Reiki Music. Video Marketing

They say you have to play to win and that the only failure is someone who doesn’t try. I hope they are correct…

Well I threw caution to the wind and entered the East West / SoundsOnline May/June film score competition. Problem was I only found out about it on June 27th!

Between work and life commitments that meant I only had 4 hours to compose a film synced original composition.

Another limitation was you were only allowed to use sounds from East West themselves (quite reasonable), and preferably the Quantum Leap series. Nor could we add live external sounds like guitar, which was a shame, as some guitar stuff would have fitted this movie pretty well.

I’ve bought sounds from Sound-OnLine for sure, but not QL. So I was posed with the problem of finding a 2GB demo bank I remembered they provided free, back in 2006. RaidSearch (my own file search program) came to the rescue and I found it.

Turned out the demo bank only contained 8 sounds. Yes 8! Two of those were guitars that didn’t inspire me, so the remainder basically shaped what I could and couldn’t do.

If there had been time, I’d have time and tempo mapped out the film animation, noted the hit points and worked out a motif (riff) and spent a few days working stuff out and piecing it together. But of course I only had 4 hours available in my schedule.

I had to throw away the guide book, the rule book and the intro on the back of the packet, and basically play it in live while watching the movie. Unwisely I wasn’t taking notes of what I was playing (not that I read music anyway) so as usual several competing ideas ended up on the table. Even more unwisely, I didn’t take any of them out

There’s one section where in a pseudo jazz style the kora sound is out of scale, but when you see the movie, the plot is pretty chaotic and about big bang evolution (in a way) so I wasn’t sure 100% melodic structure was absolutely called for. It provides a slightly grating dissonant effect, which IMHO matches the child birth like pain of the mutant embryonic fungus, or inner life egg if you prefer

I’m a great fan of emotion over science, so I’m moderately happy that if you don’t try and score annotate the notes, that the “sonic textural effect” meets the brief. I was also quite please about the dynamics and the way the piece evolves to match the story of the movie. The cues match pretty well AFAIC in terms of flow, rather than mechanical precision.
There is an error in the bass line in one section, bu here wasn’t time to edit it and resubmit it. That’s one of those tidying up sessions for a rainy day. I’m very unlikely to win as many of the entrants are from full time academic professional composers who are serious enough to have spent several thousands of pounds on their tools (i.e. orchestra sample library and spend the time getting to know it and control it’s articulation variation controls).

Compare that to me playing live to the screen on 11 passes and you can imagine the possible void between me and the officiantie.

AYPK film music is supposed to be about “supporting” the action and not making you look away and go “hey what a catchy tune”. Away from the video, my piece pretty much sucks, but as a textural accompaniment to the visuals – well you decide for yourself

My filmscore competition entry “Oh No the mushrooms have landed”

Movie by ZENNOR ALEXANDER.
Music by Peter Buick.

What ever happens it was a great fun project to do and a reminder that stuff is possible if you make the time.

I’m sure I’ll get slated and never work in Dodge again, but I never worked in Dodge originally anyway but more proof I can’t give up the day job, so better get back to it…