are like tense moments it just relieves the tensity.

CAMI: It’s probably the most funniest at the most unexpecting moment.

NATE: When I was in class, this one kid he sneezed and farted at the same time interrupting my Spanish teacher [laughing] and the whole class started laughing.

OSCAR: [imitates fart sounds]

LUKE: Just a little [fart noise] is considered comedy these days I guess.

MOM: Did you ever have a whoopee cushion?

LUKE: I did. I had several.

DAD: Who did you use the whoopee cushion on the most?

CHRIS: My sister. I would always like put it under her seat at the dinner table.

NATE: I don't like whoopee cushions because like they're not real.

OSCAR: I never got a good laugh out of it because I never put it in the right place.

STEVEN: You can prank people by thinking they farted and other people saying "ew" but they're like "I didn't fart."

CAMI: When people laugh at farts they’re not actually laughing at you, you shouldn’t be embarrassed because it’s kind of a funny thing.

OSCAR: Farts. You can't not like em.

Charlie: Let’s hope this generation knows a good practical joke not just for the novelty industry, but for all of us. Because say what you will about fart jokes… they have a way of deflating egos. They let the air out of our pretensions and show us we’re all human.

[music out]

Charlie: And sometimes, we all need that breath of fresh air.

[music in]

This story came from the wonderful podcast, Brought to You By. It’s a show about how the biggest household name brands have shaped our lives and culture… for better and for worse. Make sure to listen and subscribe right here in your podcast player.

Twenty Thousand Hertz is produced out of the sound design studios of Defacto Sound. Find out more at defacto sound dot com.

This story was produced by Julia Press, Sarah Wyman, and Charlie Herman.

Charlie: Special thanks to Claire Banderas and Michael Nowak from Rhode Island Novelties. Thanks also to Josh and Steven’s dad, Nate’s dad, Cami’s mom, Luke’s mom and dad, Chris’s dad, and Oscar’s mom.

It was sound engineered by Bill Moss, with music from Audio Network. Brought to You By’s theme was composed by John DeLore and Casey Holford. Their editor is Micaela Blei. Sarah Wyman is their showrunner. Brought to You By is a production of Insider Audio.

You can find us, Twenty Thousand Hertz, on Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit. You can also see what’s happening behind the scenes by following Defacto Sound on Instagram. And finally, if you’re in education, whether you’re a teacher or professor or whatever please feel free to use Twenty Thousand Hertz in your classrooms! I love hearing from teachers who’ve used the show in their lessons.

Thanks for listening.

[music out]

Recent Episodes

Pew Pew! The making of Star Wars’ iconic sounds

Art by Jon McCormack.

This episode was written and produced by Casey Emmerling.

When you think about Star Wars, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Lightsabers? Spaceships? Alien creatures? What about all of the sounds that go with those things? How were those sounds made, and what makes them so good? In this episode, we explore how legendary Sound Designer Ben Burtt created the sonic universe of Star Wars from scratch, one sound at a time. Featuring Marshall McGhee.


MUSIC FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE

First Flight by David Molina
This is Our Time by Cassette Deck
Gizmo by Sound of Picture
Reckoning by Sound of Picture
Vox Bubble Rumba by Sound of Picture
Organ Groove by Sound of Picture
Bass Rider by Sound of Picture
Spring Comes Early by Sound of Picture
Lemonade by Sound of Picture
Repose by Sound of Picture
Wide Eyes by Sound of Picture

Twenty Thousand Hertz is produced out of the studios of Defacto Sound and hosted by Dallas Taylor.

Follow Dallas on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and LinkedIn.

Join our community on Reddit and follow us on Facebook.

Become a monthly contributor at 20k.org/donate.

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To get your 20K referral link and earn rewards, visit 20k.org/refer.

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View Transcript ▶︎

[SFX: TIE fighter/X-Wing fight]

You’re listening to Twenty Thousand Hertz.

The original Star Wars trilogy was groundbreaking in all kinds of ways. The costumes were incredibly creative. The special effects were mind boggling. And for sound design, Star Wars was completely revolutionary.

[SFX: TIE fighter/X-Wing fight continued]

[music in]

Whether or not you’re a Star Wars fan, is completely beside the point, because you know exactly what a lightsaber sounds like, [SFX] , you also know what R2-D2 sounds like [SFX] , and you also know what Darth Vader’s breathing sounds like [SFX] . These sound effects go well beyond the movie. They’re a part of our creative culture. And every bit as famous as the movies’ most quoted lines.

[music out]

[SFX clip: Obi Wan: The Force will be with you.

Yoda: Do or do not. There is no try.

Darth Vader: No, I am your father.]

[music in]

And there’s a reason sound designers keep going back to Star Wars for inspiration, even today, decades later. The sounds of Star Wars do such a great job of immersing us in a galaxy far, far away. They make this wild world of aliens, robots and space wizards feel real. Making these movies sound just right took an incredible amount of effort and creativity. And in the sound design world the mastermind behind these sound effects is truly a legend.

[music out]

His name is Ben Burtt.

Ben (Laserdisk): When I did Star Wars it was the very beginning of my career and I had a lot to learn. in fact I knew very little and so everything I did at that time was going down a new road to some extent.

That’s Ben Burtt in a 1993 interview for the Star Wars Laserdisc Box Set.

[music in]

Ben’s interest in sound started early. When Ben was just six, his father gave him a tape recorder. Growing up, Ben loved recording stories, TV shows, and any other interesting sounds he came across. By age 10, he was filming short dramas complete with customized music and sound effects.

[music out]

Flash forward to Los Angeles, in the early 70’s [SFX: tape fast forward].

[music in]

Ben had just earned his master’s in film production from the U.S.C. School of Cinematic Arts. Across town, a young director named George Lucas was working on his third movie. George’s dream was to adapt the 1936 sci-fi film Flash Gordon, but as hard as he tried, he couldn’t get the rights to one of the characters. So instead, he decided to make his own space opera. At that time, it was called “The Star Wars.”

To bring his vision to life, George knew he’d need to bring in all kinds of creative talent. Unfortunately, George’s go-to Sound Editor was unavailable, so he took a chance on a recent graduate named Ben Burtt. Little did George and Ben know that that one decision set off a creative revolution in the field of sound design.

[music out]

Up until then, people working in sound departments were considered more like technicians. But with Star Wars, Ben made it clear that sound design was an art of its own.

Marshall: He wasn't just editing sounds, he wasn't just dealing with dialogue and things like that. He was really creating a world from scratch, a character in the movie.

That’s Marshall McGhee. A game sound designer & host of the youtube show “Waveform”.

Marshall: Sound design is definitively a character in Star Wars.

Of course, sound is important in any movie, but creating the sonic landscape of Star Wars was a monumental responsibility.

[music in]

Ben (Laserdisc): A film such as Star Wars, the soundtrack is completely fabricated in the studio. Probably on the average, 15 or 20% of the dialogue which is in the final film was originally recorded on the set during the performance by the actors. The remaining 85% of that dialogue was added later with the actors coming back and replacing their lines of dialogue, or different actors coming in to give voices to characters or monsters or puppets or something that might be in the show. All of the sound effects you hear in the film are added later. Everything from footsteps to cloth rustle [SFX] to the handling of props [SFX] to the sound of vehicles, [SFX] weapons, [SFX] aliens [SFX] and exploding Death Stars [SFX]. Those are all things which didn’t exist at the time of shooting. They had to be manufactured after the fact.

[music out]

A quick note: Some of these Ben Burtt interview clips are from a commentary track for the Star Wars Blu Ray set, so you’ll sometimes hear the movie playing in the background while he talks. Here’s Ben:

Ben (Ep. IV sound design): Star Wars being a Fox film allowed us to, if we wanted to, to use some sound effects from their old classic library, and being a real fan of the old sound effects, I did pull a few things and use them here and there.

But Ben wanted Star Wars to have a totally unique sonic signature. So he made the vast majority of the sound effects from scratch.

Ben (Ep. IV sound design): Most of the effort was put into customizing original sounds for the movie.

To get these sounds just right, he’d have to go find them out in the real world. The first one he found would become the king of Star Wars sound effects.

[SFX: Lightsaber]

[music in]

Marshall: The lightsaber was the first sound that Ben Burtt made for the Star Wars movies. I think that's an important detail because, when you think about establishing a world when you’re starting a new project it's important to get the mood right from the beginning. I think the lightsabers, because of the iconic role they play in the story, it was probably really important for Ben Burtt to sit down and say, here's what this Jedi weapon is going to sound like. Here's what the main emotion of this weapon is going to feel like.

[music out]

Ben (Ep IV sound design): At the time, I was just leaving U.S.C. film school. I was a projectionist at the school, I had a part time job. And in the projection booth were these old 35mm theater projectors, which, when they were just turned on and set idle, they had a very interesting humming sound. It was part of the interlock motors in the projectors. And I used to be in the booth working and I would enjoy that sound. It was a nice musical kind of hum.

To demonstrate Ben’s techniques, Marshall recreated the sound of a lightsaber from the ground up. Here’s his emulation of an idling projector, which he made on a synthesizer [SFX].

Ben (Ep IV sound design): And when I saw the pictures of the lightsaber in the artwork for the film, I thought “Wow, I think that hum of that projector motor is just the right thing.” So I went and recorded the hum and held onto it, as the basis for the lightsabers.

Marshall: When he recorded that originally, he thought it was a good start, but it didn't really sound mean yet. It didn't really sound like it could do any damage yet.

Ben (Ep IV sound design): And the other element came about by accident. I had a microphone cable that was broken, partially, and as I was carrying my tape recorder across my apartment one day, and I went near the television set, the microphone picked up the buzz from the television picture tube, just a direct electronic interference.

What you’re hearing now is Marshall’s recreation of that sound. [SFX]

Ben (Ep IV sound design): And I took the buzz and combined it with the projector hum, and the two sounds together became the basis for the laser sword.

Marshall: Now, when you finish making that, it's just a loop. It's just a humming loop, [SFX] which on its own sounds cool, but it doesn't sound like it's moving yet. It doesn't have any place in the environment.

BB (Ep IV sound design): To produce the sound of the moving lightsabers, I took the steady recording of the hum and buzz, and played it over a speaker in a room and then re-recorded that sound with another microphone. And I could take that microphone and wave it around in the air and it would produce what’s called a Doppler Effect. That is a pitch shift because the sound is moving relative to the microphone. And by doing that, I was able to take the steady sound of the lightsaber– and give it a sense of movement, of coming to and fro, or back and forth.

Marshall: It sounds like it's a physical beam of light that's arcing through the environment. It just sounds so real.

Again, here’s the humming loop Marshall made.

[SFX: Humming loop]

And here’s that same humming loop with a doppler effect Marshall added to it.

[SFX: Humming loop with doppler effect]

Ben Burtt combined unique sounds with a unique performance. This made each swing feel real and added a special human touch.

Marshall: It could have easily been a very sci-fi sound. It could have very easily been a synthesizer or something [SFX], but it sounds so grounded in reality. I think that's the sound for me that gets me every time.

Just like the TV buzz in the lightsaber, Ben found the sound for the blasters completely by accident.

Marshall: So there's this great story of Ben Burtt hiking through the Pocono mountains in Pennsylvania. He was hiking and his backpack caught on a guy-wire that was leading up to a radio tower, one of the giant metal wires that connects a radio tower to the ground.

Ben (Ep IV sound design): And as I went by it, it made a twanging sound, an unusual sound [SFX].

Marshall: You can sort of get an idea of what he heard if you have a slinky in your house. If you stretch it out across a room and you hit it with a metal object on one end, you can hear this sort of [SFX] this sound of the frequencies bouncing back and forth in the metal wire.

Ben (Wall-E Animation): That happens because the high frequencies travel faster than the low frequencies. So if you listen to the sound far away, down the wire, the high frequencies get there first, and the sort of mid frequencies and then the low frequencies, so you get [sfx].

Ben (Ep IV sound design): And I immediately said to myself, “Well, that’s a laser gun!” It had an otherworldly sound to it. And when I returned to California, I went around Southern California, in the region of Los Angeles, banging on the guy-wires of different radio towers to come up with just the right sound.

Marshall: He found this great wire out in the middle of the desert and took a contact microphone out, and put it on the wire, and started hitting it with a wrench. What he got were the base of the blaster sounds for Star Wars. [SFX]

These recording sessions also produced the sound of the Y Wings.

Ben (Ep IV sound design): Actually, when I was up trying to record guy wires for lasers, the wind was blowing so hard through one set of guy wires that it was producing a musical note, it was almost a musical chord, and it was used principally for the background sounds of the pilots in the Y wing fighters.

[SFX: Y Wings]

Now, Y Wings are cool, but the coolest sounding ships in Star Wars have to be the TIE Fighters [SFX].

Marshall: The TIE fighters are one of my favorite sounds in Star Wars. I mean talk about an emotional gripping spaceship sound.

Marshall: That spaceship is an enemy spaceship. That's not a friendly spaceship. It's roaring at me.

Marshall: The TIE fighter, was made with two main elements again. The first being the sound of a car passing by a microphone on wet pavement. [SFX]

Marshall: And then layered on top of that are these elephant growls, these horrible elephant growls [SFX]. Not a lot of people even know elephants make this sound, but they do growl from time to time, and they produce this insane roaring. [SFX]

And here’s Marshall's redesign blending these sounds together.

[SFX: Marshalls Tie Fighter Redesign]

Marshall: So those two elements layered together are what creates the base loop for the TIE fighter.

This was one of those times when Ben used the Fox sound library. Here’s a clip of some elephants from the 1958 movie The Roots of Heaven [SFX].

Sound familiar? [SFX: Tie fighter]

This technique of layering animal sounds into sound effects is actually pretty common.

[music in]

Marshall: You find animal layers in a lot of stuff, It's a very widely used technique in sound design.

Marshall: I think the two examples that come to mind that people use animal layers a lot are explosions and gunshots. Or car engines for example, car starts. Like, if you listen to car starts in film, there's very often a lion growl layered in with a car start, just to make it sound even that much more full bodied and that much more interesting.

Here’s the sound of a car starting [SFX].

And here’s a roaring lion. [SFX]

Now here’s how it sounds when we layer those two together. [SFX]

Marshall: I like it in explosions too, when an explosion is going on, you're just looking for character. There's something missing. If you listen through libraries of explosion recordings, a lot of them sound great, but they just are missing an element of character or an emotional component. I find that sometimes I'll layer in like the sound of a screeching as an explosion goes off just to get that extra little intrigue in the high end of an explosion.

Here’s an explosion sound effect [SFX].

And here’s a red tailed hawk screech [SFX].

Now let’s put them together [SFX].

Marshall: One of the main benefits to using animal sounds as a layer in design, whether they're obvious or not, is that animals already have a place in our minds as sort of representing something. So for example, an elephant growl like that may be terrifying. A bird chirp may be sort of small, and it might evoke the idea of stealth or a smaller vehicle. Or for example, a whale might evoke something more emotional and low. As human beings, we already have in our minds ideas of what different animals represent to us.

To demonstrate this, Marshall made several alternate TIE fighter sounds using different animals.

Marshall: This base layer is the car pass by that I made to layer under all of these and sort of give them consistency [SFX].

Marshall: So here's the version of the TIE fighter sound that, instead of the elephant, I played a snake sound. [SFX]

Marshall: And this version, I used a bunch of different bird chirps layered on top of each other. [SFX]

Marshall: And then this final version I made with some underwater recordings of different whales and sea creatures. [SFX]

These alternate designs show that just one layer can change the ship's entire emotional impact. The elephant growls used in the TIE fighter make us feel fear on a primal level. And that’s why they are so powerful.

[SFX: Tie fighter]

[music in]

Making sound effects for the weapons and ships of Star Wars was hard enough, but there’s a whole other category of sounds that we haven’t even brought up yet: Star Wars is brimming with quirky robots [SFX: R2-D2] and bizarre aliens, and they all have their own unique personality [SFX: Chewbaca]. Giving voices to characters like Chewbaca and R2-D2 were some of the biggest challenges Ben faced. That’s coming up after this.

[music out]

MIDROLL

[music in]

For his work on Star Wars, Ben Burtt is considered one of the forefathers of modern sound design. To create these iconic sound effects, Ben spent countless hours recording sounds out in the world. Really, just anything that caught his ear.

Ben (Laserdisc): Animals, aircraft carriers, jets, appliance motors, whatever it might be.

Eventually, Ben built up a personal library made up of thousands of hand-recorded sounds. Back in the studio, he’d manipulate them and mix them together like a mad scientist.

[music out]

For instance, in the Empire Strikes Back, the Millennium Falcon’s hyperdrive keeps breaking down. To make the sound effect for it, Ben combined eight different recordings. One of these sounds was a starter on a vintage biplane. [SFX]

There was some hissing air from a piece of dental equipment. [SFX]

The sound of an arclight motor. [SFX]

There was the motor of a tank turret, recorded from inside the tank. [SFX]

Then there was the sound of the groaning old pipes from the building Ben worked in. [SFX]

Ben (Hyperdrive): Now, if we took all these sounds and played them together, we’d get the following effect of the hyperdrive malfunctioning. [SFX]

And Here it is in the movie. [SFX]

[music in]

Think about the hours of recording it took to make that one sound effect. Now multiply that for all of the sound effects in the original Star Wars trilogy. Keep in mind that this was before the age of computers. Back then, you had to record everything to tape. Today, sound designers have access to digital sound libraries that come with thousands of pre-recorded sounds.

Marshall: I have everything in my computer. I have three terabytes of sounds that are just like, I can just click on anything and instantly hear it.

The convenience of digital sound libraries is a bit of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it means that amateur filmmakers don’t need access to all kinds of expensive equipment in order to have sound effects. On the other hand, it means that Ben’s analogue style of recording everything manually is a lot less common.

[music out]

Marshall: I mean when you look at Ben Burt's work and you think okay, basically everything, other than a few things he drew from the Fox library, basically everything was a recording project. He was out there getting sounds from you know hitting a guy wire with a wrench for the blasters [SFX] and things like that. You don't see that very often anymore because people who grew up with digital audio just sort of open their library and they go, “Well, do I have any laser guns in my library?”

Marshall: There's a temptation there to start every sound from within your own library or “in the box,” as they say.

At some point, that approach can stifle your creativity.

Marshall: It can just sort of feel stagnant when you design that way.

Marshall: It acts as a crutch because your work starts to sound the same if you just use the same library over and over again.

For Ben, virtually everything had to be made “outside the box.” This was especially true when creating the sounds of the many strange characters of Star Wars. Unlike a Stormtrooper’s blaster, which might be something you can somewhat reuse, each of the characters needed a whole set of sounds, or even a believable alien language. One early challenge was Darth Vader.

Ben (Ep. IV sound design): Vader was described in the script as having this life support suit on him and keeping him alive, as if he was badly damaged in some way. And so what I did in the early concepts of Vader I had some clicking, like there was some kind of relays and mechanism associated with him. Some signature that always told you he was around. The script mentioned he had some kind of breathing apparatus and so on. The early concepts of Vader I made up, he was beeping [SFX] and clicking [SFX] and breathing [SFX], and he sounded like the ER, the whole room at once, you know? It was kind of distracting.

So Ben cut it back to just the breathing.

Ben (Ep IV sound design): The breathing is me breathing through a particular scuba tank regulator. I went to a local scuba shop one evening, and after they had a class, where people left, there were numerous tanks and regulators laying around the pool. I just went around and recorded different ones. I would breathe through it, and I had a little tiny microphone, and I actually put that down inside one of the regulators so it was extremely close to the valve that opens and closes, and then I breathed through it.

Marshall: That sound was then taken back to the studio and pitched down and became the iconic breathing loop of Darth Vader. [SFX]

As you may know, Darth Vader’s menacing voice was performed by James Earl Jones, but Jones wasn’t the person in the Vader costume. On set, Darth Vader was played by character actor David Prowse. Prowse did perform Vader’s lines while filming, and it’s pretty amazing to hear.

[SFX clip: Prowse Vader “Start tearing this ship apart piece by piece until you find those tapes. Find the passengers of this vessel. I want them alive!”]

Now here’s the final version.

[SFX clip: Vader “Commander, tear this ship apart until you’ve found those plans, and bring me the passengers. I want them alive!”]

Here it is again on set… morphing into what we hear in the final film.

[SFX: Prowse Vader “Start tearing this ship apart piece by piece until you find those plans, and bring me the passengers. I want them alive!”]

Vader also needed a sound for when he used The Force, the mysterious power of the Jedi and the evil Sith. But what would something like that even sound like?

Marshall: The Force is another one of those sounds that just is so menacing and works perfectly, I think, in every scene that it's in.

Ben (Ep. IV sound design): There’s a few different effects associated with Vader using The Force. We always put in a deep, low frequency kind of earthquake rumble, which could be amped up as Vader tightened The Force on someone [SFX: Vader using the The Force]. The deep rumbles came from a number of different sources, some of it was just some thunder that was slowed way down, and the high frequencies rolled off, some of it was the slowed down sound of a missile launch, and some it was from the Fox library, actually it was some earthquake material made for Journey to the Center of the Earth. [SFX]

Marshall: I think it works so well in the scenes that it's in, because it's almost scary in how simple it is. It could have very easily been an overt scifi spell cast kind of hybrid sound [SFX] and it would have probably been too much, and it would've evoked the wrong feeling. But when it's just the simple low rumble, you can really feel the space around Darth Vader when he uses it [SFX] it's just like, it’s terrifying.

Making the sound effects for Darth Vader had its challenges, but finding voices for the non-human characters was even harder. [SFX: Chewbaca]

Ben (Ep. IV sound design): My first assignment was to develop the voice of Chewbacca. They wanted to have samples of what Chewbacca might sound like prior to shooting, because it would be an aid in the actual directing of the film.

Chewbacca was famously played by Peter Mayhew. But, again, Mayhew wasn’t the voice of Chewbacca. Here’s how Chewbacca sounds in the final film. [SFX]

...but while filming, Peter Mayhew often spoke Chewie’s lines in English. So here’s what Chewie sounded like on the set.

[SFX clip: Chewie “That old man is mad.” Han “You said it Chewie”]

Marshall: I think some people believe that Chewbacca's voice was actually performed by Peter Mayhew or by an actor in the studio, or by some human being, but it was not performed by a human being.

To get Chewie’s voice, Ben recorded all kinds of animals.

Ben (Sound Advice): …walruses and lions and badgers, sick animals, domestic animals… all sorts of things.

But there was one animal he kept coming back to.

Ben (Ep. IV sound design): Ultimately, Chewie’s voice was made up of mostly recordings of bears. And eventually, I was led to a cute little pet bear named Pooh who lived on a farm in Tehachapi, California.

Marshall: Ben Burtt would go out to this farm and collect just hours of these recordings of this bear.

Ben (Screen Stage TV): It wasn’t a simple recording session. Bears don’t just sit down in front of a microphone and just emote. You have to just sort of document whatever they’ll do.

Ben started categorizing these animal sounds by emotion.

Ben (Ep. IV sound design): I took the angry sounds [SFX] and put them in one collection, I took the cute sounds [SFX] and put them in another, I took the sounds which sounded like an animal asking a question [SFX], at least the intonation was such that it sounded inquisitive.

He tweaked the sounds to give them just the right character.

Ben (Screen Stage TV): Slow the recordings down, maybe speed other things up and manipulate the bits of recordings and I essentially started a word list for the wookie [SFX].

Marshall: And he would then later in the film would look through these folders that are based on emotions and sort of say, “Okay well Chewbacca is happy here or he's angry,” and he would throw them in based on what the scene felt like. [SFX]

It was clear from the beginning that Chewie’s voice would involve animal sounds. But for R2-D2, there was no obvious starting point. [SFX]

Ben (Ep. IV sound design): The voice of R2-D2 turned out to be the most prolonged and difficult sound to develop because it involved a performance, and it also had no precedent.

Ben (Sound Advice): Here we had, supposedly, a machine that was going to talk, it was going to act, it was gonna draw on our emotions. Yet, it was a machine. It didn’t have a face with a smile or mouth or ears, and it couldn’t speak English and it couldn’t even mouth words. At least Chewbacca could make kind of animal sounds, which you could attribute a personality to.

The script wasn’t much help either.

Ben (Ep. IV sound design): The script did not prescribe the specific lines of dialogue that he had, but merely said that R2 “Responded” or R2 “Beeped” or something of that sort, and it was left up to me to come up with possibilities for George Lucas to listen to.

In the beginning, Ben tried a bunch of computerized, mechanical sounds. But nothing he tried had enough character. R2D2 was a robot, but it needed to feel human.

[music in]

Ben (Sound Advice): So the idea came up to really combine this sort of human sound with the electronic sound. That way we still might be able to have the character of a machine, but get the personality and emotion of a living organism.

It was a start, but neither of them knew where this human sound should come from.

Ben (Ep. IV sound design): George, at one point, thought that perhaps even recording babies, before they could talk, the sounds that babies make, cooing and sighing and little vocalizations they make as they learn to talk, might be the key to R2’s voice. And it was definitely the right direction to go, because R2 is, well, kind of an ornery child. He’s smart but also has a certain innocence about him. He can be insubordinate, but overall, he’s lovable.

Still, nothing quite seemed to fit.

Ben (Ep. IV sound design): One day, when George and I were discussing the voice, we both found ourselves imitating, making little funny noises as we kind of described what R2 might be like.

As Ben and George cooed and beeped at each other, it dawned on them that maybe they didn’t need recordings of babies or anything else. Maybe Ben could give R2 its human side.

Ben (Ep. IV sound design): I ended up doing vocalizations at the same time I’d play a keyboard on an old ARP synthesizer, and I learned to sort of whistle and beep along with what I was playing on a keyboard. And through a lot of practice, I would get something that sounded expressive, and I could say, “That’s R2 saying ‘Come this way’ or 'He’s making a rude remark to Threepio' or something."

Ben’s voice turned out to be the magic ingredient that gave R2-D2 its quirky, adorable personality. [SFX: R2-D2]

Performing that voice meant that Ben could also add “Voice Actor” to his long list of duties on Star Wars. Ultimately, it’s that level of dedication and achievement that makes Ben such an inspiration to Sound Designers.

[music in]

Marshall: I think sound designers keep coming back to it for inspiration because of how much emotion he captured in every sound.

Marshall: He takes all of these opportunities to include performance in something that may not even need it. Like the lightsaber, for example, he took the extra effort to actually swing the microphone around in time with the video himself.

Marshall: R2-D2's voice being him just performing his own voice, like whistling with the synthesizer, things like that. He really took every opportunity to put emotion into things that otherwise could have just been done very cheaply and blandly.

Marshall: It's those things, I think, that separate him from a lot of other sound designers. Not only of the time, because he was clearly in a class of his own at the time, but just even today.

If Ben had retired after Star Wars, he still would have been a sound design legend. Fortunately for us, Star Wars was only the beginning of Ben’s long career. Ben’s impact on Sound Design is so huge that it’s hard to imagine what the field would even be like without him. His influence is especially important to sci-fi. Ben’s mastery of sound helps audiences suspend their disbelief, and lose themselves in these strange alien worlds.

Marshall: Sound design gives all the authenticity to these weapons that you're hearing. It gives all the authenticity to these environments. Without it, I don't think Star Wars would have been anywhere near as popular as it's become, because people wouldn't believe what they were seeing.

Marshall: When people first see A New Hope, they're not thinking about sound design, but they're just believing what they're seeing because of the sound design. When sound is done well, that's of course what it does.

Ben (Wall-E Animation): When you use sounds gathered in the outside world, the real world, and you bring them into a science fiction film, you get the credibility of those sounds, to sell to the audience what’s really just a very fantastic world.

[music out]

[music in]

CREDITS

Twenty Thousand Hertz is hosted by me, Dallas Taylor, and produced out of the sound design studios of Defacto Sound. Find out more at defactosound.com.

This episode was written and produced by Casey Emmerling, and me, Dallas Taylor. With help from Sam Schneble. It was sound designed and mixed by Jai Berger.

Special thanks to Marshall McGee. Marshall made all of the recreated sound effects for this episode. He’s also the host of a fantastic Youtube channel called Waveform. It was actually his Youtube video called “The Sound Design Secrets Of The Star Wars Universe,” that was the inspiration for this episode. You should immediately go subscribe to Waveform on Youtube.

Ben Burtt’s interview clips came from the 1993 Star Wars Laserdisc Boxset, a commentary track from the Star Wars Blu Ray, Episode 46 of The Commentary Track Podcast, a 1989 20/20 interview, an ABC documentary called Screen, Stage Television, and a special feature on the Wall-E DVD.

The music in this episode came from SoundofPicture.com and Musicbed.com.

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Thanks for listening.

[music out]

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