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The Locus of Cool
Here’s what I think: We begin to compose by listening. We thrive on input. To the extent that we personalize that input—that we A) choose it carefully in the first place, and B) develop it into...
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Homework Assignment
Your mission, should you choose to accept it: Write a one-minute cue, with at least two rounds of feedback from someone else whose opinion you value—could be a loved one, could be the family pet. It’s...
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Heather Fenoughty: How to Get Your Mojo Back
Ever have those days where you just don’t feel like it? And no matter how much you stare at that blank sequencer page, the notes just aren’t forthcoming? And you wonder if you’ll ever get that li’l...
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Sum of the Parts
When we write library cues, we’re usually obliged to provide multiple versions: beyond the obvious FULL mix, we’ll include a NO MELODY mix, a PRC+SYNTH mix, a NO ORCH mix, and on and on. Besides the...
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Getting Past the Samples
Here’s something that goes somewhat against the grain of all the whiz-bang gadgetry we’re focusing on at the moment. Regardless of what Santa leaves beneath your technological tree this season, you’ll...
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Your Gear Will Not Save You
Gear is, in a word, awesome. And I mean that in the literal, original sense of the word. When I walk into my studio—especially now that I’ve done some gigs and accumulated some sample libraries—I have...
View ArticleSpotting Form
Spotting is the art of putting the music in the right place in the film and it an intrinsic part of being a good film composer. Spotting is about many things, such as mood and tone and musical style,...
View ArticleRyan Leach: Long Distance Scoring
Over the past few years I’ve had the opportunity to work with many talented filmmakers from across the country and around the world. Like in so many other fields, today’s technology has made it...
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Lydia Ashton: Inspiration
Since we are discussing “Going Pro” this month I wanted to touch on something that I believe is critical to being a professional: you need to be able to write no matter how you feel. A professional...
View ArticleThe Creative Tank
If you are anything like I am, you have many different ways in which you create. I think it is safe to say that we are all musically creative. We write, arrange, sketch, play, edit, perform, design,...
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Nan Avant: Themes, Melodies, Tunes: How Do You Begin?
There are certain elements of the process of finding and landing the gig that I really like. I may have a different view on this then other composers, but for myself, it’s part of what makes this whole...
View ArticleCaveats of Convenience: Pt. 1
I’m going to stray from the recent focus on “Working as a Team” and devote a few posts to some of the things I’ve observed film composers doing wrong lately. Of course, that statement in and of itself...
View ArticleWhat’s Original?
James Horner once said, “There are only 12 tones. There’s only so much you can do.” Interesting theory, but is it true? Some of you will say that Horner is just lazy. Hmm. Others will say, “He has a...
View ArticleIs Musical Form Relevant?
Jai Meghan’s recent Open Forum Friday article on “getting organized” got me thinking about a different way of organizing: How composers organize their ideas within a piece of music. According to...
View ArticleAll Due Respect to The Maestro
Here is a simple fact: None of us are the same. I’ll never have to worry about competing with John Williams. I know what you are thinking: “NO shit!” No, I mean it. John Williams will never sound like...
View ArticleIs “Score Design” Dead?
In what many consider to be the Bible of film composing, Fred Karlin’s “On the Track” (affliliate link), Jerry Goldsmith is quoted as saying that he was “never embarrassed to use a factory preset”. In...
View ArticleAre You Trying to be “Cool”?
I’m totally (!) a child of “retro”. I love old cheapo synthesizers, Stephen J. Cannell shows, and crappy-ADR’d eighties bombastic cinema. In fact, the cheesier it is, the more I’m probably going to...
View ArticleAn Approach to Finding Your Voice
Is it important to have a recognizable voice as a film or TV composer? Many have plenty of work without one, quite content being musical chameleons. But to be unique is something many musicians aspire...
View ArticleBig and Small, Part 1: How to Make Your Music Small
When it comes to film scoring, size definitely does matter. The trend in big-budget Hollywood films has been toward a bigger and bigger sound—enormous string and brass sections and 20-person percussion...
View ArticleValue Studies: A Painter’s Technique for Composers
[Thank you to David Kessler for permission to use the fantastic images and the initial inspiration.] Visual artists have it great. The number of books, techniques, methods and overall resources for...
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How to Use Chord Voicings Effectively – Part 1
There are nearly endless possibilities of how to make the same chord sound, and while some of them sound quite disastrous others have a stellar resonance and are reason for scrolling back in an audio...
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The Running Line in Orchestral Writing
A running line as an accompaniment is a traditional device in orchestral writing that is very well suited for today’s film score writing. As an example we will look at one of my favourite examples of...
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How to Create Tension with Climbing Scales
[Photo by Linus Bohman] Among the many primary functions of film music, tension is near the top of the list. Wether it’s to generate feelings of suspense, anticipation, or even a false sense of danger,...
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How to Use Chord Voicings Effectively – Part 2
After having a look at the fundamentals of chord voicings in Part 1, we’ll have a look at other important factors for good chord voicings. Another basic element of effective chord voicings are so...
View ArticleForget Tech, It’s About the Notes
I know this month’s theme is about technology and all the hot new gear out there, but I wanted to step back from all that and share a bit of wisdom I’ve learned the hard way: when you’re composing,...
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The Value of Television Music
As a rule I’m not a fan of cold-water opinion columns. You know the kind: “Here’s the hard, bitter truth about [insert choice of profession here].” The way I see it, more cold water (cold ink?) is...
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Houston Haynes: Delays, The Edge & Television Music
I’m designing some factory presets for an audio plugin, and in that process I’ve been considering how effects can impact the compositional flow of a cue. The right compressor settings can turn a flabby...
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Heather Fenoughty: Credits, Royalties, and Why We Should All Go Live In Europe
As much as I love and live for television drama, I’ve yet to actually compose for a single episode, and though deep down that’s really what I’d love to do, part of me wonders if extreme physical and...
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Jim Well: How Big, How Fast, and Just Plain How
Back to the School of Chops. You may recall from my July 15 article on WIVIs (Wallander Interactive Virtual Instruments) that I’ve been exploring orchestration and simultaneously honing my MIDI skills...
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Collaboration Between Director and Composer
Following on from the Top 10 Most Influential Scores of the Past Decade of last week, I’d like to take a look at how these scores, and many others have affected the creative output, as well as the...
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Heather Fenoughty: First-Time Collaboration
It’s a no-brainer that it’s easier to collaborate with previous clients than it is with new ones. • Communication flows freer and easier. • Trust is already developed. • Familiarity enables shortcuts...
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A Message from Our Founder (VIDEO)
It’s a new month around here and we have a ton of things to get to. But before we launch November at SCOREcastOnline.com into full swing, we thought to give you a preview of what to expect from the...
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Sheldon Mirowitz on the Creative Process
Berklee film scoring professor and composer Sheldon Mirowitz (Outside Providence, Missing in America) says, “There are two parts to creating. One is exploring and the other is culling. If you confuse...
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Brian Satterwhite: Making The Case for Music In Film
Some time ago I posed the question, “Why does film need music?” There were a lot of valued comments from the SCOREcast readership gauging the various reasons why the mechanics of filmmaking requires...
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What Could You Do?
This weekend I’m going to skip the preamble. You’ve read this column before; you know what we do here. So… start like this: go to a room of your home that’s not your studio. It’s probably easier (and...
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Pitfalls of the Creative Process
Composing is hard enough when it’s just you and the ideas in your head—last weekend’s Provocation should serve as an example of that. The problem gets even tougher when the music we write has to...
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The Creative Process Model
“Conditions for creativity are to be puzzled; to concentrate; to accept conflict and tension; to be born everyday; to feel a sense of self” – Erich Fromm I’ll be honest – I’ve only been composing a...
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Free Lecture with Craig Armstrong in Aberdeen, UK
SCOREcaster “Florian” posted this info in our Feedback area, and we thought we’d pass it on to all of you in the Aberdeen area on Wednesday night. Composer Craig Armstrong (World Trade Center, Plunkett...
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Are You Ready?
Before we get too far into this month’s topic of “Getting the Gig,” I just want to ask you, as this weekend’s Provocation, a simple question: Are you ready to get the gig? When I talk to film scoring...
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Making Money from Your Music: Part 2
So you’ve just finished a great cue, and the director decides he doesn’t like it at all – “scrap it, start again“. Well that was a bit of a waste of music wasn’t it? Not necessarily… Selling and...
View ArticleThe Brightest Light In The Room
I’m sure you’ve had this experience: you go to a party, a meeting or seminar, or maybe just an informal gathering of people — friends, work colleagues, folks out in the world. Inevitably there is one...
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Competing with Technological Assumptions
We have been reading great articles this month on how to stay competitive as a composer, but can technology or the latest sample library or monitors help you be competitive? It could, but it could also...
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More Bits, More People
Seems like there are a lot of ways to spend your money these days, often more money than may be coming in. What are the right choices to move your career forward? Here are a couple of contrasting...
View ArticleGetting a Little Queasy
Marc Shaiman will tell you that one of his best-known scores, for City Slickers, came into this world with more than its fair share of agony. One of the toughest parts to write was the famous...
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Delivery, Finaling and Changing the World
I’ve already outlined a few technical thoughts on delivery and “finaling” (whatever that is) in my Weekend Provocations this month… and I’ll continue to do so in the weeks to come. As I began to write...
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Delivering Film and TV Music
From a technical point of view, preparing music files for delivery according to your client’s requirements should be a pretty straightforward thing. Although every project is a little bit different,...
View ArticleShut Up and Score
I don’t spend a lot of time online. I’m sure I should, and I bet there is some self-appointed social networking “expert” out there that would scold me for my lack of attention to online marketing. I...
View ArticleOrchestration 101—Part 1
The idea behind our orchestration articles is neither to re-invent the wheel nor to overpopulate the net with yet another repetition of what has been written, re-written and written once again in...
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Jim Well: Something From Nothing: Anatomy of a Project
This article has nothing whatsoever to do with television, this month’s theme. As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t watch it – with the result that I just don’t have much to say. Instead, I’m going to...
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Brian Satterwhite: Manipulate Me, Please!
Over the past several years, a new word has entered the film music lexicon threatening the functional traditions the craft of scoring was built upon. This indiscriminate battle cry was practically...
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