Interview with French composer Franck Barre

Hi everybody, my name is Franck Barré, I am 30, I live a few kilometers from Paris in France. I’m a composer and a sound engineer (music & post-production TV).

I’m engaged and I don’t have children yet.

Yes, that’s him. That is the guy behind the amazing album we reviewed last Saturday. Have fun reading while listening to his brand new track “Guardians of Minaria”! (Voici l’interview en français)

1. Which instruments do you play?

I play guitar since I was eight, I first started with a classic guitar and then I begun with the electrique one (blues,rock,soul…). Since some years I use the piano to be able to compose with the computer and with virtuell instruments. If I could, I wish I could play all music instruments 😉
I also play the mandoline and I tried with the violin, but it was a catastrophe, I consider to buy a duduk, we may as well expect the worst…

2. How old have you been when you started your career as a composer?

After my studies I worked at the Post for several years to earn some money to live, when in 2009 I changed raducally my career.
I started to compose on the computer in 2006, I´ve made intrumental Hip-Hop with my guitar and with the synthesizer, in the beginning just for fun.
I decided to comply with it and I entered the SAE institute in 2009 to become an audio engineer. More and more I was led into the direction of composing film music.
Since I was a little boy I loved soundtracks but it was not till some experiences as a “mixing engineer” for documentaries when I got this flashpoint that music for pictures is the thing I want to do.
To be precise I make orchestral music for 2-3 years and I began my career as a professional composer a year ago.

3. Which soundtrack would you have liked to compose in the last 50 years?

“Superman march” from John Williams, the orchestration is impressive to me. (by the way there is a dozen of others ;))

4. Your favorite workspace right now?

My home-studio with all my material.
I always feel like a child in a toy shop when I compose with my plugins 😉

5. Your dream workspace in the future?

A little corner with a remote control…

6. Which goals would you like to achieve as a composer?

I dream of a recording with a real orchestra and my music is played in hollywood blockbusters.
That would be already amazing for me.
lsewise a little bit more simple, being a composer for lovely film- documentaries and to continue to write epic music to be able to make albums.

7. Soundtracks or Trailer Music?

These are two things for me. One depends essentially to pictures and to a precise artistic direction. The other one gives you more freedom to put something personal and your feelings in the music.
I would say the two are brilliant but with a preference to Trailer Music still, because it allows you more freedom in my opinion.

8. Drums or strings?

The strings on all accounts, these instruments I find amazing, they are very expressive and they allow a multitude of combinations so you can compose in a millions of ways. They are absolutely the dominant intruments in my compositions.

9. How do you get new ideas for your tracks?

For the trailers for example I try to follow a conductive line. Today I`m going to compose a piece rather martially or also an emotionally and romantic piece.
I spend a lot of time sitting in front of the piano and looking for melodies, most of the time it doesn`t come off immediately, and then I find something that could be interesting in a moment and I try to work on it. When I`m pleased to it I work on the structure, then on the orchestration. I finish with the mixing. It takes somes days, sometimes even some weeks.
I`m very ambitious with me, the niveau of some of the composers is so high you have without cease to shift your limits and continue to lern and to try to be better than the day before.

10. Which of the tracks from your album “SOUNDTRACKS” do you like the most and why?

Every time I compose a piece I try it to be more elaborated and impressive than the last one. So to answer clearly: The last one I have composed, which is the first one on the soundcloud-list 😉
Apart from that I like to listen to “The meet” or “The ultimate battle”.

11. Favorite movie?

A difficult question, there are a lot of films I am fond of, one very different from the other. But being a fan since my childhood, I would say episode III from Star Wars (The revenge of the sith) which is also good for its sombre music and its melancholy from J. Williams which underlines the tragic side of the storyline and the aesthetics of the film.

12. Favorite Trailer Music track?

The same, a lot of this music is brilliant, but I think of titles like “Leaving lemuria” from Jo Blankenburg or “Homecoming” from Thomas Bergersen and also “Sands of time” from Audiomachine, to quote only a few…

13. What are you working on?

Actually I`m working on documentaries and I´m looking for a label to present my work in order to reach one day maybe… Hollywood… 😉

14. Your top 3 composers?

Like lots of other people, the famous John Williams and Hans Zimmer who had had a lot of influence on me and who pushed me in the direction of film music. I also like Thomas Bergersen very much, in my mind he is very talented and due to him I discovered the epic music a few years ago.
Generally there are a lot of artists and composers I admire and who inspired me.

15. Your opinion about the current dubstep trend?

It is not a streaming that I know very well, but technical spoken it is very interesting, concerning the technique “synthese sonore” they use.

16. And the last one: Do you prefer pears or apples?

Rather Kiwi with red wine 😉

17. Anything else to say?

I thank you for giving me the opportunity to say who I am and what I do and that you share it with people who, I hope, appreciate my Music !!!

Like, hear, watch and contact Franck Barré on Facebook, Soundcloud, Youtube or his Website.