SETPIECE Independent critical review Skip to content Issue 07 / 26

Notes

Why sound design was the last craft to be named

Music and lyrics were recognised from 1968-69. Sound design waited until 1979-80. The eleven-season gap between writing a tune and being credited for how it reached the back row is the clearest thing this record says about how the trade was understood.

A composer working at a mixing console in a small studio, one screen showing a multitrack audio timeline and a second showing notation.
A scoring session of the kind sound design existed to serve for twenty-five years before it had a heading of its own. Photographs illustrate the subject; they do not depict the productions named on this page.

The first awards on this record were given for the 1954-55 season. Outstanding Sound Design does not appear until 1979-80. Twenty-five seasons separate the two, and for all of them the person deciding what an audience heard was simply not named.

The comparison that makes the gap legible is not with the other crafts. It is with music. Outstanding Music and Outstanding Lyrics both appear in 1968-69, eleven seasons before sound design. Writing the tune counted as authorship almost immediately. Delivering it did not count as anything.

Set design arrives in 1968-69 too, costume in 1969-70, lighting in 1974-75. Sound is five seasons behind lighting and eleven behind the score. It is the last of the five original craft headings to exist, and by some distance.

The likeliest reading is that the trade classified the work wrongly. Composition was authorship; amplification was plumbing. A carpenter builds a flat you can point at, and a lighting designer makes a picture. Sound solves a room, and a room solved does not look like anything.

That reading is supported by what happened next. Once sound design existed as a heading it behaved like the others: it split across musical and play in 2009-10, the same way scenic design had split in 1995-96 and costume would in 2015-16. It was a craft all along; it was named late.

The practical consequence for anyone using this record is that a sound designer working before 1980 is unfindable in it. Not under-represented — absent. The work happened in every production listed; the paperwork begins twenty-five years in.

Sound design and scoring → · The full award index →

Questions on this

When does sound design first appear in this record?

In the 1979-80 season, as Outstanding Sound Design. That is twenty-five seasons after the first awards on this record, which were given for 1954-55, and it is the last of the original craft headings to arrive by a margin of five seasons.

Why compare sound design to music rather than to lighting?

Because the two are the same job at different stages. Outstanding Music and Outstanding Lyrics both appear in 1968-69, eleven seasons before sound design. The score was recognised almost at once; getting it audible to the back row was not recognised at all.

Which craft headings came first?

Set design in 1968-69, costume design in 1969-70, lighting design in 1974-75, then sound design in 1979-80. Before 1968-69 no craft heading of any kind existed and the record names only productions, performances, direction and writing. Everything before that names productions, performances, direction and writing, and nobody who built the show.

Did sound design behave differently once it existed?

No, and that is the point. It split across musical and play in 2009-10, exactly as scenic design had in 1995-96 and costume design would in 2015-16. It followed the same pattern as every other craft, which suggests it was always one.

Can I use this record to research a sound designer before 1980?

Not from this record. There is no heading for the work before 1979-80, so those designers are absent rather than under-recorded. The productions they worked on are listed; the credit is not, because nobody was writing it down. The gap is in the paperwork rather than in the work, which is worth stating when citing an early season.

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