Teledyne Marine has collaborated with BetweenMusic to fuse art and technology for a unique concert experience. BetweenMusic, a Danish performance company led by musicians Leila Skovmand and Robert Karlsson, has captivated audiences worldwide with their underwater concert experience known as AquaSonic. 
The music ensemble worked with Teledyne Marine’s hydrophones to capture their unique sound. Their approach is extraordinary in that they perform all their music in AquaSonic underwater. Through over a decade of interdisciplinary collaboration with craftsmen, artists, scientists, and divers, they were able to fabricate custom-made instruments to create an ethereal musical experience. When it came to capturing the efforts of their decade-long journey, they chose Teledyne Marine hydrophones for their optimal performance.
Recently, on the podcast Teledyne’s Marine Tech Talk BetweenMusic’s sound engineer Roma Komar explained the difference in using Teledyne hydrophones. “Teledyne showed amazing results right away. Like, I remember our faces when we sat and listened...For our first attempt at recording underwater, we sat and listened with headphones, and we used our normal hydrophone, not Teledyne’s. Okay, there is a sound. We can hear something interesting, that's good. And then we put the Teledyne hydrophone on, and everything opened suddenly. You know, this precision of the sound is on a completely different level. You can hear the small particles, small details. So clearly, and it just keeps the picture full, you know, you understand better what is going on you hear more, you hear it louder, and so this is yeah, high quality; it was such a big impression for us, we were like WOW, WOW, WOW, and I remember one of our musicians who has been with us and he was like, I need this one! Because he is a sound nerd, and he was immediately saying I need one of these. The quality was so much higher.”
...We put the Teledyne hydrophone on, and everything opened suddenly. You know, this precision of the sound is on a completely different level. You can hear the small particles, small details.
Creating music in the underwater environment has presented numerous challenges. To achieve the desired sound quality in water, which absorbs high frequencies more readily than air, Teledyne hydrophones became crucial in overcoming this for both live performances and album recordings.
BetweenMusics musician and Director Robert Karlsson explains, “Especially since it’s difficult to get the high frequencies through the mass of water because the mass is so much heavier, it kills the high frequencies much more than in air. When we were singing, there was a lot of this mumble, but when we had the Teledyne hydrophone, it was like we could hear all these sparkling high frequencies, and that was quite amazing.”
Teledyne Marine’s hydrophones' exceptional performance has become an integral part of AquaSonic's success, so much so that they used Teledyne hydrophones alone to record their album.
Not only has the team developed innovative and unique instruments for their submerged concerts, but they have also had to train their singers to perform underwater, a challenge for both the singers and the audio engineers.
Laila Skovmand, BetweenMusic's Artistic Director, composer, and one of their lead singers, describes the challenge. “One of the first things I did try to sing underwater was to borrow some whale recordings to try to do the same as using the voice in the same way that they do. I mean, whales can sing much higher and much lower, but they also sing a lot in the human range. So, we just try to make the same sound. And, of course, it was also something that inspired us to go out into the open water and collect these reverbs with the Teledyne hydrophones. You hear it so clearly. In many ways, recording these fascinating reverbs and echoes that happen underwater that you can never hear above water was mind-blowing.”
AquaSonic is performed on stage with five performers submerged in glass water tanks playing custom-made instruments and singers performing entirely underwater. The compositions are haunting and eerily melodic, creating a powerful experience.
Although AquaSonic currently performs on stage and has not performed in open water yet, they do hope to do so in the future, and it is obvious that their work recording reverberations using Teledyne hydrophones in the ocean environment has inspired them.
Robert describes this experience, “By listening to the sound bouncing off rocks and bouncing to the surface of the water, you can kind of start to imagine how this landscape is. And it was like what started, in some ways, a very technical project that became so much more. It’s really difficult to explain with words what happens when we are out there in the boat listening to this sound. It was amazing. It was otherworldly somehow.”
The partnership between Teledyne Marine and BetweenMusic is a testament to the power of innovation and collaboration in merging artistic vision with cutting-edge technology. AquaSonic is a truly unique musical experience, capturing the intricate notes of a new medium for sound and offering audiences a magical auditory journey.
Their innovative approach has attracted international audiences and inspired further collaborations with scientists and engineers. They are preparing to release their first album recorded with Teledyne Marine’s hydrophones sometime in 2025.
You can read more about BetweenMusic and Aquasonic on their website
