budafulmusic

I admit, I’m a little obsessive when it comes to film music.

Are you the type of person that, after a films conclusion, ‘stays with it’ and listened to the entire end credit (EC) music? Most people, once the credits come, leave the theater or turn off the tv and move on. But what actually goes into the making of the EC music? Can it be/is it done with intent and style? What can/does the composer do while the names go up?

Several methods of filling the EC space come to mind:

1) Stick in existing score from the film. Use highlights of the music that come from key plot points. Many films do this effectively enough, though it often doesn’t showcase the composers’ intent for the music (which may or may not be a bad thing) as it could be left to a video editor to splice the music into the credits just to fill a certain period of time. It would likely save some valuable hours of studio time and seems to be the most common method.

2) Use even more original music. The EC gives the composer the opportunity to score music free from the bonds of the film and to pay more attention to form and flow of thought. Timed exactly right with the credits length, it sends the final logos off with style. One thing several popular film composers do is arrange concert versions of the themes they write to give it a more enjoyable listen on album. The concert adaptation would fit well in the EC as it wouldn’t be necessary to follow the film as closely. (This is perhaps best seen in the Star Wars films. SW: Episode I has one of the most interesting closers, with Episode II following closely behind.)

3) Make the credits pop… literally. Probably one of the most popular (and expensive) choices is for the marketing department to hire a well known singer or group usually apart from the composer, though not always, and have them record a song or two to play while the credits flow. This type of EC is good for cross marketing… but isn’t always good for the listenability of the score. (Hurray for the digital age where we can load only the songs we prefer onto our ipods!!)

So, lots of choices. None of them being exactly right or wrong. Honestly, it all depends on the film, it’s director’s and composer’s aesthetic. A comic book action film would likely do well with a score only approach, though not always is this the case anymore. A chick-flick would do better with, say, several sickening sweet, flavor-of-the-day songs.

Oh-boy! Sugar rush!

This fifth and final choral piece was actually the first that I arranged for Majesty this time around. The old hymn text has been set to a relatively popular new tune by Ben Nyce. This setting takes a rather restrained yet harmonically colorful approach to the text:

Complete in Thee! No work of mine
May take, dear Lord, the place of Thine;
Thy blood hath pardon bought for me,
And I am now complete in Thee.

Complete in Thee—each want supplied,
And no good thing to me denied;
Since Thou my portion, Lord, wilt be,
I ask no more, complete in Thee.

Listen to an audio sample here.

Here are two additional samplings of music that I arranged for Majesty’s new choral collection. It and the full recording will be released later this summer. 

The Fountain

This well known Cowper text is treated with a new melody by Ben Everson. I first heard this tune but didn’t care to much for it. I have to admit that it grew on me and now I think it is one of the stronger pieces in this collection. A very placid and calm opening with the lines “There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins; And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.” My favorite lines are at the close of this arrangement: “E’er since, by faith, I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply, Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.”

All Glory, Laud and Honor

The not so familiar text about the triumphant entry, All Glory, Laud and Honor is paired with the very well known hymn tune, Ellacombe. Very fanfare-ish in nature, this piece captures the excitement of the text and rises to a climactic and memorable end. When I first started with this arrangement, I was nervous. I new of no less than 6-7 exsisting arrangements of this tune and was concerned that I might copy something from one of them in some way. Sometimes having a really good aural memory can work against you.

You’ve, no doubt, heard all the buzz from the popular Twilight series. Here, I offer a highly condensed version to the 4 books in the series. All you need to know about Twilight…and way too much more.

Twilight: (Bella) ugh, I hate my life… I know, I’ll date that pasty vampire.
New Moon: ugh, pasty vampire dropped me… I know, I’ll date that hunky werewolf.
Eclipse: ugh, that pasty vampire came back and proposed… I know, I’ll get him to turn me into a vampire too. That will solve all my problems, right?
Dawn: ugh, I’m dying in labor… I know, pasty vampire can make me immortal and hunky werewolf can date my newborn vampire child.

If only all decisions were this simple.

A new post has been long overdue. Want to be sure to have something worth posting and not just blab. Several things have developed over the past few weeks.

• Just finished a commission for a wedding this summer. I wrestled for quite some time over an appropriate (tr: un-hoaky) wedding text and finally settled on a newer one entitled Lord, Make Us One. I think it turned out quite well. I am also pleased that I will be able to accompany for  it’s performance at the wedding. Scored for piano, harp, cello and duet vocals. I’ll hopefully get a recording of it.
• I had mentioned that I had done some orchestrating. I had the privilege of scoring several existing sacred choral pieces as well as arranging a few pieces myself. Really looking forward to how these will turn out on the recording! One thing that helped inspire my instrumentation for this music was what Rimsky-Korsakov’s prefaces his Principles of Orchestration with: “Write for the group you know will be playing the music and not for an ideal group.” Great advice.
• Speaking of orchestrating, My Jesus, Fair seems to be doing well over at www.churchworksmedia.com. Just received my first paycheck for that orchestration. Keep ‘em coming!
• My friends over at Majesty Music and I are collaborating once again for another Easter program. I have been busy arranging some great hymn texts/tunes and am looking forward to how they will be implemented as a whole.

Yes, this is the new and improved Budaful Music site. I finally moved over to WordPress. Please re-bookmark and re-add this site to your bookmarks and readers while at the same time deleting the old one. I trust that this new site will be an improvement over it’s old and decrepit predecessor.

This site contains all the posts from the edublogs site so never fear, you can go back and peruse any of my posts from yesteryear. What are you waiting for? Check out my new poll and vote!