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VIDEO
VOLUME 10-2 CHARLES SPEARIN BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE
Charles Spearin is a founding member of Broken Social Scene and the creator of The Happiness Project, an experiment that examines the surprising relationship between music and speech patterns.
POSTED ON: APRIL 09, 2009
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00:18 [Music]
00:00:07:22 We're in my secret recording studio,
00:00:14:03 this is where Broken Social Scene rehearses,
00:00:16:28 and Do Make I think rehearses,
00:00:19:15 and where I do all my extracurricular recording.
00:00:25:16 I did a tree full of starlings,
00:00:27:27 and they'd all be chattering away,
00:00:31:13 it has kind of the same effect as walking past a cafe,
00:00:33:28 hearing people talking, there is a sense of listening to
00:00:37:28 the sounds of the world with a different perspective.
00:00:42:00 [Music]
00:00:52:28 It started out as kind of a study of speech.
00:00:56:07 It was kind of a science project when I started.
00:00:58:02 I used to listen to people talk.
00:00:59:23 When people talk,
00:01:01:02 their voice goes up, and their voice goes down,
00:01:02:24 and they have a sort of a natural cadence
00:01:04:13 and melody to their voice.
00:01:05:20 I always thought that
00:01:08:16 sometimes they were beautiful little melodies in there,
00:01:10:20 and if I could kind of take some of those,
00:01:12:05 I'd be able to arrange them into songs.
00:01:14:08 So what I did was I invited my neighbors
00:01:18:23 around the block to my house, one at a time,
00:01:21:19 and just simply asked them questions about life,
00:01:25:01 and basically just had a simple conversation.
00:01:28:02 Tried to gear the conversations towards happiness,
00:01:32:03 and then I would listen back to these recordings
00:01:35:23 and listen for these little melodies,
00:01:38:10 and make songs out of those melodies.
00:01:41:23 [Music]
00:02:12:03 Basically, the people in the band have memorized
00:02:15:24 the speech pattern.
00:02:17:28 So I'll play the recording,
00:02:19:04 and then the band would kind of follow along,
00:02:21:18 and then...
00:02:22:28 I don't know how it's all going to look, but it has to.
00:02:26:16 [Music]
00:02:44:28 When I started I didn't really know
00:02:47:10 some of the characteristics of speech,
00:02:49:18 which are so similar to singing,
00:02:51:18 like when somebody talks,
00:02:53:04 their voice has kind of a natural place where it rests,
00:02:55:18 so they come back to a certain note,
00:02:57:23 and it's like they talk in key.
00:03:01:06 [Music]
00:03:17:16 There isn't much of a difference between speaking and singing,
00:03:19:21 it's mostly a matter of intention.
00:03:21:27 I used to listen to my parents' talk when I was a teenager,
00:03:24:18 and my dad would be like,
00:03:25:25 hmm, hmm.
00:03:28:09 My mom had this sharp quick voice.
00:03:32:08 I thought it would be a nice kind of duet,
00:03:34:00 like Charlie Brown, the teacher.
00:03:38:08 So that's kind of what it sounded like to me
00:03:39:28 a lot of time.
00:03:41:08 I did listen to my parents,
00:03:42:18 I just didn't listen to what they were saying.
00:03:44:18 [Music]
00:04:00:28 I've been making music for a long time,
00:04:03:02 and Do Make Say Think has been a band for 13 years,
00:04:06:23 Broken Social Scene has been a band for nine or ten years now.
00:04:11:12 I've never stopped making music, so certainly all the experience
00:04:19:03 and experimentation that I've done in the past is kind of...
00:04:22:08 I kind of brought it with me into this project.
00:04:24:00 So you could say the sense of collaboration
00:04:28:06 with all of these other bands has helped me a lot,
00:04:31:23 because now I can work with anything.
00:04:34:19 I feel like I can work with my neighbors' melodies,
00:04:37:08 or I can work the sound of birds or whatever
00:04:40:20 and turn it into music.
00:04:42:00 [Music]
00:04:48:28 I think the project has already come
00:04:50:12 a lot further than I accepted it, when I started recording,
00:04:53:21 and I didn't think it was going to be released as an album,
00:04:56:11 I didn't think it was going to performed live.
00:04:58:20 So basically it has exceeded everything that
00:05:03:00 I've really thought it would do, initially,
00:05:04:15 so I'm just going to see where it goes,
00:05:06:13 I'm quite happy with the way it's working out.
00:05:08:21 [Music]
00:05:29:09 [Music]
00:00:07:22 We're in my secret recording studio,
00:00:14:03 this is where Broken Social Scene rehearses,
00:00:16:28 and Do Make I think rehearses,
00:00:19:15 and where I do all my extracurricular recording.
00:00:25:16 I did a tree full of starlings,
00:00:27:27 and they'd all be chattering away,
00:00:31:13 it has kind of the same effect as walking past a cafe,
00:00:33:28 hearing people talking, there is a sense of listening to
00:00:37:28 the sounds of the world with a different perspective.
00:00:42:00 [Music]
00:00:52:28 It started out as kind of a study of speech.
00:00:56:07 It was kind of a science project when I started.
00:00:58:02 I used to listen to people talk.
00:00:59:23 When people talk,
00:01:01:02 their voice goes up, and their voice goes down,
00:01:02:24 and they have a sort of a natural cadence
00:01:04:13 and melody to their voice.
00:01:05:20 I always thought that
00:01:08:16 sometimes they were beautiful little melodies in there,
00:01:10:20 and if I could kind of take some of those,
00:01:12:05 I'd be able to arrange them into songs.
00:01:14:08 So what I did was I invited my neighbors
00:01:18:23 around the block to my house, one at a time,
00:01:21:19 and just simply asked them questions about life,
00:01:25:01 and basically just had a simple conversation.
00:01:28:02 Tried to gear the conversations towards happiness,
00:01:32:03 and then I would listen back to these recordings
00:01:35:23 and listen for these little melodies,
00:01:38:10 and make songs out of those melodies.
00:01:41:23 [Music]
00:02:12:03 Basically, the people in the band have memorized
00:02:15:24 the speech pattern.
00:02:17:28 So I'll play the recording,
00:02:19:04 and then the band would kind of follow along,
00:02:21:18 and then...
00:02:22:28 I don't know how it's all going to look, but it has to.
00:02:26:16 [Music]
00:02:44:28 When I started I didn't really know
00:02:47:10 some of the characteristics of speech,
00:02:49:18 which are so similar to singing,
00:02:51:18 like when somebody talks,
00:02:53:04 their voice has kind of a natural place where it rests,
00:02:55:18 so they come back to a certain note,
00:02:57:23 and it's like they talk in key.
00:03:01:06 [Music]
00:03:17:16 There isn't much of a difference between speaking and singing,
00:03:19:21 it's mostly a matter of intention.
00:03:21:27 I used to listen to my parents' talk when I was a teenager,
00:03:24:18 and my dad would be like,
00:03:25:25 hmm, hmm.
00:03:28:09 My mom had this sharp quick voice.
00:03:32:08 I thought it would be a nice kind of duet,
00:03:34:00 like Charlie Brown, the teacher.
00:03:38:08 So that's kind of what it sounded like to me
00:03:39:28 a lot of time.
00:03:41:08 I did listen to my parents,
00:03:42:18 I just didn't listen to what they were saying.
00:03:44:18 [Music]
00:04:00:28 I've been making music for a long time,
00:04:03:02 and Do Make Say Think has been a band for 13 years,
00:04:06:23 Broken Social Scene has been a band for nine or ten years now.
00:04:11:12 I've never stopped making music, so certainly all the experience
00:04:19:03 and experimentation that I've done in the past is kind of...
00:04:22:08 I kind of brought it with me into this project.
00:04:24:00 So you could say the sense of collaboration
00:04:28:06 with all of these other bands has helped me a lot,
00:04:31:23 because now I can work with anything.
00:04:34:19 I feel like I can work with my neighbors' melodies,
00:04:37:08 or I can work the sound of birds or whatever
00:04:40:20 and turn it into music.
00:04:42:00 [Music]
00:04:48:28 I think the project has already come
00:04:50:12 a lot further than I accepted it, when I started recording,
00:04:53:21 and I didn't think it was going to be released as an album,
00:04:56:11 I didn't think it was going to performed live.
00:04:58:20 So basically it has exceeded everything that
00:05:03:00 I've really thought it would do, initially,
00:05:04:15 so I'm just going to see where it goes,
00:05:06:13 I'm quite happy with the way it's working out.
00:05:08:21 [Music]
00:05:29:09 [Music]