Man Made Music, Author at Man Made Music

Check out Bennett Bennett on the new sonic identity we created for global media platform The Drum:

As The Drum rolls out a new visual identity across its magazine, awards and website alongside the launch of our new Voice issue, it has also been imagining what The Drum sounds like. And so, thanks to strategic music and sound studio Man Made Music, we’ve now got our very own bespoke audio identity.

Read more at The Drum and see a behind-the-scenes video below…

Work lunches usually connote a spread of mediocre sandwiches or an underwhelming salad. But what if every once in a while, these lunches looked like a gathering of people from a range of fields and positions, converging over a meal and dynamic conversation. Sounds pretty good, right?

Well last week, Man Made Music hosted our first Dine with Design lunch in conjunction with an event we were hosting that evening with Columbia’s Digital Storytelling Lab around Sonic Humanism, the role of sound to make our lives richer and simpler, with experts bringing unique perspectives from the health care, design and urban planning fields.

The lunch brought together a unique mix of clients, partners, and friends from different industries, cities, roles and experiences. The conversation was lively. The topics ranged from cross-country moves, to sound that make us cover our ears, to favorite ways to spend our free time, to the sound we use to make our experiences more pleasant. At the end of lunch we all left feeling inspired, connected, freshly aware of the world around us and looking forward to the next lunch. We also left with our next years’ worth of reading. Take a look if you’re interested in something recommended by our reinvented power-luncher:

• If you want to find your inner zen: Ten Percent Happier by Dan Harris
• If you want to cry on a plane: The Nightingale by Kristen Hannah
• If you want to cry on another plane: The Great Alone by Kristen Hannah
• If you need some extreme exercise motivation: Born to Run by Christopher McDougall
• If you’re one of those people that won’t see a movie before reading the book: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
• If you want to temporarily escape today’s disorder: A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
• If you want to reset your moral compass: Berenstain Bears and the Truth by Stan and Jan Berenstain
• If you want to read about someone who needs their moral compass reset: Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff
• If you love juicy music rivalries: Your Favorite Band is Killing Me by Steven Hyden
• If you’re interested in how one manuscript changed the course of human thought: The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt
• If you didn’t find your inner zen from the first book: Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yoganada
• If you’re exhausted by miscommunication: No One Understands You and What to Do About It by Heidi Grant Halvorson
• If you can’t put your finger on what it means to be human: The Most Human Human by Brian Christian
• If you want to understand how digital media is changing storytelling: The Art of Immersion by Frank Rose
• If you’re curious about a partnership that started a scientific revolution: The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis
• If you want to know the truth and lies on why we buy: Buyology by Martin Lindstrom
• If you want a playbook for creative thinking: Design is Storytelling by Ellen Lupton
• If all the sudden you’re feeling fond of the big apple in this nice weather: City of Dreams: The 400-Year Epic History of Immigrant New York by Tyler Anbinder

This year SXSW showcased a wide range of activations that emphasized the powerful role of sound in experiences.

Sony Wow Studio’s installation Ghostly Whisper which used audio technology to manifest a haunting experience for visitors. Enveloping attendees in otherworldly sound and haptics. Sony’s other activation the Acoustic Vessel Odyssey used over 500 speakers. Additionally, having a choreographed light show to present a voyage through space and time. With their enviable spatial audio technology, Sony was able to craft immersive group experiences without the need of cumbersome headphones.

Marshmallow Laser Feast, a creative studio out of London brought a mixed reality experience that incorporated visuals, sound and haptics to comment on the effect of man on the planet through clapping, whistling, hollering and singing under a virtual umbrella.

Our friends at Pandora made an intimate connection between sonic branding and our personal relationships with music at their SXSW house. Partnering with Tool of North America, Pandora’s experience involved interactive tables captured both musical preferences and mood. Therefore, using a simple questionnaire and facial recognition technology to ultimately craft a unique audio clip that “sounds like you”.

The much buzzed about Westworld: Live Without Limits used sound to set the stage for their transformational experience. Upon arrival, a player piano greeted participants with haunting covers of The Rolling Stones and Radiohead. The show’s iconic theme music infused the entry experience to the town of Sweetwater. Additionally, where live eerie folk music twinkled in the background, having senses of otherworldliness to every inch of the park.

In a four-day long immersive storytelling journey between multiple dimensions, creative collective Meow Wolf in collaboration with the Interactive Deep Dive and Man Made Music poetically disrupted the world of Bryan Bishop, a senior editor for the Verge. In his reflective piece on this once in a lifetime experience in the SimuLife Diaries, Bishop speaks to the transformative powers of the unique sound design that signaled rifting between these two worlds.

Panels also found ways to forge music into their topics. Dovetailing on Elon Musk’s surprise appearance and the announcement of SpaceX’s plans for Mars in 2019, Man Made brought music to the world of Mars exploration and colonization. Opening with an experiential score, Man Made discussed the future of culture on Mars in the panel Mars or Bust with outer space architect John Spencer and NASA astronaut, Yvonne Cagle. The conversation culminated in the first performance of Martian folk music, involving the panelists and audience alike.

SXSW continues to stay true to its musical routes. Therefore, having new and exciting ways to feature the power of sound on a far broader spectrum.

Check out Darryn King’s feature for Forbes on Joel Beckerman’s “ear-catching ideas for the New York City subway”:

“Frankly, the sound when you swipe the card and you’re successful sounds exactly the same as when you fail,” he says. “You’ve got to look at the screen every time you swipe or risk bumping into the bar. If it was simply a different sound, people would save their legs. There are so many simple things that would have been so easy for them to do, that wouldn’t have cost them a nickel more, but they weren’t thinking about it on a human level.”

Read more at Adweek…

Twist, pop, Ahhhhhhhh.

When craving a sweet and refreshing Snapple, all that stands in your way is a simple twist of the top and a most satisfying pop. While most bottles are encumbered by plastic around their lids, Snapple has done away with the pesky packaging their competitors find necessary. Why can they do this? It’s because their iconic pop instantly communicates freshness, inciting a Pavlovian response of satisfaction over the imminent hydration.

Sound plays a powerful and pervasive role in our interpretation of freshness, temperature and taste. All of which factor into the individual choices we make about our food and drink. To explore the role of sound in our lives and its potential role in supporting a culture of health, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation participated in a Man Made Music HIVE Session™ — a three hour think tank for creative ideation sharing and sonic exploration. Throughout our wide-ranging discussion that examined areas such as sleep, mental wellness, childhood fitness, and alarm fatigue – one area of intrigue was the role of sound in the choices we make around food.

Founder of Man Made Music, Joel Beckerman, explored this concept in his book The Sonic Boom: How Sound Transforms the Way We Think, Feel, and Buy, which begins with a classic example of the role of sound and how we perceive taste. The Chili’s restaurant franchise is famous for their fajitas, and rightfully so. But did you know that at any given moment, Chili’s is cooking up far more fajitas orders in the kitchen than required? That’s because each time the kitchen door swings open and the sound of sizzling meat escapes into the restaurant floor, patrons take notice — and orders for the spicy dish soar. Beckerman also touches on the implications of sound in how a food product is packaged. In 2010, Frito-Lay debuted a 100% biodegradable bag for SunChips, which ended up being an epic flop. The material of the bag caused it to be so loud it was featured on CBS cutting through the shrieks of trains on a New York City subway platform. A Facebook group called “Sorry But I Can’t Hear You Over This SunChips Bag” sprang up with over forty-four thousand followers. SunChips sales dropped every month until Frito-Lay scrapped the design. The sound alone had driven customers away from a once beloved product.

How could we use our knowledge about the influence of sound on perception to help make the healthy choice the easy choice for young children? How could we use sound to alter perception of taste or of an experience to facilitate healthy eating habits? After brainstorming, four key areas of opportunity rose to the forefront:

1. Sonify the Everyday to Bring Delight

If sound can act as a positive reinforcement tool for children, use it to create moments of delight in everyday interactions. Vending machines could be altered to give encouraging sonic cues when children made healthier selections. Musical water fountains could encourage and remind students to drink water, gamifying what might otherwise be a forgetful part of the day.

2. Sound Affects Gaze

A study that aired recently on NPR discussed the involvement of sound in directing focus and attention. While it is often shown that people will fill their plates with the first thing they see, it is sound that directs even those cursory glances. Imagine if a school cafeteria leveraged this tool to highlight different dishes for students. By strategically considering not only where food items are placed, but highlighting the healthiest options with interesting and engaging sound, kids could be compelled to fill their plates up with nutritious veggies first, before moving onto less desirable options.

3. Consider the Restaurant Model

Restaurants play close attention to the music they play in their establishments, understanding the strong connection that forms between music and any dining experience. Playing music that is complementary to the restaurant environment has been proven to increase linger time and subsequently purchases. However, schools and public spaces don’t consider music in the same way. What is we applied this same logic to a cafeteria? Or to a classroom during snack time? Parents could also implement this at home, crafting strong positive bonds between music and mealtimes that could have lasting implications for a child’s eating habits.

4. Start a Packaging Revolution

More often than not, the unhealthiest options have the flashiest packaging. How can we start a packaging revolution using sound that would make healthier choices more appealing to eat and drink? Can healthier brands leverage preexisting positive associations between sound and freshness, such as the crunch of an apple, to preemptively engage children before the child has even taken a sip or a bite.

Sound and music are powerful stimulus that connect with the brain instantaneously. Sonic cues have great potential to create lasting associations and positive connections. What are your ideas for how the power of sound could help make the healthy choice the easy choice? Feel free to share your thoughts below.

A million congratulations to Joel Beckerman for being elected as a new writer member to ASCAP’s Board of Directors.

“ASCAP is the only member-run US performing rights organization, with a Board made up solely of writers and publishers,” said ASCAP President and Chairman of the Board Paul Williams. “In tackling the challenges of today’s music creators, the ASCAP Board of Directors takes its responsibility very seriously. We welcome Joel Beckerman and Rudy Pérez to the Board and know that we can rely on their individual knowledge and experiences as we work together to build a stronger, more secure future for ASCAP members.”

Beckerman said, “It’s an honor to be named by my colleagues to the ASCAP Board. I’m excited to join the team to help accelerate the important work that is being done to build an even brighter future for music creators, publishers and our audiences.”