[[ Home || Top of State || Top of Publication ||
Bulletin Board || Headshots || Portfolios & Demos || Resumes ]]
They write the catchy numbers that you can’t help singing along with when they come on the radio, and the music that enlivens your emotions during a movie or TV show. While they’re not as well known as pop stars, people are as familiar with their work as they are with the tunes of Billy Joel or Elton John. They’re Atlanta’s composers, the talented tunesmiths responsible for the music accompanying commercials, films, and television programs.
When not creating the music that gets you humming, these composers might be involved in playing live jazz or R&B, writing symphonic pieces to be performed by large orchestras, composing operas or arranging the next big hip-hop hit. In many ways, they are the true heirs of Mozart and Beethoven, writing popular music for the masses.
“Beethoven was like a pop star in his time,” says Eddie Horst. “He and Mozart were writing music people loved. I think they would be drawn to film music just because of the whole drama and excitement of it.”
“If all these cats [Beethoven, Mozart and the like] were around and they saw all these computers and the magic you could do with them, they’d be cooking.”
Ricky Keller is convinced that Beethoven and Mozart would definitely be hooked up with the latest technology for creating music. “If all these cats were around and they saw all these computers and the magic you could do with them, they’d be cooking,” he explains.
Music makers come from diverse backgrounds. Most have a formal academic background from esteemed institutions like the Berklee School of Music in Boston, and the Eastman Conservatory in Rochester, NY or, as in the case of Tanya Ostrovsky, training in piano and composing from conservatories in Moscow. Curtis Bryant has a degree in music theory from Georgia State and composes chamber pieces. Steve Hulse played jazz piano in nightclubs, while Horst and Keller played in rock, R&B, and jazz bands.
That combination of performing pop tunes and classical training is a winning formula for a composer. “Having been in bands and having a classical background, it was no big deal writing jingles,” says Keller. “It wasn’t hard making the transition because I’d been a player in the classical arena as well as the funk-jazz-pop arena. I had the street teaching as well as the formal education.”
The music they create might draw on all of these influences. Although they are writing for commercial purposes with a client’s specification, there are major differences between jingles, songs, and scores.
“Songs are emotional ideas that allow people to imagine the feeling. Jingles are things that make a person feel like reaching for their wallet, and movie scores paint pictures in your head,” says Hulse who has written jingles for such clients as Benihana, Coca-Cola and McDonald’s. “As a composer, never take your heart to a jingle session because somebody will say they hate it and you have to change to where they say they like it. In a movie score, you put your heart right out on the table because that’s what will make the music sing to the picture. In a song, you’re trying to portray something emotional, so you have your heart with you, but keep it tucked away because you’ll reach some people and not others.”
“A song and a jingle are similar,” adds Keller. “They’ve both got hooks. I treat jingles like mini-songs. Sometimes, clients will give you the lyrics and copy and you have to work within those parameters. Most of the time, they leave me alone because I’ve been doing it so long. I treat jingles as mini-songs, with a similar structure to a song, but done in 30 or 60 seconds.”
Bryant, who wrote scores for five episodes of the TBS series, “Portrait of America,” defines a score as background music for a feature film, documentary or television show. “There’s no deep mystery to scoring films,” he explains. “If you’re able to convey the emotion the director wants to emphasize and able to do it successfully, that’s what it takes. Many people who watch programs or movies are not even aware of the music portion. They see the visuals and follow the story line. What makes you dramatically aware of music and how important it is to television and film is when you see a cut without music and realize that it’s terrible without music holding it together. Then you realize it’s the music that helps it make sense. The message of a script or the film itself can be very much affected by the music you put under it. The music is there to underscore and bring out the emotional message. You can change something from being monumental to trivial depending on the music you put there.”
There are some major differences between writing music for radio and television spots. “The music is more subservient to the pictures in a TV commercial,” says Hulse. “In radio, the music has to be more colorful, it has to be more visual so that whatever concept is being sold will reach the listener. Radio is harder, but it’s more challenging because the music has a more active part in it than in a TV spot.”
Keller adds that different factors drive music for the two media. “A TV spot is dictated by the editing,” he explains. “There are a lot of quick cuts, which dictates the tempo of the music. With radio spots, a lot depends on the format. If it’s a rock radio demographic, then it needs to sound as close as possible to the music they’re playing on the play list. You can’t have something wimpy on a rock radio station—if it’s slamming guitars, the jingle needs to have slamming guitars. The music is dictated by the demographic they’re trying to reach. If it’s younger people, it needs to be head banging stuff. If it’s older folks, it needs to be more easy listening.”
As a rule, composers like to come into a project after decisions have been made on what it will look like. There are often pitfalls in coming in too early. Says Horst, “Nine times out of 10, if somebody starts early, they change their minds and you’re just wasting time. Generally, I like to have the visuals done and locked in. Then I can take it and do something with it and no one is changing it. The perpetual problem I have is I’m just about finished with something when I get a call that 10 seconds are being taken out of one place and added to another place.”
Hulse, however, believes that when it comes to jingles, it’s better to be early. “If an account executive is on his toes,” he declares, “the composer will be brought in right at the very beginning. A composer can not only help finalize a concept, but can also help with lyric content if there’s any singing. Mostly, I’ve been in from the beginning, right after a first draft. There have been many times when I’ve written a jingle for words that hadn’t been finalized and had to change everything around because it hadn’t been approved.”
For documentaries and natural history films, Hulse will come in when the project is near completion. “Documentary and nature film people just want you to make their pictures look good and work,” he says. “Composers have a lot more freedom with documentaries and nature films. I know I do. They give me semi-finished or finished film and say, ‘Make it wonderful,’ and go away and let me do it.”
Ostrovsky also likes to jump in as early as possible. “Very often in movies,” she says, “I’d write music and they’d shoot along to the music. But usually, I’m working as an ambulance—the producers want the music yesterday.”
Most composers say that their assignments come from within the market, if not the Southeast region. While stating that the vast majority of his work comes from within Georgia, Hulse nonetheless adds, “There are producers who give [Atlanta composers] the low budget stuff, and as soon as they get a larger budget, take it to New York or L.A. There’s more than enough talent here capable of doing national work.”
The Atlanta market tends toward industrial/corporate projects and television work, especially for the various Turner networks. Composers say that they are primarily hired via word of mouth or through recommendations of past clients. Says Ostrovsky, “Once I’ve worked with producers, they call me back. “
“If people have large budgets,” says Hulse, “they’re not going to trust their music or sound design if they just think they’re good. They have to know. Music communication is a big part of this. A lot of producers can’t speak music-ese. The composer has to be intuitive and understand what the person wants if they don’t explain themselves clearly. Once a producer finds a composer who understands what they want and gives it to them, they’ll stick with them to the end.”
As far as marketing efforts go, some composers have established websites and others have taken to sending out CDs. But rather than send out a standard issue CD, they prefer to burn one specifically attuned to the client’s needs.
“I’ll ask what kind of music a potential client is looking for, “ says Keller, “and I’ll go through my archives and find examples of the kind of music they want and burn it on the CD for their perusal.”
Rather than sending CDs, Horst creates customized videos. If pitching, for example, a sports related job, he’ll go through his archives and pull sports oriented video of five to six minutes, featuring eight to 10 pieces.
“We used to send out generic CDs that had what we thought were good pieces of music, but I think a lot of times, they may not have connected immediately with somebody, ”Horst explains. “We find if somebody doesn’t hear something that applies to them within the first one or two minutes, they say that you’re not for them. You have to target them real closely to give them just what they’re looking for.”
Like every other facet of American life, the computer has had a major impact in the art of music composition. From coming up with ideas, to notation and presentation, the computer is now a composer’s primary tool. Says Ostrovsky, “In Russia, I was writing scores on paper, and each musician had a piece of paper in front of him. All I was doing was writing. In America, I had to take lessons as a sound engineer. Each piece of gear is another instrument.”
Since the mid-1980s, the tool of choice has been the Musical Instrument Digital Interface, better known as the MIDI. The MIDI is a computer program, which is typically hooked up to an Apple Macintosh, allowing computers to talk with electronic instruments. The three programs most used by composers are:
1) MIDI sequencing, which allows computers to drive electronic instruments and play them. It provides detailed hands-on editing ability to change notes and pitching.
2) MIDI engraver or notation program, which uses MIDI instruments to type notes into the program and print to sheet music, which is then handed to live musicians.
3) Hard disk recording. Not necessarily MIDI, where a computer takes the place of a 24-track tape studio. Instead of being dumped onto analog tape, music information is instead dumped onto hard disk, where it can be edited and digital effects can be introduced. Pro Tools is a widely used program for this application.
“It’s the most economical way of working,” says Bryant. “The nice thing about scoring with MIDI is you can be precise to the frame. But, the drawback is that a lot of it sounds like MIDI, which is very different from a live sound. That’s improved lately, but it’s still noticeable.”
When it comes to compensating composers for their work, there’s a hodge-podge of methods and manners of payment. “It’s different each time,” says Ostrovsky. “I rarely say no, because it’s my living. If they have a budget, wonderful. If they have very little budget, wonderful. There are times when I’m spending more to finish the project than they’re paying me” With a laugh she says that composing is, “Not a profession, it’s a diagnosis.”
The compensation differs for jingles, movie scores, television show music, and others. In many circumstances, composers are either working on works for hire or for royalties. There’s usually a fee for composing the music and in some instances, residuals. Keller says he’s still receiving royalty checks for the theme he wrote for WCW Wrestling on Turner years ago.
“If it’s a low-budget job,” Bryant explains, “I try to make sure that I retain the copyright for the music itself and give them unlimited usage for that show. I try to avoid selling out, but some companies insist on that, so you’re stuck.”
The trend toward licensing existing music rather than hiring a composer, certainly cuts into composers’ potential incomes. This has become especially prevalent in advertising. Toyota, for example, built a campaign around Sly & the Family Stone’s “Everyday People” rather than creating its own tune.
“The jingle business has changed,” says Keller. ‘People are licensing older songs for the boomer generation and using that rather than original music. Jingles are becoming passe, you don’t hear them like you used to.’”
“The only way to reach people in [the baby boom] generation is to play them stuff they were familiar with when they were younger,” says Horst. “Licensing is having an impact, but at the upper end. If you go after a hit song, it will cost a lot of money. The Turner companies are licensing those types of songs. It may be $50,000 or $100,000 to get a song, but they feel it will be worthwhile to do that.”
Horst feels the future may lie in producing music that can be accessed readily. “The future is going to be libraries,” he explains. “Guys like me are going to do less and less specific stuff and more and more we’ll have to start writing for libraries. Music that’s sold over the web or music that appears on CDs, library CDs that can be sampled onto hard drives.”
While Ludwig Van and Wolfgang Amadeus would have found a niche in today’s composing market, the music maker of the future will have to be as much a savvy business person as a maestro to survive.
“It’s so brutally competitive that if you don’t have an edge of one kind or another, it’s really hard to last in this business,” says Hulse. “Experience and communication are two of my strongest features, and guys who don’t have that, I don’t know how they have a chance because producers are being bombarded every day. I’m thankful I’ve been able to stay in the business given all the turns and twists it’s taken in the past 15 years.”