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Year
7
Camberwell, 2004-05
By now I
had amassed a substantial collection of rejected music, and this
only made me more determined to create the perfect theme. The more tunes I made, the greater the pressure
became to top all of them, and
justify the time spent. Anything
that sounded good while composing it inevitably sounded bad the next
day. I would frequently come up with something that sounded reasonable,
and
after
transposing it a semitone would find it sounded better. The following
day it sounded wrong.
More hits from the recycle bin. At least I was starting to get a handle on orchestration now.
I
couldn't explain the reason for this musical paralysis, but it didn't
help that the construction of each idea with all its instruments and
articulations was such a complex, laborious procedure that the idea
would fade before it had a
chance to be translated into physical form. Or that the narrative
changed pace so rapidly, and was of a length that made memorable, reoccuring
melody a difficult proposition.
The inspiration was there, the motivation was there, but for whatever
reason, the music wasn't coming out easily and so I had to resort
to brute force.
The same thirty seconds displayed as notes (many of which are hidden underneath other notes).
I
exhaustively analysed soundtracks to find out what made them tick. I
tried arranging the best of what I already had, rearranging it,
playing it backwards, pulling its insides out and stomping on them
then stuffing them back into its rotting carcass. All the
while I
continued to generate more and more new ideas that I thought were "the
one", only to realise my mistake the following day.
I
never doubted that I would finish the project, but I had the feeling
others weren't so sure now. I was concerned however that the music
was never going to stack up to my expectations, and that the film
itself was becoming obsolete. Technology had advanced in the past
six or seven years and animation standards were picking up. I didn't
know what was going to happen with this thing when I had finished it,
all I knew was that it had to be finished and it couldn't be rushed.
After yet another re-evaluation of my "best of"
collection I settled on one or
two standouts, and carefully strung them together with some new
material and ran with it before it
shrivelled and
ended up in the rejects folder. After
arranging it with some other
earlier
concepts into a complete score, I played back the results and, as
usual, it
sounded lame. I let it set to fester for a while, and on repeat
listening it wasn't too
bad. Several substitutions, revisions and new
ideas later and I had something that I considered "moderately
acceptable". I
made a mental note to not attempt such a silly thing again. The
next
task was to edit out all the bad notes
and timings and re-record all the parts properly, ready for final
mix.
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