A few months ago, I wrote a piece called GAZING AT THE NIGHT SKY for fun and as I needed a piece to try out a few new sample libraries that I bought at that time so I just had some fun writing an adventurous little composition.
However, a few weeks ago I got the opportunity to fill a slot i...
2020-03-30 08:08:58 +0000 UTC View PostAs you might know, I made it possible to join a tier on my Patreon where I give you a monthly feedback on a composition you send me.
Jordain Wallace is one of these patrons and has agreed to make the exchange I had with him t...
2020-03-27 09:24:27 +0000 UTC View PostThere is one general phenomenon that can be observed in much of the musician's and composer's community which is that musicians often create music for musicians rather than for a general audience.
This is a general philosophical dilemma with music and practically any art form: the decision ...
2020-03-26 09:04:14 +0000 UTC View Post
Here's a rather quick Walkthrough through my orchestral template in Studio One talking about the general approaches as well as the sample libraries that I'm using.
This is my first ever screencast so I'm still in a learning process here but it will hopefully improve over time :)
If yo...
2020-03-25 08:51:20 +0000 UTC View PostAs my composition walkthrough of WE HAVE TO SHAKE THEM OFF was very well received, I'd like to know which piece you would like me to walk through next. Here are the candidates, please vote below:
GAZING AT THE NIGHT SKY: 2020-03-23 13:19:35 +0000 UTC View Post
This is the final part of digging through the score sheet before we move on to the mockup/production part of this cue. As with all the other parts, I will use score reductions here for clearer overview. The complete score sheet to cross reference is attached at the bottom of the article.
He...
2020-03-23 09:36:20 +0000 UTC View Post
I recently had the chance to record this piece with real orchestra. I originally wrote it as a side project for fun last summer. The idea was to write a hommage to the great 80s/90s scores and create some child like sense of awe and wonder that I personally connect with movies from this era.
<... 2020-03-20 09:05:59 +0000 UTC View PostGlissando and Portamento both describe a playing technique that involve an audible transition (slide) from one note to the next note in a melodic line. There are several common misconceptions about these techniques and their notation as well as their execution in "real life" that need some clarif...
2020-03-18 09:25:49 +0000 UTC View PostIn the last part I mentioned already that the minor 9th is a problematic interval and should generally be avoided in voicings unless you have a plausible reason for it. Unfortunately, this interval can happen quite quickly in quite a few chord types and particularly when you don't take care about...
2020-03-16 08:56:42 +0000 UTC View PostCertain instruments in the orchestra have a preference for certain key signatures which either sound particularly good on these instruments or are easy to read and therefore have a lower stress factor when sight reading which allows to concentrate more on other elements of the music.
Unfort...
2020-03-13 09:46:58 +0000 UTC View Post
Here's one of these pieces I wrote as a fun project on the side. This time it dives into a Jazz idiom centering around a full blown Big Band. It starts off with a sneaky feel to it and transitions into a frentic double time "chase sequence" towards the end.
The score (attached below) ...
2020-03-12 09:21:17 +0000 UTC View PostIn some occasions, particularly in busy action/adventure scoring with a high hit point density, it is sometimes desirable to sacrifice some hit points that you would normally hit and play through them with the music. This can have three reasons:
1. The sheer frequency of hit points makes it...
2020-03-11 09:26:21 +0000 UTC View Post
The passage starting at bar 58 sets up to lead all musical ideas to a consequential end. The idea of this passage is to not introduce any more new musical material but lead the previously established ideas to their highest energy version.
As always, the full score is attached for cross refe...
2020-03-09 08:40:15 +0000 UTC View PostIn an ideal scenario, at least in rather traditional 4-part writing, every voice of a composition should have its own plausible melody or at least proper voice leading while still serving its function in the vertical structure (e.g. providing the necessary chord tone to fill up the chord). This i...
2020-03-06 10:35:26 +0000 UTC View PostAs soon as you get the chance to work with a real orchestra for a larger project, it becomes increasingly tricky to do all the work yourself. Outsourcing is key in such situations and most composers like to outsource the orchestration part.
There is a common confusion about what is orchestr...
2020-03-05 07:46:08 +0000 UTC View PostAfter we had a closer look at the management of the lower registers in the last two parts, in this part we will begin to have a closer look at how to manage more complex chords. So the big topic here will be "Extended Harmony". If you are unfamiliar with this concept, maybe hold off reading this ...
2020-03-03 08:43:37 +0000 UTC View PostA common question many learning composers ask themselves but also discuss quite frequently on the internet is to whether one needs to get a degree from a music university in order to become a successful composer.
This question is definitely valid and there is no general answer to it but wit...
2020-03-02 08:08:14 +0000 UTC View PostFirst of all I have to say a huge thank you to all new and existing patrons! I'm totally overwhelmed by your support and the fact that this community is growing so fast. We've more than doubled in February which is totally amazing.
I'm really glad that the content seems to ...
2020-02-28 16:21:19 +0000 UTC View Post
This part of the walkthrough is also available for the $1 and $5 Patrons as a thank you for your support over the last month!
The next section of the piece falls back on a little more traditional harmonic approach. The idea here was to create a steady pulse for a while and a sort of "fighti...
2020-02-27 09:36:11 +0000 UTC View PostMusic has a tremendous power to guide emotional responses of the audience. This is of course one of the biggest reasons why music is used at all in film. In fact many of the iconic emotional moments in popular movies wouldn't be as iconic without the music.
A great example is this video whi...
2020-02-25 09:17:13 +0000 UTC View PostAs I wrote in the last part, the handling of the Low Interval Limits is pretty straight forward:
You basically check all the intervals in your voicing whether it stays within the limits mentioned a...
2020-02-24 09:15:00 +0000 UTC View PostThe orchestral string section has a few sonic properties that set it apart from the rest of the orchestral sections.
One of them is the incredible homogeneity of their sound. The sound quality of strings practically doesn't change over the entire range of the section, but also the individua...
2020-02-20 10:01:57 +0000 UTC View Post
After the initial statement of the action passage as discussed in the last part, the orchestra comes to a brief moment of relative rest. I will again use reductions here, you can compare it to the score sheet in the attachment at the bottom of the article.
Bars 25-27
...
2020-02-19 08:59:03 +0000 UTC View PostAfter recently having dived deeper into why not to double thirds in a chord too extensively, this time I'd like to shed some light at the infamous fifth and octave parallel avoidance rule.
Unfortunately this is another of these rules that we just learn to accept without asking why. We do th...
2020-02-17 08:22:50 +0000 UTC View PostThe management of the lower registers is one of the most essential elements that define whether a voicing sounds good or not. This register is a two sided sword. On the one hand using it properly will result in incredibly rich, sonorous and warm sounding voicings and just create harmonic situatio...
2020-02-14 08:28:50 +0000 UTC View PostAn undeniable development over the last decades has been that movies have become increasingly louder. With the advent of surround sound and THX standards in cinemas in the 90s plus the general technical advancement of recording and sound reproduction the dynamic range that is being used in the mo...
2020-02-13 09:26:49 +0000 UTC View PostIn every artistic work for hire job there is always a gap between two points that is unpaid. These two points are the distance between the client being happy and the artist being happy.
In an ideal world these two points shouldn't be too far apart but unfortunately reality looks sligh...
2020-02-12 09:10:33 +0000 UTC View Post
Bar 19 starts the actual "chase sequence". As I mentioned earlier, I wanted to create a sense of unpredictability and yet keep some strucutural elements that hold it together and take the listener by the hand.
Constant meter and emphasis changes are a great tool for keeping things "unpredic...
2020-02-10 08:42:19 +0000 UTC View Post
I tend to always have a "fun project" next to my regular work that I can come back to when inspiration or joy with these other jobs is not that high. This little adventure cue I wrote on the side over several weeks, whenever I felt like it. Still it was a lot of fun to write. I usually collect th...
2020-02-09 13:26:05 +0000 UTC View PostWhen writing a solo for a particular instrument or section, you need to know a few certain things.
First, any important solo that needs to stand out should always go to the first chair of the section. You shouldn’t let the 3rd horn player play a solo instead of the 1st horn player. ...
2020-02-07 09:07:02 +0000 UTC View Post