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If Abrams was an ersatz Kirk, then his frequent composing wingman Michael Giacchino (“Alias,” “Lost,” “Mission Impossible 3”) could well be called the filmmaker’s Scotty. For one wouldn’t think to look for cold, Vulcan logic in this musician’s talent for brash, red-blooded melody, demonstrating the kind of emotion, thematic energy and white-knuckle action that brought a spirit to “Trek’s” musical universe that was at once old-school, and of the visual razzle-dazzle moment. But best of all, a guy who’d won an Oscar for lifting a cartoon geezer on a bunch of balloons rousingly captured “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry’s vision of human nobility battling to be at its best within the vastness of outer space.

Click Here to buy Michael Giacchino’s score for “Star Trek: Into Darkness,” available May 14th on Varese Sarabande Records

Now a particularly dark cloud hangs over the crew in the form of an is-he or isn’t-he villain with a grudge that threatens to bring Kirk and crew to his basely super-intelligent level in “Star Trek: Into Darkness.” Eric Bana’s badass Nero in the last picture is positively emo when compared to the cold-as-space determination of Benedict Cumberbatch’s John Harrison, whose terrorist act in England sends the Enterprise on the galactic warpath after him. This is an action-centric “Trek” that’s really personal this time, allowing Giacchino’s even more ambitious score too have fun with the big effects set pieces, while playing a mano-a-mano rivalry between Kirk, Spock and Harrison that happens to get waged with crashing starships. The sky is indeed the limit on what Giacchino captures here, from alien jungle-drumming a la “John Carter” to evil electronic tonalities, gripping military suspense and choruses that signal gallant, game-changing sacrifices. With an ability to conjure motifs that’s rightfully brought Giacchino comparisons to John Williams, the composer brings back the memorable themes from his first “Star Trek” as he introduces musical ideas that are rarely heard, or new to the “Trek” scoring universe, namely a piano whose Glass-ian rhythms are particularly striking in full-on orchestral context.

With all his exceptional score’s secrets soon to be revealed, Michael Giacchino talks about his continuing, creative quests into the sci-fi worlds that “Star Trek” represents like no other saga. Or perhaps, there is another.

How do you think your approach has changed for a “darker” movie this time out?

I think for me this film was sort of speaking about bigger ideas – real world ideas like terrorism, drone attacks and things like that. And because of that, this “Star Trek” had a much darker feel to it. It wasn’t the type of film that you felt like, ‘Oh, we can just go and have a fun adventure and that’ll be the end of it.” It was a film that you had to keep reminding yourself of what it was ultimately all about, especially since we also had a villain who was a really, really smart guy. To be honest, Benedict Cumberbatch is one of the greatest actors I’ve seen come around in a long time, and it was a fun challenge to get inside the head of the character he created. His John Harrison is calculating, menacing and as cold as a snake. He just kind of just sits there. You know what he’s feeling without him having to saying anything, which is pretty amazing.

Were you a fan of Benedict’s work on the “Sherlock” television series?

Absolutely. I was obsessed with it. I loved it. The BBC has put out a certain amount of “Sherlock” episodes, then they move on and you have to wait. It’s one of those series that I wished went right into one season after another after another.

As opposed to previous “Star Trek” villains who’ve been more forthright with their emotional outbursts, Harrison is a very cool calculated customer. How did you want to play that, but also to reflect the fiery emotions that are going on within him that he’s not going to show?

The first piece of music I wrote was called “Ode to Harrison,” which was. before I really started scoring the film. It was a piece of music I couldn’t get out of my head once I saw “Into Darkness.” I wanted to understand the villain, you know? Because for me, a lot of times on a film like this, it all starts with the villain. If he’s real and emotionally interesting enough then the rest of the score can come from there. So I sat down and wrote a theme where my goal was to communicate this really weird, chilling feeling inside of me when I, and the audience, would think about this guy. It was a theme that was never going to be complicated, or really complex. To me, John’s music was almost always a straight line, because he knows what the end game is. And he’s going to reach it by going from Point A to Point C. So this wasn’t going to be your average “villain” theme. It wasn’t going to be filled with big low brass and have a lot of chord changes that were all over the place. This music needed to be simple, which is what I went after.

What do you think it is about the orchestration of John’s theme that makes him stand out?

John’s music was mostly about this weird synth sound, which is a combination of a pipe organ, prepared piano and a very strange synth path. That’s combined with the strings, which are the driving force behind his character. Every once in a while the woodwinds and the brass come in.

The last time a piano was used in a Star Trek soundtrack was in Cliff Eidelman’s music for “The Undiscovered Country.” What inspired you to use that instrument here?

I know, and that was intentionally. We really wanted to do something unusual, and when you see the film, you’ll understand the kind of “why and how” of the piano. The idea was to set up a musical place that was completely about these characters. When people heard it, their reaction was “Wow! That doesn’t sound like ‘Star Trek’ music.” And I said “Good!”

How did you want to play the big personal stakes and potential sacrifices in the film?

The trick is that there are always two ways to go about those scenes. That’s always the trick. You can be big, and you can play them as small as possible. There was a lot of back and forth and discussion on how we should do certain aspects of the film, which goes to the piano. It was something we didn’t do in the first movie, but J. J. and I just loved the simplicity of it here, because sometimes that’s all you need. As beautiful as a string section is, it can kind of push you away in the wrong moment. So sometimes being simple is better. And in this film we found a few spots where that made sense for us to do that.

While the score is dark, it’s still a lot of fun to listen to. This certainly isn’t psychological heaviness on the angst-filled level of “The Dark Knight.”

The reality is you have these great characters that interact with each other in such personal ways and there’s a lot of fun just in those relationships. When Bones is on screen, he is who he is. He’s not going to be an incredibly “downer” person who’s going to bring the scene to some depressing level. So the balance of the whole movie is really the darkness of John’s character and what he’s trying to achieve, as contrasted with the Enterprise of Kirk, Spock and the whole gang. They do bring a bit of personality there that helps you keep things light when you need to.

You definitely have a ship to rival The Narada for “Into Darkness.”

We’ve always called this one “The Black Ship.” There’s a theme associated with that as well. But it wasn’t so much about size of it as it was the craft’s intent. Why is it even in existence? That’s the question our characters are trying to answer along with trying to figure out who the heck Harrison is. There’s a lot of questions throughout the story which the characters are constantly trying to catch up to. The first movie’s Narada was just about “Oh shit, this is a massive ship and I can’t deal with it!” This one’s more about, “Yeah, it’s a big ship, but it’s more about what is it trying to do?” This film is about the undercurrent of what was happening, as opposed to what you are seeing happening.

“Into Darkness” starts off with a chase between Kirk, Spock and some angry alien natives, where you use jungle drums. The music’s a bit like the tribal nature of “John Carter” in that way.

I suppose there’s a bit of primitiveness in there that’s always fun to do. For a scene like that, what’s better than pulling out some cool percussion stuff. That opening prologue on the red planet is a fun one and I think it’s meant to be an opening to a much bigger story. It’s not anything you necessarily come back to later on. So in that way, it was like writing a “cold open.”

How did you want to play the military aspect of The Federation, who shows there muscle in this film.

It’s interesting as The Federation is mainly out there to explore and bring people together. But occasionally, it finds itself in this bind where it actually has to use military force. It’s not The Federation’s first choice, but it does happen. I think there’s strength to some of the music where you feel that. When you’re talking about the military, it’s always been appropriate to use snare drums and big brass. We don’t shy away from that. It’s in the score because that’s what works, but those are for isolated moments. And it’s darker here because we’re thinking about the consequences of that military action as well.

Tell us about how you wanted to use the choir.

We used a lot more choir in the first film then we did on this one. My first intention on “Into Darkness” was to use no choir at all, because I felt that maybe we even overdid it on “Star Trek.” It was all part of keeping “Into Darkness” simple. But as I got into the score, I found a couple places where it would be nice to have voices. you know what it would actually be nice to have traditional choir. One piece called ”The Kronos Wartet” has choir in that’s the actual language these characters are singing from their home world.”

How important was it for you to use your themes from the first “Star Trek” for “Into Darkness?”

It was very important for me. The ultimate examples are in John Williams’ scores for “Star Wars” and “Superman.” Hearing those themes again was like seeing your old friends, which always made sense to me, Themes need to accompany the appropriate moments as you continue telling different stories with the same characters. Both J. J. and I felt right from the get go that we were going to bring back those particular themes, mainly the “Enterprise” and “Kirk” ones. But we also wanted to use them in different ways, and expand on them this time. So it was fun to play around with them as well.

Do you think your music also captures the spirit of the original TV scores from “Classic Trek?”

I don’t know if it even does, though I suppose that will be for other people to say. For me, my approach was always more about trying to do what was right for this particular version of “Star Trek.” That was always the balance and the struggle. What do we keep from before? What do we move on and do new stuff with? In the end, we are making a new version of “Star Trek” and a new home for its classic characters. So it felt more important to stay true to that intention rather then to make sure we had all these other themes that had come before. On Twitter, people are always saying to me, “Make sure you have the theme from The Next Generation, or the theme from “The Undiscovered Country,” or whatever. Of course I love all of that music, and it was a huge part of me growing up. But the reality is that we’re trying to make something different here. So it never felt right to use any of that music. Even when we did try to do it, it just never worked. Now having said that, there was one spot in this film where I did put in some a personal favorite cue from the old series. I’ll let fans figure out where it’s hidden in it!

How difficult is it dealing with a whole other level of secrecy and rumors that really have nothing to do with what your job?

It can become a constant thing you are thinking of. You always have to watch out what you’re saying so you don’t mess anything up. But the truth is that once the film is out there, people who want to know everything are going to know everything. Yet I know from J. J.’s point of view that he’s very intent on allowing people to have a sense of discovery when they go to the movie theater, which is disappearing. Everything is out there before it’s out there. I kind of miss the days when I would go to the movies and be surprised, like the first time when I saw “Back To the Future.” I had no clue what that movie was about. Sure I may have heard it was about time travel. But all of the particulars were kept secret so you could discover them when you saw it. I like that. If we can accomplish that even for one person with “Into Darkness,” then I think it’s worth a try.

Do you think they made a whole mountain has been made out of a mole hill over whether it would be you or John Williams who’d score J.J’s first “Star Wars” movie?

I was sitting with J. J. at Bad Robot when they announced this whole “Star Wars” thing. My first reaction was how awesome it was that we were going to get to hear more John Williams music. So It never was an issue for me. John’s doing great. He’s been a wonderful teacher and friend to me over the years, and getting him to do more “Star Wars” music from him is exactly what I want.

What’s your reaction when people say you’re going to be the next John Williams?

Well, we already have a John Williams. So I figure hopefully I can be the next “me.”

You’ll be doing Wachowskis’ “Jupiter Ascending” and Brad Bird’s “Tomorrowland” next. Are you happiest when you’re given epic science fiction movies to score?

I’m happiest when I’m working on something that has characters that I care about, and stories that are interesting to me. It could be anything. It could be a drama. It could be puppets. It could be science fiction. As long as the director has an idea of what the story is that we’re trying to tell then it’s great. The filmmakers I work with on a regular basis are very strong storytellers, and have very good ideas of what it is they want to do and how to accomplish it. I enjoy working with that level of confidence in people, because it’s always hard when you’re with people who have no idea what they want, and expect you to do it for them. That never works out.

Before you really made it big as a composer, you worked at Disney as a publicist. “Tommorowland” must be a really self-reflexive experience for you.

Yeah, I know. It’s a crazy thing when I think back at how much Disney product I have worked on. It’s pretty insane. I feel like I’ve never left that company!

Some of your first scoring work was for videogames like “Jurassic Park” and “Medal of Honor.” Now we have the whole new generation of systems coming out. How do you think music is going to adapt to them?

I imagine they are going to sound better and better and you’ll be able to do much more interactive music for them. I haven’t played any of the games that I’ve scored, except for the first “Medal of Honor. I kept getting killed on the first level, and I was like “I’m not good at this.” And that was it. Like the movies I score, it was always less about the platform and more about the story. I loved dinosaurs and World War II history, so those projects were wins for me. As far as working on videogames now, I’m not sure. I don’t have any major plans to score one, but you never know.

You’re going to be a guest conductor at the Varese 35th anniversary on May 11th in San Pedro. What does it mean to you to be part of this event?

Michael Giacchino w/ 'Into Darkness' conductor, Tim Simonec

I’m still kind of shocked and surprised whenever I’m invited to do something like this, because I feel my first reaction when I hear about a concert like “Oh my God! I get to hear Jerry Goldsmith music, or maybe I’ll get to hear something by John Williams! There’s just a huge list of composers whom I love and admire. When I’m told that I’ll be doing something to, it doesn’t seem right. But the same time, I’m extremely proud and happy to do it. It’s wonderful to bring film music to the fans in that way, because there are not enough opportunities to see scores performed like that. So whenever it’s done, I think it’s a good thing.

I imagine J. J.’s going to be pretty busy with “Star Wars” for a couple years to come. Yet the Enterprise will undoubtedly be going on new missions. Do you look forward to hopefully being on board?

Absolutely I’d love to. I’ve had a great time working on both these films, and the cast they’ve put together for this movie is incredible. I’d be happy and honored to do another if that was in the future.

Special thanks to Peter Hackman for transcribing this interview

See Michael Giacchino as a guest conductor at the Golden State Pops’ tribute to Varese Sarabande Records’ 35th anniversary on Saturday, May 11th at 8 PM. Tickets are available HERE

Watch Michael Giacchino conduct “Ode To Harrison” HERE

Visit Michael Giacchino’s website HERE

There are good reasons for this. From their earliest systems though their more recent HD systems, the that it used its own DSP cards meant that users were not solely dependent on their computer’s processing power and delivered lower latency than any “native” system could deliver. Also, Digidesign, which was the ProTools developer for many of its peak years, was very cautious in certifying new versions of an OS and any hardware and drivers and even used its own plug-in formats. What this meant was that if your rig conformed to a “qualified” ProTools rig, it was as solid and bulletproof as a computer based DAW could be. If you run a 24/7 client based studio or post house,
nothing, and I mean nothing, is as important as this.

Also, from an engineer’s standpoint, for tracking, editing, and mixing ProTools had distinct advantages. Where a program like Logic Pro might give you several ways to accomplish a task, ProTools may give you only one, but the one frequently was logical, well thought out, and dead easy to learn.

But all this came at a price tag that generally could only be justified by working pros with decent budgets and/or a lot of steady clients. Probably $30,000 was the average. Digi did introduce some native version, like ProTools LE and ProTools M-Powered but they were pale imitations of the real thing with lower track counts, limited features, more latency without latency compensation, etc. They were OK as a secondary editing station or as a way to learn ProTools and get in the game. But I suspect a lot of users bought it for the chance to claim the status of having ProTools.

For years, its MIDI implementation was rudimentary and inefficient in terms of resources and so few composers composed MIDI with virtual instruments or MIDI hardware in it, preferring to do their MIDI in another DAW, bounce to audio, while tracking live musicians and mixing in ProTools. Digidesign did however, gradually start to improve their MIDI capabilities and some users thought they could envision using ProTools as their only DAW in the future.

So it is not surprising that a lot of people got really nervous when in 2005 Avid acquired Digidesign and in 2010 phased out that name. After all, a lot of high end guys and even some lower end guys had invested a lot of money in this stuff and depended on it daily for their clients and there were a lot of rumors about Avid’s financial health and questions about its competitiveness, as its core video editing apps had lost a lot of ground to Apple’s far less expensive Final Cut Pro based systems.

But Avid persevered, added more MIDI capabilities, introduced native systems that wee more robust and full-featured than the previous versions, and once again, the possibility of PT being a composer’s sole DAW seemed to be becoming more and more viable.

There were still some flies in the ointment however. PT lacked a score editor. Avid responded by integrating a light version of Sibelius, a nice step if not as full-featured as i.e. Logic Pro’s score editor.

PT used RTAS as a plug-in format and it was woefully inefficient. Avid responded by introducing the AAX plug-in format, which by all the reports I have received form PT user, is far more resource efficient. So again, Avid was on its gig.

What were the remaining issues?

1.Unlike pretty much every other DAW, ProTools did not have offline bounce capabilities or freeze tracks.
2.Unlike pretty much every other DAW, ProTools was not yet 64 bit, meaning it could not take full advantage of all the available RAM on your computer(s).
3.IOS support.

Well, Avid has responded big time with the announcement of ProTools 11, which addresses all these issues and more. It is slated for release on May 28th, 2013.

http://apps.avid.com/protools11/

The software costs $699 and Avid says it will deliver better performance on whichever hardware you are using with it. There are upgrade paths for previous versions and while a high end ProTools setup that gives you the lowest possible latency and most power will still cost you some substantial bucks, lower priced configurations are nowhere near as crippled as they were in the past, giving you i.e. SMPTE timeline and latency compensation, just to name two.

So what does this augur? For the committed ProTools based composer, this is all very good news. Avid has proven its commitment to making ProTools a viable option for MIDI/virtual instrument composing as well as for all the audio tasks it has always excelled at. While it still may lack some things, for the first time, ProTools 11 will apparently be truly at least competitive with Logic Pro, Cubase, Digital Performer, and newbies like Studio One and Reaper as the all-in-one solution.

But for users of other DAWS who have not already bought in? Will they switch?

I can argue it both ways. The appeal of using just one DAW, the industry standard, will resonate with a lot of users. Also, “I use ProTools” translates to some potential clients as “I am the real deal.”

And compared to most of the competition, I do think ProTools is easier to learn for a newbie than most, but that is a subjective comment.

However, now that PT has “gone native”, native versions will be subject to the same software incompatibilities and conflicts that all native systems are and may not be as rock solid as that HD rig in the client-based recording studio or post house. Those guys will probably mostly update the software but keep their hardware. It still, in terms of bang for buck, will be among the more expensive options.

Most importantly, if you know your present DAW really well, you have to ask yourself ”How many hours will it take for me to learn to be as facile and efficient with ProTools as I am with DAW X?”

It is a legitimately big question that everyone will have to decide for himself/herself.

I would rather duck the obvious question for myself but as the author of three Logic Pro books, a Certified Trainer, a contributor here and on MacPro Video’s Hub, and a rep in Los Angeles and thanks to the internet, to a lesser degree the world (not trying to self-aggrandize, just factual I think) a Logic Pro guru, I am going to have to address it sooner or later, so here we go (gulp.)

Would I switch to ProTools 11 exclusively?

Probably not, unless I see enough increased earning potential to justify the number of hours of hard work getting really good with PT, as I am with Logic Pro. Plus sooner or later, there will be Logic Pro X and maybe, just maybe, Apple will up the ante, as Avid has.

But man, for the first time, I see it as a real possibility.

You might argue that the spark for film scores to get industrially dark was lit when the scraping metallic music of Nine Inch Nail’s song “Closer” ran over the unforgettably disturbing opening titles of “Seven.” Now this bleakly transfixing style has become all the rage, from the visceral video forensics of “CSI” to the big screen torture dungeons of “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” and “The Caller.” But in a media obsessed with churning out serial killers to this alt. rock inspired bump-and-grind, the one psychopath creation that remains unequalled in ghoulish popularity is Hannibal Lector, the gourmand cannibal psychiatrist whose exploits have been told in four cinematic courses. Now, Lector makes his move on network prime time with shockingly good taste for NBC’s “Hannibal.” Cannily defying its “serial killer of the week” expectations, this Bryan Fuller-produced show opens up a whole new disturbing window into the psyches of Lector and Will Graham, the killer’s enemy-to-be who’s far more tormented by visions of evil than his icy, seeming ally. Of course, the du jour musical darkness of the day is being served for episodes playfully titled in epicurean progression. But it’s just how damn creepy “Hannibal’s” sounds of bleakness are that once again show off Brian Reitzell as a composer who knows how to get inside his listeners’ heads and twist, much like the bad doctor himself.

Where horror scores had been becoming increasingly dissonant way before a bunch of vampires invaded Sarah Palin country, Reitzell’s nerve-rip of a score for 2007’s “30 Days of Night”(made by future “Hannibal” exec producer and director David Slade) took the idea of sound-designed “music” to an entirely new, and uncompromising WTF level that conjured the abject terror of being under siege by the decidedly non-sparkling supernatural. If the former Red Kross and Air player’s scores haven’t been quite this insane since, Reitzell’s probing work into the psychological depths of “Peacock’s closeted transvestite, “Boss’” hallucinating politician and even a hip big bad wolf in “Red Riding Hood” have been no less bold or interesting in their noir explorations. But perhaps no work that Reitzell’s done has gotten under the skin like “Hannibal.” Nearly always spoken in a whisper instead of a scream, the tingling, atmospheric music occupies a unique realm between melody and effects with its shimmering, atmospheres that are oft-times barely perceptible. The music’s hypnotic, oppressive effect is much like the hushed command, of telephone tip-off from the doctor that will result in further angst for poor Will Graham. For “Hannibal’s” sinister, beautiful tone poems are quite unlike any score being done for ever-adventurous networks out to carve a piece of the anything-goes cable series pie. Yet, it’s certainly par for the course of one of the most interesting, experimental composers working in Hollywood today.

How did you make the movie from rock music into film scoring?

I never sought out film composing. I was perfectly happy making records and touring with rock bands. Sofia Coppola asked me to help her with the music for her first film, “The Virgin Suicides”. The film takes place in the 70′s so she needed a bunch of 70′s songs. I became the music supervisor but had no idea what I was doing. I learned it all on that film. How to clear music and everything about licensing, etc… I then ended up meeting and subsequently joining the French band Air, whom Sofia had asked to score the film. I did my music supervision stuff then went on tour with Air and then we went directly into the studio and recorded the score. I worked between the band and Sofia like a music producer. This method worked really well so I pretty much do that with most of my films, unless I’m scoring it all myself. Getting into the film world was very natural for me. I grew up listening to, and playing Ennio Morricone, John Barry, Burt Bacharach and The Who. So film music has always been interesting to me and it makes sense that that is what I making. I still make rock music. I just finished a record that will come out in a few months. The record is meant to be listened to in your car, or while traveling. I call it “Auto Music”. Very LA to make a record for driving I know, it’s also very Kraut-rock and would work well on the Autobahn.

How do you think your alt. rock with Red Kross and Air has influenced your film scores?

Photo by Hannibal Director, David Slade

Well, Redd Kross was my 20′s which was me living out my dream of touring the world and making records in big recording studios and trying to write perfect pop songs. With Air it was my 30′s and it was a natural progression into more instrumental and experimental pop music and playing proper concert halls. It felt very natural, like I was always meant to be doing what I was doing, where I was doing it, etc. I started working on my first film in 1998. I was touring and working on film music at the same time up until 2003, when I decided I could no longer do both. Red Kross is well versed in pop music, especially from the 60′s and the 70′s. I gained a bunch of knowledge from them that has served me well as a drummer and as music supervisor. The experience of playing in Air is very much like going out and playing “Dark Side of The Moon” or Vangelis cues so it’s very connected for me.

Were you a fan of the Hannibal Lector films before taking on the assignment? And how did the producers want your music to help cast these characters in a different light than what past composers like Howard Shore, Danny Elfman and Hans Zimmer had done for them?

I love “Silence Of The Lambs”. Howard Shore is always pretty great and really has his thing. There’s some cool source music in that film as well, tracks by The Fall and Colin Newman from Wire. Very well done. There is some Bach in “Silence.” I did use Bach in the show, so there’s some connection. I haven’t seen the others. It will be fun to see them after I finish this. I would like to see the Michael Mann one, “Manhunter.” It’s been on my list for a while.

What’s the approach to spotting in “Hannibal?”

Brian in his Control Room

I spotted the first two episodes back to back and then did a few without any spotting. We spotted a couple via Skype since they are shooting up in Toronto and I just spotted an episode, again via Skype, via Paris. Skype is great! We are on a spotting world tour. I once hired an entire band for a film by auditioning musicians in Vancouver via Skype, from my studio in LA. I think we spotted only about half the ‘Hannibal’ episodes. The rest I just did what felt was right to me, and if I missed something, it was always a pretty minor revision. Working with Bryan Fuller (the show’s creator) and David Slade was such a natural process for me. They had the confidence to let me just take charge of the music once we were rolling. They had been working for a while with my score to “30 Days of Night” before I came on board. They had built the tone and sound world for around that score which has a very particular sound to it. It felt more like working on a film to me, which is where I come from. I have only spotted a few of the films I have done. Not that I mind. Spotting can be helpful and insightful but I don’t find it all that necessary. It’s always good to inhibit a composer or a musician. I think the best path with horror music is to not know too much about the scene or where the story is going before composing. I prefer to just sit right down, pick up an instrument and react to the picture as it’s unfolding in front of me. Mapping things out too much kills the vibe but building on top of that first gut reaction in this way is very effective emotionally. It can be physically exhausting working on these projects in this way. That is one of the things I carry over from the way I created “30 Days Of Night”, reaction scoring.

How do you want to balance dissonance with melody in the “Hannibal” scores?

It really depends on what the picture tells me to do. I’m attempting to do the most elegant horror score that I can give the resources and the fast turnarounds. There are many layers in the soundscape and very little sound design in the show. The music does most of the sound FX, so there is a great deal of textural complexity in the score. The music is quite environmental in the show. If we are in one room or one place there will be a specific sound and tone. But as the characters and the camera move the music is always going with it. I try to keep the music as alive as possible. I like for things to be constantly moving. I think the dissonance might be perceived to be a larger part of the score due to the dark things they are putting in front of me.

Do you ever try to embody hope, and humanity, amidst the nightmarish bleakness of “Hannibal?”

Certainly, the first episode ends that way. I love the duality you can put into hitting two different emotions at the same time too. I often do that with source music in the show as well, since I am also the music supervisor.

Who’s your favorite character on the show to play?

I like the new characters that come with the different episodes, like the psycho pharmacist in episode 2 who grows mushrooms out of people he buries alive. I needed to create fungal music, which was a fun challenge. The music teacher that makes violin strings out of peoples vocal chords was a good one too. I like creating new sounds for new characters. Everybody has their own thing on this show. Sometimes it’s quite subtle, more sub conscience but it’s there, woven into the story with the different actor’s presence. I could listen to the score and tell who is on screen and what is basically going on without seeing the picture. Once you have established a particular character’s sound then you are slightly stuck with it. The invention is more interesting than the reinvention to me. You have to be careful to not paint yourself into a corner. Some instruments can be very hard to make sound angry or pissed off but easily can conjure beauty or joy or sadness, etc.

What’s the balance between sampled and live instruments for “Hannibal?”

Everything is played live. I don’t use any outside sample libraries except for the occasional wind instrument or something basic like that. I do use quite a bit of Mellotron, and I do sample myself and make my own libraries. There have been very little samples or MIDI on this show. In fact, I don’t think there has been any. I believe the best stuff is hand made and recorded by an experienced recording engineer in an acoustically sound studio. I love to hear real depth and detail in the instruments and I like to hear very dynamic sounds. I have a full time engineer (Michael Perfitt) and a rather large collection of instruments. My studio was built in the 70′s back when they really knew how to build studios so we do it pretty old school, except for Pro Tools for editing and such. I don’t use many plugins either. I prefer hardware. I have a few musicians that come in regularly and play on the scores with me who have been working with me on films for years. I use my laptop for sending emails not for making music, ha ha!

Is there any improvisation going on with your work?

Improvisation or “reacting to the picture with an instrument in your hand” is the basis for this kind of score. More time is spent editing or rather subtracting than recording. I mostly do only one or two takes of scenes and more often than not, it’s the first take that wins. I want the music to feel what is happening on screen and to be affected by it in that order. I do this with many different instruments. I’m a big fan of John Cage and Morton Feldman. I love when you have big washes of sound that come out of nowhere and leave tons of space behind them. It’s not uncommon for me to have over a hundred voices for just one short scene on “Hannibal.” I also like to take one instrument, typically an analog synthesizer or a drum kit and play down the whole show top to bottom just staying inside the show as it moves along. I may only use pieces of that, but it creates a life that I can build the whole thing around. Scoring is very similar to cooking, except with music you can throw all the spices in to the pot and then take them out one by one to see what flavors arise out of uncommon combinations. If you put too much white pepper in your sauce it’s very hard to take it out but with Protools. You just delete the white pepper.

Do you ever find yourself going into a trance to play a murderer’s motivation, a la Will Graham, to find the inspiration for “Hannibal’s” music?

I certainly go into trances on a daily basis doing this. I work in surround when I record so it’s pretty hard not to get sucked into it. It happens the most between 9 pm and midnight because I’m pretty tired by then.

If you’ve ever found yourself disturbed by the show, have you ever tried to communicate that quality to the listener?

Constantly! The show is very disturbing especially the story. Visually it’s so artfully done and quite fantastical, so I see it like an opera staging, otherwise I might be more disturbed. Listening to the music alone is scarier than in the context of the show. I found the same thing with “30 Days of Night”. Try and put that record on and drive alone at night. The music has to take you where the story and the images go, so sometimes it gets quite ugly and physical. Rushes of multi colored noise and total harmonic distortion breakup can be a very beautiful and emotional thing when part of a score and we go down that rabbit hole every day.

Your use of high, and low-pitched music is quite subtle. Are you ever worried that it might be imperceptible at times, given the nature of television speakers?

My studio is set up to do film scores. Our music is very complex for standard TV speakers so I’m sure some elements do get lost like some of the lower pitched atmospheres and basses. Many people won’t hear all the cool surround stuff we do because they don’t have a surround system. I build it up like I do everything else and once I’m happy with it in here it’s out of my hands. “Hannibal” is mixed a little ‘hotter’ than I send it out. But that’s David’s thing, part of his style. And as a composer it’s pretty cool to have your music that present in the mix. I try not to pander to Lo-Fi TV’s and aim as high and as wide as I can. I have listened to the show on all sorts of different playback systems from older more average TV’s to larger, more Hi-Fi systems as well as in surround and on the computer with headphones. I have been pleased with how it’s coming through.

The character is the most important thing to me in terms of the overall sonics. The star instrument in the show is a custom made tuned solid bronze percussion instrument. I call it the Toru, as it was inspired by the genius Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu. Bronze creates the most complex waveforms. I spent some time in a gong factory in Bali a few years back and collected some amazing instruments as well that I use on the show. Listening to Gamelan music really opened up my ears to the sonic power of pure bronze. I am quite sensitive and particular to the timbre of cymbals. I have been playing them my whole life. Cymbals are made out of an alloy that contains several metals, including Tin. The Toru weights 30 pounds and is solid bronze, the sounds can cut through anything, even the tiniest TV speakers. To fully appreciate the massive analog synth low end and the 3D soundstage of the score I would suggest getting the Blu-Ray when it comes out and playing it through a surround system with a sub woofer. Otherwise it works just fine in context of the show on any system with the NBC limiters and all.

What did you think about them ”banning” the serial killer parts of an entire “Hannibal” show “Ceuf,” and only use the doctor office scenes as a “webisode?”

I thought it was the right thing to do. The show will air overseas, and people will eventually be able to see it if they want. I was doing the score for that episode when the shooting at Sandy Hook happened. It felt weird for me to be working on it at the time and was a difficult episode to have to watch over and over again. I couldn’t believe NBC was going to air it even before the tragedy in Boston. Frankly, I have been amazed they have had the balls to play any of these episodes on network TV. It’s a whole new universe right now.

When so many people now are looking for that kind of “Trent Reznor” sound, how do you want to keep your own “dark” approach different?

Trent has his thing and it’s very different than mine. There are a lot of people on his bandwagon! I do my own thing and have been doing it for a while now. What interests me the most is to constantly reinvent my own sound. Part of what makes me different is my music supervision approach of using my record collection as an alternate sonic universe to go to. Sometimes you just can’t beat something from the record collection. Look at Kubrik’s movies. I love the “Shining” so much. The Wendy Carlos score mixed with the classical cues from Ligeti, Bartok and Penderecki is just killer. Not to mention something like “The Exorcist” which has a wicked collage of source music too. I would hate to be pigeonholed, or limited to either a room full of synthesizers, or a room with an orchestra. I’ll take them all, along with my records.

How has being a music supervisor on movies you haven’t scored like “Thumbsucker” and “The Brothers Bloom” influenced the way you deal with other composers?

All the projects are unique. I’m there to do anything I can to help the director get what they need musically. Sometimes I work with another composer or someone from a band that the director likes, or that I think would be cool for the film. Sometimes, like on “Promised Land” I work with a composer whom I never meet like Danny Elfman, and his score goes on when I’m pretty much finished. With “Thumbsucker,” I was working with Elliott Smith who was recording tracks for the film. Elliott passed away during the making of that film and that was very difficult for me. I know it was very hard for Mike Mills, the film’s director too. We just had to stop for a while. Mike brought in Tim from the Polyphonic Spree to finish the score. The sound of the film turned into something that was more ‘up with people’ — like a big youthful rainbow choir. I think we both needed the film to go that way after what happened to Elliott. I talked with Tim a lot during the scoring of that film to help him any way I could, which was often just putting in my two cents about his cues. With the “Brothers Bloom” I came in at the last minute to supervise. I ended up helping the composer Nathan Johnson get some things he needed like finding an orchestrator and some musicians. I have a nice studio so it’s easy for us to record anything here, and to get any kind of instrument or musicians. We did a couple of cues for the film that fell in between supervision and composing. We did a ragtime shuffle and a cover of a track by The Band and a big grand horn fanfare I think. I often come on to fill in some holes that the composer maybe wouldn’t feel comfortable doing. I come from the world of making records so it’s quite natural for me to record a song and for it to be authentic in most any style. I did an Afghani pop song for the film “The Kite Runner”. The director Marc Forster called me up and asked if I would do it as a favor. He didn’t feel confident that his composer could do it or maybe it fell outside his job description.

On the feature end, you next have “The Bling Ring” coming up with Sofia Coppola. How do you think your own scoring and supervision career has evolved with her directorial one, and what can we expect from this soundtrack?

"The worlds finest boom box." Brian made cassette mixes while working on the "Bling Ring".

Sofia and I started together with the “Virgin Suicides”. We didn’t really know what you were supposed to do so we made up our own methods. With her next film, “Lost In Translation” we more fully developed our style together. Music plays a very big role in the movies we have done together and “The Bling Ring” continues along that path. The last film we did together was “Marie Antoinette” back in 2007 and I have done a great deal of scoring since then. So I scored it this time as well. It’s the first film we have done where I drew upon contemporary Pop, Club and Hip-Hop music. The principle characters in the film are LA teenagers and the music needed to be a bit personal to them. I spent quite a bit of time listening to contemporary music, collecting the stuff that I liked to give to Sofia before she shot the film. I did most of the score with Daniel Lopatin (Oneohtrix Point Never). He has good ears. His music has taste, emotion and a vulnerability that has been pretty absent in most electronic music for decades – with a few exceptions of course. I had put a track of Daniel’s in the film and to me his music embodied the distillation of the sound of the movie. I invited him into my studio and we spent a few days filling in the holes where the source music wasn’t going to work as well. I did the same thing with Kevin Shields on “Lost In Translation” but to a lesser degree. I also did some treatments to existing songs to score a few scenes. I took the hugely popular dance floor hit and mangled it into a giant granular ambient sound collage. Richard Beggs who did sound and mixing for the film and worked with me on Sofia’s other films, took my stuff and went even further with it in some places. We both did some very adventurous things on this one. This is probably the best work we have done together collectively and that is because of the chemistry between Sofia, Richard, the picture editor Sarah Flack and I. I have to give them all credit for taking the stuff I gave them and working with it the way they did.

You’ve actually done a lot of far less horrific fare like “Friday Night Lights,” “Stranger Than Fiction,” “Shrink” and “Beginners.” What do you enjoy more? Playing deviant behavior, or scoring psychologically well-balanced people?

I really love them all and find it fulfilling to go from one tone or story to the other. I can appreciate all styles of music so it’s really the same thing. I mean one day I’m gonna make some Dub music and the next I’m do a woodwind concerto and then some bloody curdling dissonant death rock. Comedy music is difficult to do well. I have never liked ‘quirky’ pop music. The closest I get is something like the Talking Heads so for me music that sounds silly is really very scary. I love the Mancini scores to the “Pink Panther” films. I have done a few comedies and look forward to doing some more. For me these things are very much the same, they are all about finding a musical character that is unique to the film and getting as much emotion that I can based on what is happening in the story and on the screen. I do find it easier to scare people or make them cry with music than to make them laugh. The best comedies don’t really need much score for my taste. I hate when the music is telling you everything as it’s happening like a musical laugh track. I can appreciate how Woody Allen does his thing — musical interludes between the acts. I think it’s time I do another comedy after all this psycho–horror stuff I have been doing.

What kind of place do you think you occupy among alternative composers. And would you like to do a big-scale orchestral score for a more mainstream project?

I have my own ears and a unique approach to composing. I’m excited and inspired every day in the studio. I truly love music and film so much. I’m not concerned with what anybody else is doing or how I might fit in. I rather prefer to not fit in. I have done a few big orchestral, more mainstream scores and it’s always thrilling to be able to have your music played by a hundred people at once. There is very little imagination going into most of the big mainstream scores and unfortunately those are the only films that have decent music budgets. So I don’t do them that often. I would like to continue to do more and have the resources to push things a bit.

What do you think it says about the state of scoring for network series that you’re essentially able to write new, darkly experimental music every week?

It’s very healthy. TV and films are pretty much one in the same right now. I never had any ambition to do TV. I thought it was the least artistic place to be, but that’s not the case any more. Gus Van Sant got me into it with “Boss” and I thought, “If Gus is gonna do it than I will to.” You know he’s such a ‘film’ guy too. I found the experience to be totally creative and without any real artistic compromise. The time constraints are brutal though! TV is very good for your chops! I do like to keep a balance and like working on things for a long time like the films I do with Sofia where I start while she is writing and finish a year or so later. With ‘Hannibal” we are now turning scores around in a week.

When appeals to you creatively about the darker side of human nature, whether its within a corrupt politician or a serial killer?

I have always been attracted to darkness in music. I think the most beautiful music is some of the darkest. I don’t know why I get these jobs to be honest. I like experimental, emotional soundscapes. I like messing around with the audiences’ head and it makes it fun when you have a character that is hallucinating or having a nightmare or a split personality or some neurosis to play off of. I just love discovering and creating new sounds. I try to create something that I have never heard before everyday. This lends well to horror scores and such. If you were being murdered or observing something as dark as what goes on in ‘Hannibal’ it would feel new, weird, dark, scary etc, so the music goes all those places too.


Watch “Hannibal” on NBC Thursdays at 10 PM, then see episodes online HERE.

Special thanks to Lee Scott

ON THE SCORE is sponsored by La-La Land Records

As a composer who’s one of Hollywood’s foremost practitioners of propulsive action music, it’s almost astonishing to think that Brian Tyler has never scored an official comic book movie before “Iron Man 3.” For if film music can be the splashy aural equivalent of a Marvel sound effect on a four-color page, then Tyler’s bombastically thrilling approach is worthy of a Stan Lee-written “KERRANG!” Ever since he hit the big leagues with his score for 2003’s “Timeline,” Tyler’s ever-increasing multiplex entries have often used a deliriously pulpy style filled with raging orchestras, breakneck electronic percussion, heroic brass and raging metal guitars, all building into one explosive climax after the next. Tyler’s used this fuel to floor petal to the metal on three “Fast and Furious” scores, put new spring into the step of aging macho men in two “Expendables” pictures, given live action anime an kung fu blast in “Dragonball” and breathlessly outraced a killer computer in “Eagle Eye.”

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It’s hard not to hear the geek fanboy energy in the physically stylish Tyler, a real enjoyment in the musical multiplex thrills he breathlessly pumps out to maximum effect. Now that enjoyable talent is likely to take him to a whole other stratosphere as he flies high in the Marvel Universe for “Iron Man 3.” It’s a match made in heaven for a composer skilled in the ways of metal, and whose score is a major factor in how filmmaker Shane Black (“Kiss Kiss Bang Bang”) has upgraded this Mark 3 suit in every above and below-the-line department.

Tyler delivers the soundtrack in just about every way you can think of a “comic book” soundtrack working, from dastardly, pan-ethnic music for the catchall terrorist Mandarin to the raging fire within a host of brimstone-powered mercenaries. As imposing as they might be, Tyler’s theme for Tony Stark is forged from the great, unstoppable stuff of superhero heroism, all trumpeting nobility, soaring voices, majestic strings and brash melody, powered by electric rhythms that make for kick-ass science. Yet Tyler’s “Iron Man 3” is also more palpably symphonic than one might expect, showing that it’s the old-school sound of orchestral bravery that powers this metal man.

Now on a new episode of “On the Score,” Brian Tyler talks about finally being able to don the musical suit of which comic book legends are made of, one that takes off with thrillingly renewed vigor for “Iron Man 3.”

Click above to Listen Now or Click Here to Download

See Brian Tyler as a guest conductor at the Golden State Pops’ tribute to Varese Sarabande Records’ 35th anniversary on Saturday, May 11th at 8 PM. Tickets are available HERE

	Buy the Soundtrack: IRON MAN 3
	Buy the Soundtrack: JOHN DIES AT THE END
	Buy the Soundtrack: THE EXPENDABLES 2
	Buy the Soundtrack: BATTLE: LA
	Visit Brian Tyler’s website

Also worth picking up THE ASTOUNDING SHE-MONSTER, HAREM, JURRASIC PARK, OBLIVION, PATRICK DOYLE: IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA SHOCK TREATMENT and THE WILD BUNCH

To Purchase the soundtracks from this list, click on the CD Cover

THE TOP PICKS

1) JURASSIC PARK: 20th ANNIVERSARY

Price: $9.49

What is it?: By this point in a nearly four decade collaboration, John Williams’ DNA is as inseparable from the magic of Steven Spielberg as a moth encased in million-year old amber. And given a gigantic body of work whose themes are as instantly memorable, whether played with two notes (“Jaws”), five notes (“Close Encounters of the Third Kind”) or a plethora of them, it’s hard nailing down just what might be Williams’ finest melody for the director. But when it comes to his most singable theme, the award must go to “Jurassic Park.” God forbid this movie had come out when Meco was in “Star Wars” disco sway, as the anthem-like melody has always seemed to demand salutably inspirational lyrics. But that’s only one reason for fans to sing, as Universal has done a spit-shine remaster on the score to accompany their 3-D polish of the movie’s landmark CGI bones, ensuring yet more theatrical and DVD viability while making Williams’ seminal music roar with new, ageless life.

Why you should buy it?: Spielberg has always enjoyed playing the fine line between a sense of wonder and abject terror. “Jurassic Park” remains one of his most subversively effective moral fables on that end, showing how getting the ultimate dream vacation can be lethal. That also happened to be Michael Crichton’s original parable for “Westworld,” whose premise he turned neatly from killer robots to a dinosaur park run amuck. John Williams cannily turned that metaphor into melody with a rapturous title, which sings of grand adventure, when what in fact what lies inside remains some of the “Jaws” composer’s most savagely primal scoring. In this musical dino-land constructed from superb themes, Williams uses glistening bells, sweeping strings and jungle drums to approximate tourists pointing with “Ohhhh-awww’s” before leading into the mysterious jungle flutes and low, snarling brass that stands for a T-rex and raptors on the prowl. Yet even with the horns at full, roaring blast, there’s no taking the boomingly lush sound out of the composer’s tell-tale voice, one whose gift for pure melody gets a full-sprint work out evading lizard talons with some of his most white-knuckled action writing. Yet for all of Williams’ exhilarating fury, my favorite cue remains the positively quiet “Remembering Petticoat Lane.” As John Hammond recalls the flea circus that started it all, Williams uses a slow, child-waltz of bells and melancholy strings to touchingly conjure the old man’s realization that bigger isn’t better. It’s a palpable, but gentle heartbreak rare for any blockbuster of this sort, though a given when it comes the earth’s mightiest composer-director partnership

Extra Special: Now that physical releases from major studio labels seem to have gone the way of the Dodo Bird, “Jurassic Park” jewel case fossil collectors have been denied by the decision to release this deluxe edition on CD. Making up for it a bit are four previously unreleased, an unused tracks totaling about ten minutes. There’s a thematically sweet “History Lesson,” full of lilting strings and charmed bells, a tense “Coming Storm” which heralds a raptor break-out and a positively rocking orchestral charge for their theme in “Hungry Raptor.” But the highlight, and probably the biggest reason to visit the “Park” soundtrack again is “Stalling Around,” where Williams has a heyday creating deliberately obnoxious, and utterly hilarious cartoon music for the film’s dumbed-down dino DNA-explaining cartoon. So deft is Williams at playing science as Bugs Bunny gags that you wonder why what he would have done if “Animiacs” could have afforded him.



2) OBLIVION

Price: $13.99

What is it?: Architect-turned-director Joseph Kosinski is promising to become the multiplex answer to Stanley Kubrick after the almost shocking, mind-blowing intelligence he’s brought to “Tron Legacy” and his latest, terrific trip into sci-fi dystopia. If there’s a style of music that complements his icily beautiful visual sensibility, then it’s a fusion of strings and electronics, all the better to convey high technology dining on ashes. Kosinki’s cutting edge made him seek out the French band Daft Punk to capture the neon-black groove of Tron.” Now he’s brought in that country’s similarly evolutionary (and temporarily one-man band) M83 for “Oblivion” to play a future that’s musically based more on flesh and blood for all of the super-cool circuitry at work. The result is a warmer, more orchestral sound credited to Anthony Gonzales, with a more than assist by Joseph Trapanese. The latter’s the musician who helped Punk keep their alt. street cred while helping to make their pulse work relatively sound like film music. Thankfully, Trapanese is no longer the sideman here, with even more telling results.

Why should you buy it?: The spirit of “Tron Legacy” is very much a part of “Oblivion,” from its spotlessly designed hardware to a luxurious techno-organic score. However, the music’s more evolved, perhaps a bit less conscious about being artily accessible. Lush, hyper-melodic washes of strings and synth pulses grace the post-apocalyptic landscape, adding to the “wow” factor of one spectacularly ruined vision after the next. The effect of this drifting, always melodic score is one of wondrous contemplation, giving the sense of an earth waiting to be rediscovered, and reborn, an pseudo-acid trip tone that has much in common with the headtrip movies of the 70s that Kosinksi’s modeling “Oblivion” after, along with every other great genre-mash movie from “The Matrix” to “The Terminator.” But that’s not to say that “Oblivion” doesn’t lack for solid suspense as the pieces of its truly surprising (if already done-that) mystery falls into place. But the neatest cue here is spun from more tradition popcorn action, as the beats for a “Canyon Battle” chase between glider and a killer drone armada builds into a raging exercise in electro-orchestral ramp ups, reaching such a dazzling level of hyper beat excitement that the listener’s pulse rate can’t help but go into overdrive. But having the best action piece in any score so far this year (and certainly the coolest since Zimmer’s “Inception”) doesn’t negate the sense of human-played instrumental emotion that makes the constantly mesmerizing, and very thematic “Oblivion” anything but a musically empty trip to 2077.

Extra Special: “Oblivion” cannily comes in two versions, its “Deluxe Edition” e-album (available HERE) fully packed with M83’s instrumentals, while the hard copy contains “Oblivion,” a vocal version of its theme passionately rendered by Norwegian singer Susanne Sundfer. It’s an Oscar-nom worthy power ballad that socks over the film’s well-deserved sense of importance, and humanity for a score, and film that’s about the ghost in a machine, as opposed to letting the latter coldly take over.



3) THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES

Price: $13.99

What is it? Indy movies, and their scores can smack you upside the head with their high-minded pretentiousness, especially when attempting to grasp the epic with music that screams attention as to how outside the box it is. Yet what often provides pitfalls for those movies proves to be terrific assets in the cases of “The Place Beyond the Pines,” a decades-spanning American crime saga graced by an impressively big, WTF score by Mike Patton. Here the former Faith No More singer makes an auspicious jump in quality from the mindlessly fun electro-carnage of “Crank: High Voltage,” using a voice that’s just as brazen in its way to take a perceptive look at the sins of criminality, and well-intentioned white lies that can spell disaster.

Why should you buy it?: Writer-director Derek Clanfrance (“Blue Valentine”) has created vividly entangled characters, most of whom seek redemption in screwed-up ways that will end in no good, no matter how long their destinies take to play out. Consequently, Patton fills even seemingly inconsequential scenes with weirdly modulating sampled strings and religious choruses, with grinding guitars and dulcimers getting across low class backwoods behavior- even if the movie’s setting is upstate New York. Cricket chirps, ominous percussion, feedback, yowling synths and host of other brooding electronic melodies don’t so much suggest trouble brewing among bikers-gone-bad and corrupt cops as much as they impress as the long lost score from the “Halloween 3” – had that movie always been intended for Michael Meyers. When many scores do a good job of giving you exactly what you expect for background energy, Patton’s “Pines” has a true sense of audacious surprise, especially when voices jam with sizzling electronics. Much like star Ryan Gosling’s ever-growing parade of sociopaths, Patton has a punk sensibility that really doesn’t seem to care what it’s riding over, or even about what his music’s supposed to make you think. It’s an attitude that makes for an amazingly fresh soundtrack that manages to pull new daredevil tricks from alt. scoring, creating a clash between the angels in its main character’s hearts, and the twisted, self-destructive actions that end up coming out instead.

Extra Special: For as brash as it is, Patton’s score casts a seamless spell with “Pines’” melancholy song choices, whether it’s the praying Latin voices of “Miserere Mei,” the childlike female vocalese of Ennio Morricone’s “Ninna Nanna Per Adulteri” or the gentle, soulful folk strumming of Bon Iver’s “The Wolves.” And when it comes to darkly soothing string instrumentals, Arvo Part’s “Fratres for Strings and Percussion” continues to be the beautifully ominous modern classical standard that keeps on giving, its ever-anguishing stings helping these “Pines,” achieve an mighty sense of the tragic from its small-scale setting, a place where musical emotion proves to be boundless, and captivatingly strange in Patton’s hands.



4) SHE DEMONS / THE ASTOUNDING SHE-MONSTER

Price: $14.99

What is it?: When you want the best in shrieking, old-school genre music, then Monstrous Movie Music has been the place for any Famous Monsters fan to geek out to, as the label has gone from sumptuous re-recordings of the likes of “Gorgo,” “Day of the Triffids” and “This Island Earth” to releasing the original recordings of fairly prestigious genre fare like “Rocketship X-M” and “Kronos.” They’ve even dared to branch out with such distinctly non-monstrous Ernest Gold releases as “Ship of Fools” and “The McCullochs.” Now MMM goes digging into the vault of 1 AM Chiller Theater fare, not to mention whatever happens to be running at that time on your local UHF station. It’s certainly their most gonzo bunch of releases, with manly adventure trumping beastly action in their releases for the blazing guns of “The Tall Texan,” the Amazonian exploitation of “Virgin Sacrifice” and the civil war era drama “Hellgate.” But for true-blue fans of black and white exploitation, the go-to soundtrack of the bunch proves to be the double-teaming of the freakish “She-Demons” and “The Astounding She-Monster,” one a bunch of ladies with faces that only a gorilla could love, and the latter a space-suited vixen whose touch is to die for.

Why you should buy it?: You know you’re in for something off the beaten track when jungle drums and a raging mini-orchestra send you to an Nazi-ruled island hell populated by beauty queen contestants who certainly aren’t going to win any prizes now. Having certainly warmed up for this picture with “Female Jungle” and “Jungle Hell” (and with the likes of “The Astro-Zombies” and “The Doll Squad” ahead of him), composer Nicholas Carras pours on the enjoyable, alternately lurching and pouncing music with exactly zero subtlety, which is what makes many of these scores for the 50s more lowbrow genre efforts so much fun. 1958s “She Demons’” music is fairly interchangeable with Carras’ deliciously strident “Missile To the Moon” (also on MMM). But what really perks this nutty ready-for-Ed Wood stuff up are the score’s excursions into jungle horror exotica and war-whoop brass, the music so furious that you can almost feel the punches of the abusive Huns’ fists coming at you, as well the twisted claws of the Diane Nellis Dancers.

Extra Special: 1957s “She-Monster” was given a way-smaller budget to restrain most of its action to a geologist’s mountain cabin, where a silver-suited babe from beyond the stars inadvertently foils a rich dame’s kidnapping. However, German-born composer Guenther Kauer (aka Gene Kauer) seems to think he’s Bernard Herrmann, whilst in the midst of scoring the high sierra-set “On Dangerous Ground.” That kind of distinctive musical ambition is a very good thing when it comes to elevating silver-suited eye candy and a rather un-astounding film. Though Kauer’s cliffhanging energy has panicked horn cries and frantic strings aplenty, the composer certainly isn’t guilty of the sin of writing “busy” music. There’s an actual thematic intelligence at work to his debut score, with the horn section achieving the kind of thrilling, rhythmic motion of an “A” picture score within decidedly “B” movie confines. Better yet, Kauer’s smashing theme, creeping suspense and high-string sense of female jeopardy does wonders at expressing the misunderstood, fairly melodic menace of a character who’s only monstrous in inadvertent deed. At its best, Kauer’s music doesn’t sound so much like a horror sci-fi score as much as it does a ballet piece with aspersions to Stravinsky’s virgin sacrifices. With the score conducted in Kauer’s native Germany, the sound has a surprisingly terrific crispness that’s unusual for fare from the era. It’s a shame that Kauer’s career mostly didn’t rise about exploitation fare. But leave it to MMM head David Schechter’s always-elaborate, and humorously enjoyable liner notes to give this truly unsung composer his due, while wetting our appetite to hear what other screwball gems MMM might unearth from the bottom of a double drive-in bill.



5) THE WILD BUNCH (End of The Line Edition)

Price: $34.95

What Is It?: Collector labels had been around long before Film Score Monthly magazine launched their soundtrack offshoot with “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three” back in 1996. Founder Lukas Kendall’s fastidious attention to detail and shrewd mix of popular and obscure titles from the golden and silver ages of film music ensured FSM’s longevity over the course of 249 titles and nearly two decades, Now as if he were the grizzled leader of a bunch of ragtag outlaws, Kendall has chosen to take out FSM on his own terms in a big, gloriously bloody bang for number 250. Given Kendall’s biting sense of satire, it’s no wonder that the label has met its glorious demise with the ironically chosen “The Wild Bunch,” a film that firmly put the clean killing morality old Hollywood in its grave.

Why You Should Buy It?: Its director was a boozing hell-raiser while his muse had been blacklisted for his unapologetic political beliefs. So it’s almost funny to think that one of the great teams of 70s cinematic rebellion began with a gentle TV production of “Noon Wine.” However, Sam Peckinpah and Jerry Fielding would next blow any pleasantries out of the water with 1969s “The Wild Bunch.” Peckinpah’s ode to the end of west reveled in bad behavior, all while making audiences root for its SOB anti-heroes, even as high-minded critics were reviled by the still-shocking gunplay. Though “The Wild Bunch” ripped away the western mythos, Peckinpah and Fielding’s work was no less manly, or romantic for it. Sure this didn’t have the ripping “Big Country” orchestrations of Jerome Moross, or the brightly adventurous sound that Elmer Bernstein provided in any number of pictures for The Duke. But if anything, Fielding’s Oscar-nominated score was more stripped down and gritty for its raw approach, marching its characters in military lock step to the accompaniment of ominous, nearly dissonant orchestrations. Given a Mexican revolutionary to serve, and ultimately rebel against, Latin rhythms proved to be another major member of “The Wild Bunch,” guitar and flute speaking for the vulnerability, and deep, deep down inner goodness these hard men don’t dare show. Fielding’s music is about the act of myth building, leading to the kind of heroic gesture that legends and film history are made of- even if Fielding occasionally breaks a smile with playful accordions. There’s also a terrific tip of the hat to more traditional western adventure in his terrifically energetic chase music, galloping along with a brassy, rip-roaring theme that any hard-ass would be proud to evade a posse with.

Extra Special: The start of his tormented relationship with Peckinpah would yield increasingly darker fruit with the likes of “Straw Dogs,” “Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia” and his unused “Getaway,” not to mention the composer’s increasing plunge into the heart of dissonant darkness with such twisted opuses as “The Mechanic” and “The Nightcomers,” making “The Wild Bunch’s” more rousing moments into Fielding’s last huge melodic gasps for Peckinpah, as it were. There’s even more fatalistic lyricism than ever before over the course of the film’s complete 74-minute score, nearly an hour of alternate cues, its original album presentation and a plethora of Mexican source music. Writing the legend are Lukas Kendall and John Takis, whose excellent liner notes (and even more online) about Fielding and Penkinpah’s explosive relationship are complemented by a picture-filled booklet. This “Wild Bunch” is truly the last word, and FSM musical note in detailing this seismic shift in filmmaking and scoring. It’s exactly the kind of big, final bang that you’d expect FSM to take itself out with- not that their heroic act is any less mournful an occasion for soundtrack fans.



ALSO FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION:



. THE CARPETBAGGERS

Elmer Bernstein was a composer who could wear many stylistic hats to fit his often over-sized characters, whether it was conjuring a biblical symphony for Moses or gun-blazing western music for John Wayne. But if I have a personal favorite approach, then it’s the Bernstein of the late 50s and early 60s, a time when jazz stood for bad behavior. Bernstein mainlined that hep, untamed sound with the more mainstream sound of an orchestra to create the defining sound of “movie jazz.” It was a deliciously swaggering approach that captured the morally bankrupt doings of heroin addicts (“Man With the Golden Arm”), prostitutes (“Walk on the Wild Side”) and publicists (“The Sweet Smell of Success”). But perhaps no handsome sleaze was more outsized than George Peppard’s ersatz Howard Hughes for 1963s “The Carpetbaggers.” Harold Robbins’ thinly veiled portrait of a 30s oil baron cum movie tycoon set the tone for the Hollywood adaptations of author’s many sex and sin epics to follow like “The Betsy” and “Bloodline.” But when you could only so much skin on screen (even for a then-provocative movie), Bernstein’s music was a major factor in capturing “The Carpetbagger’s” lustful energy, as driven by a powerhouse, carousing theme that once again equated jazz with carnality in the best way. But there’s also a dynamic range of approaches here, from the ride-the-range rhythms of our anti-hero’s cowpoke confidant Nevada Smith (later to get his own, pure western), rollicking period source and the kind of careening orchestral energy that’s the stuff that rise-to-the-top montages are made of. Yet behind the score’s brassy soap opera relish, Bernstein also captures an unexpected, melodic tenderness where a flute plays how this cad actually possess a very tarnished heart when he isn’t breaking a host of shapely ones. Intrada’s release captures the powerhouse sound of Bernstein at his racy best, compiling the original “Carpetbagger” tracks with its re-recorded album, for which Bernstein created special jazz-centric suites of his thematic material. By giving an even smokier feeling to the elegant sleaze at hand, I dare say that Bernstein’s LP trumps the “real” tunes in terms of their deviant enjoyment that made this composer the king of musical bad behavior back in the day.



. FROZEN PLANET

Englishman George Fenton seems to have conquered the market on scoring every nook and cranny of the globe with a series of sweeping nature documentaries that have included “Earth,” “Life,” “Planet Earth” and “The Blue Planet.” And while the genre has technically evolved in light years from the dinosaur-age days of “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom,” the basic spectacle of watching animals being cute, or killing each other certainly hasn’t. That age-old struggle for survival is often mirrored in the artist’s challenge of going for the uncondescending beauty of God’s ice-covered earth, or choosing to play it with the family-friendly obviousness of an old-school Disney documentary. Subsequently, Fenton’s score varies from the majestic to the wincing cutesies, complete with horn high-hats and plucky strings for those zany beats. Thankfully, there are plenty of evocative, no-nonsense depictions of the Arctic landscape to show that nature often lacks a sense of humor. While Fenton’s rousing orchestrations are most definitely designed for the widest possible listenership, the genuine wonder that Fenton conjures bests the cartoonishness of other material, whether it’s eerie synths versus pokey pianos, or monolithic icebergs of brass and strings. Still, there’s cleverness to some of the goofier stuff, particularly when it carries a jazzy loopiness for the animal antics. For if “Frozen Planet’s” sweeping strings have enough brightness in them to melt the snow at hand, at the least this overall enjoyable, and sometimes entrancing album serves as the score to the kid-friendly fantasy epic that Fenton somehow hasn’t gotten the chance to tackle yet “Golden Compass 2” anyone?



. G.I. JOE RETALIATION

You can only expect so much when it comes to an toy-based movie, which made this new action figure model so pleasantly surprising, especially with far more of a “believable” approach as opposed to the far more juvenile escapades of the last “Joe.” Where that film got a form-fittingly bombastic orchestral treatment from Alan Silvestri, Henry Jackman’s music here is out to fit “Retaliation’s” “real world” approach- or at least as real world as you can get with flesh and blood action cartoons wielding futuristic weaponry. Having shown his super heroic chops on “X-Men First Class” and the historic axe-wielding action for “Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter,” composer Henry Jackman once again flexes his multiplex muscles here with more than a bit of intelligence. “Joe” might start out fairly ordinarily with the kind of techno beat and rock guitar recipe that has made so many other scores in this arena cookie-cutter bland. But as “Retaliation” progresses, Jackman adds far more tastier seasonings to the popcorn action, from determinedly patriotic strings to almost shockingly memorable themes. There’s particularly clever use of Asian percussion and orchestra for the film’s dazzling ninja mountain fight scene, dastardly suspense for Cobra ultimate weapon devastation and brawny combos of pulse and a patriotic orchestra that deliver genuine, smile-on-the-face thrills. But best of all, there’s a true sense of gung-ho fun to the music that blasts away the lesser ranking scores that are just content to press play on the rhythm machine. This is one promising musical recruit in Hollywood’s action machinery.



. GOD OF WAR: ASCENSION

Tyler Bates knows a thing or two about playing Spartan vengeance after his seminal score for “300,” which made sword-and-sandal music hip again by incorporating a heroic orchestra with anachronistic metal guitars and time specific ethnic instruments. Now after showing ancient sword and sorcery vigor with the videogame “The Rise of the Argonauts” and the underrated reboot of “Conan the Barbarian,” Bates once again proves that crossing a muscular death-dealer will be hell to play, especially when it’s a titan-slayer named Kratos. Bates furiously delivers again for this popular berserker’s latest button-mashing adventures in “God of War: Ascension.” It’s a creature-filled mosh pit that once again shows there’s new musical life to be put into the stuff of heroic legend, Bates rocks out beats, choruses singing gods-knows what and a full-blast orchestra given all the resonance of Abbey Road. With his score duking it out of the underworld, Bates embodies both the Olympian threats as well as the tragedy of a hero last tricked into slaying his family. There’s a surprising amount of exotic, haunted emotion and beauty to be had in Kratos’ “Ascension” but make no mistake that the emphasis here is on bold, mythically sweeping punishment, making this “God of War” entry as dark as it is exhilarating, allowing the Greek myths to rise and capture new, bloody imagination from a generation weaned on videogames as opposed to Homer’s “Odyssey.”



. HAREM

For a bright, shining English language decade in the 1980s, French composer Philippe Sarde stood out as the beacon in the next wave of the romantic French invasion, a worthy successor to the likes of Georges Delerue and Maurice Jarre with his lush, thematic sound that graced such memorably diverse scores as “Ghost Story,” “Quest For Fire,” “Lovesick,” “Pirates” and “The Music Box.” And while Sarde certainly hasn’t stopped working in the years since, there’s quality that stands out, and remains unequalled from his work during that period. It’s true from major Hollywood pictures to even lesser known Cannon productions like 1985′s “Harem.” Filmmaker Arthur Joffe took the age-old cinematic fantasy of getting ravished by a sheik to new existential dimension here, casting Nastassja Kinski as an American stockbroker who gets shanghaied to Arabia by Ben Kingsley’s aloof prince. For the film’s accent on an artily told “relationship” over soft core pulp, Sarde delivers a beautifully seductive, almost sweetly charming theme that’s impossible not to yield to. His melody fills the score with a leisurely, entrancing pace, much like a Middle Eastern boudoir. Sarde incorporates Arabic music into the sand and steam-swept ambiance, varying his melody from a classical trot to honeyed charm, with choral voices making the profane into a romantic sacrament. It’s a testament to Sarde’s incredible melodic talent that it’s a feeling of poetic innocence that ultimately sweeps us off of our feet. “Harem” is all about the rapturous power that a great theme can have in the hands of a French master, the country from which it seems he best scoring Svengalis hail from. But perhaps the most ear-catching use of Sarde’s motif comes from the impossible vocal range of singer Jimmy Sommerville (“Orlando”), who’s operatic use of the melody in “Hello, Stranger!” turns from man to woman, and than a nearly-screaming falsetto that jams the two sexes together, much as if a eunuch was rocking out on the job. Sarde remains a composer that Hollywood needs to kidnap back to capture that symphonic genie in a bottle.



. THE HOLE (3,000 edition)

Kids and the monstrosities often mixed in Joe Dante’s legendary collaboration with Jerry Goldsmith, from mischievous “Gremlins” and “Small Soldiers” to the atom bomb in “Matinee.” One might imagine what Jerry would have done had he been around to peer into “The Hole” for Dante, only to find far more of an ephemeral and psychological threat than he’d been given to handle before with the filmmaker. Yet Dante’s still in very capable musical hands for a low key entry into teen horror, especially with the heavy lifting being done by Javier Navarette, a composer who teamed with Guillermo Del Toro for the far more fatalistic “Pan’s Labyrinth,” and “The Devil’s Backbone.” Given the more obvious tone of these American goosebumps, Navarette conjures the tonal equivalent of a spooky suburban backyard campfire tale. While there’s the kind of pleasant lead-in that brings images of sunny childhood innocence, the musical light is quickly consumed by whatever the hell it is that lies under our young hero’s basement grate. There’s a wonderfully macabre vibe to this evil’s ever-growing grasp of an unfortunate family, with an eerily definable theme standing in for the creeping darkness. Navarette’s music personifies itself as a veritable witches cauldron of scratchy violins, will-o-the-wisp strings, a haunting orchestra and a chilling female voice, all of which cast an ever-intensifying spell that plays nicely off of Dante’s nostalgia for old-school Universal horror chills. But above all, Navarette doesn’t fail to maintain a sense of innocence and emotion, as captured with a lush, piano-topped theme. Sure this score might not be as ragingly dark as his fellow Spaniard Roque Banos’ score for “Evil Dead” (also out on La La Land), but “The Hole’s” music is certainly menacing enough to help warrant this nicely modulated film’s PG13 rating. Navarette’s certainly kept the spirit of Jerry alive within “The Hole,” all while going in a fresh direction for Dante, one that will hopefully continue to shine its light.



. PATRICK DOYLE: IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA

After sojourning in Hollywood for a blockbuster career renaissance that’s included “Brave,” “Thor” and “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” the sprightly Scotsman musically visits the real America to satisfy his own inner muse in this expansively impressive concept album. Paying tribute to his ancestors who immigrated to Alabama, Doyle captures their destination with equal parts rousing beauty and wide-eyed affection. Of course he opens with “Washington DC’s” noble horns and symphonic sweep that also effortlessly conveys an Aaron Copland’s sense of Americana. Yet the nation that Doyle surveys is mostly on a smaller scale, with his next “Pumpkin Pie” piece using gentle piano and strings to bring on imagery of a child’s dance through a wheat fields. Melodic visions of heartland purity and bustle continue to follow through these engagingly melodic concert pieces. Ranging from the carefree to the noble, Doyle’s work captures a sense of proud, but subdued patriotism, with a particular view towards music that resonates with the grace of our long-vanished, wide open spaces. A wind-swept sense of rhythm also accompanies the glistening bells, swelling brass, lush strings and subtly western guitars, capturing the sense of innocence and wonder that must have beheld Doyle’s family upon them setting foot on their new land. But even without the anchor of its concept, “Impressions” impresses with Doyle’s always-remarkable talent for sweeping music, done here in a way that makes this album’s energy distinct from his film work. With the freedom to musically roam without the constraint of images beyond those in his own head, Doyle shares in the listener a blissful promise of America’s better nature. Sure his “Impressions” might have been recorded in Budapest, but a better, recent valentine to our nation from said “foreigners” you’re not likely to find.



. SHOCK TREATMENT / FATE IS THE HUNTER

Jerry Goldsmith had a particular talent for playing characters in the process of losing their minds, drawing on the dark, string musings of such avant garde composers as Bela Bartok to pioneer his own Hollywood sound for psychosis. Using a chamber approach of devilish fiddles and strings for the “Twilight Zone” episode “The Invaders,” the composer further plumbed a snapping mind with the waltzing sexual symbolism that haunted his Oscar-nominated “Freud” to the eerie, conspiratorial tones of assuming a new identity in “Seconds.” But when it comes to the pure, batshit enjoyment of a breakdown, then 1966s “Shock Treatment” gets the psycho ward ribbon of achievement for Goldsmith’s most inventively mad accomplishment. Here it’s for a “Shock Corridor”-esque tale of an otherwise sane man putting himself into an asylum for personal gain. But he’ll get his just reward with satanic fiddles, chilling strings, eerily reverberating bell percussion, crashing pianos and the electric ooo-wee-ooo of a Theremin, an instrument seemingly invented to connote craziness. Yet what gives the score its class are the beautifully sinister orchestral melodies that fill this ersatz haunted house, a sound that’s utter Goldsmith, even in the midst of some of his most black-humored writing. Perhaps the best Goldsmith thriller score you never even knew existed, “Shock Treatment” stands as the composer’s gateway drug to the more supernatural and sci-fi horrors that lay ahead of him in the 70s with “The Mephisto Waltz,” “Alien” and “The Omen.” Book ending this Intrada CD is Goldsmith’s far more pleasant soundtrack to 1964s post plane crash drama “Fate Is the Hunter.” Given the awful accident it investigates, Goldsmith’s score has a sweet, almost tropically romantic sway to it. Lush strings, harp and bells carry along Goldsmith’s central thematic idea, with even a bit of Irish jig rhythm for good measure. Of course you know a chorus is going to take over the melody at the end to take the “Hunter” out on a high note, with its mystery explained and anxieties healed- a very far cry indeed for the craziness before it on an album that shows just how adept Jerry Goldsmith was at emotional extremes.



. STARCRAFT II: HEART OF THE SWARM

“World of Warcraft’s” band of scoring brothers Neal Acree, Glenn Stafford, Derek Duke and Russell Brower get their sci-fi grlll power on for the Queen of Blade’s great escape in this score that accompanies the expansion pack of “Wings of Liberty.” Its exceptional cut scenes generate one of the more crazily stylized scores for the genre, starting off by mashing a galaxy-spanning orchestra by way of the grunge sensibility of its sword and spine-slinging heroine. Sarah Kerrigan’s treated like an ersatz Lisbeth Salander, bringing on the lizard beast hurt with industrial metal rock grunge. But those grinding atmospheres segue to cool, lushly accelerating beats, a chorus conveying strategic gameplay as the stuff of the cosmic, with a ragged, heroic sensibility that even gets a bit of fife and drum nobility. The musical tsuris of the Master Chief seems positively sedate in comparison to the Queen’s musical identity swings in “Starcraft I!,” whose opportunities give extra creative thrust to dudes usually handed broadswords when scoring warrior women running about in a videogame dungeons and dragons fantasy land.



. WAR GODS OF THE DEEP / CROSSPLOT (1,000 edition)

In addition to releasing current international scores like Alberto Iglesias’ “I’m So Excited” and Pino Donaggio’s “Passion,” Spain-based soundtrack label Quartet has also been digging into some of the 60s and 70s loopier scores like Dominic Frontiere’s “Hammersmith Is Out” and Riz Ortolani’s “Woman Times Seven.” But where said American and Italian were lucky enough to get some LP albums out long before a time when silver age soundtrack CD’s became hip, the equally prolific British musician Stanley Black (“Valentino”) had unaccountably never had one original title available. That makes this two-fer of “War Gods of the Deep” and “Crossplot” one of the cooler releases to come from the increasingly bountiful Quartet. Where some New Yorker’s might best remember “War Gods” for its afternoon TV rerun being interrupted by news of Elvis’ death, Black’s gorgeously turbulent score stands well on its own apart from AIP’s ok take on “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” as mostly done on landlocked sets. In a similar fashion to Paul J. Smith’s approach to that Jules Verne adventure, Black creates a virtual floating symphony of haunting strings, eerie bells and percussion, going for just about every way that richly melodic music can approximate deep water. Black’s impressive scope also powerfully embodies Vincent Price’s romantically haunted privateer and the menace of his gillmen-filled domain. The fact that Black can even hold his breath for ten straight minutes of this constantly intriguing, ever-roiling stuff says more than enough about his creative staying power. Where “War Gods” will mostly wow the horror nostalgia crowd, the constant re-discovery of kitsch has always proven to be hip. 1970s jovial thriller “Crossplot” had Black providing a pseudo-Shagadellic goldmine for “Saint” star Roger Moore, who would soon be jivin’ to a Blaxploitation Bond score. But “Crossplot’s” music is all about swinging Britain, with Black’s dapper blend of lighthearted orchestral suspense and jazz swagger especially well suited to Moore’s caddish ad man, His Hitchcockian exploits are given groovily lush spy thrills with bongo percussion, rousing strings, staccato brass and exotic chords that give a fun “Third Man” ambience to its Eastern European bad guys. Best yet, Black has a truly wonderful, Tom Jones-esque song at his side, whose melody proves memorable thematic accompaniment to the breezy thrills. Fans of Moore’s other cult English action show “The Persuaders” will also take notice of the bunch of “Crossplot” cues that were used for it. But whether the thrills are found in a creature’s tattered shirt of a bird’s miniskirt, “War Gods” and “Crossplot” are testament to the range of a composer whom Quartet has finally given the chance to crow.



CLICK on the album covers to make your hardcopy or download purchase, and find the soundtracks at these. com’s: Amazon, Buysoundtrax, Intrada, iTunes, Screen Archives and Varese Sarabande

In August 2011, Pat Summitt, college basketball’s winningest coach, made the stunning announcement that she had early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Before and after resigning in April 2012, the legendary coach and her son, Tyler, have set out to beat this challenge as they had every other—with grace, humor and, most of all, each other. Pat XO tells the remarkable story of this incomparable coach as it has never been told before, straight from the people who knew her best.

“The film is an interesting take on biopic documentary in that along with archival footage and professionally filmed interviews, there was a decision made by the filmmakers to send out about 75 “Point And Shoot” cameras set at ‘movie mode’ to former players, friends and colleagues”, explains Peter. “Along with these cameras there was a letter with some suggested topics if they were stuck and couldn’t think of anything. The goal of this process was for the interviewees to feel ‘at home’ and comfortable when they were talking about Pat. The end result of this filming technique was that the true personality of the interviewees came out in a way that was very natural and more heartfelt than it would had there been a full camera crew, lights and an interviewer there. It came out feeling that they were just sitting around the kitchen table or on the back porch talking to another friend about Pat. Another result and one that was used in an artistic way is that these interviews came back with many different levels of sound, lighting and overall film quality. This Lo-Tech method added an element of real earthiness to the film that would be very difficult to capture otherwise. The decision was then made that the music for the film should support this and with that we came up with the idea for a score that would be is very spare and roots oriented.”

“As filmmakers, this raw and low tech visual approach was very different for us”, stated Nancy Stern and Lisa Lax. “In fact, we were nervous until the footage started to come in. Once we started to see and hear the stories, we new we were onto something very real, authentic and true to our subject, pat summitt. Our next creative challenge was to come up with a sound track that was as genuine as the visual material. After brainstorming with Peter, he sent us a riff that he came up with on one of his guitars and he nailed the perfect vibe.”

Peter states, “Most of the film music I write has a combination of orchestral, choral, piano, ethnic and electronic elements but for this we decided on a score based around acoustic guitars and live percussion that I would play and record one instrument at a time but with the goal of it sounding like a small ensemble. While I have quite a bit of experience as a professional pianist, I have used my guitar playing skills almost exclusively in a supporting role (rhythm, some melody playing). This set up a challenge for me and after some research I decided to use alternate tunings almost exclusively. Open E and D, Open G as well as DADGAD tunings were used for 85% of the score. This let me write and perform melodic parts with open strings ringing to add some fullness to the sound but not overtake the images on screen. I also came up with an ensemble with 4 different acoustic guitars, a Resonator guitar for playing Slide, a Parlor sized guitar for Rhythm and Melody, a Jumbo sized guitar for supporting the Parlor and a Nashville Tuned guitar to add texture. In each cue the instruments were panned into the same spot on the stereo field. I also purchased some hand percussion instruments and on several cues overdubbed shakers, tambourines, claves, maracas and even used a guitar case for kick drum and snare drum sounds. I used a multiple tube recording chain with a tube mic pre and a tube channel for eq and compression to give me a more vintage sound. I also employed a pair of Astatic Dynamic mics with ceramic capsules that are over 50 years old with a very limited frequency response as well as the more modern Copperphone mic to blend or as an alternate to the Neumann I used as the main mic for my guitars. This enabled me to have more control over the fidelity of the score and while many cues only have a touch of the Astatics, there are a few that only use them and one cue that has them for the first half of the cue and then changes to full fidelity for the remainder of the piece. I also played electric bass and some blues harp on several cues. On one cue I used a tenor Melodica and a Bass Melodica to simulate an accordion.”

“When the mood of the film changes after they start discussing her Alzheimer’s, I kept some of the melodic material in the acoustic guitars but added some light string orchestrations to reflect the mood change”, said Peter. “All the cues were also scored to picture inside of Pro Tools.”

Peter reflects, “It was an interesting challenge for me to work this way as I do not usually write music from the guitar but at the piano and orchestrate from there. I found that as the project went on and I settled into a working method that it was really enjoyable to create the score. To play and record everything live thru mics on an instrument that I am not 100% comfortable playing required me to come up with alternate creative ways to score a picture. That was refreshing. To see it work with the film and especially to have the directors like it was very satisfying.”

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Click here to visit Peter Calandra’s website

One of the most striking elements of the original “BioShock,” and its more musically elaborate sequel was the spare, haunting score of Garry Schyman. Having risen from the Mike Post TV team to score such television and feature films as “Penitentiary III,” “Horseplayer” and “Revenge of the Nerds IV,” Schyman had found a new calling in video games with the “Destroy All Humans!” series. But “BioShock” was the true revelation of his talent. Taking its cue far more from modernistic classical music than metalhead power rock, Schyman created a palpable, unearthly atmosphere. Melodically haunted strings turned to frenzied dissonance, with lush orchestrations conveying an ironic sense of grandeur. Mournful violin solos became odes for paradise and innocence lost, while the chilling arrival of Big Daddy struck terror into the player with pounding, rusted percussion. A female voice blended with a jazzy horn to complete the throwback Twilight Zone effect, the final, full force of a swirling action orchestra finally escaping from a zealot’s waterlogged delusions of godhood.

Now well-seasoned in the myriad worlds of videogame scoring after going to full-blown hell and back with such works as “Resistance: Retribution,” “Dante’s Inferno” and “Minerva’s Den,” Garry Schyman ventures back even further through the “BioShock” saga’s twisted time line. Once again under the creative aegis of Ken Levine, his formula once again has us battling through a crazed, futuristic city – firepower in one hand, and mutant abilities in the other. But “Infinite’s” new spin is a city in the clouds, a false paradise called Colombia that takes Walt Disney’s Lilly White version of Main Street U.S.A. to darkly satirical, and troubling heights. For behind Colombia’s good living of steampunk science hides a zealot ruler’s rotten core of racial slavery. Out to take him down is a first-person man of action with a mysterious past, given a more grown-up female companion who wants out of her mad genius father’s gilded cage – one guarded by a gigantic Songbird.

Schyman’s stripped down his musical approach with equally impressive ruthlessness, and beauty. Trembling strings, saloon-ready pianos, melancholy bells, a tortured violin and a small, creeping orchestra casts a dark, fairy tale ambience over this realm of barbershop quartets, rocket-firing zeppelins and enraged tin men. It’s an eerie, melancholy chamber music intimacy that centers us on the emotional relationship between an ex-Pinkerton man and the young woman he’s out to bring to seeming safety, all the while knowing there will be no haven. Yet Schyman also doesn’t overlook the pokey humor of a pair of nattily-clad, English-accented devil-angels guiding us along, That of course isn’t when his music isn’t engaged in the ferociously exhilarating gameplay of swinging about aerial trams or pulverizing both villain and rebel alike with super-powered vigors, “action” music that uses crazed ensembles of experimental percussion to create a sense of terror as opposed to easy exhilaration. Like “BioShock Infinite,” Schyman’s thoroughly unexpected score delivers the innovative goods that mark this deservedly popular series, all while going against the typical FPS musical thrills to favor the kind of mad innovation it takes to build a city under the sea, or one in the deceptively blissful clouds.

You started out on such cult TV shows as “The A-Team” and “The Greatest American Hero.” What was that kind of musical training ground like?

It was a fantastic experience to score television shows on a weekly basis, to orchestrate my music, and to have an orchestra show up and record your music. Additionally it wasn’t a style that was necessarily natural to me. But one thing I learned from that process was you don’t always get to score what you want and I had to learn to write in the style of Mike Post and Pete Carpenter. That really broadened my technique, taught me something that I carry with me to this day, whatever hits you, you find a way to approach that style and it may involve a lot of research but in the end you grow as a composer. It was a great opportunity.

How difficult was it to make the transition into becoming a video game composer, especially with its different notion of playing to picture?

When I started to work on “Destroy All Humans!” in 2004 I had a great creative partner in Emily Ridgway. She really made it very simple for me to score that game. Other than some early video games that I’d scored in the mid-‘90s I hadn’t really done a lot of work in that genre and she just took me by the hand and walked me through it and made it very easy for me. The interactive elements of that game were not all that complex. It wasn’t particularly difficult for me and that was because I had a sympathetic and creative audio director. But since then I have learned a lot about the process and have grown and learned a lot about interactive elements so obviously the point is there is a difference between scoring a film and scoring a video game. I was lucky to have somebody really walk me through the process on my first AAA video game.

Could you talk about your creative relationship with Ken Levine? What do you think it was about your music that made him think you’d be right for ““BioShock”” in the first place?

I was hired to score the original “BioShock” by Emily Ridgway who went from working on “Destroy All Humans!” straight to audio director for Irrational Games when they were making “BioShock”. At the time Ken was fine with that decision, he didn’t have any issues with it. I think he trusts his creative team and unless he has a concern, he lets them run with it. And then once Ken heard my music he was really pleased as I started mocking up cues and sending them to Emily. In the end he was very happy with my work on the original “BioShock”; he sent me a number of really wonderful emails stating that. He and I didn’t talk a lot during that process maybe a couple of times. He and I actually wrote a song together – the anthem for Rapture – he was the lyricist and I was the composer, so we had fun interacting on that particular song. We did spend more time together on Infinite; we spoke on the phone a few times and I went out to Boston from my home in LA to meet with the team, and Ken and I spent personal time talking about the project, his feelings about music etc. But day-to-day, similar to the original “BioShock”, most of my interaction was spent with the music director, Jim Bonney.

Did you think having “BioShock” creator Ken Levine out of the second game hurt it in any way? And do you think his return to “Infinite” makes this game all the better?

No, I’m very happy with the score for “BioShock 2.” I worked with 2K Marin’s audio director Michael Kemper, who’s a wonderful audio director and creative director Jordan Thomas. “BioShock 2” had a great creative team and I had already established the direction on the original “BioShock” so it was just a matter of taking that style and applying it to the new game so there was nothing negative about that. But definitely Ken Levine is a unique creative individual and he pushes everyone who works for him on the development team to do fantastic work. I mean that sincerely, he cares so deeply about everything, every detail. That has an impact on the people he works with. We all, I think, work better when we work with someone who cares that much about what we do.

How important was it to tie each ““BioShock”” score together, yet set them apart, especially with “BioShock” Infinite.”

The first two “BioShock” scores are intimately linked in style. I established the style in the first “BioShock” and basically took that style and applied it to the second game. I think they’re both unique and different scores but it wasn’t a matter of reinventing the wheel for “BioShock 2.” “BioShock Infinite” was completely different. Most things about it cried out for a completely fresh approach to the score, which both Ken and I wanted.

Videogames now tend to have very full scores, packed with orchestral players, synths, samples and rock guitars. Yet the musical landscape of “BioShock” remains very spare and violin-driven. What’s the challenge of that simplicity, and do you think “less is more” makes these scores stand out?

I experimented with an orchestral style when I first started working on the game and it didn’t feel right for the characters, it didn’t feel right for the time period, the 1912 American city in the clouds. So I started working with these small string ensembles, and that really started with a theme I wrote for Elizabeth, one of the main characters for the game. Once I developed that style, and it worked so perfectly for her, we decided that was a great feel for the entire game including the combat music which used small string ensembles playing very intense, hard-driving music but utilizing small groups of string players with percussion. It created a distinctive style for the game. There is a lot of simple, sparse music cues in the game but there’s actually some fairly complex music as well so it’s a mix. But once that sound, that sparse, small string ensemble sound felt right, it really drove the style and became the sound of the score for “BioShock Infinite.”

When you’ve got a relatively minimal approach, is it more difficult to create the “combat” music in that respect?

Certainly I experimented with some orchestral combat music but as soon as I tried writing combat music with small string ensembles and we put it into the game, everyone was like “That’s fantastic! That is just awesome!” People in the development team would hear that music in the builds of the game and we were literally getting feedback from them saying, “This is wonderful! This is amazing! We love this!” So it became clear with a real world audience, because as Jim Bonney told us, it was fairly rare that they would get any feedback from the development team, but as soon as they heard the combat music they immediately responded. So yes, it’s a challenge. But once I met that challenge. It felt totally right for the game and it created a unique style for the combat.

Could you talk about how you wanted to capture the music of 1912 that fills Columbia? Did you have to do a lot of musical research, or use specific instruments to bring that sense of time and place back?

I certainly listened to music of that time. As I saw it there was basically two styles of music from that era. There was the pop music, which was American songs, and then of course there was classical music. But neither of those styles felt like they were going to work for this score. There are one or two cues that I modeled after Stephen Foster’s songs, which had that19th century American vibe. There is a cue called “Lighter Than Air” that has this melody and accompaniment that sounds like a Stephen Foster song. But set against that I had these very eerie, crawling strings. So in that sense, I used some period music as an inspiration. But in general I didn’t feel like it was necessary to use the music of that era.

Songs have also been a vital part of ““BioShock”.” How did you want your score to complement, and contrast the tunes here?

I was not directly involved in choosing the songs for any of the games and I was never given that material and told that my music needed to fit with them. So I was blissfully unaware of what they were doing in terms of songs being part of the game.

How do the expectations for a hugely successful sequel to “BioShock,” and the secrecy involved in its creation, affect your work? And what were your biggest surprises in the new game, especially given the mystery that’s steadily revealed in the game?

Expectations were very high. I was aware of that. I knew I had to come up with something very unique for the score. It’s hard not to be aware of it. There were expectations on the original “BioShock,” as the game had no track record. However, there were certainly expectations that “Bioshock Infinite” would be huge. So yes it’s in the back of your mind that you want to do a fantastic job. The secrecy is always an aspect of games, and that’s true even in films. So that didn’t affect me in any new or surprising way. But the game itself was stunning. It was visually beautiful; the characters were interesting as much as they were unveiled to me. To be honest I did not know until the very last week or so of the game’s development how it would unfold and what were the secrets when you played to the very end of it. The creators were very secretive, even with the people within the development team. Only a very small number knew the game’s surprise ending. So I was kept in the dark until I had to score that scene.

How important is it to convey a sense of wonder in “BioShock’s” fantastical surroundings? And would you say there’s a difference in how you play a city under the sea, and one atop the clouds?

The surroundings of both are incredible but both required a different approach in terms of the score because they are so different. The original “BioShock” was dark, wet and claustrophobic whereas “BioShock Infinite” is almost the exact opposite, as you’re in wide-open spaces and the sunlight is bursting everywhere. The same sense of mystery and darkness was not there. So the settings really did affect the style of the music, sound and the feel of the game.

The “BioShock” series has an unusual amount of political and social subtext for a videogame. In the first two, it took off Ayn Rand-esque delusions of godhood. And while that’s here as well, there’s an even more disturbing element of murderous racism. How did that influence your score?

That’s an interesting question. I think what makes the “BioShock” games so interesting are the political and social subtexts for the worlds in which we find ourselves. So whenever you’re scoring that particular element that’s going to influence you. There are scenes in “BioShock Infinite” that I played where the racism was really a dark and nasty element of this world. So I played it as a very nasty and ugly aspect of the realm Columbia.

Children, especially young girls, have been a big part of the “BioShock”” storylines. How do you want to play the emotion of these kids who are exploited and horrifically abused in these supposed technological wonderlands, especially in “Infinite?”

In “Infinite,” the character Elizabeth is a young woman, I wouldn’t call her a girl. She has a mind of her own, a very strong personality and powers that the player can take advantage of. So I would say there’s a difference between the girls of the original “BioShock” and “BioShock” Infinite.” But playing Elizabeth’s character and finding a theme for her and aspects of the game that involve her, were absolutely critical to the score and how it unfolded.

In ““BioShock”” you had Big Daddy. Now you’ve got the “Songbird” as the most fearsome villain. How did you want to play this mechanical monster?

He’s an interesting character. Songbird is a villain but he’s not a villain of his own making, He’s not a human being who’s decided to be a monster, and yet he’s frightening. It really depends upon the context of what’s happening with Songbird. When he is a frightening, hideous creature the music is very dissonant and scary. But there are other times when he is actually sympathetic. You will have to play the game to find out when and how I played Songbird in a sympathetic way.

Do you think it’s important for a videogame composer to actually play games, especially for the series they work on? And if that’s the case, how did the gameplay of the “BioShock”” games influence each succeeding score?

Yes, I do think it’s important for composers to play video games. I don’t think it’s important for a composer to become a gamer and spend hours every day playing games but I do think you need to understand what gameplay is like, and how the music is used and works in an interactive way with a game score. As I’ve told my students (I teach a class at USC), ‘Would you hire a composer to score your movie if they’d never seen a movie?’ Similarly, I don’t think you want to hire a composer who’d never played a video game. I do play the games I work on. I want to see how the music unfolds in them. So yes, it does affect how you write the music because you see how the sore is used, which gives you a deeper understanding of how your music might be valuable to the development team.

Do you prefer scoring the cut scenes within ““BioShock”,” or the actual gameplay?

I like both actually. There are really not too many movies in “BioShock,” but there are events that are locked to picture, which are the same as an in-game movie. I like doing both. I don’t have a preference. I think if I just did one or the other it would not be as interesting so it’s nice to have a contrast to score a scene in “BioShock,” or to create some combat music that could be used in a number of different circumstances.

Do you think there’s going to be a point where videogames need to radically transform the idea of a “first person shooter,” or do you think a derivation of that will always be the case?

I think that there is something very satisfying about first person shooters. The challenge, the ability of the people to experience combat without actually getting killed or wounded is a fantasy that I think a lot of people have. The excitement of that is why there are so many first person shooters. I’m sure it will evolve. As technology advances, it will permit more and more interesting interactive experiences for the player. I think the one thing about video games that has been true from their inception is that they need to constantly evolve and improve, unlike movies that don’t change technically very much at all. They might behind the scenes, but in terms of watching a movie in the theater, it unfolds in a linear fashion over two hours or so. That experience hasn’t changed since the 1930s. Video games need to constantly change and evolve and get better and make the player’s experience more interesting. We’re on a treadmill to constantly improve. I think it’s going to change. How it’s going to change, I don’t know.

Do you think video game scores are more innovative than film score at this point? And how do you think the advanced technology of the new Xbox and Sony systems will affect the music done for them?

I don’t think video game scores are better and I don’t think film scores are better. I think there is some great music being written for both media. How the advanced technology of the new systems will affect the music, I don’t know that it will. You can already do so much with the current generation games. So I don’t think it will change much. What will be important is the creative thinking about interactive music. As I’ve said before, I do not think that interactivity should be the enemy of creativity so that the music becomes too clever by half, as the old adage goes, that you lose the drama and excitement of writing great music. That’s my opinion anyways. I think that we ought to be cautious not to get so interactive that great music gets drained from the genre.

Are you happy with your newfound role as a star of the videogame scoring world? Or would you like to return to films and television with as much productivity as you’ve found in this genre? And do you think there’s any way to bridge that composing gap that will allow composers to move more easily between the two worlds?

Well, as it happens I’m scoring a movie right now. And I know a lot of film composers who are scoring games. So I don’t think there is such a gap any more that really prevents a composer from going between the two genres. Frankly I think they’re both fantastic. I love scoring video games, I love scoring films, and I’ve loved scoring television. For me what I’ve always wanted to do as a composer is to make a living being creative as a composer. All three mediums of film, television and video games offer really wonderful opportunities to do just that. So I don’t see a wall between them, I just see them as different aspects of the same opportunities I have as a composer. Some of the most incredible creative opportunities I’ve had have been scoring video games, so the walls that some people may perceive to me are not walls, but just doors. One thing that is very cool about scoring a video game is that you often have a lot of time to work on them, which gives you the opportunity to really think about the music in deep and creative ways that you might not have if you are rushed by a release deadline for a film or television show.

Where would you like to see the ““BioShock”” games go next, and how do you hope your music evolves along with them?

I have no idea! If I did then I would give up my job as composer and join the development team because I’m sure they’re thinking where the hell they’re going to go next. To be honest it’s not something I give a lot of thought to, because it’s not my job. If I did I might actually have some good ideas for them, or maybe not.


Garry Schyman’s music for “Bioshock Infinite” can be found on the “Bioshock Infinite” premium edition for PS3 and Xbox HERE.

Visit Garry Schyman’s website HERE

A great football player might make the winning pass, a hoopster the big throw or a baseball star a home-run hit. But when it comes to movies, perhaps the most valuable MVP is the composer on the behind-the-scenes bench. They’re usually mild-mannered sorts, but nevertheless possess the mad melodic skills to generate the lion’s share of suspense, can-do exhilaration and triumphantly soaring crescendos that charts seemingly every big screen game from the seeming agony of defeat to the impossible victory that sends American heroes into the halls of fame.

Click here to Purchase the Soundtrack

But while most musicians from Jerry Goldsmith to Randy Newman have turned mortal men into the stuff of sports legend, Mark Isham has often found himself with the double duty of playing “sports” scores as a bigger competition, with the ultimate goal being human dignity. Starting out in the jazz leagues as an trumpeter, Isham quickly moved into a whole other Hollywood discipline as one of the town’s most stylistically diverse players, with a particular talent for using an orchestra to convey a nobly lush, and rhythmic sense of Americana in such acclaimed soundtracks as “A River Runs Through It” and “Nell.” That stirring ability would serve Isham well in taking on the symphonic sound of the country’s favorite past times with “Varsity Blues,” “Miracle” and “Invincible.” While Isham conveyed the players’ heartfelt struggles to victory against such mighty opponents as the Russian Olympic hockey team and ageism, his music took on a new dimension of dramatic impact when fighting for racial injustice, whether it was on the field for the black college football player of “The Express.” That sense of melodically stirring importance could also be heard well of the field for “Crash”’s inter-connected urban realm, or even under the water for the first African-American navy diver in “Men of Honor.”

Now with “42,” Mark Isham’s innate sense of musical bravery soars to truly iconic heights in telling the story of Jackie Robinson, the Brooklyn Dodgers player who shattered the color barrier of “The White Man’s Game” with his unswerving bravery and ability on and away from the diamond. Not only does Isham’s brassily soaring music beautifully capture every play a score, or movie fan expects at the big screen stadium, but it most importantly embodies Jackie Robinson’s unbreakable optimism and courage in the face of contempt over the shade of his skin. Thematic nobility is the name of Isham’s winning game, from rhythmic strings that move with Robinson’s base-stealing agility to the melancholy hurt he desperately keeps inside himself, powerhouse emotions that are conveyed with enormously affecting subtlety. Isham is a true star player in making “42”an “inspirational” sports film of the best sort, right down to the rousing trumpets and a gigantically symphonic home run that also stands for one man’s victory lap for his long suppressed people.

Now on a new episode of On the Score, Mark Isham discusses what might be his biggest, and most important hit yet in the Americana arena of sports scoring with “42.”

Click above to Listen Now or Click Here to Download

	Buy the Soundtrack: 42
	Buy the Soundtrack: THE EXPRESS
	Buy the Soundtrack: MIRACLE
	Buy the Soundtrack: MEN OF HONOR
	Visit Mark Isham’s website

Personally, however, somehow I could never make friends with it. Part of the problem was undoubtedly my ignorance at the point in time. In those days I had little understanding of MIDI continuous controllers and how to use them and to be fair, the DX7 was not the easiest device to program, especially for a novice like me. Another problem was that I found that it literally made my teeth hurt and my jaw fatigued. So after several days of working with it, I abandoned it, and frankly, I never missed it.

Fast forward a whole bunch of years to a few years ago and now I found myself wishing for a controller I could blow into to control Expression (MIDI CC11) or Modulation (MIDI CC1.) Clearly, the most complete solution would be a wind controller, like an E.V.I. or E.W.I. but I am not a reed or a horn player.

Sometime ago, I interviewed the well-known Los Angeles based E.V.I. and trumpet player Judd Miller for this column. http://www.filmmusicmag.com/?p=7718

Judd told me that even for a great trumpet player like him it took a considerable amount of practice to master the E.V.I. and that for a keyboard player like myself, it probably was not a practical choice.

So I began to wish for something like the BC1 that I could blow into while playing my keyboard. I felt that it would produce a more natural and musical result than an expression pedal while freeing up my hands. Apparently, I was not the only one. Many other keyboard based composers and even wind players were in fact clamoring for a device like that. Some people started to sell retrofitted BC1s but they tended to be expensive and my teeth began to ache at the memory of it. A few other options appeared and went but there was no groundswell of appreciation for the implementations, so the field was wide open.

Eventually, it came to my attention on a forum that a company called TEControl had built a new USB MIDI breath controller that was elegant in its simplicity, easy to use, and inexpensive.
http://tecontrol.se/breathcontroller.html

When Mark Hollingsworth, a veteran Los Angeles reed player and composer, recommended it and assured me that you did not need to be a reed or horn player to make good use of it, I became very interested. So I contacted the good folks a TEControl (thanks Tom) and asked them to send me one to review and I am seriously impressed. I went over to Mark’s house and he showed me the ropes. (Thanks, Mark.)

The TEControl USB MIDI Breath Controller is so simple you find yourself wondering, “Why did it take so long for someone to do this?”

As you can see in the pictures at the top of the article it is just a USB device that looks like a flash drive, some silicon tubing that you could probably find in any hardware store, and a plastic “mouthpiece.” You control it’s behavior with downloadable software from the TEControl site. Cut the tubing to the desired length, connect the mouthpiece to the tubing and the tubing to the USB device, plug it in, set your settings, put your sequencer into record, and blow, baby, blow.

It was a little dicey for me connecting the mouthpiece to the tubing but Mark had already figured out that applying a little liquid soap to the mouthpiece made it fit in just fine and once it is connected, it is connected, so no real worries there. It also comes with a second, T-shaped slightly more complicated mouthpiece that allows you to control airflow, but both Mark and I agreed that for us it did not seem to bring much to the table that you could not do with the software. But a user on a forum reported that for him, it makes all the difference in the world in achieving the musical expression he is seeking, so horses for courses.

Similarly to the hardware, the cross platform software is a model of simplicity.

You choose the MIDI channel you wish to send and the MIDI CC you wish to control in the appropriate boxes. With the Input minimum and maximum settings combined with the Output minimum and maximum settings, you control how hard you have to blow to produce a response and how dramatic the response is. Somewhat counter-intuitively for me, the Input settings seem to matter more. With the bending and Symmetry settings, you can customize a response curve that feels comfortable to you. The Make permanent and Reset sensitivity are self-explanatory.

Simple, and it all works a treat. I found playing musically with it almost effortless after I adjusted the settings to my taste and guess what? It doesn’t hurt my teeth!

I played sample library instruments in Logic Pro 9 that use EastWest’s Play engine, Kontakt, Spectrasonics Omnisphere, and Best Service’s Engine and they all responded well, with a little bit of individual tweaking. I then did the same with the instruments hosted in Vienna Ensemble Pro 5, both on my Mac and my PC slave connected to Logic Pro 9, and no problems there as well. Smooth as silk.

There are some enhancements to the software I would like to see. As different libraries make dramatically different uses of MIDI CCs and respond dramatically differently to them, it would be great to be able to make and save presets for all your various libraries that you could simply toggle between.

So how much will this easy to use and very useful puppy set you back? 110 Euro, which is at this point in time is app. $156 US.

A bargain, say I. Kudos to TEControl for this great little musical tool.