Jade Gallagher

I love the social web and one of the really cool things is that I keep coming across my work, splattered around. I was lucky enough to be asked to put some string arrangements on Jade Gallagher’s album, then to prepare some arrangement scores for live gigs (including a couple with the BBC Concert Orchestra). Here’s Jade at her album launch (or soundcheck at least) performing The Way You Are Tonight, with a string quartet arrangement of mine. Don’t look for me in the quartet of players!

the social musician

I wonder whether I revel in the online social tools because I’m, well….not very sociable. Not a party bloke. The truth is I’m a disciple of the God of social media and I reckon getting stuck into blogging, myspace, facebook, rss, podcasts, ning and the rest has helped my business grow. That, and google ads maybe.

I don’t need persuading that I DO need to express myself online, but if you’re not sure, check out the more eloquent expert at newmusicstrategies.com This advice is directed more at musicians as commercial artists (doing gigs, selling songs) but the argument is equally compelling for the vast numbers of musicians who survive in media music, session music and music services. I recently asked a NY producer why he blogs and he put forward an argument that I subscribe to: people get to know you much better with a blog than a static website. Sure, the website can present the brand, but the blog connects you with the person.  The blog does what a drink’n'chat does, on a global scale.

I’ve also been able to show diversity in the service I can offer - I think that variety would look confusing on a static website.

As well as my work as an arranger and string player, I’m involved in some education projects, particularly related to (you guessed it) elearning.  And I’m looking for stories.   I’m doing some research to find out how creative industries professionals are using web tools in their business and I wonder if you could respond?

Do you use blogs, social networks or IM to connect with your clients,  and service providers (like me!)?  Do you publish your work online - (video, audio, podcasts, photographs, text) in social spaces (like YouTube, MySpace and Flickr)?  Do you collaborate, using google docs or wikis?  And most importantly, what benefit do you get from using these tools?

If you have a moment to respond, please tell your story by posting comments on the research wiki (just hit the discussion tab).

This research is part of the SPLICE project - to explore the technological practices of creative industry professionals.

What’s in it for you?  Maybe you’ll get some ideas from others to improve your own development.

the sweetest feeling

It was one of those days (yesterday) when I really felt a part of both the creative industry and the global community.  A day when all aspects of my endeavour came together sweetly - my passions for social web tools (for connecting and learning), the evolution of creative industries  and string arranging!  Looking back through the mails, messages, activities and chats, this is how it panned out.

Over night mails came from Ken Lewis (producer based in New York), asking about a sample recreation, Jen (my agent in Toronto) about Samplebase (Los Angeles) and an enquiry about strings (from Moscow).  There were notifications about discussions on the student social network I run (a Ning service) where John Blaylock (singer and writer for International One - now signed and recording debut album) was the guest host.  He totally rocks!  A band in Los Angeles were also enquiring about strings - found me with a google search.  Ken Lewis later agreed to trade some string work for a guest host slot on CCM Music (that is quite a coup!).

I spent the morning answering mails and prepping a presentation about web tools for learning, for staff at Mid Cheshire College.  A quick bit of fiddle practice (trying to get some jazz standards together with guitarist Jason Brown) then off to do the presentation (always a bit stressful) and found out more about the new Creative and Media diploma which is embracing the convergence of skills that all CI practitioners need to wake up to.  As part of the event, we posted a comment on Ken Lewis’s blog - his blogging is a great example of how to reach out from a website, not just present information.

Email updates also about some UK work - a hip-hop project, a movie (my old friend and extraordinary composer Richard Mitchell) and recordings for radio idents.

I’m chipping away at a long term project for Tim Duncan - preparing arrangements and scores for an ice ballet (to be recorded in Moscow end of May), so managed to put some hours in on this.

I just wanted to capture the satisfying feeling of all the bits falling into place!

Composers

A music student asked me some questions about composing for a research project and although I’m not a composer (apart from dabbling in library) I have been a fly-on-the-wall of several composers - it’s a fascinating process!  Most of my contact with composers has bee in media music - for film, TV and games.  It is not music for its own sake, rather it communicates and manipulates in relation to visual imagery and story telling.  I feel that movies and games are the natural home of contemporary music (OK, not exclusively) as these media offer a place to bring together every musical influence without prejudice, so in movies and games (both designed to play on our emotions to the utmost) we see more influences and genres mashed-up than in any other arena.

How do you become a composer?
The inventor Thomas Edison left us with many life-changing inventions, plus a cliche: “genius is 1% inspiration, and 99% perspiration”.  It’s a maxim that suits any creative process.  Composers not only have to generate musical ideas, they need the self-belief, determination, courage and commitment to carry them through, and that covers not only the crafting of ideas (arranging, producing, recording) but the strength to establish themselves as credible composers with the people who will commission them for scores.

Sure, to be a composer you need a knowledge of musical language and a willingness to develop musical ideas, but just as important is the passion to carry those ideas through and convince others of their worth.  This is a character trait - dogged determination and confidence in yourself.

Not all the composers I know have come through a formal musical education - the self-taught route is just as viable, as learning comes from experience.

Why did you become involved in composition?
Any creator must have an overwhelming desire to create - a drive that leaves them in no doubt that they simply have to do it and cannot imagine stopping.

What type of projects does a composer work on?
The commissions are incredibly varied; any media that tells a story and manipulates emotion.  Radio, tv, video, film, web-based, theatre.  LIbrary music is still a huge business - still music for media, but trying to pre-empt the brief with off-the-shelf compositions to fit imagined scenarios.

Where does a composer work?
Most composers I know do very little on paper any more - possibly some sketches.  They work at a piano keyboard linked to a computer, recording and developing their ideas in digital audio software (Cubase, Nuendo, Logic, Pro Tools, Sibelius and others), so the working environment is a studio.

Is the income of a composer reliable?
Income for a composer has a front end and a back end - commission fees at the start of the process and royalties in the long term.  Although any freelance work is inevitably ‘unreliable’, once a composer has established an identity and credibility, income can be surprisingly reliable - particularly if they build a long term relationship with commissioners (such as film directors, documentary makers, library music publishers or games producers) as the composer becomes part of a team and grows with the rest of the group.

What are the ‘working hours’ of a composer?
I think all of the composers I know have at some stage gone without sleep for days on end!

Our Tune

I’ve worked with Adders at LBS in Stockport since the 1990s! He’s still there and I’m still here. LBS produces commercials and soundtracks and Adders comes to me a few times a year - radio ads for solicitors seems to be my bag for Adders productions! The latest job was to reproduce the composition used by Simon Bates for Our Tune many years ago on Radio 1. It is the theme from Romeo and Juliet by Nina Rota. Copyright was cleared by the user and my task was to recreate as authentically as possible the original sound.

1] transcribe the score - I passed this on to a colleague to save some time. She did this as a rough manuscript to start with, then input all the lines into a sequencer for midi.

2] create a tempo map in Logic to match the original rubato of the track

3] select samples for each instrument

4] record some live strings

5] mix it and deliver.

Adders got all the individual stems, midi and score, and may choose to replace some of the samples. Here’s 30′ of my rough mix.

Tom Jones

Sadly I didn’t get to meet him, but I heard plenty of him in my headphones. Futurecut continue their roll of great production jobs with new tracks for Tom Jones. They’d been working with him last year in LA so when I got the call to work on strings for 5 songs I was reaching for my passport. Sadly, it wasn’t to be LA, but Shepherds Bush (The Townhouse) with some great players. Session ran well - it sure beats working. Hopefully another batch of songs later in the year. The arrangements for these rolled out with minimal fuss - Darren and Tunde had already crafted some ideas on the demos and between us we developed these into arrangements - simple but effective (I hope).

In the in-box

I must be doing something right, though like many of my colleagues, we joke that ‘no-one’s found me out yet’!

Current projects include arrangements and sessions for Judas Priest, Tom Jones (with Futurecut) and a feisty female celebrity I’m not allowed to name yet!  And that’s not to mention some great pop projects incoming too.

The state of the music business continues to be a talking point for all these artists and producers, though that is not stopping them making music.  ‘Rights’ issues need some kind of overhaul; the current picture assumes a musician gives his consent for audio release but as the lines between media become blurred and the income streams for simple audio release (cd and download) slip away, so the ‘buyout’ increasingly looks like  a reasonable scenario.

arranging - how I do it

I like to keep some involvement with teaching as it makes me reflect on how I do what I do, and I enjoy supporting the kids that are the future of the music industry.  I do believe music professionals have some duty to provide a connection between work and learning in order to keep the art and craft of music making healthy, so that each generation can build on the last.

I’m currently teaching arranging and thought I’d analyse how I go about it here.
Of course, every arranger approaches the job in his/her own way and that diversity of methodology is what makes us all offer our own particular character in an arrangement.  I’m continually fascinated by how differently every musician I encounter works, and I believe I have to adapt to each way of working, to suit the individual writer and producer.

For me, I like to get inside a song in order to empathize with it before I can add anything that enhances it.  Arranging is not only about part writing and harmony, but about bringing out the rise and fall of the song, helping it to communicate its ideas most effectively, and support the flow and journey.

So I start by immersing myself in it and trying to get a picture of the ’shape’ of the song; I make notes about the sections, number of bars, chord sequence, rise and fall, existing melodies and hooks.  There might be string ideas on the arrangement already so I transcribe those to give me a 1 or 2 page overview.  It’s a continual challenge to be able to ’see’ the elements of a composition, to translate the aural to something visual.

It is only with this ‘picture’ (a combination of lists, rough notation and scribbles) that I can start to consider what strings can add.  If I need to add lines and counter melodies I’ll essentially improvise these along with the track, humming along (it’s not pretty) or playing a keyboard.  I’ll write these lines down or play them in as midi and gradually build up a ‘pot’ of ideas.  Then I’ll structure these ideas, based on the shape and direction of the song.  I generally expect to provide something different for each section of a song, giving the composer/producer plenty of options. So even though they may well go for one particular chorus line, I provide a different one for each chorus, and suggest something for the intro, verses, links, bridges etc even if it’s unlikely to get used - you never know, it might just press all the right buttons (and I like to think I give value for money!).

Reference tracks are really useful too, particularly as so much work is done remotely now, with people around the world, often purely by email and skype.

For most jobs where I’m contributing creative ideas, I’ll demo the arrangement with some basic live recording and samples.  Most writers like to hear an arrangement idea, though some still prefer a score.  This demo will provoke more response than any amount of talking about the concepts of an arrangement and lead to updates that help me provide the most valuable contribution to a production.

end of the year

Like most folks, I was hoping to clear the proverbial desk before the Christmas break, but it’s not going to happen, which means there’s still plenty of work to roll into the New Year.  So no sign of the music business grinding to a halt, as predicted by some.

The jobs could hardly be more diverse for a string arranger: Mike Kintish is producing a major celeb, Attie Bauw has asked me to pitch for strings on the new album of a legendary rock band, Richard Jacques is working on a video game score - he writes evocative and expansive melodies and makes best use of strings.  Duncan Waugh and Chris Taylor are once again being prolific for Cunard, Saville is finishing off album tracks and Lyracis is working on hip-hop tunes.  David Wrench is producing for Elin Fflur.

And I’ve swung to the other side - with Logic 8 (currently going through some pain!).

Jocelyn Brown

Busy run continues with pop, score and theatre projects rolling in, but in the post this morning was a CD (purchased off eBay!) of a charity song for Dove House Hospice called from Hull to King’s Cross. It started life as a commercial for Hull Trains and somewhere along the line turned into this great charity record! The song was written and produced by Adders at LBS, vocals by Jocelyn Brown, strings by realstrings.com and it’s fun.