Scoring A Documentary
Recently, I had the pleasure of scoring a great documentary film produced by Abi Hall all about the field of musical therapy. Through a montage of interviews with leading music therapists around the local area, Abi not only defines the field but truly highlights the incredibly important work they do and the great impact it has on peoples lives.
My role in all this was to write a score that would help carry home the importance of the field without detracting at all from the message of the film. To do this, I decided to write a stripped back minimalistic score that focused on texture and timbre. A felted piano carries the score, enhanced by weaving textures of strings, wind and voice. Aside from the attack of the piano, I chose to avoid all forms of strong rhythm and implied regular meter from the tremolo on the textural layers. A technique I first heard in the music of Steve Reich, the gradual emersion of warmth and colour is a sound that really appeals to me and will continue to develop further in my work.
One of the pianos featured across the score, Smpled was one recently released by Tom Longshaw and it just sounds great on everything. As a result of felting the piano, you get a really soft and delicate top end but the mid range still rings out and has the nicest warmth to it. One of my favourite things about it though, is how inspiring it is to use. For me, the sign of a great instrument is that it constantly makes you want to create and write new music. Anyone who does any form of production or writing within a DAW should absolutely check this out as soon as they can. You can check out a new version of my tune Felt using this piano here.
Back to the composition, my intention was always to keep an intimate sound that underscored the film. For me, I was almost trying to write music that you wouldn’t notice, but you’d certainly feel and notice if it went away. I think the beauty of writing music for film is that it’s not a great statement of compositional talent, but just one piece of a larger machine that works together to truly have a response and leave an impression on the audience. I’d like to think we achieved this goal. You can watch the entire documentary here and learn more about the incredible world of music therapy.
