It wouldn’t be right to compose music for a movie about attacking birds without at least one tribute to Bernard Hermann. While this week’s music selection doesn’t directly parody or reference The Birds, I’d like to think that the all-string sound and chromatic harmonies are at least in the spirit of Hitchcock’s great musical collaborator.

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	Let Us Go That Way!

James Nguyen’s Birdemic: Shock and Terror has been hailed as one of the most entertaining indie films ever made… albeit perhaps not for reasons the filmmaker had in mind. When I was presented with opportunity to write some music for the sequel, how could I say no?

This drum-and-guitar-driven cue accompanies the film’s perhaps tragic, perhaps confusing, but definitely avian finale.

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	The Birds Depart (Again)

This week’s selection is victory music from the video game Empire Earth 2. Said strategy game gives you the ability to play as one of several nationalities; this particular passage plays upon completion of the Korean campaign. While the other nations’ victory music cues are more martial and brassy, I thought that the “land of the morning calm” deserved something more lyrical and serene.

As with most of the music in that game, performance credit goes to the Budapest Film Orchestra.

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	Land of the Morning Calm

One instrument that doesn’t get enough credit is viola, which despite having a lovely distinct* tone is typically buried in the inner voices of an orchestral texture. Sound aside, violists are so grateful for the limelight than writing for them is unusually gratifying. I remember one session where I’d written a solo for the principal viola, and between takes hearing a lone voice shout, “Thank you!”

In this week’s moody suspense cue, I gave first foreground melody to the violas and put the violins on support duty with a high keening pedal. The flavor of the tune is a little more subtle and mysterious than if I’d assigned it to violins or celli.

* (And to my imagination, kind of dark orange.)

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	The Audit

This week’s music selection is an elegiac passage for strings, flute, and harp. Get the hanky.

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	A Heartfelt Speech