This week’s selection is a dark and brooding theme for orchestra, with the strings playing a leading role.

Some cues create such impact that the moment of their creation becomes a powerful and lingering memory. This is not one of those cues.

Don’t quote me, but I believe I wrote this blues tune about a year after grad school. If pressed further I would say it was for some kind of multimedia presentation for a pharmaceuticals company. Or tourism company? In any case, I think it’s kind of catchy, so I hope you enjoy.

This is an older cue, but I think it’s aged reasonably well so keep it in circulation. The main attraction here is the out-of-tune piano which creepily punctuates the piece. This kind of effect is normally called “prepared piano”, but in this case I didn’t prepare the instrument so much as take advantage of the fact that it was already out of tune. 🙂

This cue accompanies the final scene and end title sequence for a supernatural thriller film by Cleve Nettles. The eerie and airy vocal texture of the opening gives way to a more aggressive cello line with a drum beat and lots of quasi-musical clamor in the background. Vocal performance courtesy of the multi-talented Jennifer Lindsay.

Your speakers are fine. This vocal piece, originally written as a demo for a game project, takes the artsy approach of imitating an old phonograph recording, crackles and all. Eventually more hi-fi strings emerge as accompaniment.

When the game company asked for something with “ethnic vocals,” they probably didn’t mean Polish. But the good friend who recorded the vocals happened to be fluent, and I figured that sounded exotic enough for my audience.