Monday, October 3rd Twitch Stream

I recently have had a lot of success using LoopBack to route audio from Logic to OBS, and so I've finally gotten to the point where I can start streaming again. The usual caveats apply: I'm not 100% sure that I can stick to any sort of schedule and often, the technical requirements of running 40-50GB of samples in my template can make streaming impossible, but I had a fun time this morning and would love to keep it up.

My next planned streaming day is Wednesday, October 5th, in the morning-ish time, MST. Hope to see you there!

New Concert Works Page Up!

For some time I've been meaning to set up a page for my "serious" concert music-- with the rebuilding of the home page this weekend, I've finally gotten around to doing it. At that link, you'll find some of my latest concert music, including an SATB setting of Byron's She Walks in Beauty, Like the Night.

The synthetic renderings on unperformed works aren't the best-- they aren't the worst either-- but I don't really have time to go into my DAW and program several 7-to-20-minute orchestral works, so I've instead rendered them using NotePerformer, which is one of the best Sibelius sound-sets I've come across. (Thanks to B.J. Derganc for the recommendation!)

I've also included perusal scores so that you can read along-- nothing too out of the ordinary.

If you or your ensemble are interested in performing them, drop me a line! I'll probably let you do it for (gasp!) free!

"I don't do much else. I just write music."

I watched Alexandre Desplat win his first Academy Award this evening. When they announced the winner, I thought to myself oh, Desplat won again and it wasn't until I looked up his Wikipedia page that I realized that it was his first  award after seven nominations, which, to say the least, must have been a frustrating road to success. 

I was googling around about Desplat's career, and I came across this page at the VSL site where you can view a fairly in-depth interview with him. Its full of all sorts of interesting information, but the part that stuck out to me was at the very beginning, where they ask Desplat-- who's filmography is incomprehensible in its enormity-- how he is able to do so much film scoring, and he simply answers that its the only thing he does. A typical workday apparently starts at 6:30am and ends at midnight. "I don't really have a life," Desplat says to describe his routine. 

Of course, Desplat does have a life-- its just a life that's consumed with producing beautiful, well-crafted music, and nothing else. He's well on his way to becoming the film composer version of Sukiyabashi Jiro, a Japanese sushi chef who has elevated his culinary art so high that there's no one left to compare him to. With that kind of perspective, it seems to me that it is the Desplats and Jiros of the world that actually have lives-- lives worth living, at least.

I see a lot of people who want to write music for a living, and I get a fair number of people asking me-- a composer that's really only done a small amount of work, all things considered-- what my advice is for young composers. I've been meaning to write a blog post about it so that I can reference it rather than repeating myself over and over in email, and I guess this post is as good as any. So here goes:

Write every day. Never stop writing. Never stop making music. Every day you aren't composing, you're becoming a worse composer than the day before. It isn't easy (and I'll be honest, I haven't figured out how to be as consistent as I tell others to be), but it is the only way you will master the complex skills that it takes to produce a genuinely effective piece of orchestral music.

Write every day.

People will tell you to go to school and learn your art, and they're right, but there are a million composition majors in the world, but there aren't a million professional composers. They'll tell you to listen and learn from the greats, and they're right, but there's a lot more people visiting IMSLP and buying classical records every day than there are successful composers working in the game industry or Hollywood. 

Write. Every. Day.

People will tell you that you need great equipment, and that does help, but all the sample libraries, computing power, and audio gear in the world can't make a bad melody into a good one. They'll tell you that you have to find the work first, then you can start learning how to be a composer, but there's a lot fewer job openings than there are days in your life.

Write.

Every.

Day.

It seems scary-- like you're going to give up too many other things to meet your writing goals, but you won't. Like Desplat, you're not giving up your life, you're finding it. I can attest that there's nothing as satisfying as being good at what you do-- especially when "what you do" is to produce something beautiful, moving, and, if you're lucky, important. So make something beautiful today.

And then do it again tomorrow.

"Mirror"

In his final hours, a dying man reflects on his life. Sharing stories with his son, he soon must confront his darkest fears. "Mirror" is a part of "The Seventh Spectrum" anthology by New Renaissance Pictures. There are many spectrums of reality. Ours is the seventh.

The Apex

I've always thought the Apex cue should sound like a bunch of gorillas that smashed up a DeBeers commercial, so that's what we went for:

If you'd like to watch the marathon 4-hour composing session, including the grunts, here's the stream:

(Note the audience participation! Thanks to @Sacheverell for the use of his voice!)

Floran!

Tonight, I started (and finished) work on a new Floran cue. Still don't have a title, and we're going to be sending it over to Solatrus to see what magic he'd like to add, but in the meantime, here's the first export:

You can watch the composition process here:

Prism of Love

I have a friend named Brian Lemos-- who I went to college with-- who always beat me out at college film festivals for "best score". And for a reason-- this guy writes amazing music. He recently wrote a score to one of the Seventh Spectrum Films  called "Prism of Love". It has fantastic  music-- seriously, we're talking like, Michael Giacchinno 's score to Up, only better:

I know, right?

Threnody

"Valley of Mist"

A few years ago, I worked with some filmmakers on a set of interconnected stories that were to be told in a series of short films. I wrote some music for titles, and scored a few of the films. That was more than 2 years ago, but those films are finally starting to come online. The first two are up on Hulu, including "Valley of Mist", which features my music:

The year is 1092 A.D. Separated from their tribe, two Chumash Indians are lost in the mountains. Realizing they're being followed by a mysterious creature, the prospect of finding their people becomes more hopeless and their love is put to the test. "Valley of Mist" is a part of "The Seventh Spectrum" anthology by New Renaissance Pictures.

Hylotl

Someone mentioned that I'd never posted the revised Hylotl cue. Let's fix that too!