Some of you may know how many, many, many moons ago … I was a session guitarist for tons of incredibly sad 80’s popstars all residing in the ‘Where Are They Now?’ file.
However, whilst my main source of income is no longer associated with playing the guitar, I am still completely obsessed with music and am currently having a fantastic time orchestrating the soundtrack to the new SONY brand commercial we’re about to launch.
Why is it so much fun?
Well there’s a couple of reasons …
First is the fact that I helped create a piece of music that takes people on an emotional journey in just 60 seconds … something that lifts them up and brings them down without them even realising how or why it is happening.
[It was only after I watched a shedload of movies that I realised how key, key moments in a film rarely use any background music at all. It’s like audiences have become so accustomed to hearing music with their visual entertainment, that when silence ‘appears’, it represents a really important and dramatic scene is about to happen. Infact, if film makers really want to create the ultimate explosion of drama … quiet is the best way to do it. Go and watch the opening scene to ‘Saving Private Ryan’, to see what I mean]
Secondly, I am loving it because thanks to some amazing music software, I am able to do it all on my laptop regardless of whether I am at home, on a plane or even in a hotel room in Bali! [Yes, I am buggering about with it as I type!]
It used to take vast amounts of time, patience and money to create recorded pieces of music … yet now you can have a 48 track recording studio, full of instruments, singers and effects for the price of a meal in a half-decent restaurant AND you don’t get any of those ‘creative differences’ that have plagued bands since the beginning of time.
Saying that, I wonder whether Beethoven, Mozart and Bach etc would have found this technology useful.
OK, I know I’ve just banged on about how quick, easy and powerful it is to create music – but the thing is, rather than using your imagination to create music, you tend to go straight to the technology and ‘doodle around’ with the tons of samples you have at your disposal – which results in you tending to create music by crashing lots of bits and pieces together rather than starting with something pure.
So what’s bad about this? Well nothing really, except it means you don’t tend to ‘experiment’ as much as you could. Or should.