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Make me feel something, by Jaime Lopes

September 23, 2020by Grant0 comments
Jaime Lopes

I grew up in a non-musical family, no that’s not quite true. What I mean is that no one played an instrument… or the drums. However, I did grow up in a house that was almost always filled with music. My mom played lots of Elvis… like, lots of it! My brother played what I thought was the cheesiest music ever, 80s pop but the worst was my sister! She was probably the first person in Africa to buy a CD from New Kids on the Block and yes I admit it, I know the lyrics to most of the Backstreet Boys. As you can see I need not take any responsibility for the cheap taste I have in music now.

I have so many memories of times at home, journeys to friends, holidays and parties that are instantly triggered by the songs that were playing at that time. To this day if I hear Joyride by Roxette, I can see my brother pulling up in his Alfa and calling for all his mates to come for a spin… It’s like I can time travel to that moment in an instant. Music has this incredible ability to switch things on in our brains and especially, if you will, our hearts.

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I’m sure many of you have had the similar revelation that I had as a kid that if I was getting too scared in a movie, hitting mute suddenly brought relief and calmed my nerves. I am often reminded of how powerful music is in the context of film. While working on a TV series recently I was only responsible for creating M&E mixes. This basically means that the first time I watch every episode, I’m hearing only the dialog. In some cases where I might have already removed the ADR for example, I watch some sections with just ambience or room tone! The way that you interpret a story, the way that you imagine a character feels in a moment, is heavily dependent on what you hear. Of-course the dialog itself communicates a lot, even non-verbally; the inflection of words, the pacing of lines, breaths etc. all say so much! But it feels that, especially in the African context, sound is an afterthought and this is a travesty!
The ability of music and in-fact sound in general to influence emotion is actually where the bread and butter of the art is. My fellow musicians and engineers, we know this and we are trying to convince the people we work with of the importance of capturing and producing good sound all the time! It’s not just to avoid distraction or to ensure intelligibility of a message, but additionally it’s to move people’s hearts!

Here is my encouragement to you today… if you don’t do this already, take a few moments to re-visit a nostalgic tune, or scene in a movie. Share this and tell me the story of it… Or maybe just take a second when you hear something in the next few days. A bird call, the sound of a turbo whistle or rain on a tin roof! Allow yourself to perceive the emotion that sound evokes. Allow yourself to be transported to the memories that it triggers. If you are responsible for creating content that people listen to, then take a second to forget about the technical stuff and let yourself feel something!

by Jaime Lopes

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