Journal of Sound, Silence, Image and Technology 7 Número 2 | Desembre 2019 | 7-23 ISSN 2604-451X A Symphony of Noises: Revisiting Oskar Sala’s ‘Geräuschmontage’ for Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’ (1963) Julin Lee Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany
[email protected] Date received:10-10-2019 Date of acceptance: 30-11-2019 KEY WORDS: FILM MUSIC | SOUND DESIGN | SOUND STUDIES | MATERIAL CULTURE STUDIES | ORGANOLOGY Journal of Sound, Silence, Image and Technology | Número 2 | Desembre 2019 8 A Symphony of Noises: Revisiting Oskar Sala’s ‘Geräuschmontage’ for Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’ (1963) ABSTRACT accompanying the title sequence has a The soundtrack of Alfred Hitchcock’s The formal structure which resembles a classical Birds (1963) is particularly remarkable, not Hollywood film overture, and takes on only because of the absence of a conven- several expositional roles conventionally tional orchestral underscore, but also assigned to a film’s opening musical pas- because the terrifying sounds of the sage. Furthermore, the gull cries adopt the aberrant birds were actually synthesized by function of a leitmotif, while the stylized bird Oskar Sala using the mixturtrautonium, an sounds perform emotive functions usually electronic musical instrument of his own ascribed to film music. In addition, the design. This paper explores the extent to hostile birds are characterized by electroni- which these electronically synthesized bird cally synthesized bird sounds – a representa- sounds go beyond their diegetic placement tion which can be understood within the as sound effects and take on the dramaturgi- broader context of mankind’s ambivalence cal roles usually ascribed to non-diegetic towards machines and technological film music.