Making the music of Reveal
Each week, sound designers Jim Briggs and Fernando Arruda spend hours in their home studios composing and performing the original music that accompanies each episode of Reveal. The musicians are basically a two-person in-house band for Reveal, crafting wordless songs that create the show’s rich emotional atmosphere. “We wanted to make Reveal be something that was its own, that had its own space and its own sound,” says Jim. “That wasn't going to happen if I had to rely on the same library that everybody else has access to.”
The work of scoring each show begins when the episode is about 70% complete. After reporters do interviews, write their narration and edit their audio into a cohesive story, they record a rough draft of the episode that’s played for the entire radio team at a listening session. Fernando says he keeps three things in mind when listening to the rough cut of the show: tempo, range and the content of the story.
Tempo means how fast a person speaks and how quickly the story moves. “People that speak really fast, you might want to pair with slow music. People that speak really slow, you might want to pick up their pace in the music,” Fernando says. With regard to range, if a person has a low voice, the sound designers may pair that with higher-pitched music and vice versa. “You don't want to clash with them. That allows the music to go up and have a much more immersive experience,” he says.
Sound designers think deeply about the emotional heart of each story in deciding what music to compose and also how their score can punctuate key points in the story. Music can make a new chapter in an audio story, build suspense or be a calming point that lets emotionally intense moments sink in. “The big challenge is weaving music into the story so that it's not manipulative and hitting people over the head. We really don't want to be heavy-handed, and we don’t want to be bland,” Jim says. “It’s a balancing act; it’s a good challenge to try to rise to every week.”
The original music from Reveal is now available on Bandcamp, with each episode working a bit like a concept album. The scores are available to stream for free, or listeners can pay to download them, which is another great way to donate to Reveal.
To listen to original music from new episodes, follow Reveal on Bandcamp.
|
Will Evans is a senior reporter and producer at Reveal. Between helping his young kids, he tries to hold powerful people and institutions accountable – most recently, his reporting 
