Composing for the Orchestra: Putting It All Together

There are numerous books and articles about composition and composing for the orchestra. While most are well written, it is such a huge and complex subject that it’s hard to know where to begin and how to put it all together. Here we’ll go over the basics of how to put it all together without getting into the fine details. (We’ll save that for a later post).

Writing Music for Film: MIDI Mockups

One thing that modern film composers have to master is the MIDI mockup. This is where the composer will create a mockup of the orchestral arrangement before going into the studio. In some cases, this is all the film will use depending on the budget. These have become more and more important because some directors use the quality of the mockup as a direct indication of how the actual soundtrack will sound; and the quality of the composer. So you may write out a brilliant arrangement but if you can’t create a great sounding mockup, you may lose out.

Writing Music for Film: The Sonic Palette

It’s pretty obvious that music has incredible power to invoke many different moods. It’s for this reason that it’s such a big part of film. Part of the composer’s job is to create the music that helps impart the mood that the director is trying to convey. It usually comes down to the composer’s ability to create pieces that fit with the overall mood of the film but also the demands of the particular scene. In this way we have the larger framework (ie the overall feel of the film) and the consideration of the scene within this framework. Therefore we must consider how to create certain moods within certain frameworks. One of the best ways to do this is to start with a sonic palette.

The Reality of Becoming a Film Composer

There has never been a worst time to become a film composer.

There has never been a better time to become a film composer.

How many times have you heard these coming from the different camps? It’s right up there with the reality of surviving in today’s music industry. It’s either all bad or all fluff. The only way to really gauge this is to look and see what the past has taught us, what’s happening now, and what some the possibilities for the future are.