To commemorate the great Les Paul, here’s a cue featuring some classic-style blues guitar. (Somewhat strangely intermixed with 70s funk.)

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	Birthday Blues

This hybridized orchestral/contemporary cue features an enigmatic strings and piano texture, acoustic rhythm guitar, and a light garnish of hand percussion.

If you listen to the left stereo channel you’ll just hear a cool African hand drum called an Udu. (It’s a bit low in the mix, unfortunately, so you’ll have to scrunch up your face and concentrate in order to hear it.)

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	Building the Bat

This week’s selection is from Cleve Nettles’ slightly-supernatural romantic comedy, Genie and the Shark, which begins its festival run this fall. The cue is an impish tango with a a touch of Mideastern instrumental flavoring.

Pizzicato strings have a sort of intrinsic light charm that’s made them almost obligatory elements of comedy scoring. They propel the bassline in this cue, and I make generous use of them elsewhere in the score. (Stay tuned for more excerpts!)

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	The Close

This week’s selection is atmospheric and rhythmic, arguably falling under the umbrella of minimalism. The primary sound is of a marimba run through a digital delay processor, lightly garnished with a few unusual instrumental colors. Disclaimer: Actual visits to the tropics may be less peaceful than this music implies.

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	Tropical Vignette

As Independence Day is approaching for those of us in the USA, something patriotic seems to be in order. Rather than post a music cue with brassy oomph and snare drums (which I do frequently anyway), here’s something with a triumphant but more understated mood. This cue for strings and solo woodwinds – written when I was a swaddling composer of about twenty four – accompanies the final scene of the film The F-Zone. Given that the film concerns escape from tax abuse, its music seems appropriate for this particular holiday.

The music starts with a moody tone, then eventually flourishes into a more affirmative mood. Happy (impending) Fourth!

(Click on the play button to stream, or the cue title to download.)

	A Nation of Kings

This week’s music is the closing theme from Red Field Media’s short dramatic film, “Broken”. Cello solo by the very talented Venessa Freebairn-Smith.

The mood of the film is pretty desolate, so a sober musical soliloquy seemed like the right artistic approach for the final credits. The mini-cadenza towards the end isn’t the typical virtuosic exhibition you’d find in a concerto, but rather is meant to suggest a final surge of remorse, a last protest before the arrival of the inevitable.

(Click on the play button to stream, or the cue title to download.)

	Broken (Closing titles)

Here’s another piece that combines orchestral and mideastern instrumentation, this one of a more martial and driving character.

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	Clash of the Emirates