I’m officially neck-deep (and it seems like I’m about to drown) in this new commission for Bethel High School in Spanaway, Washington. The piece is due at the end of this month, and while everything is going according to schedule and I’m excited for the musical material, I’m realizing that I have developed a bittersweet relationship with my amazing EastWest orchestral samples that I use for Sibelius playback.
I think, mostly, I have a pretty terrible “inner ear” and unlike a lot of composers, I don’t exactly “hear music in my head.” (Seriously. What’s going on up there anyway?) For me, composing is kind of like chiseling away at a big, gray brick of concrete. I usually only know what color I want to paint it and how sharp I want the edges, but I typically have no idea when I start whether it’s going to look like Mount Rushmore or a bowl of fruit. So I just chisel and I chisel and I chisel and I eventually say to myself, “My, that is starting to look like a ______. That’s pretty cool!” It’s only after a lot of pre-production chiseling that I discover what it is that I’m actually chiseling.
My electronic samples help guide me in this journey. However, as other “computer-composers” will attest, these “samples” are often so perfect that they can often be misleading. For example, my last few pieces, especially Instinctive Travels, have been incredibly French Horn heavy. Typically (and especially for high school horn players), I try and keep the horns below a written high G. But my samples are just so awesome that, although I often keep them below that suggested upper limit, I still write lead Horn lines, undoubled, at double and triple forte. Basically, it seems that I want the Hollywood Studio Symphony horns to sit in with whatever junior high, high school, or college band is playing my music, no matter how hard the piece is. I can’t help it; I just love the sound of a powerful Texas All-State sized section of F’ing F Horns.
To the two lone French Horn players at Bethel High School: don’t be scared. Just know that you probably have some of the coolest riffs in this new piece (though you might not have an embouchure when you’re done…).
This is actually one of those cute love stories that kind of makes you sick at the same time. Yesterday, my best friend Ryan and his girlfriend, Elizabeth, celebrated their two year anniversary together. Since Ryan and I always write quirky little catchy songs as part of Your Basic Tune & Lube, she asked me if she and I might be able to write a song together as a gift to Ryan. Well, not long after that, Ryan came up to me and asked if he and I might be able to write a song as a gift to Elizabeth. Neither of them had a clue that the other had asked me the exact same thing.