The Challenge: to orchestrate the piano piece À la manière de Borodine by Maurice Ravel The Platform: Facebook for general feedback, Patreon for video score analysis. After the deadline, professional orchestrator Thomas Goss will release a public video featuring in-depth analysis of his own version of the Ravel piece, also illustrating other noteworthy approaches by…
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I was hospitalised this year, but I quickly recovered. Around that time, I read lots of comments and posts about the externalisation of music: using DAW’s, whether a piano should be used in composing, and so on. Here is my commentary on the topic – how a trained inner ear can be used to compose,…
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(originally posted Dec. 21, 2016 on Patreon) Early this morning, iconic Star Wars actress and writer Carrie Fisher passed away from complications following a heart attack. Now, a member of the Orchestration Online community might fairly ask why I should take this opportunity to commemorate her, as she wasn’t a composer or musician. The reason…
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This is a special 54th birthday post – a bit of rumination over how I started as a composer, how I’ve seen other composers starting whom I’ve helped over the years, and how crucially important it is that we are all completely and totally ourselves no matter what our gifts may be. I was musically…
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Reading over the Star Wars: The Force Awakens reviews that I wrote back in December, I’m struck by how much I had to rely on the soundtrack to illustrate my points, and often avoided specific references to the timing of cues in the movie. Part of this was to avoid the horror of revealing spoilers…
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Over the past week, I’ve reviewed the orchestration of each contender for the Academy Award for Music (Original Score). Now it’s time to compare the nominees, and judge which score might be awarded. Of course, film scores are rarely awarded solely on the quality of their orchestration. But the texture of a score is as…
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I have a confession to make. Often when I’m finalising a score or editing a video, I’ll listen to something in the background. Sometimes it will be a comedy, political talk show, or discussion about the arts and literature. But what I really like is a good mystery with little to no music – something…
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Morricone’s task in scoring The Hateful Eight was both enviable and unenviable. Director Quentin Tarantino gave him a completely free hand with the script, allowing him to score whatever he liked according to what his muse spoke to him. This gesture of trust and respect is not unlike that afforded to John Williams by more…
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Carol may or may not be the best film of 2015 (its snub for Best Picture category is one of many unforgivable oversights this year). – but it is certainly the most stylish. It’s a period piece that expertly recreates the exact year and place of its setting (and writing of the source book, Patricia…
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Sicario is a complex film. It’s frankly a horse pill to be swallowing as the first of five films nominated for the 2016 Academy Awards, at least for an orchestration review. Firstly, I just want to say right here that I don’t accept the narrow view of Mexico that the film portrays – a horrific…
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