When charged with the task to write about what is currently happening in sound design, I must pause and reflect on the past in order to evaluate where we are in the present. And what I find, when I look upon my own career, is confusing to me. I began my career at a time when technology was not as advanced as it is currently. It was a time when creativity in my field flourished because how we accomplished our art was equally as intangible as what we were striving to impress upon an audience.
With the growth of technology and the abundance of universities that are now producing sound practitioners, I have seen a change that I’ve been trying to define so that I can best shape my own students into artists who will bring the best to our field. At times it seems that anyone with a computer, who has the ability to search for music globally, and put that music together into a list that can be shared and listened to while reading the play thinks that this is what it means to be a sound designer. So when I think about where my field is now, when even the Tony Awards Administration Committee is publicly questioning what is sound design, I believe that technology is eroding the collaborative process. I can only speak to this from my own experience.
Read Toy’s full piece on Howlround.