SCOREcast 31: Total Request (Sorta) LIVE!

In our first Q&A episode, we open up Twitter, Facebook, and a hangout on Google+ to hear what’s on your mind about writing, producing, “politiking”, and navigating the business.

Is “Score Design” Dead?

Composers LOVE to say that they use all of their own sounds. We call B.S.!

The Burnproof Film Composer

In our industry, it’s go, go, go, go, go, and go some more. How long can you drive on one tank of gas?

What’s Original?

There are 12 tones, and only so much you can do. Right, James Horner?

What Is Your Biggest Weakness?

It’s hard to talk about what you suck at.

The Creative Tank

How to keep your creative well from running dry.

Heather Fenoughty: Acknowledge Your Success

I cannot emphasize enough how incredibly important it is to acknowledge your success in creating, to completion and delivery, a musical score. This music that you have produced is an integral part of the film, show, game or whatever project it is. It could not exist in its current form without your efforts. For the sake of your growth as a composer, sound designer, or other post-production professionals, you must underline the importance to your own psyche that this is a moment to be emphasized and cherished, that it is something desirable – and so to be repeated.

Getting a Little Queasy

Marc Shaiman will tell you that one of his best-known scores, for City Slickers, came into this world with more than its fair share of agony. One of the toughest parts to write was the famous cattle-rustling scene—Shaiman says he was scared out of his mind by the temp track. He felt like “the ghost of Copland was standing over [his] shoulder.” It’s something we’ve all faced. Not from Copland, and not always from the temp track, but there’s a sort of intimidation that hits us once we’ve landed a really good gig. Once in a while a project lands here at the Gulag that makes me sit up and take notice. Sure, I do my best work…

Your Gear Will Not Save You

Gear is, in a word, awesome. And I mean that in the literal, original sense of the word. When I walk into my studio—especially now that I’ve done some gigs and accumulated some sample libraries—I have a feeling akin to reverence. Not in an egomaniacal way (the High Holy Temple of Film Music! Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair!), but just in terms of the incredible creative resource that room has become in my life. There’s something I think you should keep in mind, though, when you get to a similar point in your career: Your gear will not save you. It won’t save you from a lack of planning. It won’t save…

Getting Past the Samples

Here’s something that goes somewhat against the grain of all the whiz-bang gadgetry we’re focusing on at the moment. Regardless of what Santa leaves beneath your technological tree this season, you’ll eventually find yourself facing that blank canvas… once again, just like always. While a new array of sounds may inspire you to work just a little differently or try something just a little bit new, keep in mind: The gear is just a tool. Here I’m building on the contents of a couple of recent Weekend Provocations, where I’ve wondered out loud about what it would be like to write music without the gear. If you noticed that these two articles (November 13 and…

Gear-Free

This week I’m toggling off of Satterwhite’s article yesterday. He said: Under the right conditions, I would probably not think twice about abandoning most of my gear in order to escape the limitations it sometimes burdens me with. So, the question: What if your gear was suddenly… gone? I’ve been dealing with homeowner’s insurance this week, so it’s on my mind. The San Andreas fault is only a few dozen miles from here, and as far as I know that beast isn’t getting any less seismically active. So any minute now this weekend’s Provocation could be a horrific reality for me, and for a bunch of you LA-based types who are reading this. Would my…

EMMY Award-winning Composer RICHARD BELLIS on “The Creative Process”

EVOLUTION There are few if any “constants” in our world. The only one Iʼm sure about is evolution. Change. This, then, may be the epitome of an oxymoronic phrase: “The only constant is change.” This personal wisdom (if indeed it is either personal or wisdom) comes to me at sixty-three years of age. Many things are falling away at this age, but retrospect and derivative knowledge are the offsets. No young person, unless he or she is clairvoyant, can claim this perspective. Evolution moves at a glacial pace. It moves like the growth of a tree, like the appearance of facial hair on a prepubescent male. It seems to move slower as our attention spans…