Category: Columns
Branded
Philip Glass said, “The real issue is not how do you find your voice – it’s how to get rid of the damn thing!”
Nice Folks Finish First
The fall of Harvey Weinstein has illuminated some of the longstanding practices of sexual exploitation in Hollywood. People also mention how he and his brother were bullies, routinely yelling and...
How AI, AR, and MR will form the future of 21st-century music
Yesterday, the video might have killed the radio star; but tomorrow, the UX will kill the video star.
Beauty of the Unpredictable: Seven Days At Joshua Tree
Emails. Facebook posts. SoundCloud posts, of course. (I don’t do Snap, or Instagram, or Twitter, or much else). These are how I interact and get to know most of the...
Stopping Bullets: Accomplishing the Impossible
My wife, Mirette, and I re-watched The Matrix recently after not seeing it for many years. I’m glad to say the film mostly holds up well, especially the outstanding score...
Behind the Cuts: The essential role of music and rhythm in trailers
I’ve been editing movie trailers for 11 years and for me music is the key component. Every editor is different, some start with dialogue, others like to throw down a...
Rhymes and The Greatest F You Song Ever Written
Most people know me as a film and television composer, but I started out as a songwriter. In fact, a jingle I wrote (with Ken Shuldman), the Kit Kat Gimme...
Hans Zimmer’s Journey to the Line: Asymmetry and The Forbidden Cue
In pop music, most phrases come in groups of 2 or 4 which, in turn, are 4 or 8 bars in length. The utter predictability of this often lends a...
What is Perfect Pitch anyway?
Perfect pitch is a term used by non-musicians to mean “pretty good ability to stay in tune.” As in, “You should hear my daughter sing – she has perfect pitch!”...
5 Ways To Make The Most Of The Holidays as a Musician
While the corporate world and almost everyone else are out of the office for the holidays, I often struggle with this forced “downtime”; as a full-time musician, I’m never not...
From Artist To Business: Just open your mouth
There’s a certain Je ne sais pas about being a composer. At first, at least for me, it was something I had to do. I had to sit down at the piano and write...
The 5 best ways to get and keep a job as a Hollywood Composer Assistant (or anything else)
Over the years, I have hired several dozen full-time employees and hundreds of musicians, singers, engineers, and other session personnel. Here is a list of principles to consider when job-seeking...