My story with composing is a little atypical. I was five years old when I started playing the unbelievably obnoxious recorder flute as part of my first music lessons, in a group of young kids. Eventually I moved on to play violin and piano, but I believe that it was in that first, basic class that I developed an appreciation of musical instruments mainly as part of ensembles. The joy of playing together.
Music is complicated, so are composers. I guess what we want, deep down, is being recognised: we compose because we want our music to be shared. Even when it's intimate, there is always a secret desire that a song can touch someone else in the same way. For me, with a past as an introvert boy, music still is a way for me to open up when words just can't do it. So for me composing has been, in many aspects, like keeping a secret diary. All the love, the passion, but also the grit, the hate... it's all in there.
Skip forward a few years, to these days, where I am lucky enough to call myself a professional composer. While as a hobbyist I used to compose mostly for myself and my own enjoyment, now I often write for other people's projects (hint: that's how composers make a living!).
And this brings me back to the title: how I write.
Yes, because working on other people's projects means putting yourself in the director's shoes. More than that: it is a chance to add something new to the director's vision, an angle that can be expressed in music. I did not know this when I began, or at least, not the full extent of it, but being a composer involves a lot of back and forth, trying to understand who's on the other side, before even sitting at the desk to sketch something.
Composing has been, in many aspects, like keeping a secret diary. All the love, the passion, but also the grit, the hate... it's all in there.
When the moment comes, and I can finally sit down and write little dots on a music sheet or tinker with MIDI controllers on a DAW, even then, I have sometime a devious take of the emotions at play. Just to reassure you: this doesn't happen all the time, but a news reporter once said in an interview (I believe it was Udo Gumpel, from ARD in Germany) that it's the second question the one that counts, the one that really unveils the truth. I feel the same about each scene I score, I am interested in the "second" emotion, the one that you don't expect: the filth under the carpet, the crooked love just behind the scarred façade. It can lead to surprises, musically. They might work, or not, but they will not leave you indifferent.
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