Aug 22, 2018 | Composition, Daily Film Scoring Bits
Rhythm of Secondary Melodic Lines When trying to find a secondary melodic line to a main melodic line (e.g. you have your main melody in the strings but want an independent horn line as well to support it) try shaping that secondary melody in a way that it moves on...
Aug 21, 2018 | Daily Film Scoring Bits, Film Scoring
Musical Drones While they are musically not spectacular at all, drones are very effective in film scoring. A drone is usually a long sustaining note or set of notes, usually in the lower register that keeps ringing without any or much musical variation through a...
Aug 20, 2018 | Daily Film Scoring Bits, General
Listen to other music This one seems like a no-brainer but actually listen to music. It is very often surprising how little time professional musicians and composers spend listening to music other than their own. “When I leave the studio in the evening, I don’t want...
Aug 17, 2018 | Daily Film Scoring Bits, Orchestration
Orchestration Strategy When orchestrating music, one of my favorite strategies is to orchestrate from most important to least important which means that you start off with the element that you need to be perceived as the main idea and work your way down to the...
Aug 16, 2018 | Daily Film Scoring Bits, Technical
Noises on Recordings Noises on a recording can be very annoying and are easily overheard on a session (as you focus more on the music obviously). Usually the sound engineer is supposed to spot noises but they can slip by quite easily and what you could barely hear on...
Aug 15, 2018 | Composition, Daily Film Scoring Bits
Stylistic understanding Understanding and being aware of a style of composition is just as important as finding the right tone for a scene. While certain things are musically perfectly plausible they might not neccessarily be what is stylistically appropriate. Film...
