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.

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

	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.

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

	Clash of the Emirates

There is a long Hollywood tradition of attempting to shoehorn ethnic folk music in orchestral format. Actually, it predates Hollywood; 18th and 19th century symphonic composers were fond of tossing a triangle into an otherwise perfectly Western-sounding movement and dubbing it “Turkish”.

I’m not one to turn down a chance to engage in a little cultural imperialism myself. This cue from Empire Earth 2 opens with a solo from a Armenian wind instrument called a duduk (film composers love it for its sinuous sound, and often use it as a shorthand for “attention audience: we’re now in Damascus”). The music then transitions to a more traditionally symphonic crescendo, meant to evoke the vastness of the desert and civilizations long past. Now if only I had remembered to add a triangle…

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

	Sands of Arabia

This moody and lyrical cue features soprano sax, a recurring modal piano ostinato, and string orchestra.

I’ve always liked using the saxophone as an orchestral voice, in distinction from its traditional role as infantryman in the jazz army. (Or in the case of the soprano sax, the easy-listening army.) In its upper register, the instrument can function almost like an oboe, but with a somewhat smoother and less pinched tone.

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

	Dennis Alone