Flashback – ‘In Hope’s Arms’

In Hope’s Arms was a feature-length film about a kid who’s mother was brutally killed in a domestic violence incident with his father. That said, it’s a also a heart-warming story about a kid with no friends finding a friend for life. It was finished in (I think) 2004… good times. Best of all, it featured a score by yours truly – my 2nd feature length score – and you can download ‘most’ of it for usage under my fandangled creative commons license!

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So You Wanna be a Music Supervisor?

I got an email this morning from Film Music Magazine, with an advertisement to learn music supervision & licensing through the ‘Music Business Institute’.

I have no idea whether this is the first of it’s kind – but it’s a beautiful example of the world we now live in – a world run by music licensing.

This world is very competitive too. Everyone is a composer now, vying for a piece of the same pie. Resources are scarce, and they grab for every bit of work we can lay our hands on.

So I’m not surprised that there are courses for music supervision & music licensing. A composer might even get lucky and land a job actually working in music supervision too… but that brings me to a moral dilemma I have…

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Quick Guide to Choosing an Audio Interface

I remember the day when I bought my first soundcard. It was a Yamaha XG PCI, and it was the shizzle. Of course, I was 12 years old – which meant I knew very little about what I was buying… but I liked the MIDI sounds that came with it, and it was in my price range, so I was a buyer.

Choosing the right audio interface is like choosing the right wine to go with your roast pork… alot of wines will work, but one of them is going to be just right. Mmm… But just like wine, there are plenty of brands and models to choose from – which one is the best for you?

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Quick Guide to Choosing a Music Computer

Times have changed since the times of Mozart and Beethoven. Hey… times have changed since 15 years ago. Computer technology is rapidly becoming the medium through which modern composers express their music to the world, and knowing how to take advantage of these tools will help you work faster, write better and get your music heard.

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Flashback – ‘Soul Searcher’

Over the years I’ve dabbled with the use of quite a few websites for music distribution. But the result of this is that my music is scattered all over the net… and it’s not all the same tracks either… a few tracks here, a few different tracks there… it’s a bit of a mess, really.

So, I’m in the process of implementing a way of organising my music so it is a bit more centralised. This means I get to listen to a whole lot of my despairingly old tracks… some of which I hardly remember creating. There is something very self-serving about listening to your own music, but I barely remember these tracks, so it’s like listening for the first time again. It’s fun!

So, over the next few weeks I’m going to share them with you. Some of you probably have heard these tracks before – you were there the first time around. But many of you probably weren’t… so some of them warrant a second showing, considering the whole aim of my music these days is to get it used (remember, its FREE for all you non-commercialites!). Some show their age, but aren’t too bad.

Image: “Blue Summer Song” by Gate-to-Nowhere

First up is a track I made during university (the first time around, as a ‘music’ student), called ‘Soul Searcher’. If I remember correctly, this track was the result of a bit of an experiment in vocal recording, that ended up quite atmospheric. Yes, it’s me warbling away but don’t worry, I’m not THAT bad of a vocalist.

Soul Searcher | DOWNLOAD >>

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There is about 6-7 lines which interweave with each other… occasionally swelling and harmonising to create some nice moments. I remember showing this track in class – everyone loved it, but it raised the political issue of whether a white guy is allowed to sing non-sensical vocals that sound vaguely ethnic. I didn’t really think about that when I was playing around with it, but it made me feel a little bad. But only a little.

Moral of this track…

Like much of my music, this was the result of simple improvisation. I recommend you guys try it sometime, maybe with an instrument you are comfortable with – sax, clarinet, vibraphone… whatever. Stick a mic in front of it and hit record. You just never know what might come out.

By the way… if you do, post me a link!

-s

‘Soul Searcher is released under the Creative Commons “Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported” License. For other licenses (including commercial), please contact Scott.