MikeMusic Radio

Cue of the Week: Temptation

2007-09-21T12:13:00.001-07:00

Continuing last week's theme of ethereal guitar-based pieces underscoring seduction scenes, here's a cue from the film Siren wherein lead singer Storm Fagan feels the lure of a, shall we say, devoted groupie. The trippy guitar comes courtesy of Tom Strahle, with wordless vocals by recording artist Hilary Hearty.

Temptation

Cue of the Week: The Bedroom

2007-09-14T12:43:00.000-07:00

This week's selection the steamy bedroom music from action/suspense flick HellBent.

This scene is particularly interesting because of its eerie similarity to a moment in another film I scored, Siren. Both are ostensible seduction scenes that ultimately don't result in any seduction being accomplished. Both are somewhat ethereal in visual style, both involve same-sex couples (two men in HellBent, two women in Siren), and both, astoundingly, culminate in one party's blowing cigarette smoke into the face of the other in slow motion.

My music to both scenes was somewhat similar, though not intentionally so. Given the striking visual parallelism, I'm not surprised that I came up with similar ideas in both cases. (Part of the similarity comes from my tapping into the skills of guitarist Tom Strahle in both cues.) Next week I'll play the analogous cue from Siren.

The Bedroom

Cue of the Week: Walking

2007-09-07T11:19:00.000-07:00

This is the main title for a suspense-thriller called Dead Line which I scored a number of years ago. Usually I'm reluctant to trot out older cues that are even partially electronically realized, since the state of the art of sampling technology moves so quickly, and older sounds quickly sound dated or fake. In this case, I think the music has aged fairly well, partially due to the phrase samples and live piano.

I'd like to say that the piano was "prepared" to make it especially creepy-sounding, but the fact is that it happened to be terribly out of tune. Fortunately, this worked really well for the scene!

Walking

Big news, and Cue of the Week: Zack's Theme

2007-08-24T11:57:00.000-07:00

We've had a few weeks of air silence here at MikeMusicRadio.com, but quite a bit has been going on. For starters, I've been working on a new game scoring project for Bethesda. But perhaps more relevantly for the readers of this blog, my entire web site is being redesigned from scratch! In a few weeks everything will have a fresh new look, and a far better interface for playing audio. Plus, I'll be moving this blog from Blogger to the more powerful WordPress system. The designers over at Eklektika (yes, that's in Serbia) have been doing a bang-up job with the new look, and I'm very excited about sharing it with you guys and/or ladies.

In the meantime, however, I don't want to completely neglect my music posting duties! So without further ado, here's a cue from the film Against Time. This piece introduces the piano-and-strings theme of Robert Loggia's haunted and disoriented character, Zack.

Zack's Theme

Cue of the Week: The Test

2007-07-06T12:09:00.000-07:00

This is cheatin' music, though not in the country-western music sense. In this cue's scene, a classroom of students sneakily shares answers while their teacher's attention is elsewhere. The music is constructed on two motives: the arpeggiated figure that opens the piece, and the simple half-step interval. I particularly enjoy writing motivic music like this, where a larger form is constructed from simple pieces.

There's one music-to-picture detail here I've always wanted to share with the world: as Ean Mering's character glances at some social security numbers, a descending vibraphone line plays nine tones, one for each digit. Granted, this was so subtle an effect that it passed beneath just about everyone's radar. (Including my own - I almost never notice it when I watch the film.)

The Test

Cue of the Week: Truth Among the Fish

2007-06-22T12:09:00.000-07:00

Every composer should have the opportunity to score a scene in an aquarium. For one thing, it's very relaxing. It also lets one look for interesting sonic colors to reflect the exotic alien visuals of the water and its exotic inhabitants.

In this case I picked muted strings, vibraphone, and bass flute to reflect both the visuals and the introspective and mysterious discussion occurring therein. (Two bass flutes, actually - but as only one was available that day, we recorded a second pass as an overdub.)

Truth Among the Fish

Cue of the Week: The Yard Sale

2007-06-15T11:34:00.000-07:00

This cue accompanies the Scene Most Likely To Make You Grab Your Kleenex in the film Against Time. I won't divulge any details, so you'll have to watch the movie to understand the full context.

Fortunately, this is now possible! You can now purchase Against Time from its website, or even rent it on Netflix.

(Filmmakers take note: as you can see, a side benefit of working with me is a free promotional junket for your movie.)

The Yard Sale

Cue of the Week: The Cemetery

2007-06-08T12:38:00.000-07:00

Here's the next cue from the Against Time series. As the title implies, this piece is reflective and on the nostalgic side.

The studio where this was recorded (Magyar Radio in Budapest) featured a very interesting piano. It was an exotic Boesendorfer with a handful of keys below the normal bottom-most note, each of them colored black to emphasize their subterranean quality. I was tempted to try and write something for this instrument's extended range, but as you can tell, the present cue probably wasn't the place to start experimenting with sub-bass inharmonics. :)

A final note - for those of you curious about the movie itself, the official website is now online.

The Cemetery

Cue of the Week: Fight and Tragedy

2007-06-01T10:50:00.000-07:00

Here's the next installment in the Against Time score series, a piece which accompanies the heated debate between Robert Loggia and Ean Merrig's characters, and the tragic consequences that follow. This cue normally goes by a more "spoliersh" name, but in light of the film's upcoming release I didn't want to reveal any plot points. (Especially since the film's director reads this journal and I fear his wrath.)

Most of this cue is what you would call classic underscore. It's meant to sit beneath dialogue, and so provides mounting ambient tension without getting in the way. There is something of a payoff at the end, however - so good things will come to those who listen to bass and cello pedals supplemented with ambient sampled textures. As the saying goes.

Fight and Tragedy

Cue of the Week: Building the Bat

2007-05-25T10:04:00.000-07:00

Here's the next cue in the Against Time series. This is my take on "teenage genius busy at work inventing a futuristic basebat bat" music. Yes, that old cliche.

The music was written for orchestra, piano, acoustic guitar, bowed vibraphone, electric bass, and - you guessed it - tabla. I'd like to say that the eclecticism of the instruments represented some sort of high-fallutin' musical analogue to the fast-working inventive mind of Ean Merig's character... but honestly, I just liked those particular instrumental colors.

Sadly, the tabla is a bit buired in the mix; hopefully I'll be able to coax it out again for the soundtrack version.

Building the Bat

Cue of the Week: Farewell to Dad

2007-05-18T12:39:00.000-07:00

In anticipation of the upcoming release of Against Time (formerly All Over Again), I'm going to be featuring a few music cues from the film.

After an introductory passage, this sentiemental piece reprises one of my personal favorite melodies in the score, the father-son theme for Craig T. Nelson and Ean Merrig's characters. (What specific pathos underlies these sentimental strains? You'll have to watch the film to find out.)

Farewell To Dad

Cue of the Week: The Frontier

2007-05-11T10:46:00.000-07:00

This week's selection is an old-fashioned orchestral cowboy movie overture. Granted, nobody has yet asked me to score an old-fashioned cowboy movie, but when they do, I aim to be ready.

I'm not sure anyone makes cowboy movies anymore - at least not with the epic spirit of those from the 50s and 60s. There was a brief resurgence of the Western movie tradition in the 80s and early 90s, but I suspect that today there's less of a perceived market for adventure movies that don't make heavy use of CGI.

But I digress. Here's this week's music, uh, pardner.

The Frontier

Cue of the Week: Through the Desert

2007-04-27T09:56:00.000-07:00

In addition to its core orchestral cues, Empire Earth II's score featured large number of atmospheric pieces with an ethnic flavor. These made for a great excuse to collaborate with some absurdly talented "world music" specialists, and write for some cool exotic instruments. This particular cue features a duduk (which I used elsewhere in the EE2 score to evoke the Mido east) as well as one of my favorite percussion instruments, the frame drum. I'm a sucker for pitched or semipitched drums, and if that's wrong, I don't want to be right.

Through the Desert

Cue of the Week: A Tale of Two Drumkits

2007-04-20T12:26:00.000-07:00

This piece started out as an experiment to compare two drum kit plugins, and envolved into a kind of neo-gothic semi-industrial piano rock prelude. And I never turn down a chance to share music whose categorization involves more than one hyphen. Without further ado:

A Tale of Two Drumkits

Cue of the Week: Death, Defeat, and Victory Montage

2007-04-13T12:14:00.000-07:00

This week's selection is fun, if somewhat disjoint. It's an audio montage of defeat, failure, and victory cues from the game Jane's Attack Squadron. I like to think that listening to them in succession suggests a miniature story.

By the way, I realize that "audio montage" is a bit of a contradiction in terms. If any of you Francophones out there know a phrase that works better for the auditory modality, I'm all ears. (So to speak.)

Death, Defeat, and Victory Montage

Cue of the Week: Everything She Did

2007-04-06T12:18:00.000-07:00

A moody orchestral cue from the film formerly known as All Over Again, reportedly being re-released under the name Again Time this June! You can expect to read more about this development in this blog.

I realize that this cue is a bit of a wistful way to wrap up a Friday, so after listening to it please be sure to enjoy the compensatory frivolty of your choice.

Everything She Did

Cue of the Week: Birthday Girl

2007-03-30T13:30:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you just gotta funk.

Birthday Girl

Cue of the Week: Study Montage

2007-03-16T10:15:00.000-07:00

A short but sweet cue from The F-Zone accompanying a late-night research montage. In the film the protagonist had just returned from a trip to a ranch, and during the scoring process I had just finished writing music for those scenes. I think therefore both the hero's frame of mind and mine were reflected by the lingering traces of Americana in the music for this scene.

Study Montage

Cue of the Week: The Hospital

2007-03-01T12:34:00.000-08:00

This week's selection is one of the darker cues from The F-Zone. This music employs a scale called the Lydian mode, which is usually associated with a happy or heroic mood. However, here the register and instrumentation of the melody bring out the ominous and somewhat alien character of the mode. Just goes to show that scales, like people, often have multiple facets to their personality.

There's one more anecdote I can share about this cue. The piano was played by a studio musician named Randy Waldman. However, my contractor made a slip of the tongue and told me he'd booked Randy Newman. I was young enough at the time to think this was likely, and for a brief while was very excited indeed.

The Hospital

Cue of the Week: Flying From Arcadia

2007-02-23T11:46:00.000-08:00

One of the more fun cues from The F-Zone, this music accompanied an air flight montage over some beautiful scenery and, ultimately, to a llama farm. (Yes, the old hero-visits-llama-farm-by-air cliche.) The plane, a small Cessena-like affair, was not only flown by built by the film's writer and lead actor.

By the way, the Arcadia in the title refers to the municipality north of Pasadena rather than the idyllic city in ancient Greece.

Flying From Arcadia

Cue of the Week: HB Groove

2007-02-16T11:19:00.000-08:00

Taking a brief break from the piano-and-accordion music, here's one of my cues from the thriller feature HellBent. Thus music's been given a bit of a contemporary remix. (At least, contemporary as of this particular moment in cultural history. In about two years it will become "quaint".)

Guitarwork by the ever-talented Tom Strahle.

HB Groove

Cue of the Week: The Uninvited Guest

2007-02-09T12:23:00.000-08:00

Here's the next cue in the Audrey and Einstein series, a pianistic waltz that underscores a moment of impish comedy. Sadly, the impish comedy isn't easily conveyed in short text summaries, but hopefully the music will stimulate your imagination to compensate.

The Uninvited Guest

Cue of the Week: Audrey and Einstein Main Title

2007-02-02T11:11:00.000-08:00

Here's the main theme from Audrey & Einstein, the same film featured in last week's cue. The stylish accordion playing comes courtesy of Bear McCreary, talented composer of the music for the new Battlestar Galactica series.

Audrey and Einstein Main Title

Cue of the Week: Fish Studies Montage

2007-01-26T11:19:00.000-08:00

Following the well-known theory that nothing moves a Friday along like music for bass marimba, here's a short but lively cue from Kulture Machine's short film Audrey and Einstein.

Fish Studies Montage

Cue of the Week: Escaping the Country

2007-01-12T09:51:00.000-08:00

Another orchestral cue from The F-Zone, this week's selection underscores a brief airplane action sequence. (Airplanes are not always the composer's friend, but fortunately the sound mix was kind to the music.)

Escaping the Country