Friday, September 28, 2007

Reel TV tracks

I wrote these for a new company called Reel TV, that hosts and streams films- sort've like a professional-level YouTube for filmmakers, film students, actors, corporate videos, etc. They just wanted some one-minute tracks for their members to get as a perk when they joined their site. It was the most fun I've had at my job yet. They sent us examples of songs in the style they wanted, and we were free to make the rest up.

Alone With the Monster
Their example had hard-rock guitars over a funky beat. It reminded me of the music in my new Prince of Persia video game, so I added bird calls and sitar.

Desertscape
Straight-up Middle Eastern music. Their example had a vocalist, which I left room for in the beginning, and the empty space ended up being the best part.

Speedily
For two days, I kept trying to write action music, and it would turn out all labored and introverted. I finally finished this, but I think it still sounds a little stale.

Swat Team
I did this action theme in half the time of the last one, and it's the first thing I wrote that my boss didn't edit at all! I'm pleased at how consistent the concept is- like I can hear that it all came out in one piece.

X-Bump
My example was electronica, with sudden odd changes in texture. Totally new territory for me, which was fun.

Movie Appreciation: Rashomon

Watched Kurosawa's Rashomon for the first time a few nights ago. A fascinating and cool movie in many ways. The music is by Fumio Hayasaka. Sarah suggested that it was very Tchaikovsky, and it reminded me a lot of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf- interesting to remember how close Russia is to Japan. It's orchestral fantasy music with tons of featured woodwinds- much closer to "classical music" than fantasy music is these days. He must have written a solid 30 minutes of music, too, with very little repetition. Clearly recorded in the 50's- lots of bassoons squawking like shawms.

First song on Productiontrax

So the other website we run at work is Productiontrax, which is a royalty-free media library. Hundreds of contributors sell the rights to their music and other media through Productiontrax, and thousands of people who need stock media (indie filmmakers, video game designers, website designers, etc.) come there to buy the rights to music, photography, sound effects, and video. It's all sold royalty-free, at whatever price the contributors set.

Anyway, I'm excited that I finally stayed after work and scored a cue of my own to put up there. It's just a short, gentle thing for strings. I had just seen Peter Jackson's first Lord of the Rings movie, and was seeing in my head the overhead establishing shot of the hobbit village. I should go back and see what Howard Shore did there- probably something a little more lively.

Pastoral Village

There are tons more of these written down in my file cabinet at home, and hopefully sometime I'll stay at work late and do some more.

Last few week's Spiritrax work

These are links to the most recent songs I've arranged for Spiritrax. You have to choose a key on the preview player before it'll start playing. You'll hear an audio watermark along with the song, which just prevents people from stealing it. My boss usually gives me the basic idea for these arrangements, then I do the arrangement and play in the parts, and then he'll check the final mix and occasionally add another instrument. So they're not all mine, but they're mostly mine, and I'm proud of them.

Oh Holy Night (orchestral)

A Mighty Fortress Is Our God (hip-hop)

How Great Thou Art (soulful)

Much more to come!

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Why a blog now?

It's been six months since I moved to Arizona. For the last four years in Boston, I was teaching elementary general music, basing most of my curriculum on my Kodaly training. When I moved, I decided not to take a teaching job, and instead to try to make a career of being a musician. I miss teaching a lot, but not enough to go back just yet.

Anyway, I'm definitely a professional musician now, and thought that friends and family might like to to check this site occasionally to hear what I've been doing lately. Let me know if it's useful to you, or if it's not. It's been fun for me so far.

I now work at One Light Music Productions, Inc., and my job title is Composer/Arranger. I just had my six-month review, and my boss and I agreed that I was doing an excellent job. We create custom music for various clients, including a karaoke record label in New York. We also run two big websites: Productiontrax, which is a major player in the royalty-free music and media industry, and Spiritrax, which sells religious karaoke music.

I used to dream during college about being a professional composer/arranger, but I could never afford the computer gear that professional composers are expected to have these days. So getting paid to write music on someone else's equipment is a real dream come true.

 

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