Posts made in January, 2010

I’m currently (once again) in Switzerland for our Musical “Dällebach Kari”, which will have its premiere in July. We’re currently doing a workshop with the main cast and some extras in a rehearsal stage right in the office building of the “Thuner Seespiele” close to the lovely lake where the outdoor stage will be located in summer. We’re rehearsing the songs and working on the script, “shaving off the edges”, bringing the songs into shape for inserted dialogues, walking time etc. pp, ready to present a “workshop” version of the musical on February 6th. The workshop is lots of fun, we’re working with a great team and a great cast and we all enjoy it very much and have lots of fun. Finally...

Welcome to my next little tutorial. This time I will talk a little bit about rhythmical aspects to be considered when writing for (real) orchestra, as – not surprisingly – not everything that grooves in your mind or sequencer will come out as you want it when you’re dealing with an orchestra. First of all, why talk about this issue at all? Since filmmusic came up, it has always been a medium which melts together many if not all musical styles. Nowadays there is hardly any action score which doesn’t have drum-loops or percussive patterns underneath, there is no Bond movie without Swing elements, there is hardly any epic trailer music in regular 4/4, and – to sum it up – there is hardly any score which doesn’t use influences...