Much Ado about Somethin'

There are two main problems in film composition today:

1. People know what they like and it has already been written, but they would like something that sounds similar without infringing copyright

2. People want something completely new and forget that a composition doesn’t gain the imprint of association until it has been used with a film!

Between these two, composition can become an exercise in making clever forgeries. If there is no audible association between what someone knows they like and your piece, then there needs to be a clue in the title to help the client understand what “kind” of piece it is straight away. In either case, we borrow the approval of existing music by hanging onto the coat-tails of what is already known and approved.

In my free time I sometimes compose such loving pastiches and here are three:

Composition Commissions

After several months of working on projects for other people, it has been a lovely change to write some original music of my own.

My brother’s film company were hired to make a trailer for the local am-dram production of The Importance of Being Earnest. Due to its amateur status, a temp track could be used for their short-term promotion. But the performances, locations, costumes and filming were so good that a responsive score was desirable. Earlier this month I submitted my entry to the Zurich Film Festival Scoring Competition. I am still in the habit of writing for symphony orchestra and so I have written a lavish and racing soundtrack for the trailer. Film to follow!

Music for The Importance of Being Earnest

One of the joys of collaboration is being able to return favours. In this case, my wonderful sound engineer and maestro for mixing and mastering, has been producing the sound for Spiteful Puppet's "The Importance of Being Earnest". The story required a few very specific excerpts of music, as well as title music for the start and end. 

I have tried my hand at writing library music tracks and was, for about 3 years, signed to produce them on a regular basis. I know that the best you can produce is something so generic that it could fit as many purposes as possible because the more uses equals the greater profit. But it does not - in my opinion - serve well the film-maker or sound engineer who needs just the right bit of music to finish a great production. Hence "the favour". This was a voluntary job, arranging the wedding march as if being played by a ham on the piano or - as in the track below - a man tootling on the keys of the piano, with the slowness you experience trying to find the right notes and the burst of speed when you know. Totally "unmusical" but very human!

It goes to show that when you know what you want to write, it's ten times easier than trying to saying something that could produce a mood.