While the vast majority of us remained cooped up at home for the past 18 months, athletes were performing without friends, family, and of course, fans in the stands. Nowhere was this more evident than in Tokyo, where athletes from 206 countries recently competed for gold. Preparing for such high-pressure performance is difficult at the best of times. Still, the challenge is even more immense during a pandemic. So, to compensate for the lack of people there to provide that extra adrenaline boost, some of Australia’s best athletes adopted an unorthodox training regime using personalized audio.
Working in partnership with Resonance Sonic Branding, we’re proud to announce several members of the Songtradr group (including from audio design company Song Zu, music supervision and custom licensing agency Big Sync Music, and creative music agency MassiveMusic, whose acquisition we announced in May) played a key role in helping these athletes achieve peak performance. Led by Samsung Australia and Optus, supported by CHE Proximity, and soundtracked by some of Australia’s leading musical talent (including Sheppard and Alex the Astronaut), our music experts helped create personalized audio to provide the ultimate performance-enhancing experience.
The result? Listening to personalized audio combining positive affirmations, personal mantras, scientifically tested tones, and binaural beats, swimmer Mack Horton improved his 2km time trial by five seconds. In Tokyo, he won bronze in the men’s 4x200m freestyle relay. Steph Cately and the Australian women’s soccer team also exceeded expectations. Ranked 9th by FIFA, they competed with the world champion U.S. team for third place. Altogether, Australia won almost as many medals as other nations with many times the population. Music clearly made a difference.
“Listening to music is a type of legal performance-enhancing drug.”
Dr. Costas Karageorghis. Brunel University
Keep reading to learn more about this bespoke sonic branding project from Ramesh Sathiah (Executive Creative Director at Song Zu and Creative Director & Founder of Resonance Sonic Branding) and Michael Szumowski (Country Manager at Big Sync Music APAC). The duo explains their involvement, the mechanics behind the project, and how athletes responded when they heard the personalized audio.
How did you come to be involved with this project?
Ramesh: Song Zu was involved via our sonic branding joint venture with Resonance Sonic Branding, which was tasked with answering the question: can music help improve an athlete’s performance? My role was as the Music Director, which included creating the framework from which performance-enhancing tracks were made. We engaged the expanded Songtradr network to deliver this project in a relatively short amount of time, using Big Sync Music Australia to engage well-known Australian artists and MassiveMusic Amsterdam and Tokyo to support us in delivering the bespoke music.
Michael: Song Zu/Resonance approached me about a project that showcased the power of music, specifically how it could have a measured impact on an elite athlete’s performance. Part of the approach was to get an idea of who the athletes’ favorite Australian artists were and have them perform vocals on their bespoke track. My role [as Music Supervisor] was to connect with the artists picked by the athletes and bring them on board.
Determining what type of music would enhance each athlete’s performance was essential to this project. What were some of the questions you asked to decide this?
Ramesh: Interviewing these incredible athletes was an absolute honor. They were all so excited by the project, and all had unique relationships with music. They all used music as part of their training, but we quickly learned how individual everyone’s personal preferences were. This personalization layer became increasingly important. We also drilled into their events’ mechanics to understand the relationship between their specialty and the music they trained to. More than once, we found a correlation between their favorite pre-performance music and the cadence/tempo of their event. A final important ingredient was finding out if they had a personal mantra or inspirational quote that motivated them.
The tracks were all designed to have specific motivational qualities. Can you explain some of the audio techniques used to personalize each track?
Ramesh: One of the most substantial inputs was the use of affirmations or mantras. Each athlete already has a strong relationship with music as part of their training, so understanding what style of music they preferred and how it moved them emotionally was also a key factor. In a way, they were co-writers of the music, and you could see they loved how we interpreted their ideas.
You managed to get some of Australia’s best musicians to record songs. How did the artists respond when you explained the project to them?
Michael: The artists were intrigued by the idea and particularly excited that each track was tailored specifically to increase the athlete’s performance. The lyrics for each song were based on the athlete’s own ‘mantra,’ so having their favorite Australian artist sing that for them just added another level of impact.
How did the athletes respond when they heard the final recording?
Ramesh: Having a song made for you is a unique experience for almost anyone, especially when the purpose is to support your performance at the Olympics. Watching their faces as they listened to the music for the first time was very moving and emotional.
Get the right music for your project
Nick Fulton
Before joining Songtradr, Nick spent more than a decade writing reviews, essays, criticism, and interviewing artists for i-D, Billboard, Pitchfork, and other global publications. He's spoken to hundreds of emerging and established artists, including Lenny Kravitz, Michael Stipe, Khruangbin, St. Vincent, Incubus, and Eartheater.