Music In Theatre - With Composer & Sound Designer David Mesiha

For David Mesiha, making the transition from rock musician to original composer & sound designer seemed like a good move. Growing up in Egypt, David has been playing music since childhood, and has recently applied his talent to a part of the music industry that even he says most people overlook. For the past year, he has been composing music for live theatre aka plays. So how did he get his start?

“I was playing with rock bands for 3 years around Vancouver, and it was very challenging because everybody’s doing it. So I wanted to try something a bit different. Through networking, I met a guy who wrote a play for the Vancouver Fringe Festival last summer, and he asked me to do the music for it. The piece received great reviews and I went on to work with the same director on another piece and so on. I’ve been writing music specifically for theatre for the last year now.”

So what exactly does a composer/sound designer do? In a movie, a composer has written the original score, a foley artist has recorded the sound effects, a music supervisor has chosen the soundtrack, and then there’s the dialogue. David oversees all of the above in a live setting with actors, lighting cues and a crowd taking in the overall audio-visual experience. I just had to see how it was done.

David’s current gig is with independent theatre group TigerMilk Collective and their play “Apparition”. The music is this eery, ambient stuff that really makes your skin crawl. After watching a bit, I climbed up into the sound booth to get a closer look. There was a table filled with percussion instruments, a melodica, xylophone, laptop, and a keyboard. These are David’s tools of the trade. As the actors work their magic, he uses his array of musical goodies to contribute to the scenes. This looks like a lot of fun!

“With sound design, you really get to experiment. Every night is different and challenging. You can break away from cliché’s and become more interactive with the actors and the audience,” he says.

David explained to me the two important aspects of his job; Composing and Performing. He will usually write the score, or any original background music in advance, and present his ideas to a director a month or two ahead of showtime. There is always a bit of tweaking, but the score is all pre-recorded and controlled by David on his laptop during the show. On the performing side of things, he is constantly shaking things up night after night.

“You have to be coherent and flexible at the same time. I try to really understand a script and get to know the characters I am working with,” says David. “It’s really an evolving process and night after night you’re trying new things to add to the feel of the characters and the script. I really enjoy that part of it. The live aspect.”

David tells me that he’s working on a new motion-sensor sound system that is triggered by the actors and will free up a lot of his time to focus on the composition end. During a play, David likes to add chords using his keyboard in order to improvise with “moving the sound” – aka bringing up swells and then scaling back to evoke tension and relief in a scene. It’s a technique that will give the audience a rush, but also help the actors get into the scene.

“When a sound cue is dead on, and that line gets delivered, it’s just perfect. You can see it on the faces of the audience. Some nights, if the connection isn’t there, you get that dead feeling. You have to remember it’s a collaboration and everything has to be working together with the actors, the lighting and of course, the sound,” says Mesiha.

In the same way musicians use “the nod” to communicate with each other when they’re up there on stage, David uses a cue list along with signals from the actors for when & where music and sound is required. I must admit, this is all new to me, but watching David work is really interesting. Once you learn to handle all the technical aspects, I think anyone who writes original music would enjoy working with composition and sound design. I wonder where David draws his inspiration from?

“The list is huge,” he laughs. “Definitely Pink Floyd is one inspiration. They know how to use ambient music without it being too long and boring. It still has a point. One note, if put in the right spot can deliver so much emotion. Philip Glass is another composer I really like a lot. “

I suppose it’s difficult to compare BC’s thriving film industry to live theatre, but this is definitely another opportunity for composers and sound engineers to make their mark, and their living, doing what they love. If you are a budding composer, or just looking for an interesting avenue to share what you can do musically, this could be the job for you. Is this something that requires a lot of technical training?

“Well, I took the audio engineering course at PAVI (Pacific Audio Visual Institute) for a year and also studied sound technology and composition at SFU but it doesn’t really matter how much musical training you have, you won’t be prepared for what you see in theatre and these sorts of interactive mediums. You’ll learn a huge amount just through doing it. Don’t get too protective though, you have to be open to change things if the director doesn’t like it. Just go out there and find a way to do it if it’s what you want.”

Great advice. So what’s next for Composer & Sound Designer David Mesiha?

“The next thing I’ll be doing is workshopping towards a play with another local theatre company called Craning Neck. It’s another dark piece with lots of expression and it should be interesting. You can see some more of my work through my website too,” says David.

My main goal for this article was to shed some light on a part of the industry that might be somewhat overlooked. Composing for live theatre is a challenging, real live music profession, and if you’re looking for a unique way to showcase your musical talents, there’s nothing stopping you from doing it. In the meantime, I hope you’ll go check out David’s company website at www.soniccanvasdesign.com.