The power of silence as an artistic tool is habitually overlooked by our fast-paced society. Yet, its common expressions, such as the gap of sound before the bass drops, the silent treatment, or even just a meaningful pause all exemplify its strength in even our culture.

Based on the absence of experience, silence breaks up the stream of surrounding information and derives its meaning from its chronological surroundings; a bridge to the past and future. This dependence on context makes it a nuanced tool that’s power is exponentially proportional to the skill with which its used. Imagine how different the atmosphere between a first time open-mic comedian searching the dead air for words and the confident silence of George Carlin as he perfectly times his next joke. With silence, context is everything.

There are so many ways to use silence that to distill it down to a principle is nearly impossible, but I’ll include two examples that show its power when used well.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is a game with an anime aesthetic that follows the adventures of a defense attorney. In the game, if you select the correct piece of evidence to present at the right place in a witness’ testimony then the music suddenly stops, Phoenix Wright confidently slams his hand on the table with the force of Godzilla’s foot and screams… “OBJECTION!” cuing the music to return with more intensity than ever. Here, silence is used as a tonal shift to elevate the situation from its normally playful tone to intense (or, as the case progresses, from intense to more intense). The player then begins to recognize the repeated meaning of this silence, and eagerly awaits the absence of sound as validation for their detective skill. By integrating the silence repeatedly, it isn’t just a cool effect, but a key piece of the gameplay loop.

Kare Kano uses a brief moment of silence to emphasize the impact of an insightful moment. At the end of the second episode, when Miyazawa runs away from Arima because she can’t stand to be blackmailed, the two clichély fall “into” each other and knock over some sports equipment. Miyazawa then tries to crawl away, but Arima turns her around, revealing a quick flash of her face; a face full of streaming tears. This moment briefly stops the sound of summer cicadas dead in their tracks and cues the sound of the heart-destroying piano rendition of Into a Dream. This acts as a realization not only for Arima, but for the audience. Up to this point, it just seemed like Miyazawa wanted to run away from the bastard that was using her, but in fact, she was running away from facing herself, which all came pouring out in this scene.

Like that quiet friend who is often talked over, but whose sparse words are the most exciting, chilling and insightful when they appear, silence deserves more recognition than it currently gets. I hope this post did it some justice.

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