Sound Design v. Composition?

How do you deal with the blurry line between Sound Design and Composition?

For me, the best sound designers are those who think and hear musically, and it naturally follows that those who think musically are often musicians, and those who are musicians are often composers. As so much of what we do is the manipulation of music, it is inevitable that most of us (even those who aren't composers) will find us in a position where we're asked to compose music.

In the theatre, it's often difficult to find the line between design and composition. Is editing music composing? Is a mash-up? Is working with live musicians to totally restructure the music? Is sampling sound effects and playing them back with a musical sensibility? Is writing original text and melody based off of a non-original hook? Is combining musical and non-musical elements to underscore a monologue?

Which of these is composition, and which of these is not? Certainly, there's a continuum, and each of the ideas in the previous paragraph (all of which I'm doing on my current project) falls somewhere between 'pure' design and 'pure' composition.

So, what do you when you, as the designer, are asked to do things that range into composition? Are you comfortable in that role? Do you refuse? Do you subcontract out to a composer? Do you ask for an additional composition contract (and therefore, an additional fee)? Do you consider it part of your responsibility and just do it? Do you ask the theatre to hire someone else to compose?

Late Bloomers

Interesting article in the New Yorker comparing artists that are early/late bloomers. It uses Picasso and Cezanne as examples. Not necessarily pertinent to sound design as a whole, but something to think about as artists in general.

'Prodigies are easy. They advertise their genius from the get-go. Late bloomers are hard. They require forbearance and blind faith.'

~Chris

Welcome Everyone

Hello all,
Welcome to the Sound Design Concepts Online Journal. I am hoping that this blog would be a place where we as designers can come together to discuss sound design as an art form. I feel that as artists we have a difficult time sharing our concepts and styles with each other, mostly because we are isolated within our field, and don't run into each other often. I am hoping that we can use this forum to relay ideas off of each other, and expand our own ideas with the experience and concepts of others.

For example, some of the questions I would have for others, that you could talk about:
What is sound design?
How does sound work with telling of a story?
What ways can we discuss sound with someone who isn't a sound designer?
Do you have a specific style or personal approach to designs?
What would it look like if sound were a standalone artform?
etc. etc. etc...please fill it in from here...

When posting; you can post ideas, essays, links to websites that you find interesting, questions that you would have, things your thinking about, etc. I am only one person and you all probably have even more ideas than I do. That is why I want to create something that is out and open for anyone to post, because my own knowledge is limited. I have included links on the sidebar to online open access journals, as examples of other artistic exploratory endeavors that you can use as a reference.

In order to post to this blog/become an author, I will need to invite you, so if you send an email to cdbaine@gmail.com, I can add you as an author. Please pass this blog around to other sound designers that you would know, the more the merrier. You can also view this blog without being an author, and you can comment on it as a user or anonymous.

As a note of clarification: I would like to stay away from technical discussions. I know that a huge part of our field is the equipment and what you can do with it, but this is more for overarching concepts of sound design, not necessarily how to implement that concept. There are other forums set up and better equipped to answer any technical questions that you would have.

Mission Statement: This blog is for professional Theater Sound Designers to have an open discussion on Concepts and Ideas about sound design as an art form, in a forum that is safe, encouraging, and challenging, in an attempt to further ourselves as a design field, through our own education, knowledge, and experience.

~Chris Baine