Space Filling

Part 1: Background Sound is Important

A couple of years ago I was involved performing for a charity concert. For the finale, we really wanted to have a song that celebrated diversity and courage, and so we picked PTX’s original song Sing.

Thing was, when we first transcribed the score (with our noob ears) it sounded pretty empty, especially in the choruses. At first I thought it was because we were out of tune, or maybe our voices weren’t powerful enough. Then we thought, maybe because we had to breathe more while running around on stage? But in the studio version they had to breathe too, and it didn’t sound empty. Finally, we looked up how Sing sounded when performed live, and TO MY HORROR they sounded pretty empty too 😦

Some of the comments on these videos were saying exactly the same thing; they felt that the live version was missing a little special something. So the question remained: what was this magical missing ingredient?

When I re-listened to the original, I finally heard the sneaky little thing that the studio version had snuck in to make things sound so much fuller and more epic: a bunch of ahh sounds quietly going off in the background, filling up the space when the singers breathed. Can you hear it?

That one moment of insight opened up my mind to this entire concept of music that I had never considered before; what I like to call “space filling”.

(Also notice how the sound suddenly seems to shrink a little when PTX sings the “Down Down Down” / “This is how we do it now, go and roll them windows down” bit. Same idea, it’s because there’s no longer the aah to fill up space)

Let’s take another example. Compare and contrast these two versions of Uptown Funk. In particular, listen to the choruses. Which one sounds fuller?

The 2nd one sounds richer doesn’t it?

In the 1st version, the harmony parts are copying the main trumpet riff, but in close harmony. There’s also the 2nd beatboxer doing some ssssshhhhhhiiiiuuuu that fades off… and that’s pretty much it.

In the 2nd version, in addition to the bit imitating the trumpet riff, there’s also 1) the tenors doing a syncopated dao dao thing in the middle 2) the altos imitating electric guitars (the waow waow thing) 3) this one sop doing ahhhh at the top 4) the 2nd beatboxer doing a ch k chh imitating a shaker

That’s a lot more space filling for sure.

Now let’s listen to the original.

Interestingly, although the original sounds fuller at the front bit of the chorus, once the trumpets die out, the Voca People version (2nd acapella one) sounds fuller. The key thing making a difference is the female voices transitioning from singing ooh to ahh, creating the effect of growing. (Why exactly this creates a growing effect is a topic for another day).

So what have we learnt today?

1. To make a song/arrangement more “full” sounding, it’s important to have parts filling up space
2. These parts should keep going to cover up when the melody line is breathing
3. In acapella music, good examples of space filling musical ideas would be oohs and ahhs in the background, or having multiple instrumental ideas ongoing at once
4. Transitioning from ooh to ahh creates a growing effect in the music (to be elaborated upon sometime)

Well that’s it for this post. Next time we can discuss some practical ways to fill up space in an acapella arrangement 🙂

~ Andrew