Category: Production music

Once again, Greg has been hooked by a call for recordings. This time, it looked like this:

Heartfelt and nostalgic instrumentals: Music needed for film scene. Instrumental Classical or cinematic music tracks. The music should be heartfelt and nostalgic. The song will be used in a scene where a man reflects back on memorable moments as he packs up his deceased wife’s belongings. This is a very emotional moment in the movie and the music should help with the delicate balance of loss and nostalgia the man is feeling in this scene. Instrumentals only. Slow to medium-slow tempo.

I took the challenge, not only because I thought I could complete this request by the cut off of midnight tonight, but because I’m trying to build my catalog for production libraries. A sparse, reflective instrumental could prove useful. It was also an opportunity to see what I could get out of Logic’s orchestral patches. So far it seems to be successful. My sister pronounced it lovely, but sad. My mother said, “that’s nice.” And Theo breaks out in melodramatic wailing every time he hears it.

So grab a kleenex, people, because I leave no heart string unplucked on this one: Nostalgic Recollections MP3

Yesterday, I received an email:

Our client is looking to license a song for an upcoming TV commercial.  They need a song with lyrics that have the mention of “Home” in it, preferably where it’s resolving in the musical phrase (at the end of a line). The spot will be witty and humorous.  Be creative with it; it could be classic rock, folk, any genre is in play really.  There are two :15 spots, but we encourage you to submit pieces that are longer, :30 up to full songs.

I’ve been trying my best not to look at these, but I did. And I remembered that last week I had blown off some steam by playing around with a mic and some delay effects, and had ended up with a rhythmic “home” sounding phrase that was oddly compelling. Some ideas were floating around my head as I drove home yesterday.

This morning, I tried my best to ignore the ideas that continued to bounce around my brain, but finally I gave in. All told I spent about 2 hours from idea to completion. (“Sounds like it” you say.) I have no great expectation that this will get chosen for the commercial. If I were a betting man, I’d say that it will be another in a string of ignored recordings (ignordings?). But failed experiments can teach you something, right?

Take a listen to my latest failed experiment, “Home” and let me know what I should learn from it.

As I’ve begun my journey into world of production music, I’ve thought through my existing composition catalog to see if there’s anything that could be re-tooled as commercial music beds or movie scenes. So when I saw a call for music to introduce a news cast, I remembered “The First Song.”

“The First Song” was one of the first scores I wrote. I had been writing lots of songs, but hadn’t composed much instrumental music and hadn’t written out anything in score form for a full ensemble. It was fun to dig up this piece from 1987 and see a wet-behind-the-ears Greg run the piece into the ground within the first 20 measures.

But there were still some things I liked about it, so I revisited it this week and turned it into a recording that could be used as music for a newscast, opening credits of a TV drama, or a modern fanfare. Soon I’ll slice and dice sections of it into self-contained units that can be used for 30 and 60 second commercials. For now you can listen to the whole enchilada in MP3 form.

When I lived in Pittsburgh I was part of a men’s organization called the Rascals, Rogues and Rapscallions. It was an awesome enclave of pseudo intellectualism and cigar smoking. I, of course, couldn’t help but write music for our meetings. In fact, the Rascals’ website is now named after one of my songs (http://thatinterestingthing.org/).

One of things I did at the time was to make a rough animation of the Rascal flag, and of course, it included a brief soundtrack. It was, to tell the truth, quite a low budget affair. You can check out the original animation and soundtrack on YouTube.

For some reason, I stumbled across this file on my computer a few months ago. As I listened to the music that accompanies the animation, I realized that the music could be retooled for use as theme music, a la the NPR theme or Windows system start up music. (Ka-ching!) I recast it in a more orchestral vein and polished the recording to prepare it for submitting it to production music companies.

But first I’m giving you, my faithful listeners, a chance to hear what is now called “Ten Second Sunrise.”

My wife, Amy, works for Calvin College‘s interview program, InnerCompass, researching topics and preparing the hosts. A while back she convinced the producers of the show to interview Rob Bliss, mastermind behind such social experiments as Zombie walks and flying thousands of airplanes off downtown Grand Rapids buildings. At the time of the interview, he was organizing “Chalk Flood,” which brought young and old to their knees–to make chalk drawings on the sidewalks of the city. Very cool.

As work on the Bliss InnerCompass episode progressed, it became clear that the show needed to include a montage of footage from the Chalk Flood event, and that music was needed to match the fast-paced, playful feel of the footage. Even casual followers of this blog will realize that this was an opportunity I couldn’t refuse. But the turn-around time was tight–as in, it needed to be finished in a day or two or else the editors would use some non-descript, pre-packaged music like they use in used car ads.

I quickly decided that the music style should be frenetic minimalism. But I didn’t have time to compose one of my intricate, evolving pieces like Crossfade. It would probably have to be comprised of only percussion. As I thought about it, it struck me: what better percussion instrument could be used than pieces of chalk? Chalk produces a wonderful, visceral sandblock sound when you’re writing with it, and a clear ping when tapped against cement. So that morning I went out into the garage, set up my recording equipment, found the most resonant chalk in the boys’ collection, and began scratching/tapping out a rhythm that had been on my mind.

The result is the montage and music that begins at 1:12 of this online episode of InnerCompass.

When Groups Play – Inner Compass from Calvin College on Vimeo.