Metaphors and Multimodal Mental Imagery in Immersive and Stereo Record Production

Upcoming Publication: Metaphors and Multimodal Mental Imagery in Immersive and Stereo Record Production

Author:
Ingvild Koksvik
Abstract:
This article explores how the use of metaphors and multimodal mental imagery opens diverse creative pathways in the collaborative process of record production. The dual functionality of metaphors in record production informs this function. On the one hand, they are sound descriptors; on the other hand, they are tools for verbally articulating the experiential facets of multimodal mental imagery. The article addresses a practice-based study of the recording and mixing of the song ‘Noen ganger’, mixed for playback in Dolby Atmos and stereo. It demonstrates how a single articulated metaphor triggered several artistic consequences via a creative loop of imagery, metaphors, sound production, and processing, leading to the recording’s final soundscape and aesthetic output. The article argues that metaphors may bridge the gap between the abstract and the concrete, helping us to both understand and interpret elusive artistic ideas involving mental imagery and transition those ideas into recordings. It also explores how methods such as log writing can bring otherwise tacit aspects of mental imagery and metaphorical understandings out into the open.
About the author:
Ingvild Koksvik is a singer and song-maker whose music career spans several albums of original music, commissioned works for festivals and extensive touring as a live artist across Norway and Europe. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate in popular music performance at the University of Agder, Norway, where she also has worked as a researcher at CreaTeME. Her Ph.D. explores the elusive and often tacit dimensions of musical ideas and intentions, and how these influence aesthetic, compositional and performative aspects of record production. She holds a master’s degree in musicology from the University of Oslo, where she also worked as a research assistant for two years.

Accepted for publication in the inaugural issue of Society for Music Production Research’s new online journal, Journal of Music Production Research.
https://musicproductionresearch.org/jmpr

Author:
Ingvild Koksvik
Abstract:
This article explores how the use of metaphors and multimodal mental imagery opens diverse creative pathways in the collaborative process of record production. The dual functionality of metaphors in record production informs this function. On the one hand, they are sound descriptors; on the other hand, they are tools for verbally articulating the experiential facets of multimodal mental imagery. The article addresses a practice-based study of the recording and mixing of the song ‘Noen ganger’, mixed for playback in Dolby Atmos and stereo. It demonstrates how a single articulated metaphor triggered several artistic consequences via a creative loop of imagery, metaphors, sound production, and processing, leading to the recording’s final soundscape and aesthetic output. The article argues that metaphors may bridge the gap between the abstract and the concrete, helping us to both understand and interpret elusive artistic ideas involving mental imagery and transition those ideas into recordings. It also explores how methods such as log writing can bring otherwise tacit aspects of mental imagery and metaphorical understandings out into the open.
About the author:
Ingvild Koksvik is a singer and song-maker whose music career spans several albums of original music, commissioned works for festivals and extensive touring as a live artist across Norway and Europe. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate in popular music performance at the University of Agder, Norway, where she also has worked as a researcher at CreaTeME. Her Ph.D. explores the elusive and often tacit dimensions of musical ideas and intentions, and how these influence aesthetic, compositional and performative aspects of record production. She holds a master’s degree in musicology from the University of Oslo, where she also worked as a research assistant for two years.

Accepted for publication in the inaugural issue of Society for Music Production Research’s new online journal, Journal of Music Production Research.
https://musicproductionresearch.org/jmpr

Table of Contents

Creative use of Technology in Music Education