Goals... and how bad they're going.

In a post from long ago, I stated that I wanted to write forty some posts by June. That of course, won't happen. I also said that a wanted about a third of those posts to be reviews. That's even less likely to happen. As it turns out, it's pretty difficult to review a film score. First, you have to know the movie inside and out. Then, you need to know the music inside and out. Personally, I like to get a rough transcription of some of the leitmotifs and themes from the movie as well, making my life that much harder. For that reason, I'll probably start leaning towards the majority of my posts being about writing film scores instead of specific film scores themselves.

On the bright side, I'm getting kind of close to the goal I set for composing. If you remember, I wanted to have written four different pieces of music by June. That counts both film scores and absolute music of any genre. Since that post was written, I've written three pieces in my spare time. Two were film scores for student films, both of which were totally out of my comfort zone. 

The first was something that took me a span of about thirty hours of work. It was a horror movie, and the music was something that I put together in GarageBand with almost twenty different tracks. I had just gotten a new keyboard to do it on, which was a blast to work on.

The second took me much less time because it needed much less music. It was a spoof on a Bear Grylls kind of nature show. I worked with the same director as the other film, and he wanted African Tribal music. Ironically, I used Chinese drums instead of African Tribal drums. After I messed with the EQ levels for a while, I was able to design a sound that really fit what the director wanted.

The third piece I've done so far was a piano/violin duet. It came out with a lot of emotion, which is something that I was really looking for. Because I have limited piano experience, it's a fairly easy part for the piano, but it's rather difficult for the violin. I wrote it in Eb Major, which is a key I've honestly never really worked in before. Here's a picture of the piano part that I recorded on GarageBand with a MIDI Keyboard...

Yeah... That's a really easy piano part...

Finally, I'm going to be starting the score for another film in about three weeks. It's for a movie that a friend and I wrote and are currently in production of. I feel like I'll be able to get a really powerful score out of it, and will finally be able to add in some live recording as well. I've already begun working on some themes (leitmotifs) that should add a lot to the movie. I'll only have about five school days to get the music done, so anything that I can do to get an early start is crucial.

Anywho, that's basically how all of the goals that I've set have been going, and a quick update on a project that I've been working on. I'll see you again in three weeks when all four compositions are done!