music

by rosiehardy

Creativity. It’s all about, you know, like FREEDOM, Maaaaaan.

Have you ever sat there, ready to just dive in creatively, and you end up staring at your computer screen/writing pad, or with your instrument limp in your hands, and nothing happens?  You’ve got Tabula Rasa – the blank slate – you can do whatever you want.  What a terror!

To get the juices flowing, I might take a look at the gear – maybe I turn on my synth to get some ideas flowing. Holy crap, I’ve got 6 kazillion patches – too much to choose from! Scroll, audition, scroll, audition (…six hours later… still no music written).  I’m looking for a fence but all there is is horizon.

Oh, the oppressive quality of limitless options. In Space, there is no ‘up’.

Or maybe, you don’t get locked into the above, but you go and create and boy, it’s the same old song and dance – you are working from your comfort zone. You are boring yourself.

Maybe it’s time to build yourself a nice little sandbox!

If you prepare your for your creative work by setting some limitations, you will find that it can give you a sense of definition, direction.  You start to make consistent decisions from an anchored point, and you are then able to work more efficiently and with flow. Also, you are ‘free’ to color outside the lines, because you know where the lines are – and so, surprisingly, limitations help you create work that is fresher!

A studio is an absolute labyrinth of possibilities – this is why records take so long to make because there are millions of permutations of things you can do. The most useful thing you can do is to get rid of some of those options before you start.

Brian Eno said that, the super-genius that he is.  He also goes on to say:

One of my mottoes is that if you want to get unusual results, work fast and work cheap, because there’s more of a chance that you’ll get somewhere that nobody else did. Nearly always, the effect of spending a lot of money is to make things more normal.

Cut it out!

Before you start working, try and think of a bunch of things you are NOT going to use, and ways of working you will NOT fall back on. The further you move from your comfort zone, the more unusual result you will get, or, the more CREATIVE a result you’ll get. You are going to force yourself to think interesting.

Parameterize!

Think of some unusual restrictions to put on yourself. This is one of the most interesting aspects of creative collaborations, especially in film music; it presents it’s own set of limitations – you are creating work that supports already created work, within the framework of the story, and the directors vision. I also love working with directors who have no, or only a limited knowledge of music. They will suggest things you would never have thought of on your own, maybe even crazy ideas. Run with it! And if you are working alone, on your own project, try and think of some things you can box yourself in with. Get rid of some of your options. Don’t use stuff you know will result in the ’same old sound’.

Check your options at the door – you are going to use ONLY a woodwind section, one synth patch, accordion, and a delay. Now go make an awesome film score. Think that sounds crazy? Check out the work Giacchino did for ‘Lost’ – his palette: small string section, trombones, and a harp. Pretty unique, effective, and memorable score, right? Or how about the brilliant choice to have Neil Young score ‘Dead Man’ with just an electric guitar, improvised live while watching the film.

Commit!

Be courageous! Print that effect! Lay down that track and stick to it! See if you can go with an open “It works – use it” mentality. Having pre-determined strategy for what you are ‘allowed’ to do will help your decision making tremendously. Does it fit within the framework you created? Good – do it!

Do not collect weapons or practice with weapons beyond what is useful.

- Miyamoto Musashi, the Dokkodo

Make it about your creativity and intellect, not about the gear. Avoid getting too many samplers, sequencers, plugins, synths, toys, gizmos and gadgets. Avoid the short-lived drug addicted high of buying new gear for it’s own sake, and using that as an excuse to keep you from being creative. Don’t get stuck in software learning curves instead of being creative. Too much gear can muck up your sound and serve only to make you sound like the latest thing – ‘hollywoodizing’ your sound.

These examples are mostly related in terms of music, but they apply to ALL creative fields, esp. filmmaking which is particularly subject to Option Overload (though usually constrained by budget). See how your options, techno-lust and safe-working-methods might be holding you back from being your creative best.

Cut a vital connection!

Do you have any cool ways of working? Let’s hear about them!

Photo by Craig Elliott

Don’t be ashamed of your own ideas. Most musicians get applauded for sounding like someone else. People try something out that they think is exciting, and everyone looks a little unsure. Then they play an old James Brown riff and everyone’s saying: ‘Wow! That’s what we want!’ Most of the time musicians are being encouraged to sound recognizable. What I’m doing [as a producer] is encouraging them at the points when they’re not.
- Brian Eno

Who Are You?

An aspect of being an artist is the path to finding your voice. Your ‘voice’ is your signature, your ‘thing’, that which you get known for, something to which you become associated. Sometimes, even, it’s a schtick. If you think of any successful artist, someone who stood the test of time, you’ll note one particular trait – they had a unique voice. They did something no-one else did, or they did something far better than anyone else. This is something you want to cultivate, for a number of reasons.

Karma Chameleon

Composers working for media have a special challenge in this area. Generally, you are expected to be aware of, and be able to compose in, any style imaginable – NOW. I’ve scored an episodic show where I went from comic opera to Joe Pass jazz, then to purposely cheesy PSA music to porn, 50’s bubblegum pop, to copping Prokofiev ballet, then to afro-cuban, and even more. To have these styles in your arsenal, and to be able to say ‘yes’ when asked to genre-hop, is a necessary skill especially when you are getting established.

It’s your thing – do what you want to do

Being versed in many styles is great for your musicianship and breadth. However, this is not your ‘voice’. It’s unlikely you’ll get very far specializing in ALL styles – it’s a bit of a contradiction in terms! What you want is for people to think of you as the person who is the go-to for “X” , but also a capable and professional expert who is also able to adapt and stretch to meet any demand.

You need to differentiate yourself from all those people who are doing the stuff everyone else is doing!

Right now, there are thousands of emerging composers out there, who are trying to emulate the heroes du jour – John Williams, John Powell, Danny Elfman, and Hans Zimmer, to name a few. Some argue that if a producer or director want John Williams, they’ll call him. WELL… yes, and no. No, if they don’t have 1/2 a million in their budget for John’s fee. So yes, the guys who can do ‘that sound’ will get calls.

However, there are two problems with this scenario:

1. The only way to compete in this area is to be THE BEST at it.

2. This is a limiting way to build a career. You might become known as the person who can do Zimmer, and when that goes out of vogue, or worse, when someone wants something original, you could lose.

It’s a short term career move.

Don’t imitate it, don’t abandon it – FILTER IT

This will happen naturally anyways – but try to cultivate your sound when you work. Create a mental environment condusive to this – this means that you have to stop judging your work when it really starts to SOUND LIKE YOU, and instead, recognize it as a good thing and push forward in those crazy directions! You have to develop an awareness of what you do that makes you unique. It doesn’t have to be the most insane thing ever, either – it can be simple. My thing is the guitar – I want to create scores using the guitar in unusual ways. Even if no guitar sounds appear in the final recording, I will use the guitar to compose – and THAT will end up helping to give the score it’s signature – because it’ll be different had I done it another way. I ‘own’ the guitar as a tool, it is part of me and my process.

Do Something Different

Be a little more daring. Try something you think might not work. Pick up a new instrument. I’m getting into instruments from around the world – the Bansuri is my current favorite. This year I plan to learn how to play violin, and eventually I’m going to get a Guzheng. Getting into a different way of playing can really open some doors to different ways of working, new ideas, and a unique path. Study a different style of music, study different composers. Open up – and filter what you learn. Don’t get too bogged down in details – it’s not an academic excercise. Even if you can’t play well, you will come up with some ideas that are unlike what you’d normally develop. Learn fast and take what you learn and make it your own. Each instrument seems to naturally lend itself to doing different things, which is why sometimes you can break out of a rut by composing on an instrument different than what you usually use.

The Devil is in the Sampler

One of the weird things about being a composer these days is watching a film or TV show, and hearing a sample you recognize. I KNOW that one “Thunder Ensemble” hit with the singing bowl ringing overtone from StormDrum2. I even know what velocity level it was triggered at. It’s a damn good sample, too. That’s a little disconcerting when I’m using it for another project – makes it feel a little… cheap. Like cheating. Now, I’m not against samplers, libraries, sounds, and effects, etc. But it’s worthwhile to invest some time into how you can differentiate, even in this area. How your sound, is… well, your SOUND – like a guitar player has their particular sound. Stevie Ray Vaughn, Jimie Hendrix, Al Di Meola – these guys play different and they also SOUND different – it’s the TONE. Experiment with your samples. Tweak them. Use them “incorrectly” – play instruments out of their compass or pitch range. Use effects.

A Balancing Act

The one caveat in all of this, of course, is that it is important to stay current. Like the ability to compose in any style, you will be asked to sound en vogue. But it is possible to balance this with a striving to be unique, different… memorable. One of a kind. A Go-To.

All things under the Sun

This kind of thinking naturally extends to your whole music business, aka your BRAND. How you present yourself – visually, personally, the myth or legend, or story you create about yourself. This all gives a context to the music and how it is perceived, and can add to your value as a composer. It’s how well you can sell yourself and your ideas, the kind of music you produce. If you build yourself to be a special kind of composer, then people will see you that way and will look to you to deliver your specialty. I will be looking at the idea of ‘myth building’ in a later blog.

Speakeasy

How do you differentiate? Do you have some great examples of artists making it work for them? (one of my favorites is Carter Burwell). How do you strike a balance between doing it all V.S. doing one thing?

Photo by Sam Javanrouh

Here’s an interesting little experiment.  I like to call it that, because it’s how I feel about it.  When someone offers an idea, my philosophy is to say ‘ok, let’s try it’ before nixing it outright – unless I have direct experience with something similar which did not work in the expected way.  Of course, when you are working on a film as the composer, you are working collaboratively with the director/producer.  You are going to be taking a LOT of suggestions!  And that’s not a bad thing – I always have a gut feeling about the people I work with – I know it will work or not, I know it will be an enjoyable challenge or an unmitigated drag.  If it works, I love getting ‘notes’ – in most cases, the work I subsequently produce is better, and I often learn something.

This particular clip was interesting, because it was intended as a ‘teaser’.  But it functions in many ways like an opening/credit sequence – a young woman is shown lovingly preparing food for a dish to be served at a banquet.  The visuals are beautiful and sensual, and it has a very peaceful quality.  The film however, deals with themes of family, pride, and death/loss, and how we don’t always see each other for who/what we really are, and sometimes can’t communicate what we really need.  It’s a dramatic feature, and these themes are very powerful in the film.  The challenge was, as I was only scoring this short teaser – should the music reflect the visuals, or speak to the underlying themes/story, or was there a way to do both?

Enough words.  Let’s take a listen to Version 1:

Note that I did not send this to the director – at first.  I decided it played too upbeat – it worked to the visuals of the piece, but if it were an opening, it would give a completely false impression of what the film was going to be about.  “Practical Magic” springs to mind (a musical guilty pleasure), as a reference I thought of when I reviewed the music against picture.  More on what the director said about this version shortly, as they did not hear it until after Version 2.  It’s decidedly major, with a rhythmic figure in the strings that gives it a ‘running’ movement, and has a slightly mysterious, searching melody based on the Lydian scale.

Here is Version 2:

I took the basic structure and figures from V1 and made the harmonic progression minor.  It wasn’t a straight inversion; some of the original progression just didn’t function the same way.  I managed to get some interesting movement in some parts, and I liked the development of interplay between sections – I wanted it to sound like a conversation – a back and forth kind of thing that would mirror the conversations/arguments that would happen in the film.  Each section wants to ‘be heard’.  After watching the fantastic 2003 film ‘Zatoichi’, I took the idea of matching actions on-screen with stylized rhythmic motifs – so when she is peeling a vegetable or chopping garlic, the woodblock and shaker figures come up.  I thought this might inject a bit of humour back into the scene, as the film is really about hope, and has it’s funny moments too.  The theme of death and loss is addressed as the music climaxes in intensity, becoming very mournful.  It then returns to a quiet simplicity, the french horn line representing quiet hope and acceptance of some truths.

The director’s feeling was that the string figure made it seem too urgent, and that the overall music, while beautiful, seemed in conflict with the calm energy of the scene (a gentle jazz tune was used to temp the scene).  Overall, the music seemed too dramatic and dense – when sparse and intimate was what she wanted.  I thought, hmmm – maybe my first instinct was off – maybe she will like the first version better, as it addresses her concerns – I fired that off, commenting that I felt it spoke to the character of the cook – youthful, optimistic, confident.  To my slight surprise, she felt as I did about version 1, and went a step further – she felt it was very “mainstream”, and reminded her of the Tom Hanks vehicle, ‘Big’.  At that moment, the term “mainstream” sounded like a dirty word to me.

We talked, and decided that the basic material comprising version 2 was good and I would work from that, to produce something slightly more spare, less urgent and suspenseful, with more of a focus on the solo instruments.  There was a lot of material and ideas in V2 that I really liked – the rhythmic string motif being one.  I moved towards a compromise; here is Version 3:

In this version, the music holds off a bit until the visuals set a bit of the pace.  The tempo of the piece was reduced from 120 to 110 bpm – to bring a bit of calm.  Instead of the urgent string motif, I have only the harp (playing half time from V2) and a solo flute and cello.  When the rhythmic motif does come in, it’s for a few bars only, and at a reduced dynamic – the strings alternate to long, legato bowing instead of the staccato they played throughout in the previous versions.  I reduced the intensity of the build, and in general re-arranged some of the sections to play in lower, darker registers, to lessen height of the climax.  I was very happy with this version, and felt it improved not only how it worked to picture, but it became much more interesting as a piece – it had more variation in rhythm, texture, and dynamic.

I got final approval from the director on this version, with a few small changes – the harp would come in 2 bars early as an introduction to the melody, and the first solo would be taken by the violin instead of the flute – the flute reminded her too much of those warbly soundtracks for the National Film Board of Canada’s 1970’s nature documentaries.  It was quite humorous – definitely a product of our age – she said, “I don’t know about the flute… it kind of reminds me of…” and I said “Wait, don’t say it, I already know”.

All in all, I enjoyed this process of carving away at the block.  If I were on my own, I would likely have stopped at version 2 and begun the process of finessing the piece.  I can’t deny, however, that the final product is qualitatively better than version 2, and I’m very pleased by that.  I enjoy the collaborative process – it’s not for everyone; you really have to let your ego go while maintaining your position as an expert in your field.  It’s very important that you find a way to effectively communicate with your director/producer/client, and that you keep focused on win-win solutions to all problems.  If you can do this, it’s a very rewarding experience where you get to do good work, learn something, fulfill (some) of your own artistic desires, and make your client happy (which has positive side effects for you as well!).

To hear the final piece and see the recording session of the orchestra at CBC studios, click here:

http://adrianelliscomposer.com/AdriansBlog/?p=116

How it all got started...

Caterpillar: Who are YOU?
Alice: This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. I — I hardly know, sir, just at present — at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.

- Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

I think this a fantastic question to ask yourself as a creative person, and I’ll be addressing it in an upcoming post.  But for now, let’s start with actual introductions, and we’ll leave out the tripped out hookah smoking polypeds for now.

Hi!  (yea, that’s a good start…)

My name is Adrian, and I’m a composer, producer, and all around music-creative guy.  My primary area of focus is creating music for media – film, television shows, web stuff, and even video games.  In that sense, I also consider myself a filmmaker and storyteller.  I work as a craftsman, helping to bring life to someone’s vision.  I’m drawn to do this because I love the collaborative spirit, I love the visual medium, and I love analysing and telling stories.  Obviously, I’m also deeply passionate about all aspects of music, and can geek out about recording technology, guitar playing, and production.  I also adore working with other musicians, either in recording my own works or helping them see their own vision come to fruition.

So… what am I DOING here??

Sharing and connecting!  Imagine that – on the Internet of all places!  I know, it’s a terrible idea.

I thought it would be fun to share some thoughts, working ideas, insights and stories – both my own and from others.  I’m looking forward to hearing from YOU – the filmmakers, web-heads, musicians, composers, producers, fans, trolls – and hear your stories, responses, and insights.  Get in touch with me, or post response – also, tell me what you’d like to hear about or see!

But wait… what?

Here are some things you will find coming up:

Videos! I’ll be documenting some of my projects as they unfold, everything from composing to recording, from the studio to the sound stage, and everything in between – it’ll be an intimate look at the mysterious “creative process” you’ve read so much about.  You’ll also find videos that delve into the technical side of the craft.  I’m hoping that it will be interesting to both those who are musically inclined, as well as those who work in other fields.

Podcasts! for download and listening on your favorite YouPod-a-maphone.  Collections of my tracks for personal use (sounds kinda dirty, doesn’t it) and episodes where I do a little talking about the tracks, what they were for, how the collaboration worked, and insights and anecdotes.

Blogs! web based text-talky things, where an ‘author’ goes on and on about ’stuff’.  I heard you liked media, so I put some media in your media so you can enjoy your media while you… wait, uh… never mind.  Here are some future topics:

1. Using limitations to enhance creativity

2. Creating your ‘myth’ or ‘legend’

3. The composer as filmmaker

4. Creative rituals, creative time

5. Creating your niche, standing out, being different

6. Stuck?  Ways to break out of your own mold

… and plenty more (right, brain?  Say yes… good).

See you next time!

Cheers,

Adrian