The end draws nigh

One more day of class, a take home final… and the last (hopefully) fall term of my BM in Composition will be complete. I’m greatly looking forward to the coming christmas break, however I can’t speak to what kind of break it’ll be, which leads me to my bit of news for the day…

I have been chosen as 1 of 4 finalists for the PSU composition competition. This honor requires me to write a four minute piece for the New Music Ensemble at PSU. The ensemble includes:

• Flute
• Oboe
• Clarinet
• Bassoon
• String Quintet
• 1 Percussionist
• Piano

On occasion, this ensemble also has brass, but not this year. Anyways, I have to have a rough draft composed by the first day of winter term (Jan. 3rd). Which leaves me with roughly three weeks, as I will be spending a week in Florida with the family for Christmas.

In related news, I’m nearly finished with my Sonata for Clarinet and Marimba.

So, other than these things, I must say that I’m very excited for a couple movies appearing in theaters soon, namely Avatar, and Sherlock Holmes. Funny thing while I was reading about Avatar and the relationship that James Horner (the composer) shares with James Cameron (the director) is that after Aliens, Horner said he would never work with Cameron again. This might be common knowledge to some of my friends, but I just read that Horner was brought on to Aliens with only three and a half weeks to compose 80 minutes of music for the movie… Geez, maybe I shouldn’t feel overwhelmed having to write four minutes in three weeks.

So I leave you now, to go about on your own while pondering this youtube short film (which is pretty frakkin’ awesome!):

Black Friday… er, Monday

Amazon.com is having a cool deal, a bunch of mp3 albums for $5. Also, if you hurry, you can redeem a code in their mp3 store giving you a $3 credit to use towards mp3 purchases, so you can buy a “black friday” album for as little as $2… not bad if you’ve been holding back on buying the new Mastodon album. I got Glazunov’s complete symphonies.

The code is “MP34FREE”, and you need to enter it at their site here.

Hurry up, because code redemptions are limited.

Another year to add, tomorrow

So, you know… Happy Birthday to me.

Will I get Star Trek? Or maybe a book? Either way, yay for life.

Christmas is Upon US!

… after Thanksgiving of course… and my birthday.

First things first. The scene scoring competition for Gamera vs. Guiron winner has been announced, and it’s not me. The winner is Simon Hutchinson who used electronically altered shamisen.

Ruth and I went to the opening performance where the live pit preformed well (and without a conductor), live voice actors performed the dialogue, and 2 foley artists performed sound effects live. The pit consisted of a string quartet, with clairnet (doubling with bass clarinet), and harp. Overall the show was fun, and the audience was really into it, cheering when Gamera (friend to all children) would do something that helps save the day.

I didn’t really know what to expect with the music… would there be themes, or leitmotifs? It turns out that, no, there wouldn’t be those things. The music would serve as underscoring accentuating the action or situations onscreen. I’m cool with that.

So overall, fun to see, and great to know that the prospect of doing something like this is out there.

Recently, Mike S. tweeted/twitted/twatted? (so dirty) about how he listened to some samples of Silvestri’s score for A Christmas Carol, and thought that they were good. I’m always a sucker for scores, and Christmas music, so when they’re combined it should be the best of both worlds, right?

Right. It is so awesome! It blends Christmas music tunes in with his scoring. I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I definitely know the story. And this music is perfect. The orchestrations are very well thought out.

One of my favorite cues is “Marley’s Ghost Visits Scrooge”. One reason I like it so much could be the Elfman-esque sections where the orchestra sounds a little like a circus. But then there are moments where the orchestra really pulls out the romance sounding very much like a something Tchaikovsky would have written. Silvestri also does a good job of blending solo strings with a very eery sounding orchestra. Also, some of the orchestrations sound like Williams, which is definitely not a bad thing!!! I don’t want to write too much more, so that you can all enjoy it without my half-assed purely superficial analysis.

In other movie music news, Danny Elfman is no longer the composer for The Wolf Man. Until I read that article from cinemusic.com, I didn’t know that he was even working on it. Apparently all the music for the movie is written and recorded, but won’t be included. And supposedly, it is gothic in nature, similar to Kilar’s score for Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

After reading that, all I could think was, “holy crap do I hope they release this… or someone leaks the bootleg.” It’s music like this that Elfman can be his best at. Recently (Terminator Salvation, Wanted) Elfman has been changing his style. Not sure if this is his orchestrators, or him, but recently his scores have been lacking the signature Elfman sound. I have a feeling that this score would have that. And if not this one, then definitely his score for Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland will have it.

In other news, I recently was one of 12 or 13 people who submitted for the Composition Competition at PSU. If I am chosen as one of four finalists, I get to write a piece for a new music ensemble. This would be fun… and really fast, as they require a rough draft of the 4 minute piece at the beginning of winter term (January 3rd). This is fine… I should have some time during Christmas break to work on it (God willing I’ve completed my sonata).

Other than that, I got a Mac Mini Server for my birthday… which is awesome, especially after I learn about all the things it can do and start implementing those online. Yay.

Zimmer: the Super Walmart of media music

A new article in USA Today’s Game Hunter section talks about Hans breaking into the game music market.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as it kindof legitimizes game music. Others have done the reverse (ie. Giacchino, Gregson-Williams (of the Harry variety)) by scoring games and then moving up to movies.

So what’s my problem? Well, not a lot really, except that in the future everyone will go to Hans Zimmer for their movies/games/TV/corporate video/commercial music needs. Not the man Hans Zimmer, but the superstore called Hans Zimmer. Complete with door greeters and everyone working fully part time so that the corporation doesn’t have to buy its employee’s healthcare.

The funny thing is, I have grandparents who swear to their motto “only buy ‘Made in the USA’” and they do most of their shopping at WalMart. I’m pretty sure that a good portion of the merchandise is not made in the USA. I’m not going to tell them though, I like them happy, and I would like to avoid any arguments we may have on the subject.

So WalMart is not unlike Hans Zimmer the music store, or the man. Someone contracts HZ to write music, but you never really know who helped to ghostwrite it. The future only bodes more of the same, except instead of making reels with samples of music that I think a potential commercial client would want to see, I have to make a reel that i think HZ would want to see, all for a job in a special HZ cubicle  replete with a database of popular cues and chord progressions.

With all of that, I don’t want you to misunderstand me… one of my goals is to start as that door greeter and work my way up… but dammit, can I do it without moving to Los Angeles?!

In other news, the wife and I are going the tonight’s showing of  Gamera Vs. Guiron at the Hollywood Theater in Portland. This is where I will learn who amongst three has won the scene scoring competition. Weird way to do it, only because a portion of the bounty/reward is two free tickets to a showing of GvG, but in order to learn if you’ve won the tickets to see the show, you have to buy the tickets to see the show. Oh well, supporting local art and whatnot… I’m for that.

New countdown: 13 days until Star Trek is released on Blu Ray and DVD. Yay!

Posted

The music has been posted. 2 other contenders… so far.

Classic Japanese Monster ate my homework

So I finally submitted my music for the “Monster Music Contest” hosted by filmusik.com. It hasn’t yet been posted on their site, but I have received confirmation that it has been received.

However, I have posted it to my youtube account so that I could put it up here. For your viewing pleasure:

Feedback, thoughts, questions, hate/flame? Give it, I have semi-thick skin.

Speaking of thick skin, I stabbed my thumb this last weekend while carving my pumpkin. It’s okay, no need to worry, except for the fact that my pumpkin now has the taste for blood.

Not too much else right now, but I did finish the 2nd rough draft of my sonata’s 4th movement, now only 15 more minutes to start and finish by Dec. 7th (damn that’s scary).

It’s Raining in Portland

Wednesday. Humpday.

Trying to finish up the fourth movement of my sonata for Marimba and Clarinet. Not so fast… I haven’t written four movements, I only started with the fourth. But I feel a little under the gun because I have a goal to complete the entire sonata by the time Winter term begins in January.

I’m also getting ready to upload my score for Gameron vs. Guiron to filmusik.com. I’d be interested to know if my friends (Herr, Mikey, etc…) are also submitting anything so that i can keep a weather eye out. After that, not a whole lot on the horizon in terms of scoring… at least nothing i can speak of yet.

I am submitting for consideration to score a piece for PSU’s New Music Ensemble. They only accept four people from those who submit, and out of those four, only one gets played on their spring concert, so that should be interesting.

Speaking of things musical, the OR symphony is doing a concert next weekend that consists of music from video games. and then a few weeks later they’re doing their film music concert. I am very excited to see one or both of these, and hope that i can get some tickets with my student ID.

In other news, Apple released a whole bunch of stuff yesterday including new mac minis, imacs, and some other stuff. I can’t wait to get the new mac mini server. I see a lot of potential for collaboration on projects, like the next Larson/Reimer opera. Who knows? I sure don’t. Also, I can’t wait to try out the new “magic mouse”. It looks very interesting, and hopefully as great as the “mighty mouse” except without that stupid gunk magnet of a scroll-ball. But still, no mac purchases until the Mac Pro is updated.

Star Wars, In Concert!

This is what I did on Wednesday. The Star Wars: In Concert traveled to Portland, and it… was… frakkin’… awesome! Obviously its hard to top a concert that includes music that is brilliant and inspiring. This was made even better by the fact that there were collages of film to accompany the music.

All narrated by Anthony Daniels, the show was in two acts with an intermission. And because we were a happy audience, we received an encore.

It is hard to remember all of the cues played, but i think that’s mainly because they were all conglomerated into sections to follow the story line from beginning to end. Everything was wonderful, but these are the cues i can remember:

• Anakin’s Theme – this was extended further at the end of the cue to really draw out the imperial march (or Darth Vader) theme.
• Flag Parade – This theme was also amended with some very cool string variations of the motifs.
• Dual of the Fates – Totally awesome and powerful. If I remember correctly, this cue was also attached to the Battle of the Heroes cue. Which, at the point when there was footage of them doing battle on the lava planet, fireballs were emitted from the stage to annunciate the large hits. I must say that this music wouldn’t have been the same without the choir killing it too!
• Droids
• Love Theme – Anakin and Padmé
• Rise of the Empire – This included the “Imperial March” in its entirety.
• Jedi Theme
• Leia’s Theme
• Cantina – complete with the cantina band’s song.
• Astroid Field
• Throne Room

Those are what I can remember. I feel like there was one or two more, but I can’t recall. Of course the finale was “The Throne Room”, but the encore was the “Imperial March” which was so badass, and at that point everyone was so hyped up that it was more like a rock concert. At one point during the encore, the flute duet (played by female flautists) was up on the big screen, and some audience members were cheering and cat calling, which actually made one of the players smile embarrassed while blushing. It was a weird and funny moment that i guess i never thought i would witness at a classical music concert.

This concert definitely instilled in me (once again) my absolute love of things musical and epic in nature. I think that by coming back to music, I’m once again on the right track!

The following is a short clip that i took (perhaps as proof to myself). I didn’t want to keep my camera out to long (for fear of “the man” taking my phone away, also) so that I could pay attention to what was happening.

Seattle & Harry Potter VI

This last weekend, Ruth and I took a weekend vacation to Seattle to check it out (kindof). It was a lot of fun. Saturday morning we started out by going to Pike’s Place Market and strolling though to see the produce, seafood, and wares of the Seattle market. after this we strolled along the piers and then took the monorail to the Space Needle where we had lunch in the rotating restaurant. It was awesome! The above picture was taken in between bites of gourmet Dungeoness Crab Mac & Cheese.

After lunch we continued our exploration of the city, and took a tour of the Underground of Seattle, where we saw some cool stuff and learned a little about the history of Seattle. After that, dinner and a movie, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. More on that later.

The next morning, we had Starbucks from the original Starbucks location. And then we went explored a bit more. Then we had Iver’s fish & chips on the pier. After that we went on a two hour boat tour of Union Lake, and the locks, Puget sound, and Seattle Harbor. A great time for sure. All in all, it was really fun and warrants a return trip.

So finally, we saw Harry Potter VI. I liked it, but having already read the books it was very hard to love it. I understand that to make a film watchable, it has to be no longer than a certain length and include material that will keep the audience interested. Unfortunately, this story in movie version didn’t translate very well. The movie definitely included important highlights… but lacked in substance. A lot of character was missing, and a major scene that I, for one, was looking forward to with great anticipation… the battle in the castle and courtyard. I sincerely hope that they are able to do a much better job with the final book (two movies)!

Now the score. Nicholas Hooper is back for this installment, and hate me if you want to, but i love this score. The choral work he does for the cue “In Noctem” and just the character of the score in general are magnificent. I wonder why? Did he read all of the negative reviews he recieved for his first Harry Potter attempt? I don’t know… but it must be tough going against the master (John Williams)!

So in listening to the score i’ve been trying to pinpoint what about it makes me like it so much and i think i’ve figured it out. In addition to the choral work (which is always a weak spot for me because i love it so much) there are a lot of techniques in here that sound like what Thomas Newman (Lemony Snickets, Shawshank Redemption, Wall-E) would have done. There’s even a little bit of Giacchino minimalism thrown in for good measure.

The music, overall, worked really well for me in the film. I think one of the best cues that Hooper was able to pull off was when Hermione was crying alone in the stairwell. On the CD it is the track called “Harry & Hermione.” Its very interesting to me that when I listen to the music now (without the film) the track sounds fine but is missing some of the muscle that it had in the film when the shot flowed to Draco. Perhaps it was the mix for the film, or just the combination of the pictures with the music that made my mind love it… I don’t know.

Now onto the death scene. When it began, I felt very disappointed. Just like Hooper’s score for HP5, it didn’t meet my expectations of how I wanted my emotions to be pushed. This is how I felt here too. But when everyone in the courtyard at Hogwart’s lifted their wands into the air, Hooper really ramped up the music, and the cue actually transformed into something I wanted for that moment, and although it wasn’t exactly what I wanted, it was better than i know it could have been without that. Confused?

This picture is of downtown Seattle and also Mt. Rainier.