Hitchcock decided to do without any conventional incidental score.[32] Instead, he made use of sound effects and sparse source music in counterpoint to calculated silences. He wanted to use the electroacoustic Mixtur-Trautonium to create the bird calls and noises. He had first encountered this predecessor to the synthesizer on Berlin radio in the late 1920s. It was invented by Friedrich Trautwein, and further developed by Oskar Sala into the Trautonium, which would create some of the bird sounds for this film.[33]
The director commissioned Sala and Remi Gassmann to design an electronic soundtrack.[32] They are credited with "electronic sound production and composition", and Hitchcock's previous musical collaborator, Bernard Herrmann, is credited as "sound consultant".
Source music includes the first of Claude Debussy's Deux arabesques, which Tippi Hedren's character plays on piano, and "Nickety Nackety Now Now Now" by folk musician Chubby Parker, which is sung by the schoolchildren.[34][35][36]
