Dolby shares insights on music industry

Homewood Professor of the Arts Thomas Dolby discussed his new memoir, The Speed of Sound: Breaking the Barriers Between Music and Technology, on the evening of Thursday, Feb. 8 at Barnes & Noble.

While reading passages from his book, Dolby shared his experiences working in the music industry, including both his individual and collaborative productions.

Dolby has worked with a number of famous musicians and icons like David Bowie, Stevie Wonder, Eddie Van Halen, Joni Mitchell and George Clinton in the past.

Dolby decided to write his memoir when a publisher asked him to write a “music business tech guru” book. For inspiration, he looked over old notes he had scribbled down in his journals while working in the industry.

“I realized that the reason I didn’t want to do the publisher’s suggestion was that with the benefit of hindsight, we’ve all got 20/20 vision, and what was so compelling about my journals was that I didn’t know what the heck was going on,” Dolby said.

In the early ‘90s, during the technology “gold rush,” it was easy for Dolby to talk to computer and software companies. However, they were very reluctant to integrate sound and music into their products.

“Most tech companies felt that sound was a distraction. They didn’t even want to put speakers in their computers because it might annoy the guy in the next cubicle when he’s running his spreadsheets,” Dolby said. “In fact, the only tech company that really took music seriously in computers was Apple, and they viewed Apple as a bunch of hippie dreamers.”

Dolby spoke about the deal that saved Beatnik, Inc., his software company based in Silicon Valley, from disappearing.

After Japanese phones starting being created with Yamaha sound chips, Nokia wanted to make musical ringtones native to Finland. Dolby licensed technology to Nokia for his Beatnik synthesizer to co-develop the first embedded software synthesis ringtone for mass-production.

The Nokia team realized that to use a song for a ringtone without any liability, they had to choose a tune by a dead artist. They chose “Gran Vals,” a waltz by Francisco Tárrega, which became the most frequently played ringtone of all time.

“When I was on the charts for ‘She Blinded Me With Science,’ I was known as a sonic innovator: the man who put warmth and humanity into synthesized music,” Dolby said. “I was embarrassed that now I was the guy people would blame for the global ringtone plague. Had I unleashed a monster?”

Dolby insisted that it was the detours he took in his career that forced him to be creative.

“A lot of people think that ideas like this come about because some genius sat in a garage somewhere and a lightbulb popped. In reality, I think the world is a lot more random than that,” Dolby said.

Dolby teaches a course in the Film and Media Studies program and helped the University establish the JHU/MICA Film Center, a new production space in Station North.

“I’m trying to get the students out of their comfort zone and force them to think their way around things,” Dolby said.

Many of those in attendance were Hopkins professors or fans of Dolby’s synth music in the ‘80s.

Freshman Connie Xiao came to the event because it was part of a requirement for her Introduction to Fiction and Poetry class.

“He’s a really interesting person. I didn’t even know he was a professor at Hopkins but to find out that he’s the cause for that ubiquitous ringtone, that really annoying thing that I’ve heard my entire life growing up, to meet the progenitor of that is mind-blowing,” Xiao said. “Only at Hopkins, am I right?”