HEARING THE DIFFERENCE
“I initially signed on to be just the sound designer,” Ittoop recalls. “It took another week or two for us to have conversations with the powers that be. Then they were like, yeah, this makes the most sense for you to make original music for this show. So we’ll also hire you on to be the composer.”
While in this case the conversation resulted in a second contract for Ittoop, this doesn’t always happen. Some theatres go ahead and hire two separate artists, one to compose and the other to integrate the music into the larger sound design; others just see a way to save money with a two-in-one hire. But the jobs are distinct, and, as Coes explains, skimping on that separate composer contract can force the sound designer to go outside the normal scope of their job.
Of course, whether a production uses original music doesn’t always come down to a question of whether the play would benefit from it, but to whether the production can afford it. But there are no shortcuts, as Coes, a lecturer at Yale School of Drama who has designed across the country, points out: A sound designer who is mostly compositional might require the concurrent hiring of a sound supervisor or associate designer who can focus on the technical aspects. Conversely, a designer who specializes in engineering sound systems may
