Thinking in Sound: Why Collaboration Leads to a Better Project with Sonixphere's Tony Elfers and Gary Guzman
Above: Tony Elfers (L) and Gary Guzman (R)
Tony Elfers is an award-winning senior music composer/producer who creates for a variety of platforms including television shows, advertising, short films, audio branding and more. With Sonixphere since its inception, Tony has composed and produced hundreds of commercial brands like Hyundai, Ford, McDonalds, Pepsi, and hundreds of television series like Catfish,Young Sheldon, Bar Rescue, Flying Wild Alaska (in which he won a BMI TV Music Award) to name a few. When not composing and producing music for Sonixphere Elfers is an in-demand live musician and band leader.
Gary Guzman is a senior producer/composer at Sonixphere. He has produced, played, sung and/or composed music for hundreds of TV, Radio, and social commercials - including McDonalds, Mazda, Gatorade, Budweiser and Wrigley's, just to name a select few. In addition to the commercials, Gary has composed and produced music for TV shows on such networks as ABC, NBC, CBS, VH1, the Discovery Channel, TLC, the History Channel and The Food Network. His music has won prestigious advertising awards such as the London International Advertising Award, Telly Award, AICP Award, Mobius Award and Communicator Award. Gary is a multi-instrumentalist who has been performing live since the age of 10, and continues to do so with various music projects.
LBB> When you’re working on a new brief or project, what’s your typical starting point? How do you break it down and how do you like to generate your ideas or response?
Tony> We love starting with a conversation with our clients. They’ll often start by bringing certain musical styles to the table, but it’s when we probe deeper with questions about emotional response and story arc that we really start to see what the musical possibilities for a project may be. Reading a brief will only get you so far, but having a conversation makes a huge difference. Step two is often an exploratory music search.
Gary> Our initial music searches are a huge help for clients - especially those who know they want upbeat, energetic music but may not know what specific genre they’re looking for until they hear it. So we’ll often start with a music search to give them ideas of what direction to go in musically, and we can narrow it down to what genres and styles may work best for their project.
LBB> Music and sound are in some ways the most collaborative and interactive forms of creativity - what are your thoughts on this? Do you prefer to work solo or with a gang - and what are some of your most memorable professional collaborations?
Gary> Being around creative people every day is a great thing. When a project comes in, we always discuss it as a group and throw ideas around together. The ‘strength in numbers” approach that Sonixphere has just makes the end result of a project that much better.
Tony> Collaboration almost always leads to a better project – our most memorable professional collaborations have often been in the recording studio, with agency members and their commercial clients being there while the music is being created and recorded. We do this all over the world – Abbey Road in London, Budapest, Los Angeles, New York, Nashville, Miami (to name a few) and it’s equally as rewarding for the agency and the clients as it is for us.
LBB> What’s the most satisfying part of your job and why?
Gary> We get to write different styles of music every single day. One day may be a heavily orchestrated classical piece, the next day is a loud and aggressive metal tune. I think it keeps us well-rounded as producers and composers, since we work on all styles of music from day to day.
Tony> When our clients come to us with a problem, a difficult assignment, or something they just can’t figure out, and we find a great solution for them – there’s nothing quite like that. Finding their pain points and making that pain go away is incredibly satisfying. And of course when Greg Allan (Sonixphere president/creative director) tells us that the clients just called and were blown away, they love the music!
LBB> As the advertising industry changes, how do you think the role of music and sound is changing with it?
Gary> Commercials have a lot of licensed songs nowadays, compared to commercials in the past which featured more original songs and jingles. There’s something to be said about jingles and why they’re so effective. It’s customised music that creates memorability and can have more of an emotional connection and response. A custom piece of music is a great way to reinforce brand identity, ownership, and often more than a licensed song can achieve.
Tony> Authenticity is at the top of the list. Having a team of composers and musicians that truly know and practise their creative styles, and don’t just mimic other artists out there, is essential. In the end the goal is for music to amplify the emotional message – and it only works when the music is coming from a place of authenticity.
LBB> And when it comes to your particular field, whether sound design or composing, are there any particular ideas or pioneers that you go back to frequently or who really influence your thinking about the work you do?
Gary> Tony and I both started out as interns when we got into the business. I was a complete sponge - observing sessions and learning everything I could from producers. The knowledge and experience I earned from that is invaluable. There are tips and techniques that I learned from our senior producers back then that I still use to this day.
Tony> So true! I hear my mentors’ voices in my head every time I compose a new piece of music – all the way from Sonixphere’s ECD Greg Allan back to my first music teacher at six-years-old, Thelma Hires.
LBB> When you’re working on something that isn’t directly sound design or music (lets say going through client briefs or answering emails) - are you the sort of person who needs music and noise in the background or is that completely distracting to you? What are your thoughts on ‘background’ sound and music as you work?
Gary> I constantly have music on in the background. I have an ongoing list of albums to listen to and check out, so I’ll often put them on when I’m typing e-mails or writing content for our company’s social media.
Tony> I am the complete opposite; I have always needed complete silence while working on any task. Music of any kind is nearly paralysing to me – music pulls me in so deeply that I can’t concentrate on the task at hand!
LBB> I guess the quality of the listening experience and the context that audiences listen to music/sound in has changed over the years. There’s the switch from analogue to digital and now we seem to be divided between bad-ass surround-sound immersive experiences and on-the-go, low quality sound (often the audio is competing with a million other distractions) - how does that factor into how you approach your work?
Gary> You gotta read the room! If we’re scoring music for a TV show and there is a ton of dialogue, we know to stay out of the way by not having busy melodies playing underneath them. Also, we avoid any instruments that may be in the same frequency and tone as the person speaking on-screen, so the music isn’t fighting the dialogue in any way.
Tony> Totally – and communication is key. That’s why I love when we are doing both Sound Design and Music for a job. We can communicate about which element is taking the lead, and step back to the let the other element breathe during its key moments.
Funny enough, even though more people have access to amazing sound systems than ever before, there’s also more content being consumed over laptops, phones, and tables than ever before. So you better believe that in addition to mixing on our high end studio monitors and subwoofers we’re also referencing on built-in computer speakers, little Bluetooth speakers, mobile phones, and anything else an end-user may be listening on.
LBB> On a typical day, what does your ‘listening diet’ look like?
Tony> Early morning is when I consume new music, before I start answering emails. New releases on Spotify, and reccos from my trusted music bloggers. During the work day nearly all listening is related to on-going music projects. At night I’m either catching live music or if I’m at home I’m throwing some vinyl on my 1965 Thorens TD150 turntable, a serious turntable for anyone out there looking for a vintage machine that’s still affordable.
Gary> I constantly get music forwarded to me, from producer / musician friends who want me to check out something new and exciting - so often it’s a lot of word-of-mouth when learning about new artists or soundtracks. I’m also constantly on Apple Music browsing around, and YouTube always throws out suggestions as well.
LBB> Do you have a collection of music/sounds and what shape does it take (are you a vinyl nerd, do you have hard drives full of random bird sounds, are you a hyper-organised spotify-er…)?
Gary> I’ve been a collector of physical media since I was a kid, so I have a huge collection of both vinyl and CDs! And as music producers, we have huge sound libraries of instruments and effects, and they’re constantly growing and being updated.
Tony> Vintage instruments are my thing. I love anything old with vacuum tubes in it, to help add that analog warmth, randomness, and noise to today’s digital recordings. Most cherished would be my 1965 Fender Bassman and 1968 Fender Pro Reverb. When we use something “vintage” we know we’re going to create some amazing music that sounds different than everyone else out there who is using the same old sample libraries.
LBB> Outside of the music and sound world, what sort of art or topics really excite you and do you ever relate that back to music (e.g. history buffs who love music that can help you travel through time, gamers who love interactive sound design… I mean it really could be anything!!)
Gary> One of my favourite pastimes is playing pinball and slot machines, so I’m constantly listening to music that’s created for those types of games - which has come a very long way from the beeps and basic tones of game music in the '80s! So it’s been fun hearing that audio evolve, and seeing how it adds to the overall experience of the game play. On top of that, I’m a huge fan of live music and always have been. Watching other musicians is a great way to learn and get inspired. Lastly, I love collecting. In addition to my CD and Vinyl collection I’m way into vintage toys, guitars, and pop culture memorabilia from the ‘70s all the way to today.
Tony> I love finding all the experts out there who are really knowledgeable about specific niche subjects, and getting a taste of their blogs or their podcasts. Are you a vintage bourbon aficionado who can describe a whiskey using terms like “burnt leather” and “moist wood pulp?” I’m interested. Are you a repairman that specialises in the restoration of early 1900’s field coil speakers? Tell me your story!
LBB> Let’s talk travel! It’s often cited as one of the most creatively inspiring things you can do - I’d love to know what are the most exciting or inspiring experiences you’ve had when it comes to sound and music on your travels?
Tony> Getting to the birthplace of any style of music, and hearing it at its source, is life-changing. Dixieland, Jazz, and Brass Bands in New Orleans has to be one of the highlights, as well as watching the Salzburg Philharmonic performing the music of Mozart in Austria.
Gary> Working as music supervisors and arrangers on a film project in Budapest was definitely a highlight. Music is definitely a universal language! We don’t speak Hungarian but we had no problem communicating to them exactly what we wanted, through the music notes and articulations on the score.
LBB> As we age, our ears change physically and our tastes evolve too, and life changes mean we don’t get to engage in our passions in the same intensity as in our youth - how has your relationship with sound and music changed over the years?
Gary> I definitely listen to more music genres now than I did when I was younger. Yes, it’s a job requirement for what we do - but for casual listening, I’m constantly discovering music from the past that either I wasn’t aware of or didn’t pay enough attention to before. So it’s fun doing deep dives of artist’s catalogues and listening to the production techniques and writing styles of a particular era.
Tony> Hopefully as we age, we become more inclusive, more understanding of the world around us. There’s so much incredible music in the world, and so many artists who are making the world a better place to live in. I’m still hanging posters on the wall of musicians I’m discovering, just like I did when I was 13. But now the palette has so many more colours. It’s a great time to be open to new music and new creators.
And Gary and I agree on this: the way Sonixphere has changed since its inception (branching out from ads into TV shows, Games, Films, and more) has allowed us to grow as composers in all new ways. We’re fortunate to have such diversity in our projects. It keeps our productions super fresh and current as we’re always evolving.
