06/17/2008
A giant passes
Tony Schwartz died last Saturday.
There are several excellent obituaries about his life and work, including one by Doug Schulkind of WFMU. Schwartz pioneered so many of the modern techniques of audio communication that, in my opinion, there's no one working in the fields of radio or video that doesn't owe him a tremendous debt. He was the first person to apply Marshall McLuhan's theories in real-world production, and he explained their application in two fine books.
To take just one (relatively minor) example of his groundbreaking work: he devised the technique of overlapping words in audio to increase the amount of information conveyed without sacrificing intelligibility - and what's more, he did it for Abraham & Strauss, a New York retail chain that was interested in selling shirts and pants, not in audio innovation. The success here is twofold; first, you have to devise and perfect a technique hitherto completely unknown in modern communication. Second, you have to sell the technique to a commercial client whose first question will likely be: "If this is so groundbreaking and wonderful, why haven't I heard it used before?"
If the books and production techniques weren't enough, Schwartz also made a long, eye-opening series of recording for the Folkways label (now available from Smithsonian), many using some of the first surreptitious (and non-surreptitious) location recordings on vinyl, featuring speech with musical rhythm, interviews with children, narrative productions about pets, music, sound effects, and on and on.
This man was an unqualified genius. It's worth the effort to read the books, watch the videos, and listen to the recordings. He still has a lot to teach.