Skip to content
1981
Volume 1, Issue 1
  • ISSN: 3050-2942
  • E-ISSN: 3050-2950

Abstract

This article explores how the use of metaphors and multimodal mental imagery opens diverse creative pathways in the collaborative process of record production. The dual functionality of metaphors in record production informs this function. On the one hand, they are sound descriptors; on the other hand, they are tools for verbally articulating the experiential facets of multimodal mental imagery. The article addresses a practice-based study of the recording and mixing of the song ‘Noen ganger’, mixed for playback in Dolby Atmos and stereo. It demonstrates how a single articulated metaphor triggered several artistic consequences via a creative loop of imagery, metaphors, sound production and processing, leading to the recording’s final soundscape and aesthetic output. The article argues that metaphors may bridge the gap between the abstract and the concrete, helping us to both understand and interpret elusive artistic ideas involving mental imagery and transition those ideas into recordings. It also explores how methods such as log writing can bring otherwise tacit aspects of mental imagery and metaphorical understandings out into the open.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/jmpr_00004_1
2025-10-29
2026-01-16
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/jmpr/1/1/jmpr.1.1.31_Koksvik.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.1386/jmpr_00004_1&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

References

  1. Aksnes, Hallgjerd, Fuglestad, Svein and Amundsen, Ingvild K. (2011), ‘Bonny GIM and Jazz GIM: What’s the diff? A comparative study of transcriptions based on five selected BMGIM programs’, in Watering the Seeds, Nurturing the Gift: The 21: Conference of the Association for Music and Imagery, Techny, Chicago, IL, 21–25 June.
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Askerøi, Eirik and Viervoll, André (2016), ‘Musical listening: Teaching studio production in an academic institution’, in G. D. Smith, Z. Moir, M. Brennan, S. Rambarran and P. Kirkman (eds), The Routledge Research Companion to Popular Music Education, London: Routledge, pp. 23142.
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Bailes, Freya (2019), ‘Empirical musical imagery beyond the “mind’s ear”’, in M. Grimshaw-Aagaard, M. Walther-Hansen and M. Knakkergaard (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Sound and Imagination, vol. 2, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 44563.
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Bennett, Samantha and Bates, Eliot (eds) (2018), Critical Approaches to the Production of Music and Sound, London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Bonde, Lars O. (2019), ‘Multimodal imagery in the receptive music therapy model guided imagery and music (GIM)’, in M. Grimshaw-Aagaard, M. Walther-Hansen and M. Knakkergaard (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Sound and Imagination, vol. 2, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 42744.
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Bourbon, Andrew and Zagorski-Thomas, Simon (2017), ‘The ecological approach to mixing audio: Agency, activity and environment in the process of audio staging’, Journal on the Art of Record Production, 11:11, https://www.arpjournal.com/asarpwp/the-ecological-approach-to-mixing-audio-agency-activity-and-environment-in-the-process-of-audio-staging/. Accessed 12 November 2021.
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Bourbon, Andrew and Zagorski-Thomas, Simon (eds) (2020), The Bloomsbury Handbook of Music Production. New York: Bloomsbury.
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Braathen, Elin S. (2013), ‘Metaphor as a communication strategy within a pop music recording setting’, Ph.D. thesis, Kristiansand: University of Agder.
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Bremnes, Kari (1993), ‘Møte i verdensrommet’, Løsrivelse, CD, Norway: Kirkelig Kulturverksted.
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Bresler, Zack (2021), ‘Immersed in pop! Excursions into compositional design’, Ph.D. thesis, Kristiansand: University of Agder.
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Corey, Jason (2010), Audio Production and Critical Listening: Technical Ear Training, Burlington, MA: Focal Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Dalland, Cecilie, Hølland, Silje and Mifsud, Louise (2023), Observasjon som metode: I lærerutdanningene, Bergen: Fagbokforlaget.
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Dockwray, Ruth, Moore, Allan F. and Schmidt, Patricia (2009), ‘A hermeneutics of spatialization for recorded song’, Twentieth-Century Music, 6:1, pp. 83114, https://doi.org/10.1017/S1478572210000071.
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Gracyk, Theodore (2019), ‘Imaginative listening to music’, in M. Grimshaw-Aagaard, M. Walther-Hansen and M. Knakkergaard (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Sound and Imagination, vol. 2, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 46788.
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Howlett, Mike (2012), ‘The record producer as nexus’, Journal on the Art of Record Production, 2:2, https://www.arpjournal.com/asarpwp/the-record-producer-as-nexus/. Accessed 28 April 2022.
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Johnson, Mark (1987), The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Johnson, Mark (2007), The Meaning of the Body: Aesthetics of Human Understanding, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Johnson, Mark, and Larson, Steve (2003), ‘“Something in the way she moves”: Metaphors of musical motion’, Metaphor and Symbol, 18:2, pp. 6384, https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327868MS1802_1.
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Kelkar, Tejaswinee (2019), ‘Computational analysis of melodic contour and body movement’, Ph.D. thesis, Oslo: University of Oslo.
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Kelly, Richard (2001), Donnie Darko, USA: Pandora Cinema.
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Koksvik, Ingvild (2022), Mørketidssanger, digital release, Norway: Fyrlyd Records.
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Koksvik, Ingvild (2024), ‘Staging notions of space: Realising compositional intention in 3D and stereo record production through Dolby Atmos’, in J.-O. Gullö, R. Hepworth-Sawyer, J. Paterson, R. Toulson and M. Marrington (eds), Innovation in Music: Cultures and Contexts, New York: Routledge, pp. 318.
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Koksvik, Ingvild, Hamilton, Joel and Askerøi, Eirik (forthcoming 2025), ‘Finding the “better” in music production’, in B. Anthony, C. Boehm, T. Canfer, P. Thompson and S. B. Ward (eds), Music Production Pedagogy: Perspectives on Innovation in Music Production Education, New York: Routledge.
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Kövecses, Zoltán (2020), Extended Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Küssner, Mats B., Taruffi, Liila and Floridou, Georgia A. (eds) (2023), Music and Mental Imagery, New York: Routledge.
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Lakoff, George and Johnson, Mark (1980), Metaphors We Live By, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  27. Moore, Allan F. (2005), ‘The persona-environment relation in recorded song’, Music Theory Online, 11:4, https://mtosmt.org/issues/mto.05.11.4/mto.05.11.4.moore.html. Accessed 26 February 2021.
    [Google Scholar]
  28. Moore, Allan F. (2010), ‘Where is here? An issue of deictic projection in recorded song’, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 135:1, pp. 14582, https://doi.org/10.1080/02690401003597813.
    [Google Scholar]
  29. Moore, Allan F. (2012), Song Means: Analysing and Interpreting Recorded Popular Song, Farnham: Ashgate.
    [Google Scholar]
  30. Moylan, William (2020), Recording Analysis: How the Record Shapes the Song, New York and London: Routledge.
    [Google Scholar]
  31. Nanay, Bence (2018), ‘Multimodal mental imagery’, Cortex, 105, pp. 12534, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2017.07.006.
    [Google Scholar]
  32. Negus, Keith and Pickering, Michael (2002), ‘Creativity and musical experience’, in D. Hesmondhalgh and K. Negus (eds), Popular Music Studies, London: Arnold, pp. 17890.
    [Google Scholar]
  33. Nisbett, Richard and Wilson, Timothy (1977), ‘Telling more than we can know: verbal reports on mental processes’, Psychological Review, 84:3, pp. 23159, https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.84.3.231.
    [Google Scholar]
  34. Thompson, Paul (2019), Creativity in the Recording Studio: Alternative Takes, Cham: Springer International Publishing.
    [Google Scholar]
  35. Walther-Hansen, Mads (2016), ‘Balancing audio: Towards a cognitive structure of sound interaction in music production’, in R. Kronland-Martinet, M. Aramaki and S. Ystad (eds), Music, Mind, and Embodiment, Revised Selected Papers, 11th International Symposium, CMMR, Plymouth, UK, 16–19 June, Plymouth: Springer, pp. 22842.
    [Google Scholar]
  36. Walther-Hansen, Mads (2020), Making Sense of Recordings: How Cognitive Processing of Recorded Sound Works, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  37. Wong, Sarah S. H. and Lim, Stephen W. H. (2017), ‘Mental imagery boosts music compositional creativity’, PLoS ONE, 12:3, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0174009.
    [Google Scholar]
  38. Zagorski-Thomas, Simon (2014), The Musicology of Record Production, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  39. Zagorski-Thomas, Simon, Isakoff, Katia, Stévance, Sophie and Lacasse, Serge (eds) (2020), The Art of Record Production. Volume 2: Creative Practice in the Studio, New York and London: Routledge.
    [Google Scholar]
  40. Zak, Albin J. III (2001), The Poetics of Rock: Cutting Tracks, Making Records, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
    [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1386/jmpr_00004_1
Loading
/content/journals/10.1386/jmpr_00004_1
Loading

Data & Media loading...

Supplements

Online Resource 1

Online Resource 2

Online Resource 3

Online Resource 4

Online Resource 5

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error
Please enter a valid_number test