The SCORE - Winter 2014

VOLUME XXIXNUMBER FOUR

WINTER 2014

Designing And Building A Portable VersionOf Your Studio RigBy Jeff Beal

Continued on 8

Reflections: Andrea Morricone 5

C O N T E N T S

There are many ways

that travel can enhance

our lives; both art-

istically and personally

being untethered from

your home workspace

can be quite inspiring

and useful.

G O I N G M O B I L E

Ginny Mancini’s Journey 12

Home Studio Recording 7

Musical Shares 23

Afew years ago, I was in conversation with a film producer about a possible film project that happened to be film-

ing and posting in New York City. She asked me, with what now seems like a very pre-scient question, “So are you by any chance bi-coastal? I thought to myself, hmm—our son’s about to start college, my wife and I al-ways loved NYC, wouldn’t it be fun to have a little place there? After a few minutes of idle Googling Manhattan real-estate listings, real-ity started creeping in; aside from the obvi-ous cost of such a purchase, there would be countless other ongoing hassles in owning (or renting) a place, we knew all too well. I began to wonder, what if I don’t need a NY address, but the ability to make any address, NY, Par-is, or anywhere my temporary workplace? What if the technology has evolved to the place where I can design a home and portable solution, in which I could seamlessly move between the two with the absolute minimum of hassle and compromise between each?

I’d like to share with you my setup and solutions. Although my choices and needs will be different than yours, I hope this article might inspire you and spur you thinking in going mobile! As we all know with our de-sign and working environments, things are constantly evolving as new tools become available. Although I’d “done” portable com-posing in the past, previous portable rigs had always involved a lot of tradeoffs, and hours spent updating sound mappings, palette downsizing from one format (the home ver-sion) to the portable one.

But, just what is “portable?” I realized to build this new type of system I wanted to have, I was going to have to relax my defi-nition of this word (for some). This needn’t be something I’d casually pull out on a plane

seat, but a real complete studio workspace, so my aim was to fit everything inside a single airline carry on. It might be a bit heavy and bulky, but I could wheel it anywhere in the world, and carry it on a plane, and do real work on it when I got there.

STEP ONE: Design & The Big PictureAs I started to design my mobile rig, it

became apparent that I needed to attack this problem from both angles. In wanting to take a precise replica of my composing palette on the road I found it useful, in fact imperative, to first look at my home studio setup with a fresh and critical eye: Were there redundan-cies or overblown, inelegant aspects of the technical and software design of my home studio workflow?

Luckily, at this time, I was already in the process of converting my entire sound setup, which had previously been running on three slave machines (running both VE Pro and Logic to host various sounds), over to one monster Hackintosh I had built to run Vi-enna Ensemble Pro. I also realized my total number of VE Pro instances had become way too numerous and bloated (around 13). Us-ing a multi-port environment object that VE pro provides to Logic users, I was able to get the entire palette down to five instances, four running in 64-bit and a fifth running in 32-bit mode (to host some legacy VIs I’d grown at-tached to). Even though I liked keeping my main Mac Pro CPU free for midi hard drive recording, and in-the-box mixing, I could af-ford to host one of these VE Pro 64-bit instanc-es on my 12 core Mac Pro, which seemed like a good division both in RAM and the CPU cycles on each of these two machines.

I need to take a moment for an aside here

SilenceBy Lori Barth

D

2

F R O M T H E E D I T O R ' S D E S K

id you ever try to close your eyes, sit still and try to have silence? In my yoga class they always want you to end the session with Shavasana (Sanskrit for corpse pose), a quiet meditative state

For information contact [email protected]. g

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Sean CalleryAlf ClausenJoseph ConlanMychael DannaAlexandre DesplatDanny ElfmanIan FraserMichael GiacchinoAshley Irwin

Van AlexanderBurt BacharachLori BarthRichard BellisAlan & Marilyn BergmanCarter BurwellRay Charles

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your energy.Unfortunately, I have found no silence in silence…at least not for the musician. Everything

intended to rejuvenate the body where you lie still in silence and refocus

Continued on 20

The Library Of Our LivesBy Ashley Irwin

I

One of the great joys of

what we do is knowing

we can do it forever,

whether we’re being

paid or not. I don’t know

the same can be said of

many other professions.

f you’re anything like me, you’ve likely col-lected a vast array of musical literature over the course of your career: pocket scores, ref-

P R E S I D E N T ’ S M E S S A G E

years ago. Over that time he sold most of the gear in his studio and what he couldn’t sell he either donated or dumped. Nonetheless, I considered this far more drastic. Although I do have some gear attachment, it’s nowhere near as chronic as the love I have for my li-brary. Of course I said to him, “I’ll take all your library” and so he delivered a slew of boxes to me.

It’s a wonderful mixture of classic, rare and even out-of-print books some of which I already had, but many I had long sought. When I asked him how he could possibly part with this extraordinary collection of books and scores he simply answered, “Easy. I’m not in the (music) business anymore so I don’t need them.” He had no emotional at-tachment to his library, whatsoever.

My friend, while considerably older than I am, is by no means elderly and is in excellent health. However, he chose to walk away from music when he felt he’d done all he’d set out to. And believe me, he is certainly not sitting around now with nothing to do. His life is full of all sorts of interests, but creating music is not one of them.

Have you ever considered there may be a time in your future when you won’t want to be writing or playing music? Honestly, it’s never crossed my mind. One of the great joys of what we do is knowing we can do it for-ever, whether we’re being paid or not. I don’t know the same can be said of many other pro-fessions.

Maybe I’ll feel differently when I reach my friend’s age. Who knows? But I certainly hope not. g

3

erence books, song folios, manuals, composer biographies, etc. Let’s call it your library. I bet if I came to your place and chose just about any item from your library, you’d be able to tell me the story behind it. The Sammy Nes-tico charts you played with your high school band, the pocket score you bought after your heard “The Rite of Spring” for the first time, the manual that came with your DX-7, Walter Piston’s Orchestration that was assigned read-ing — they chronicle your musical journey.

You may have a greater attachment to some than others. I do. My copy of Hanon has my piano teacher’s comments and the date he assigned me each exercise in the margins. My copy of Mancini’s Sounds and Scores has a note written on the inside cover from my mother wishing me the best for my 16th birthday.

The point is, they all contributed, in vary-ing degrees, to who you are and the way you approach your music.

Now try to imagine giving them all away. Could you part with your library? I know I couldn’t.

A few months ago, a dear friend and col-league of mine with a long and distinguished career in Hollywood, called to say he was getting rid of his library...the entire collection of musical literature he’d acquired over the course of his life. I couldn’t believe my ears. “Do you want it?” he inquired, “because if you don’t, I’m taking it all to the trash.” How could this be? What was wrong with him? Now I should tell you, this gentleman essen-tially retired from the business a couple of

Randy Newman Honored“Hollywood In Vienna” honored Oscar/Gram-

my/Emmy Award-winner composer/songwriter Randy Newman with the Max Steiner Award. Mr. Newman was joined by his cousin and fellow com-poser, David Newman, where they performed to-gether on stage for the first time in their careers. Ran-dy conducted, performed and sang from his famous repertoire including “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” (Toy Story), “We Belong Together” (Toy Story 3), “If I Didn’t Have You” (Monsters Inc.), “Almost There” (Princess and The Frog), selections from The Natural, Seabiscuit, Pleasantville, Avalon, Maverick, and more.

L-R: David Newman andRandy Newman

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SCL New York DiaryBy Mark Suozzo

N O T E S F R O M N E W Y O R K

he NY Chapter has been expand-ing its roster of events, moving into live streaming and education

which Jeff Richmond added 1a, “Marry the Star.”

What would life be without compe-tition. In the weeks leading up to the show we held a comedy-scoring con-test, and the results were announced at the event, and the winning submis-sions screened. Congratulations to Mi-chael Markowski (“Meow” Music) and John Centrone (Burglar Tango) for their effective forays into the genre.

In addition to questions and com-ments from people on the web, the responses from George, Jeff and Chris were incisive and enlightening.

Special thanks to ASCAP’s Sue Devine and Shelby Comstock for mak-ing this technological marvel work flawlessly.

SCL NY Mentor ProgramThe NY Chapter took its first foray

into promoting the careers and skills of its membership by selecting eight of its talented young members to take part in the SCL NY Mentorship Program. Congratulations to our Mentees, Alex Britten, Jeremiah Bornfeld, Vincent Ca-lianno, Alex Chilowicz, Andrew Cho-pra, Zachary Lavendar, Elizabeth Lim and Dong Liu. The program will place the participants in small information sessions with industry professionals, from composer to scoring mixer/engi-neer, music editor, music preparation specialist and entertainment lawyer. Many thanks to LA’s Elizabeth Sellers

for helping us to structure the launch of the program, and by adding her own expertise to the equation with a session on the college-to-career transition and career development. We’re confident it will prove to be tremendously success-ful and popular among our new and associate members, helping graduate students and young professionals to enter into the business with more confi-dence and knowledge, and helping the SCL live up to its mission of fostering the well being of all our members.

We kicked it off on October 20th with a visit to the mixing room of Scoring Mixer Lawrence Manchester (Jimmy Fallon Show, The Departed, Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark).

Tand outreach programs.

Composing For ComedyThe SCL and ASCAP presented

our first live streaming event with the panel discussion “Composing for Comedy” on October 2nd. Moderated by Steering Committee member Chris Hajian (Inspector Gadget 2, Knights of Prosperity) and featuring composers George S. Clinton (Austin Powers, The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause) and Jeff Richmond (30 Rock, Baby Mama), the program explored many aspects of effectively scoring for comedy— from dealing with schedules, timing, clichés, comedy styles, when to get serious, presenting convincing midi demos and coping with the inevitable changes after the previews come in—comic timing dictates all. George em-phasized the necessity of listening very closely to and deferring to the writer, director, producer and star and most of all “laughing your ass off” at the first screening!

They also listed the 3 requirements for breaking into scoring for comedy (and the business in general) — from last to first:

3. Talent 2. Luck1. Network (“Who you Know”) — to

L-R: George S. Clinton, Jeff Richmond, Chris Hajian

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changesBig changes have taken place in the

SCL NY organization. Our President, Joel Beckerman, is passing the baton to Greg Pliska. Greg has contributed so much to the organization as a producer and moderator at Composer-to-Com-poser events, as a facilitator of valued relationships with the theater commu-nity, and as a leader in adding value for our membership.

JoAnne Harris, our Administrative Assistant, has also moved on…to the Steering Committee! We know her as a fine composer, orchestrator, producer and she brings these attributes to the Committee. As Administrative Assis-tant she’s a been a creative force—a

SCL NY Mentor Program participants, L-R Rear: Jeremiah Bornfeld, Chris Hajian, Alex Britten., Dong Liu, Lawrence Manches-ter, Alex Chilowicz, Elizabeth Lim, Andrew Chopra; Front: Vin Calianno, Zach Lavendar

Continued on Page 21

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MContinued on Next Page

ANDREA MORRICONEINTERVIEWED BY LORI BARTH

Andrea Morricone is the son of Italian Composer Ennio Morricone. He now lives in Santa Monica, CA but goes often back to Italy, and is a composer like his father. He won the BAFTA for his work with his father on Cinema Paradiso in 1988, the Golden Globe for L’Industriale (The Entrepereneur), along with many other awards. Andrea is a strong composer in his own right, working every day on either a concert piece or some film music. On November 8th he had a big film music concert at the historic Warner Grand Theatre in San Pedro and just completed “Anthem To Faith” for the Vatican. Here are some of his thoughts in his own words.

usic is a gift that you are given. It’s a matter of sharing; it’s a matter of love. I hear music

R E F L E C T I O N S

all the time. When I came back to LA

Movies and I remember him telling me, “Andrea, you should really do something in a little bit Rota, Piovani, Bacalov.” I was listening and I can do that but is it good for the music doing that? Does it have a deep meaning for me as a composer to do that? What am I going to bring new to the society of people who love music?

There is a kind of laziness that I would like to talk about. I believe the audience should be woken up; this is my main target. Everybody gives his/her own answer to it. I’m not saying my answer is the best. I know there are many composers doing that. I’m glad. But America doesn’t go back to the Italian composers of 30 years ago, especially with this kind of new concept concert that I am developing.

a few days ago I had to compose at 3 a.m. I had a very strong idea for this big concert that I am working on, Music For Movies. Any kind of music could be good for movies. So I figured out to do a concert of my movie scores where there are actually plenty of little rivers all over the experience I’ve had over the last 20 or 30 years of my activity.

I thought this might be something good to give to the audience, especially the young generation. I’m also aware that it is a kind of a challenge. Some-times people don’t like new as much. They like The Pink Panther by Mancini, of course. They like The Good, The Bad, The Ugly, of course. They like The Godfather, of course. I recently met somebody and I was talking about doing a concert about Music For

6

Reflections: Andrea MorriconeContinued from Page 5

I look forward to giving everybody a strong emotional experience.

When I was a kid my whole world was my father. It was my beautiful world. As a kid you can imagine, I was born in ’64, it was a time of Spaghetti westerns, A Fistful of Dollars, and so this was the music I was listening to. I grew up on that music and the idea of the strong teams he had. I remember I was very scared by my father, you know, so I was walking in his huge studio, which I remember was out of the city. The floor was the color of yellow mochette and I was hiding myself behind columns and while I was doing that I’d hear (plays a melody on the piano of Here’s To You by his father). It was the time when Joan Baez sang this. So I said, “Wow,” do you understand this music was so great, so strong? People still love it. And there is a deep reason for that. Plus I would like to add the situation about the movies was different. Sacco E Vanzetti was a terrific movie, like all the movies of Gillo Pontecorvo, La Battaglia Di Algeri, the genius of my father was flourishing like a fountain. He would gather under himself all the best direc-tors of that time. And, as a kid, I had so much admiration and so much love for him.

For a long time my father was leading me to play chess, for example.When I was young I was a very, very good chess player. Then finally when I was nineteen I decided to start music. I was a little scared of doing that before. You know, my father didn’t push. He wanted me to have a good culture as a man. I was learning Latin and Greek at the university. My mom loved the idea of me studying music. I would like to tell you that it was something I did pretty unconsciously.

When I was younger I composed little melodies. They were all classical. There was a melody that I composed when I was eleven. I had a good ear; I was interested in the piano. I want to tell you something even deeper than that. I was talking with my girlfriend Esther the other night: We were talking to each other about our lives, our human lives like also in a movie that I scored, Liberty Heights by Barry Levinson, that human

lives are made of a few moments. You know? A few moments that really belong to yourself so deeply that we can recall, remember in a remarkable way. Those moments, whether we want them or they come from outside, whatever it turns out to be, but those moments are probably the epiphanal moments of something divine. This was for me the day that I went to my father and rang his bell and said, “I want to do this.” I could be thinking about G over B, I could be thinking about a 7 diminished with a Bb in the bass, what could I do? It’s truly, if you ask me now, as many other people have done, I have had to recommend to somebody to study music—to study music is very challenging. Music is an art so difficult to figure out in “our contemporary time“—that the process of a person learning it could be almost impossible. There are relationships, especially in tonal music, between notes and sounds that are so hard to achieve that it makes music seem something to which only a few composers are destined.

You know I recently had lunch with my father and my mother, and then my father after lunch said, “Let’s move to the living room.” I was talking to him and I said, “You understand to be a composer you have to start from here on Earth, then go to Mars, go back, then Uranio [Uranis], then go back at least two or three times and then you are a composer.” This happens in several ways. For me I know the way it happened. For him it happened in another way. He started out his professional life playing the trumpet when he was 14 in the late nights. And he was compelled by his father to do that, but he went to school during the day. And then when he was 18 of course they told him he was talented and recommended that he study har-mony and then so and so on… And, finally, my father went to the school of Goffredo Petrassi, where he wanted to go. He went to the secretary, and he said, “No, you give me that class, I don’t want this class. I want to go to Goffredo Petrassi.” And what was beautiful was that he got a degree with Goffredo Petrassi and after 20 years I became very good friends with Goffredo Petrassi. When he couldn’t write music anymore he would call once a month and want me to stop by and visit him to talk about life.

At that time I was at the conservatory but the conservatory didn’t give me the right tools to be a [film] composer. In America it is totally different, I have to tell you very clearly. I’m making a statement—if you go to Berklee School of Music, you learn how to become a film composer for movies. They teach you how to run the software. In Italy the situation is dramatic, it’s very serious. There are like maybe 200 cities in Italy, and every city has a conservatory. Maybe for the instruments you might find a good teacher, but for composition, non-existent. And I told my father that the other day. He agreed.

[Aside from writing film music and symphonic music] I also want to conduct because I know how to con-duct. Conducting is like making love to a woman. You can’t help doing that.After so many years of practicing and composing, the flow of a piece becomes natural because you find what is called ‘stress’, there is the right stress when you move from the interval G-C into the E-A, and you need to modulate in D minor, and to move the bass afterwards, but maybe I’m talking too much…

When I had the chance to finally work with my father, it was impossible to share the cake. Either you are below, which was my case. I did the 1979 Bertolucci movie La Luna with him but I didn’t have the personality I have now. You have to be very strong. I needed years to get to the point. At the time while I was working with him I didn’t tap into that equality. I didn’t know how, I was very lucky. This was probably one of the divine moments we were talking about before. I wasn’t the composer that I am now.

I’ll tell you something very clearly, there was a time when I was assisting him a lot in the recording sessions. My father is an incredible man because, as you can understand, he started writing music for movies in the ‘60s and goes throughout the ‘90s. I want to bring your attention to a particular thing. The movies technique and technology has changed. It was my duty also to open myself wide to this new kind of software and gear. My father doesn’t have this idea at all about what should happen. He doesn’t write with Logic. He’s all paper and pencil. There is something very specific because my father, he thinks of music related to the physical seconds and instead I


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Continued on Next Page

Home Studio RecordingBy Fletcher Beasley

There are lots of good

articles available on the

Internet about treating

rooms for sound and

Focal Press recently

published a fantastic

book, The Studio SOS

Book, that demystifies

the process.

Every composer knows that adding a real musician or seventy to a track really brings it to life. Samples just don’t have the nuance and

that much and the one that you already have (provided it has level controls to change the incoming signal level) is probably fine for your purposes. Don’t get me wrong: at some point you will want to invest in a high quality mic preamp, but the differences between less expensive mic preamps made by companies such as ART and the expensive ones made by Grace Designs and Rupert Neve are subtle. You can hear the differences when ABing them, but when mixed in a track with other sounds, the mic preamp will play less of a role than the microphone you use or the way that that instrument was miked.

The MicrophoneThe microphone you use to record the in-

strument you are tracking plays a big role in the sound you get. One of the benefits of going to a professional studio is being able to choose from the large collection of mics that most studios own. For the project studio owner, purchasing a good quality, versatile microphone is an important investment. This is a great time to buy a microphone, as there are many good microphones that can be found for less than $1000.

If you are buying your first microphone, you should look for a large frame condenser (also known as capacitor) microphone, ideally one that has multiple polarity patterns to switch between. The polarity pattern refers to the direction in which the microphone picks up a signal. Most mics will have a cardioid pattern. A cardioid pattern means the microphone picks up a signal from one direction and rejects it from others. It is the most common microphone pattern because it allows relative isolation of the sound source.

Some microphones have a switch that allows you to choose different polarity pat-terns. The most useful polarity pattern after cardioid is omnidirectional, which means that the mic will pick up a signal from the back and sides in addition to the front. The omni pattern is very useful if you want more of the sound of the instrument in the context of the space you are recording. For example, I have gotten good results using an omni pattern on violin because that is an instrument that typically hear more room sound on the recording.

I recommend investing in at least one good quality condenser microphone. If you are

expression of real instruments. But if you aren’t trained as an engineer or haven’t done a lot of recording in your studio it may be daunting to bring in a player to record in your project studio. Let’s look at some of the factors that contribute to getting a good result.

The Sound Of The Recording SpaceWhen recording an acoustic instrument,

the sound of your room plays a role in the way that the instrument will sound in the final recording. Treating your space with acoustical material will not only make it sound better for accurate monitoring, but it will make instruments sound better in the recording space. Applying acoustical treat-ment does not require a PhD in acoustics. There are lots of good articles available on the Internet about treating rooms for sound and Focal Press recently published a fantastic book, The Studio SOS Book, that demystifies the process.

Most rooms in which we set up project studios are box shaped. This presents acoustic problems because sound waves bounce back and forth between parallel surfaces and cause certain frequencies to be either too loud or too quiet. We need to use acoustic treatment in order to combat these parallel waves and reflections that create an unflattering acoustic environment for listening and recording. Companies such as Auralex sell complete room treatment packages for taming proble-matic acoustic spaces.

Microphone PreampsA microphone preamp amplifies a micro-

phone signal so that it is loud enough to be audible in a recording. Your audio interface has a microphone preamp built into it but most studio owners will buy a dedicated mic preamp so that they can control the level of signal being recorded as these preamps have a gain knob while many audio interfaces do not. High-end mic preamps also color the mic signal in a pleasing way. I’m sure you have heard of the much sought after preamps made by companies such as Neve and API.

Now I am going to suggest something a bit radical here. In the context of project studio recording, the preamp you use doesn’t matter

T E C H T A L K

8

Home StudioRecordingContinued from Page 7

planning on recording a number of different instruments look for one, such as the AKG 414, which is versatile and gets good results on a variety of sources. On the other hand, if you are a singer and primarily planning on recording your own voice, then find a microphone that sounds best with your voice. The microphone that sounds best on a specific singer can be highly variable and some singers have found that an inexpensive microphone works best with their instrument.

The Recording ProcessWhen you are recording in a space

where the instrument is in the same room that the speakers are located, it is important to turn off the speakers and monitor on headphones while recording. You don’t want the recorded signal to come through the speakers and get rerecorded onto the track.

Make sure you adjust the input level on your microphone preamp so that it doesn’t exceed 0 db in your DAW, as this will cause the signal to distort and there is no way to rectify that after it has been recorded. I recommend setting the level between -12 and -18 db, as this will give you enough headroom for most instruments. You need to look at the meter on the track’s channel strip in your DAW to see what the incoming level is. Once you have set the mic pre so you have a good level, don’t change it between takes. Otherwise it will make it difficult to comp between different takes.

If you haven’t recorded a particu-lar instrument, doing a little research is very helpful. An Internet search can yield a lot of great ideas for how to approach miking the instrument. It isn’t always obvious where the best mic position will be. For example, you might think that sticking a microphone in the bell of clarinet would produce a good result, when, in fact, a clarinet generally sounds best when miked about a foot above the player’s hands.

Players can be good resources for miking their instrument. They have been on a lot of sessions and have seen where engineers will place the micro-phone. Many players also do their own

recording and have experimented with what sounds best with their instru-ment. I find this to be a good starting point from which I can make adjust-ments as needed.

Ideally, I will adjust the microphone position by moving it while the player is warming up and listening to how the change in position is affecting the tonal quality. In a small studio in which you are tracking and recording in the same space it can be difficult to make adjustments while the player is playing, since you are listening to the signal through headphones and hearing it acoustically at the same time. In that case, making a recording, then listening and making adjustments is the way to go.

I like to think in terms of adjectives to describe the sound I am looking for as it helps focus my attention on what I am hearing. Does the instrument sound natural? Does it sound warm? Is it thin or brittle? Is there enough of the room sound in the recording or is there too much? These assessments will inform where you move the microphone. Moving the microphone closer to the instrument will typically give you a warmer sound with less room reverberance, because a microphone with a cardioid polarity pattern will emphasize lower frequencies the closer it is to the instrument and pick up less of the room.

I like to record most instruments in my studio using two microphones. Though I sometimes do this to create a stereo recording, I often use the two mics to take advantage of tonal differences found from different mic positions and different mics. On violin, I have used a cardioid mic close to the player and an omnidirectional microphone placed about ten feet away. I can get a great balance between the focus of the close mic, and the more ambient sound of the omni. This technique also works well with woodwinds. I found a great flute sound using one mic near the player’s mouth and another a foot or so from the foot joint of the flute.

Another benefit of recording with two mics is that I am able to get an idea of what microphone sounds best on each instrument. Sometimes I record two signals and end up using just one of the mics. It all depends on what sounds best in the context of the music.

I always take photographs and

notes at each session so that I learn from my experiments. I use a note taking application called Evernote for this purpose and have a folder called “Recording” where I keep all my notes. This gives me a self-generated resource for future sessions.

In ConclusionI am not formally trained as an

engineer and wouldn’t be comfortable setting up the microphones for an orchestral session. I leave that to the talented and experienced engineers that we have here in Hollywood. But there are many projects in which I am bringing in players to my studio to work their musical magic and replace my sterile samples. With a little knowledge and a willingness to adjust and experiment, I have been able to get great results. You can use these basic principles as building blocks for enhancing your tracks with live players. For further reading, I highly recommend The Studio SOS Book from Focal Press, available to SCL members at a 20% discount through our Premier Partners program. g

After fourteen years of dedicat-ed service to The Society of Com-posers & Lyricists, Laura Dunn will be moving on from her role as Executive Director in order to pursue new creative endeavors. Throughout her tenure Laura has been an important public face of the organization and a friend to so many of its members. She has been a major part of building The SCL into the vibrant organization it is today. Laura will continue in an advisory capacity for the near future and we know she will stay very much part of The SCL family.

The SCL thanks Laura for all her years of service to our organiza-tion.

Thank You

LauraDunn

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Burlingame HonoredBy BMI For

Distinguished Career

V eteran journalist Jon Burlingame was honored by BMI at its annual Film and TV Awards on May 14th. He received a “Special Citation of Appreciation”

for his work covering film and TV music for nearly three decades.

He received a standing ovation from the crowd of 700 and was the subject of a tribute video that included composers John Williams, Mike Post, Lalo Schifrin, Charles Fox, Richard Sherman, David Newman and Christopher Lennertz praising his books, articles, radio programs and other work.

Burlingame, who writes about film and TV music for Variety and whose current book is The Music of James Bond, is the first journalist to be honored by BMI in the organization’s 75-year history.

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Festival At Tenerife

F imucité, the Festival Internacional de Música de Cine de Tenerife, was held in July, 2014.

The Closing Gala on Saturday the 12th and the concert on Friday the 11th were both held at the Tenerife Auditorium. “Adán Martín”, played to packed houses, and some days after, they are still a trending topic in the social networks, which are still praising the extraordinary work of all the participants and the guest soloists, and especially the work of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Tenerife (OST), conducted this year by the legendary Lee Holdridge, Trevor Morris (with the scores for The Borgias or The Tudors), Joseph LoDuca (composer for Xena or Spartacus), and Diego Navarro, composer and director of Fimucité.

FIMUCINEMA, its official competitive section, also gave its Alex North Award to the score for the film Meetings with a Young Poet, composed by Patrice Dubuc and Gaëtan Gravel. According to the decision of the jury, composed of Luis Ivars, composer and honorific director of Musimagen; the timplist Beselch Rodríguez, and the journalists specialized in cinema, Miguel Ángel Rodríguez and Benjamín Santana, this production was awarded due to “its poetic quality to deal with a complex story, drawing its emotional roots, without sentimentality or an excessive underline.”

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L-R: Joseph LoDuca, Diego Navarro, Anton Garcia Abril, Pedro Merida ( one of the producers), Robert Townson of Varese Sarabande, Lee Holdridge and Trevor Morris

L-R: Lee Holdridge and Paul Williams

Lee Holdridge and orchestra

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Internationally renowned lyricist Sir Tim Rice was honored at the 2014 BMI London Awards held on Octo-

By Lori Barth

ber 13, 2014 in London.

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Stewart Copeland debuted a new original score for the classic silent film Ben-Hur: a Tale of the Christ with the Chi-cago Symphony Orchestra in October.

L–R: Derek Power, BMI’s Doreen Ringer-Ross, BMI singer-songwriter

Stewart Copeland, Penny Monastra and Richard Kaufman

Standing room on-ly for our 6th annual Behind The Music Panel at Comic Con. Salem’s Shane Westled this year’s con-versation about scor-ing for themes in-cluding crime, death and resurrection. CW3 clients, Jeff Rus-so, James Levine and Daniel Licht took the stage at SDCC to discuss how they got into the business and how they create character themes among other topics.

L-R: James Levine, actor/songwriter Shane West and Jeff Russo at the 2014 San Diego Comic-Con

BMI Sponsors “Composing for the Screen Film Scoring Mentorship Pro-gram” as part of championing compos-ers’ career development and highlight-ing the art and importance of writing music for film. Directed by renowned BMI composer Rick Baitz, this New York City-based program provided the opportunity for nine emerging com-posers to participate in a high-level workshop where film music was ex-amined from historical, psychological, dramatic and stylistic perspectives, among other angles.

The American Society of Music Ar-rangers and Composers hosted a lun-cheon with Emmy-winning composers Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman at Catalina Bar & Grill on October 15th.

L-R: ASCAP’s Shawn LeMone, Wendy Melvoin, ASCAP’s Mike Todd, Lisa Coleman and ASCAP’s Jennifer Harmon

L-R: BMI singer-songwriter Jessica Clinton, BMI composer George S. Clinton and Director

and BMI composer Rick Baitz

The 14th consecutive NYU/ASCAP Film Scoring Workshop, led by Emmy-winning composer Sean Callery (Home-land, Elementary, 24), is under the artis-tic direction of NYU Steinhardt Music Department Chair and composer Ron Sadoff (The Moon and the Son), in part-nership with ASCAP’s Senior Direc-tor of Film/TV Sue Devine. Nine of its 20 competitively chosen composers hailed from foreign countries, , includ-ing Ireland, Australia, Venezuela, Can-ada, China, Spain, England, Cuba and Austria for an eight-day seminar.

for an eight-day seminar.

L-R: ASCAP’s Shawn LeMone, NYU’s Ron Sadoff and composer Mark Snow

The Sunscreen Film Festival is or-ganized and presented by the St. Pe-tersburg-Clearwater Film Society Inc., a nonprofit 501(c)(3) charity dedicated to education, economic development, informing the public about the art of visual storytelling, enhancing opportu-nities for local filmmakers to develop their craft and art, and increasing the public’s awareness and support of lo-cal filmmaking as a cultural and eco-nomic asset.

L-R: SSF Founder/Executive Director Tony Armer, SSF

Programming Producer David DeBorde, panel moderator Mike Todd of ASCAP and panelists:

music supervisor Beth Amy Rosenblatt, Head of Creative Af-fairs at Red Queen Music/Harry

Warren Entertainment Sherry Orson, composer Joel Douek

Tim Rice

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W h a t ’ s H a p p e n i n g

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W h a t ’ s H a p p e n i n gBy Lori Barth

BMI proudly applauds the win-ners of the 2014 Primetime Cre-ative Arts Emmy Awards held

at the NOKIA Theatre L.A. LIVE in Los Angeles on Saturday, August 16. Alan Silvestri received two awards for his music in the science documentary Cosmos, and Outstanding Music Com-position for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special (Original Dramatic Score); Da-vid Arnold/Michael Price (PRS): Sher-

Alan Silvestri

PlayFest in Spain, L-R: Benjamin Wynn and Jeremy Zuckerman discussing their work on Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra which were performed at the festival. The far right is David Saiz, festival coordinator and translator during the panel

The ASCAP Film Scor-ing Workshop in Los An-geles took place in August. This moment with the en-tire group was captured on the Fox Scoring Stage.

lock: His Last Vow (Masterpiece) along with Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics; Tom Kitt: Bigger! — 67th An-nual Tony Awards.

Composer Rahman Altin was hon-ored in celebration of 100 Years of Turk-ish Cinema with an evening of a special concert of his music performed by su-perstars Randy Kerber and Steven Er-dody on November 7th at the Turkish Consulate in Los Angeles.

L-R: Roxanne Seeman, Rahman Altin and Lori Barth

BMI Vice President, Film/TV Rela-tions, Doreen Ringer-Ross and prolific composer George S. Clinton (whose work includes musical scoring for Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, A Dirty Shame, Red Shoe Diaries, The Tooth Fairy, Mortal Kombat, Salvation Boulevard and the Austin Powers film franchise) en-gaged in discussions with students of the Vermont College of Fine Arts (VCFA) Master of Fine Arts in Music Composition program, from Aug. 3–4, 2014, in Montpelier, Vermont.

L–R: BMI composer George S. Clinton, BMI’s VP Film/TV Relations, Doreen Ringer-

Ross, and department Chair Rick Baitz

BMI presented its annual “Don’t Knock the Rock” roundtable on Satur-day, Aug. 2, at the Cinefamily Theater in Los Angeles, to discuss music in film, TV and new media.

Pictured at BMI’s “Don’t Knock The Rock” roundtable discussion, L-R: Back row—Music

supervisor Tiffany Anders, director Allison Anders, BMI’s Doreen Ringer-Ross and music supervisor and film producer Danny Bramson.

Front row—Director James Ponsoldt, BMI composer Miriam Cutler, director Denny Tedesco

and Michael Des Barres, host of the Michael Des Barres Show, Little Steven’s Underground

Garage on Sirius

World of Warcraft composers Neal Acree, Ei-mear Noone and Craig Stuart Garfinkle accept-

ing the award on behalf of the Draenor team, including: Russell Brower, Clint Bajakian, Sam

Cardon, and Edo Guidotti at The Hollywood Music in Media Awards for original score on

November 2, 2014 in Hollywood, CA

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There’s a lot to know about Ginny Mancini, aside from the fact that she was married to one of our American treasure composers, the great Henry Mancini. Ginny grew up in Los Angeles and started out as a singer and dancer. She sang with Mel Tormé, The Tex Beneke Orchestra, was a session singer and later co-founder of The Society of Singers. I visited Ginny in her home in Los Angeles and found her to be warm, gracious, unassuming, engaging and someone you felt you’d known forever.

GinnyMancini’sJourney INTERVIEWED BY LORI BARTH G inny grew up in a multi-ethnic

neighborhood near 10th and Ver-mont Avenue in Los Angeles.

Her mother met her father while cherrypicking. She is of Mexican and Irish descent.

In her early years Ginny told us, “My mom traded playing the piano for singing and dancing lessons for me. She also demonstrated sheet music at the local five and dime [so customers could hear what they were buying]. She was on a raised stage where they handed her the music that she’d play from the American Songbook.”

Growing up during the Depression Ginny recalls, “I remember as a child trying to collect ten pennies at the end of the week so I could just go to the local movie house and see what a happy end-ing was like. I discovered that music enhanced my life. In junior high I chose glee club because it had a connotation of joyousness—and because I couldn’t hit the high Bb, I was relegated to the alto section, which was the best thing that ever happened to me. I discovered a world of harmony that propelled me into a career as a session singer later in life, so it all worked out in my favor.”

After high school Ginny attended Los Angeles City College where she signed up for a business course “to explore the possibility of a career as a court reporter. In the afternoon I wanted to keep my singing chops up, so I enrolled in a mixed chorus where I met three other people who were as enamored with modern vocal harmony as I was. This led to a meeting with Mel Tormé who had just come from Chicago to seek his fame and fortune. For three-and-a-half years we were joined at the hip as Mel Tormé and the Mel-Tones. It was a wonderful time in my life. But it soon became obvious that this multi-talented genius would

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have to make a career choice and go out as a solo performer,” she said.

“I, being of the persuasion that when one door closes, another one opens, went to an audition to join the Glenn Miller/Tex Beneke Orchestra—the orchestra was on a cross-country tour after Glenn was lost in the war effort. As luck would have it, I was hired and a year later I married the young, handsome, tall Italian talented pianist/arranger who had played for my audition named Henry Mancini, and that was fortuitous. It took a year to convince him I was the one and I remember going on stage and flashing my engagement ring.”

The Score asked her what it was like touring with the orchestra. She said it was fantastic and, “having no time between shows to do much of anything, they sat me down and taught me to play bridge, something interesting to do between shows. There wasn’t enough time to go out and get a decent meal. Those were fun memories.

“When we were married I was mak-ing $35 a week as a session singer on a 15-minute radio show and Henry was collecting $52 a week on unemploy-ment insurance, but we didn’t have a care in the world. Our first home we bought was in North Hollywood. The down payment was only $2000, and we struggled to do that, but it was when he was given a contract at Universal that we had that steady check coming in every week that gave us the confidence and impetus to start a family,”she said.

“When I was a working session singer it was at the height of the great radio and television variety shows,” she added. “This was a time when there was one group of singers that went from one show to another. They were the best—they could read music, show up on time and do it in one take —something almost unheard of today.

“I was 20 feet from stardom, no pressure and having a great time and loving what I did, “ said Mancini, “but when I raised my family it was time to stop working and be a mother.

“Peter Gunn was the beginning of another lifestyle for us,” said Ginny. “It was by chance that Henry met Blake Edwards outside of the commissary and Blake said, ‘I’m about to do a pilot called Peter Gunn. I would like you to do the music.‘ Henry thought it was a western and said, ‘Yeah, that would be

a kick doing a western.’ It was really a successful TV series and the beginning of a new life for us. Fame and fortune followed. It was great; it was a big surprise but well-deserved for Henry.”

Ginny shared a saying of Henry’s with us: “He would say when you throw pasta against the wall and the pasta sticks, that’s when it’s done right. That’s kind of what good friends are like; the ones that stick to the wall.”

The Mancinis have three kids and they are all involved in music in one way or another. Henry founded The Henry Mancini Institute and Ginny was one of the co-founders of The Society Of Singers. “Each of the three children do have their feet in the music business,” Ginny said. “Monica, as you know, is a performer and recording artist, Felice is the Executive Director of the Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation, and Chris looks after the Mancini catalogue. Now my grandson, Chris Jr., is involved in the family Mancini branding, part of what we are trying to do to keep Henry alive. It’s hard to believe that it was 20 years ago that we lost him, and we need to keep him alive worldwide, and with social media.”

The Henry Manicini Institute closed but now lives at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami. Ginny told us, “It’s great and healthy and there is a degree component now which there never was before. Before it was just a summer program at UCLA but Shelley Berg, Dean of the Frost School of Music, asked to bring it to Miami, which I gave him my blessing to do. I’m not very much involved except that I do support it. And as far as The Society of Singers is concerned, I co-founded it in 1984 with another singer friend of mine, Gilda Maiken Anderson, and I am not involved with it anymore other than support.”

We asked her about working with Johnny Mercer, and Ginny said, “We did a fifteen-minute armed forces radio show starring Martha Rae and Johnny Mercer and then Mel Tormé and the Mel-Tones. That was fun!” And when asked what he was like, she said, “When he wasn’t drinking he was just the greatest guy in the world, but boy, when the alcohol took effect, it was night and day. He was a mean drunk.”

Asking further if she remembered anything about the time when Mercer and Mancini worked on writing “Moon

River,” she said the only thing she re-membered was that Johnny wasn’t too much in demand in those days; his tele-phone was not ringing off the hook.

“So when he got the call from Henry, it was a kind of resurgence for Johnny, it was a great moment for him. And that song will live, as most of Mercer’s songs will live, but I think ‘Moon River’ will become like a folk song that people are still singing two hundred years from now.”

When asked, “What Does The Great American Songbook mean to you?” Ginny responded, “It means every standard that will live in infamy. As I mentioned earlier, my mother used to demonstrate sheet music when I was a little girl, and when people would hear something on the radio they would hand it to my mom and she would demonstrate it. I grew up with every standard in the American songbook.

“I just know that even though he was on the podium conducting, Henry was always just one of the guys and the musicians loved him for that attitude. And whenever they got a Mancini gig they couldn’t wait for 8 o’clock to come for him to give the downbeat.

“And one time when I was on the recording session and it was ten ’til eight, and I knew he had to give a downbeat, I walked in and said, ‘Where is everybody?’ and he said, ‘Well, we’re just doing this track tonight or that track.’ I said, ‘Do you mean to tell me we don’t all get together and run it down?’ And he said, ’No, the tech-nology is changing….’ It was then thatI made a conscious decision that it wasn’t fun anymore and became a vol-unteer—I stopped singing for a while,” she said. “You did a whole album, four sides in three hours. It takes months and years now to put one together.

“Like I said, the guys that traveled with him when he went on short tours, if they would only write down the funny things that happened that I wasn’t privy to, but every now and then I hear a story from one of them and it just breaks me up because it’s so him. He was fun.”

The SCL will always keep Henry’s memory alive. We are so excited that Ginny will be honored at the 2014 Annual SCL Holiday Dinner with a Lifetime Achievement Award. We con-gratulate and thank her for sharing her afternoon with The Score. g

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SCL Recent EventsCL events have been filling up the calendar. If you missed any of these, here are some photos

On October 16, 2014 The SCL pre-sented a screening of The Book of Life followed by a Q&A moderated by Phil Gallo with composer Gustavo San-taolalla and director Jorge Gutierrez.

Sand you can always check the website. Also, remember we broadcast on the web now, so you can tune in that way if you cannot attend one of our seminars.

On August 31, 2014 The SCL had a sold out group that attended our Annual Picnic and Concert at the Hollywood Bowl.

On September 15, 2014 The SCL and BMI presented a seminar entitled “The Art & Business of Songwriting” moderated by Adryan Russ. Panelists included Steve Dorff, Shelly Peiken, Mary Jo Braun, J. Charley Londoño and Curt Sobel.

L-R: Curt Sobel, BMI’s Anne Cecere, Shelly Peiken, Steve Dorff, Mary Jo Brawn, Charley Londoño and Adryan Russ

On October 7, 2014 The SCL/G.A.N.G. hung out at GameSoundCon.

On October 15, 2014 SCL presented a seminar: Women Composers in Film, TV, Musical Theater and Video Games moderated by Miriam Cutler with panelists Kathryn Bostic, Laura Karpman, Penka Kouneva, Deborah Lurie and Lolita Ritmanis.

L-R: BMI composer Laura Karpman, Deborah Lurie, BMI composer Miriam Cutler, BMI’s Reema Iqbal, BMI composer Lolita Ritmanis, BMI composer Penka Kouneva and BMI composer Kathryn Bostic

L-R: Billboard’s Phil Gallo, Composer Gustavo Santaolalla, Director Jorge Gutierrez

On October 22, 2014 The SCL held a

On October 28, 2014 The SCL held its Annual Membership Meet-ing 2014 (see story next page).

L-R: Atticus Ross, Phil Gallo and Trent Reznor

Bernstein and composer Jóhann Jóhannsson at the Westwood iPic Theatre.

On November 3, 2014 The SCL screened Birdman followed by a Q&A moderated by SCL Board Member Chris Farrell with composer Antonio San-chez at The Landmark Theater in Los Angeles.

L-R: Charles Bernstein, Jóhann Jóhannsson and ASCAP’s Shawn LeMone

On November 7, 2014 The SCL screened Begin Again followed by a Q&A with songwriter Gregg Alexander moderated by Phil Gallo. Afterwards Alexander delighted the after-screen-ing guests with a rare performance of his new songs written for the film.

On October 29, 2014 there was an SCL screening of The Theory of Every-thing with a Q&A moderated by Charles

L-R: ModeratorPhil Gallo andGregg Alexander

L-R: Gregg Alexander and Nick Lashley perform songs from Begin Again

On November 8, 2014 The SCL screened Fury followed by a Q&A with composer Steven Price moderated by ASCAP’s Associate Director of Film & TV Music, Jeff Jernigan.

L-R: Antonio Sanchez and Chris Farrell

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screening for Gone Girl with a Q&A with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross mod-erated by Billboard’s Senior Correspondent Phil Gallo.

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L-R: ASCAP’s Jeff Jerrnigan with Steven Price

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SCL Annual General Meetinghe Society of Composers & Lyricists held its annual general meeting on October 28, 2014 at the Beverly Garland Hotel Ballroom in North Hollywood, CA.

For more than twelve months the SCL has been actively involved in legislative issues that directly affect composers and songwriters. Along the way we have forged extensive alliances with like organizations both here and overseas and, in so doing, have achieved some outstanding results. At this meeting members had the pleasure of meeting the chief executives from some of those organizations and hearing why they believe our continued allegiance is so important.

A distinguished panel to discuss the issues with The SCL included: Eddie Schwartz (President, Songwriters Associa-tion of Canada; MCNA* Co-chair); Rick Carnes (President, Songwriters Guild of America; MCNA Co-chair); Marvin Dolgay (President, Screen Composers Guild of Canada; MCNA member organization); Charles J. Sanders (Chief Counsel, Songwriters Guild Foundation; MCNA member organization); Bernard Grimaldi(Vice-Chairman, Europe-an Composers & Songwriters Association—ECSA; Presi-

dent of the FFACE** Committee within ECSA; Member of the Executive Board of UCMF-Union des Compositeurs de Musique de Films). The evening was moderated by Ashley Irwin (SCL President, APRA Ambassador; MCNA member organization). g*MCNA - Music Creators of North America

**FFACE - Federation of Film and Audiovisual Composers in Europe

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L-R: Eddie Schwartz, Ashley Irwin, Bernard Grimaldi, Marvin Dolgay

BMI Continues Support Of Sundance Institute’s Film Music Program

BMI was proud to once again to show its support of the Sundance Institute’s Film Music Program. Sundance Institute collaborated for

the second year with Skywalker Sound to host the Sundance Institute Music and Sound Design Labs at Skywalker Sound. The first 2014 session of the Lab began July 8 and provided an opportunity for composers and directors to explore the collaborative process of writing music for feature film.

As a founding supporter of the Institute’s Com-posers Labs, BMI has played a critical role in the long-term development of the Lab and has furthered the careers of many film composers by presenting a composer-director roundtable each year at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. The roundtable highlights the composers who have scored films in the Festival, as well as their filmmakers. g

L–R: Advisor and BMI composer

Alan Silvestri providing fellow

Nora Kroll-Rosenbaum with scoring feedback

L-R: Advisor, BMI composer and Sundance

Institute’s Film Music Program Director

Peter Golub; Sundance Institute’s Founding

Director, Feature Film Program, Michelle Satter; advisor and

BMI composer James Newton Howard; BMI’s

Doreen Ringer-Ross; and Skywalker Sound

Director of Sound Design, Randy ThomL–R: Advisor, BMI composer and Sundance Insti-

tute’s Film Music Program Director, Peter Golub, Sundance Institute’s Executive Director, Keri Putman; BMI’s Doreen Ringer-Ross; Skywalker Sound General Manager, Josh Lowden; advisor and BMI composer Blake Neely and Sundance Institute’s Founding Director, Feature Film Program, Michelle Satter

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2014 Emmy Reception

The Society of Composers & Lyricists with The Tele-vision Academy hosted a reception honoring the music nominees for the 2014 Emmys on August

14, 2014. The event was held in the Academy courtyard. This is always a night to celebrate our fellow composers and lyricists.

L-R: SCL PresidentAshley Irwin, ASCAP’s Shawn LeMone, Jon Burlin-game and Jim Di Pasquale

L-R: SESAC’s Erin Collins, SCL President Ashley Irwin, Nominee Jeff Beal, Dana Childs,

John Houlihan and SESAC’s James Leach

L-R: Laura Dunn, Ramón Balcázar

and wife Mirium Escarra

L-R: Bill Ross, SCL President Ashley Irwin, Daniele Luppi and Bob Christianson

L-R: Grant Geissman, Denis Hanigan and Sean Callery

L-R: Dan Foliart, Cheryl Foliart and Paula Salvatore

L-R: ASCAP’s Patrick Clancy, Rosemary and Steven Winogradsky

L-R: Laura Karpman, Carla Patullo, SCL Board Member Miriam Cutler, Sharon Farber, Sony’s Tony Scudellari, Lolita Ritmanis, Nora

Kroll-Rosenbaum, Aiko Fukushima

L-R: Rickey Minor

and SCL Board Member/Score

Editor Lori Barth

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VAN ALEXANDERBURT BACHARACHALAN & MARILYN BERGMANCARTER BURWELLRAY CHARLESGEORGE S. CLINTONCHARLES FOXDAVE GRUSINARTHUR HAMILTONJAMES NEWTON HOWARDJOHNNY MANDELRANDY NEWMANMIKE POSTLALO SCHIFRINRICHARD SHERMAN

SCL AMBASSADORS

HONORARY LIFETIME MEMBERS

DAVID SHIREALAN SILVESTRIMARK SNOWMIKE STOLLERPATRICK WILLIAMSMAURY YESTON

In Memoriam:HAL DAVIDRAY EVANSEARLE HAGENJACK HAYESJERRY LIEBERVIC MIZZYROBERT SHERMAN

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

BILL CONTI

JAY L. COOPER, ESQ.CLINT EASTWOOD

DENNIS SPIEGELJOHN WILLIAMS

SCL EventsContinued from Page 14

On November 9, 2014 The SCL screened The Imitation Game followed by a Q&A with composer Alexandre Desplat moderated by KUSC’s Jim Svejda.

On November 10, 2014 The SCL screened Disney’s Big Hero 6 followed by a Q&A with composer Henry Jack-man moderated by SCL Board Member Joel Douek.

L-R: SCL Board Member and Moderator Joel Douek, Music Editor Dan Pinder, Composer Henry Jackman, Producer Ron Conli

L-R: Moderator Jim Svejda, Alexander Desplat and SCL Board Member Lynn Kowal

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Guild Of Music Super-visors members gather at the 2014 Emmy reception, L-R: Cheryl Foliart,Tony Scudel-lari, Steven Vincent, Paul Antonelli, John Houlihan, Sam Diaz, Ann Kline, Lisa Brown Leopold, Television Academy Music Peer Group President Mi-chael Levine, Alexandra Patsavas, Season Kent, Maureen Crowe and Evyen Klean

L-R: Steven Vincent, ASCAP’s Jeff Jer-rnigan, Nominee John Kavanaugh (Sofia The First), the gentleman next to him is Sofia The First creator Craig Gerber, and ASCAP’s Rachel Perkins

L-R: BMI Senior Director, Film/TV Relations Lisa Feld-man; BMI composers Ramin Djawadi and William Ross;

SCL President Ashley Irwin; Emmy-nominated BMI

composers Daniele Luppi and Bob Christianson; BMI

Assistant VP, Film/TV Rela-tions Ray Yee; and Emmy-nominated BMI composer

Robert Lydecker

L-R: Bear McCreary, Jeff Beal and SCL Board

Member Lynn Kowal

L-R: Lori Barth, Music Supervisor Paul Antonelli, Sharon Farber, Beth Wernick and David Kontesz

L-R: Ian Fraser, Ramin Djawadi

and Michael Levine

L-R: Todd Brabec, Nan Schwartz and Jim Di Pasquale

18

Going MobileContinued from Page 1


and praise the design of the Vienna En-semble Pro software. One of the beau-ties of this program is that it’s made it quite painless to move various channel strips, or whole instances from one ma-chine to another, or to mix and match them in various useful ways (more on that later). I can’t think of a software sample and virtual instrument hosting solution better suited to the flexibility of a mobile vs. home setup than VE Pro. In fact, it was just such software evolutions that have made our work and studio design more flexible and powerful than ever (which is a good thing, so we can forget about the tools and get back to creating!). A DAW, once properly connected to a VE Pro instance could care less “where” it is coming from: the same computer, or a network computer. This became criti-cal in my mobile design. If I was able to build a system that will run my “at home” palette, all I’d need to do would be to connect a Logic session once to the newly launched VE pro instances, and I was good to go. Upon returning home, I’d simply need to re-link the same Logic file, the ‘home version’ of the VE Pro instances.

In looking at my home setup, I also had been running video outside of my main sequencer (on yet another com-puter), and Pro Tools (which I only use for mixing stem delivery) on yet another. Having recently purchased a shiny new MacBook Pro Retina, (with a built in HDMI port), I decided to dedicate this machine to my Pro Tools and digital video duties. Here was my first light bulb moment—the duplica-tion of these tasks on the MacBook Pro

for both home and mobile would mean all I would have to do to take all of my video files and playback equipment with me would be to put my MacBook Pro in the bag, with the bonus that I can pipe the video out the HDMI port to a bigger screen (hotel or airBnB HDMI TV, for a big screen film experience on the road).

Although I need a separate audio in-terface to run Pro Tools, (which I didn’t plan to bring), at least I would also have my Pro Tools mix sessions with me, in case I needed to check or update a stem on the fly. Regarding video, use a virtu-al VTR software solution called Video Slave. I build playlists of several epi-sodes or sections of films I’m working on (if they’re coming in that way). Once again, this work and files are already in a portable, ready-to-go computer.

STEP TWO: The BuildI decided I needed a total of at least

32 gb of ram to even hope of loading all of my samples and Logic onto one sys-tem. This ruled out all of the portable Macs (since then the “trash can” Mac Pro was introduced which might find a home in the next iteration of my mobile studio).

So I decided to try the hackintosh route on a PC “laptop.” Several com-panies make these in 32gb ram con-figurations, so I bought the fastest, and most upgradable system I could find at the time. A Sager custom “gaming” PC which features 32 gigs of ram, three internal hard drive slots, a six core i7 running at 3.5 ghtz, 17” monitor and full numeric keyboard. It’s a real beast; calling it a laptop is generous, but it does fit in a carry on. I can’t personally recommend you build a hackintosh

on a portable computer such as I did. I thought this would be similar to other systems I’d built on PC hardware in the past, but propriety built-in laptop hard-ware presented a slew of driver and OSX 86 headaches, and I was close to giving up. But eventually I was able to get a reliable OSX 10.8 (Mountain Lion) installed and working. I added three hard drives; two SSDs totaling 1.5 TB of SSD storage for boot, samples, audio files, anda third 2 TB conventional lap-top hard drive for the rest and backup.

After moving over all of my sample sets, and authorizing all of the plugs and V.I.S. I was thrilled to successfully get all of my sounds loaded. But then I was presented with an obvious, but unforeseen challenge. Since I do in-the- box mixing, all of my Logic sessions are formatted into 16 audio outputs (for mixing my stems). At home, these are all summed and routed to the 5.1 monitors though an external digital mixer. As my mobile audio interface was a simple two-channel USB one, I could only monitor the first stereo pair of my Logic session. Whoops. Even though this could be accomplished through some creative bussing in Log-ic, it seemed to go against my concept of the source file (Logic session) be-ing agnostic as to which system it was working on, and violate my goal of seamless compatibility. It also meant I would have to do all of this routing work in current Logic sessions. The so-lution I found was a wonderful OS X audio utility called Jack. Soundflower can also do this in theory, but I found Jack better sounding, and more stable configurably for my needs. It also en-abled me to loopback my virtual 16 au-dio outputs back into Logic for making preview mixes (see screenshots below).

19


I added a portable USB monitor (about $99) for some extra screen real estate. The pixel count is relatively low, but the built in graphics engine, and small weight and size made it a great addition. I bought a keyboard with the most features, and octaves I could fit into my carry-on bag. I also added a Korg micro control for expression fad-ers, a hold pedal and a USB-powered mic.

To keep everything in sync is an important and tricky problem. I was already using Dropbox for various as-pects of my workflow, but needed to get serious about using the cloud to allow moving back and forth between systems effortlessly. I ended up using SugarSync to backup and sync two main work folders, my current Logic projects, and current audio take files (about 90gb total). If I know I’ll be trav-eling, all I need to do is boot up the mobile studio, and let it go through the syncing of all these files for a few hours. If this is a large amount of files, I’ll sometimes copy manually between computers, but I’ve actually found us-ing a cloud syncing service (after it won over my trust for mission critical stuff) more reliable and hassle free. Dropbox has a wonderful nifty fea-ture for this situation, called local LAN sync. (i.e., if Dropbox sees large files added to another local computer, it will grab and sync these files through your home network, without having to upload and download from the cloud each time). Dropbox recently upgraded their storage options to include 1TB for $10 a month, so I plan to eventually convert these large syncing folders to my Dropbox account.

Since video is coming from the Mac-Book Pro, I suddenly had a very gener-ous three-screen mobile workspace. To get video working, I did a direct-con-nect ethernet network. OS X is really good at doing this, almost to the point I’d call it idiot-proof. Basically you can direct-connect two Macs via ethernet and they will “find” each other and create a VPN with compatible IP ad-dress—you can log into, file-share, etc between the two without the need for a router. I used OS X’s built-in MIDI network protocol (see screen shot) to have the MacBook Mac read Midi Time

Code coming from the Sager Logic master. At home I use Musiclab’s Midi Over Lan for this, but I wasn’t able to get it working on the ad-hoc VPN in this mobile version. To get the audio from the video, I was thinking of using the same network, but I found a sim-pler solution. The simple stereo audio interface I’m running has RCA audio inputs, and live monitoring. I simply cabled the MacBook’s mini audio out to the Sager notebook audio interface, en-abled monitoring on the box, and voilà, I had dialog from the video working.

Many of us work with split track audio QuickTimes for scoring. Video slave has an audio pan function built into the main window, so it makes turning one channel off or on, such as temp music, easy to do. But here aris-es another problem; the dialog is now appearing just on the left channel. I found a simple way to edit QuickTime files to “fool” a stereo file into play-ing both channels in the center. Using QuickTime 7, you can go into movie properties and remap the L and R chan-nels to playback on “right center” and “left center.” Save the movie (it will on take a sec, as you are only editing a small header in the QuickTme file. Now you’ll have center panned dialog and temp music, and can isolate either track by “panning” in video slave, but the dialog stays in the center.

By using Jack to route this center dialog channel along with the looped back 16 virtual logic outputs into Log-ic, I’m able to create quick dialog and music bounces, which can then be

married back to QuickTime for client previews. I recently created a whole film-length preview this way from an airbnb apartment in Brooklyn Heights. The next day I worked on orchestrat-ing string parts, and finished up in Bal-timore later the same week. A few days later I was back in LA, opened the file in Logic, recorded the strings and de-livered the score.

As for performance, I’ve been very pleased. There can be some instances where I feel the system getting a bit fatigued in the RAM area after several hours of use, but usually force quitting open programs and restarting them seems to clear out the memory buffers. In fact, it often feels measurably zippier than my 12 core Mac Pro, which runs at a slower clock speed and with less SSD storage, etc.

I also realized for certain types of travel, this might be just overkill, so I tried a second variation. Basically I added a second MacBook Pro Retina in place of the “beast”. With these two MacBooks networked together I was up to my magic number of 32 GB ram. The VE pros were split between these two macs, and this system works also for trips where I want less total weight and more carry-on space. It does feel a bit more sluggish compared to the beast, but still very useful and powerful and more light-weight. This is the version I brought on a trip to Israel and Paris, where we had an airbnb apartment for ten days. I started a concert piece there and demoed on another project.

So, in the end, did I get that job in Continued on Page 21

20

think of relating the music to the BPM. And sometimes it’s good because, for example, he knows in bar 60—4/4 is four seconds, 120 bar of 4/4 is two seconds, quarter notes, 4/4 for three seconds…

He does fractions and he was work-ing like that, he was doing the most difficult edits, you don’t play here… I could feel the stress… To get tired doing that in front of the orchestra.

You have the orchestra for an hour it will cost you $10,000. You have to make a quick decision for the director. It’s a big responsibility. Now it’s totally different because now the director wants to know the music before. I’m on Logic and I love computers. It’s incredible what you can do with gear. It’s unbelievable. I combine—I use lots of synthesizers, lots of loops, percussion, sometimes played by myself and the good technique of in-struments. You have to get the idea of how to use the instruments from Paganini but you have to bring it into the contest of music that would speak the modern times, that’s the challenge. g

Reflections:Andrea MorriconeContinued from Page 6The World

Soundtrack Awards,

Gent,Belgium

October 25, 2014

Winners and Honorees from L-R: Michelino Bisceglia, Dan

Romer, Jef Neve, Cliff Martinez,

Daniel Pemberton and Cyril Molesti

In attendance were,back row L-R: Steven Price, ASCAP’s Mike Todd, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Daniel Pemberton, Cyril Morin, Tom Howe, unknown guest and Patrick Cassidy; front row L-R: ASCAP’s Simon Greenaway, Dan Romer, ASCAP’s Shawn LeMone, and conductor/music direc-tor/composer Dirk Brossé

SCL Welcomes NewLA & NY Staff

The SCL is pleased to announce the appointment of long-time Board Member Lynn Kowal as special events and screening co-ordinator, and of former volunteer Dara Taylor as Associate Administrator. Both have strong experience and a passion for our industry. We welcome them in their new roles.

Event specific, membership inquiries and general admin-istrative inquires should be addressed to Lynn at [email protected].

Technical, newsletter and Eventbrite questions should be addressed to Dara at [email protected].

For general inquires please call the main SCL number at (310) 281-2812 and your questions will be referred to the right person.

The SCL is also pleased to announce that Sarah Tembeck-jian is joining The SCL as our new Associate Administrator in NY. Though JoAnne Harris is stepping down from this post, she will be joining the SCL Steering Committee. Sarah can be reached at [email protected].

g g g

Sarah Tembeckjian

Dara Taylor

Lynn Kowal

SCL Premier PartnersSCL members can find out the

member discount details and how to contact Partners on our website.

ALFRED MUSICAUDIO PERCEPTION

BANDZOOGLEBIG FISH AUDIO

BLACK LION AUDIOCOMMERCIAL SCORING WORKSHOP

CINEMATIC STRINGSCINESAMPLES

FOCAL PRESS AND ROUTLEDGE MUSICGRAPHICALLY ENHANCED MANUALS

MEGATRAX RECORDING STUDIOSMELROSE MAC

MUSIC BUSINESS REGISTRYMY MUSIC MASTERCLASS

NOTEFLIGHTPC AUDIO LABS

PUREMIXSAMPLELOGIC

SONIC FUEL STUDIOSSONOKINETICSOUNDIRON

SPITFIRE AUDIO UCLA EXTENSION

21

MI is proud to announce that Anne Cecere, Director, Film & TV Rela-tions, has been elected President

NY that started this process? No, but I’d say the evolution and impetus it provided of at least as much value. There are many ways that travel can enhance our lives; both artistically and personally being untethered from your home workspace can be quite inspiring and useful.

On a recent East Coast trip, I used the system in Boston, New York, and Balti-more over a course of about 10 days. I had a set visit scheduled for House Of Cards and took the extra time I’d have there to set up the rig in a trailer and was able to preview some new themes on an episode for show-runners Beau


Cecere Elected President of CCC

Bof the California Copyright Conference (CCC), for the 2014–2015 term, begin-ning in September 2014. Cecere takes the helm as the youngest president in the CCC’s 61-year history, taking over from her predecessor, Warner/Chap-pell Music, Inc. Vice President, Jeremy Blietz. She shares the distinction of be-ing named president of the CCC with several industry luminaries, including Alfred W. Schlesinger, Jay Cooper, Ar-thur Hamilton and John Braheny.

Cecere and the CCC Board have also begun to implement changes aimed to improve services to its members, in-cluding live and on-demand streaming of its panels to increase engagement and membership across the U.S. As a re-sponse to its constituents, the new lead-ership has also proposed a new mid-level membership tailored for small businesses and indie companies. g

From TheEditor’s DeskContinued from Page 2

around has a sound, a tone, a vibration. Even as I have tired, there is always some sound bleeding into the silence, perhaps just a ringing in my ears.

Silence, in a world of sound, is not really silent at all but rather a quieting down from the chaos. Okay, so maybe I’m taking this a little too seriously, a little too far, but just try—close your eyes and sit there and tell me what you hear in the silence. g

L-R: Former CCC President and entertainment attorney Steve Winogradsky; BMI Director Film/TV Relations, Anne Cecere; and former CCC Presi-dent and entertainment attorney, Michael Morris

generator of great ideas for events, promotion and social media. She has been the fulcrum of the organization, facilitating the ideas of the Steering Committee and promoting the needs of the membership—keeping both de-tail and overview in mind and keeping the lines of communication open with our SCL colleagues in LA. We welcome JoAnne Harris to the SCL NY Steering Committee.

We welcome our new Administra-tive Assistant, Sarah Tembeckjian. Dur-ing her internship she has proven her-self to be a fine organizer, generating ideas for our mentorship program and navigating the technical requirements at the Comedy event.

Finally, a special shout-out to Joel

Beckerman, the founder and outgoing President of the SCL NY chapter, who these past three years has done so much to energize the organization, expand its membership and forward its goals and principles on the East Coast. We thank him for his superb stewardship.

Women’s Work: Film, TV, Musical Theatre and Game Composers

The NY SCL and NY Women in Film and Television (WIFT) co-sponsored a packed event, “Women’s Work: Film, TV, Musical Theatre and Game Composers” on May 14. Our panel of talented musical storytellers ignited a lively discussion about the issues facing female composers. We look forward to continued partnership with this dynamic org. g

SCL New York DiaryContinued from 4

Willimon & John Coles and get some composing done. It was fun for both them and me! Sometimes the mountain has to come to Moses, and being able to show up and collaborate in a meaning-ful way in the next room, the next city, or continent has arrived as a possibility for us all. g

L-R: Sarah Plant, TV/film composer; Micki Grant, legendary Broadway composer/actor; Winifred Phillips, game composer/author and; moderator Elizabeth Rose, songwriter/author/actor

22

Sonic Boom: How Sound Transforms the Way We Think, Feel and BuyBy: Joel Beckerman, with Tyler GrayPublisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt$27.00 (might be a price break on Amazon)

“If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the right sound at the right moment is worth a thousand pictures.” So says Joel Beckerman, with help from Tyler Gray. Beckerman acknowledges that while he is an accomplished com-poser and producer, he’s an ongoing student of music and sound, “endlessly fascinated and astonished” by sound’s power to deliver stories and move people.

Designed to help people harness sound to make their lives and the lives of others better, the book tracks a variety of experiences: a young wom-an’s first moments of hearing, the sound of Las Vegas slot machines that makes people overestimate how much they’re winning, the opening light-saber notes of Star Wars and the two frightening bass notes from the Jaws theme; music spilling out of shopping mall shops, the sound your computer makes when you turn it on, the effect of sizzling fajitas at a famous restaurant, an offensively loud potato chip bag, the tinkling ice cream truck music that heads down your block on a hot summer day making something “you didn’t even know you wanted into an immediate must-have.” Sound, present in all moments of our lives, affects our moods, our thoughts, our actions—on a subconscious level. Beckerman wants the sounds around us to become

B O O K R E V I E W S conscious so, once aware, we can figure out how to use them to our advantage. A “sonic boom” is an experience we want—a moment in time that makes us turn our head and notice something that triggers a multisensory experience —a complex mix of memories and expectations wrapped in feelings.

Beckerman encourages sonic brand-ing—creating sounds that identify who we are and make events not only appealing, but also unforgettable. If you were among the more than 111 million people who watched Super Bowl XLVI on NBC in 2012, you’ll have heard his work with John Williams’ music. “The right music at the right time takes a play you just saw and makes you feel like you’ve witnessed history,” he says. Says Maya Angelou, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said…forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” That’s the kind of boom moment Beckerman wants us to achieve—one that creates an emotional connection that holds our public’s attention and brings them back for more.

—Review submitted by Adryan Russ

Music Editing for Film and Television: The Art and the ProcessBy Steven SaltzmanFocal Press – 2014 – 288 pages

Making music for the movies is a complicated, involved, and challenging process. Music Editing for Film and Tele-vision covers the practical skills need-ed to successfully hone your craft. Through an overview of the music editing process, this book will equip you with detailed techniques to solve musical problems encountered during editing. An abundance of interviews with well-known professionals provide a wide range of perspectives on music editing for film, while special features address an array of projects, from a low-budget documentary, to a Hollywood blockbuster, to indie projects.

Chapters include Postproduction, The Team, Music Spotting, Temp Edit-ing, Editing Songs and Source Music, Musicials and On-Camera Songs, Working With A Composer, Working With A Picture Editor, Conforming, The Film, Mix, or Dub and Delivery Requirements.

T H E

SONICBOOM

HOW SOUND TRANSFORMS THE WAY

WE THINK, FEEL, AND BUY

JOEL BECKERMAN WITH TYLER GRAY

The 7th Annual Krakow Film Mu-sic Festival was held September 25th-28th, 2014, in Krakow, Poland.

ASCAP At Krakow Film Music Festival

L-R: ASCAP’s Simon Green-away hosts a Q&A with Hans

Zimmer at the Krakow Film Music Festival

Pictured L-R at the Krakow Film Music Festi-val’s Gala concert reception: ASCAP’s Simon

Greenaway and Mike Todd, Hans Zimmer, Dario Marianelli, Diego Navarro, ASCAP’s

Nancy Knutsen, Patrick Doyle, Garry Schyman, film director Julie Taylor, Elliot Goldenthal,

Krakow FMF Artist Director Robert Piaskowski, ASCAP’s Shawn LeMone

The Value Of Film Music: What’s It Worth?BY CHARLES BERNSTEIN

W


23

Many music listeners

have come to believe

that music should be

free, or at least very,

very cheap. Does this

mean that the “value”

of music itself is

somehow falling?

M U S I C A L S H A R E S

hat is music worth? Does it have a value? Can we hang a price tag on a piece of music the way an art dealer

world has gone digital. A finished “musical product” can be easily and cheaply produced in the digital world. It can also be widely and instantly distributed. Musical compositions and performances can now exist in a new and abstract format, as invisible digital files. Once a digital audio or video file hits the on-line marketplace, it is hard for composers to control how (or if) they will get paid for having written it. Many argue that if composers and songwriters can’t earn a living by selling their services or licensing their music, then they should discover new “business models” to make money in the digital environment. This is not always easy to describe or accomplish. It may include building a very large base of “social media followers” in the hopes of grabbing some of an aggregator’s advertising income, (not an easy task). Or selling T-shirts and posters—which along with concert tickets, may bring in some revenue for per-formers and bands. But this ignores the issue of the stand-alone value of the music itself. Is the music itself somehow becoming “worth less,” if not worthless?

In the world of film and television, com-posers and songwriters are facing some very uncertain times. Unlike many bands and singer-songwriters, most people who write music on assignment can’t easily make up for their falling revenue by doing concerts or through social media and merchandising. Also, there seems to be an oversupply of available music. If value derives partially from the scarcity of a good thing, then it’s no wonder that the price tag on so much original film music seems to be slipping. There are many thousands of able composers and song-writers in the movie marketplace willing to work for little or nothing, sometimes just to “establish a resumé.” There also seems to be an unlimited supply of existing music to download or stream from servers and “clouds,” or to license at increasingly compe-titive rates from all kinds of sources. In addition, there are very good “construction kits,” loops and other editable forms of music that can be assembled by non-composers, by-passing the media composer altogether.

Most film composers have been feeling this pinch for some time. When it comes to paying composers, the film music profession has always been a “have” and “have-not” kind of business. Throughout its history, the movie industry has generally agreed on an

can put a price on a work of art? Or, because music is ethereal—painted on the air instead of on a canvas—does that mean that music belongs to everyone at no cost… like the air?

It’s not clear what makes a thing valuable. Some characteristics of high value may in-clude superior quality, rarity, distinctiveness, utility, popularity and that illusive thing we call beauty. Not surprisingly, the reverse is also true: anything of low quality, copious, common, useless, unpopular and ugly tends to be of pretty low value to us. Or maybe the notion of value, especially in the arts, is intangible and has to do with how something makes us feel? Whatever is at the root of value, people want it, they recognize it and are willing to pay for it.

Paying composers and putting a monetary value on music has always been a problem. In bygone days, composers often had to haggle with wealthy patrons. An 18th or 19th century composer might churn out music for royalty and nobility, or for the church. Mozart earned 2,500 florins in one given year. That’s not as much as many media composers make today in comparable dollars. So, are we to conclude that Mozart’s “Great Mass in C minor” is somehow less valuable than a year of reality TV scores? The likes of Bach, Handel, Mozart and Beethoven were all hired and paid in the traditional ways. Publishers and concert promoters also played a role in connecting these composers with cash, not unlike today. But, in earlier eras there was general agreement that good music had intrinsic monetary value, and that composers should be supported simply for writing it. Clearly, music was considered to be worth something. Historically, composers may have been regarded as artists, craftspeople, or even servants, but the good ones traded their musical compositions for cash.

Today, patronage is pretty rare. Composers can still get paid well for writing music, but the compensation for most music seems to be in sharp decline, at least according to a lot of composers that I talk to. Many music listeners have come to believe that music should be free, or at least very, very cheap. Does this mean that the “value” of music itself is somehow falling? Many things have indeed changed in recent years. Mainly, the

DATED MATERIAL

Musical Shares Continued from Previous Page

DISCLAIMER: The articles in the SCORE do not necessarily reflect the views of the Society of Composers & Lyricists.

The SCL gratefully acknowledgesthe continuing support

of our MEMBERS and

ASCAP, BMIand SESAC

“A-List” of composers who score most of the large and prestigious projects at any given time. These composers are usually terrific and they deservedly become the equivalent of “bankable” actors; their names and resumés tend to comfort studios and investors. As a result, these composers often enjoy large budgets and considerable sala-ries. On the other hand, the small-er, riskier and independent films and documentary projects are often strapped for cash, especially by the time post-production rolls around. The producers of these “have-not” projects are too often able to get composers to work for little or no “up-front” money (that is, composing fees and budgets), and to settle for shrinking or negligible “back-end” compensation (license fees, residuals or royalties). Also, a handful of large internet-based companies have had a pretty free hand in determining how back-end money is valued and distributed in the current media mar-ket-place. Needless to say, all of these factors are affecting the monetary value of today’s music.

At this point, it might be heartening to remind ourselves that not all value

is monetary. Film scores are undeniably valuable; in fact they are essential in the moviemaking process. While the monetary value of a film score may be in decline in many quarters, the actual value of music in a film has never really wavered. It’s hard for anyone to imagine a favorite movie stripped of its music. What’s left is surely a hol-low and incomplete experience. No one knows better than a composer (or lover) of film music that a good score is not merely an adornment to a film; it is a living element of movie magic. So, if no one doubts the enormous im-portance of music in filmmaking, why should most film music continue to be declining so precipitously in monetary worth? Maybe it’s just a readjustment to our radically changing times, a cycle like currency inflation and devaluation. Perhaps the true worth of film music will reassert itself over time owing to its core properties, wide appeal and glorious powers.

But for most film composers, it’s a simple question of survival. Will the music creators be able to subsist in the years ahead? It comes down to what filmmakers and media distributors are willing to pay for something ab-stract but essential. Sadly, some in the entertainment business appear to

have lost touch with the true meaning of value altogether. Maybe our Brave New Digital World promotes a more cynical view of the musical content that streams through its vast and invisible veins, especially where movies are concerned. Oscar Wilde famously de-fined a cynic as someone “who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.” When it comes to valuing great film music, it seems that we may be suffering through a very cynical age indeed. g© Charles Bernstein 2014www.charlesbernstein.com

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