Daily Film scoring bits
Welcome to the Daily Film Scoring Bits. On this page I post little tips, tricks and advices about film scoring in general but also more specific topics like orchestration, composition, working relationships, business advices etc.
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Midi Controller Curves in Score Sheets
Just because you have drawn extensive Midi Controller curves into your sampled mock-up doesn’t mean you have to translate all that into the score sheet before you go to a real orchestra recording. Extensive micro-managed hairpins…
Combining recordings from different rooms
Combining sample libraries or recordings that have been recorded in different rooms with different ambiences in one piece is usually not that much of a problem as some people think or make believe. Especially in more tutti situations…
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 different…
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…
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 to…
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…
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…
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 music is a…
Unaccompanied Melodies
Unaccompanied melodies can have a fantastic effect in a movie when placed cleverly. The “lonely” instrument or section filling up the musical space has a beautiful and haunting quality and can either create an extreme intimacy which is…
Working on several projects at the same time
Unless you get to work on long-term projects alot, being a composer for the media quite often also means organizing and juggling several things and projects at once. While this is not just a challenge from the standpoint of keeping…
Articulation variety
One of the things that makes music interesting and lively is variety in articulation and phrasing. Many composers coming from the sample world hardly ever think about whether a line might work better having it not completely as staccato or not completely…
Strategies for using Reverb
There are probably thousands of philosophies of how to add reverb to a recording. Especially with orchestral tracks, many people are concerned about creating a proper field of depth within the orchestra and create a proper impression of distances of the instruments…
Melodic Shaping
One of the things you should keep an eye on when writing music is the form of your melody. Very often, inexperienced composers fall into repeating short-breathed almost identical 2-bar phrases. While it is perfectly fine to do that once in a while and…
Fermatas in Film Scoring
When scoring a movie by writing score sheets for the reason of having it played by real instruments at one point, avoid fermatas and breath marks. These musical markings are very open to interpretation and it get’s even more complicated to…