My initial sketching included a lot of organ and guitar. There was something mournful about the combination that really worked for me.

My first impressions often inform my scoring. In this case, the documentary largely consists of interviews talking about the experience leading up to the fire. For this, I wanted material that conveyed a sense of dread and immanent threat. This is the “Threat” cue that runs through the score. Intercut with the interviews are shots of the aftermath and devastation. I wanted something mournful and lamenting for this. This became the “Aftermath” theme. I also found myself really connected to how strange and isolated the experience must have felt. The idea of these people spread out across the area, occasionally having a bit of contact with one another, gave me the idea of a “Call and Response” theme.

After watching a few times, I had a spotting session with Michelle Bauer Carpenter in which I told her what I was thinking for elements, and we discussed where the key emotional moments were that she really wanted to play.

The Score:

01M01 – The film opens with a montage of several cues. The opening theme is for two guitars, and organ. Throughout, the “Threat” element (a guitar played to create a pulsing effect reminiscent of  helicopter or train), sneaks in a few times. At 01:10, the  B part of the”Aftermath” theme comes in for the first time with piano and strings. The cue ends with the lead guitar.

01M02 – The “Threat” theme serves as a backdrop to the A part of the “Aftermath” theme, now in guitar.

01M03 – The “Threat” theme with an organ drone, and then a variation on the “Aftermath” theme, again in guitar. The cue also ends with the lead guitar.

01M04 – This is a longer cue covering a lot of “Threat” and lead guitar. The call and response theme makes it’s first appearance here. There is a variation of the “Aftermath” in piano at the end.

01M05 – A guitar variation on part A of the “Aftermath” theme.

01M06 – A longer “Threat” section. Then, we get another variation on the “Aftermath” theme. There are a few little moments of hope in here, but ultimately, tragedy. The theme moves to the piano version.

01M07 – Day 2 – I wanted something here that was a little strange, a little weary, yet still in the realm of the earlier cues. I wrote this guitar cue late into the process, but I really like it. This segues into a short groove. The weary of the early morning is moving into the next day of work. I stayed in the realm of the other cues with guitars, organ, bass, and drums (or really one drum). This cue ends with a lamenting section on the piano. The groove here was actually sketched as the opening, but it was revised and moved after Michelle requested a new opening that was a bit more mournful.

01M08 – Another groove oriented cue with guitar, Dobro, cello, and bass. This cue is a story of heroic ascent, so I kept an element of the other cues but went a bit less lamenting.

01M09 – This is a version of the lamenting piano from the end of 01M07, this time in the organ. This goes with  shot of a statue of St. Anthony that survived the fire.

01M10 – A short ensemble cue for guitar, violin, and cello.

01M11 – Lead guitar, followed by a nice moment for piano and string orchestra. This plays with a moment of joy in the midst of the tragedy. The moment is not long, and the “commentary” shift back to the tragedy. This leads to another version of the “Aftermath” theme (here the entire version with the piano ostinato). We get more commentary, this time with the “call and response” theme.

01M12 – In the final cue, the lead guitar returns with a sense of hope. This is the final shot before the credits. This was one of the few rewrites Michelle asked for, and I think it came out much better this way. My initial version didn’t have the sense of connection to the sadness of the film with a bit of optimism about the future. I developed the organ part a bit and added the guitar. The cue is the only one in A, which was driving in part by the key of the song in the credits.

Version Notes:

These audio files are 256kbps mp3s of the fold-down from the 5.1 pre-dub. There are a few variations from the original 2.0 pre-dub.

Day 4 – Friday 4 December 2010

After  a long day of travel and a late night Friday night, Saturday morning was rough. I got up, grabbed breakfast in the Hotel again, and then went to catch Thomas Haines’ presentation on his ensemble at CCM and Jason Corey’s presentation on Technical Ear Training.

Then I went back to the Hotel to finish my prep work for my presentation. I was running consistently long in my practice runs, so I continued to cut things until the last minute. I got back to Leeds Met at 1:00 to catch the other presentations in my block: Brian Rossiter’s presentation on gender issues in Prince, and Mike Hajimichael’s presentation on virtual production and online collaboration. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend Leslie Gaston’s presentation. I was disappointed that we were scheduled during the same session. She was one of my teachers at the University of Colorado, Denver.

My presentation went well, but I was pretty rushed. My PowerPoint wasn’t as streamlined as I usually like, so there was a lot of info on each slide. I felt the audience focus in on that every time I changed slides. Timothy Dalton, who worked for Faith No More in the late 1980s and early 1990s was the only comment we had time for before the session break, and he voiced his support for the presentation. That was a nice boost after the presentation.

The next session was the lecture by DJ Spooky (Paul Miller). It was a great lecture on the culture of remixing, drawing connections between main artistic and cultural trends in the 20^th century. He is a brilliant public speaker.

The final session of the day was a panel on songwriting in the studio. After that, I went back to the hotel and grabbed a quick nap. I was awoken by a fire alarm that required everyone in the hotel to evacuate. After that, I caught a taxi in to town for the dinner at the ha ha Bar and Grill in Leeds. I ate dinner next to Brian Rossiter and Melvyn Toms.

After dinner, I went back to the hotel and spent the rest of the night socializing in the pub. Another late night, but I had a great time socializing with more people.

Day 3 – Friday 3 December 2010

I woke up at about 9:00AM local. I got cleaned up and went down for the breakfast in the hotel. They had a very nice buffet. At breakfast, I met Heidi Gerber, a grad student from Johns Hopkins University. Heidi was presenting on her research on adult MP3 usage in the first session. We chatted at breakfast and made plans to walk to the University together. I went back up to my room and worked on my presentation. At 11:30, I went down to meet Heidi for lunch, but she was still wrapping up her presentation. She asked if I would give her some feedback, so she ran through her presentation and we discussed it. When I ran back to my room to pick up my laptop, I met Amanda Lewis, a grad student from the University of Western Ontario. We chatted for a few minutes about our areas of research. She had been on the same flight from Amsterdam the day before.

Then, I headed over the Leeds Metropolitan University, which was hosting the conference. I walked over with Heidi, Paul Thébarge from Canada, and Thomas Haines from CCM in Cincinnati. We got there at about 1:00PM, so we had a half an hour to mingle. I went to the room I was presenting in on Saturday to check to technical setup.

The first session was a panel session on one of the themes of the conference, “Alternative Realities.” Steve Albini and Simon Zagorski-Thomas were not there due to train delays from London.  After that, we split into difference session. I attended the Alternative Realities stream for Paper Session 1 including Michael Fletcher’s presentation on Electro-dermal response to spatial treatment, Sara Jansson’s presentation on Hi Fi culture in Sweden, and Heidi Gerber’s presentation on adult MP3 usage.

There was a short refreshment session before Paper Session 2. For the second session, I attended the Music Production and Education stream. This included a presentation by Paul Thompson on DJs and turntablists in the education world in the UK, and Larry Whelan’s presentation on parallels between UK Art Schools in the 1960s and Music Technology courses today.

The keynote address for Friday was Steve Albini’s lecture. He was short and to the point. He gave a short lecture followed by a long question and answer session. For me the most memorable comment he made was in response to a question about making a living as a producer or engineer. He said, “Making records is easy, but making a living is hard. So, make lots of records.” He also talked about the benefits of knowing electronics at the component level since so many studios have eliminated the house maintenance engineer position; this is now an area that you can freelance in, and do quite well.

After the lecture, a number of people were taking taxis back to The Village Hotel, but Thomas Haines and I walked back. It was a quiet, snowy evening, and it was quite magical to walk through the neighborhood around Leeds Met. It was really my first opportunity to really take measure of being in the UK.

A number of us met in the pub in the hotel for drinks and dinner. It was a nice night, and as always, the pub at the hotel proved to be the best chance to meet many of the delegates from the conference.

ARP Convention 2010 – Leeds, UK

Day 1 and 2 – Travel

I flew out of Akron Canton Airport on Wednesday afternoon. I had a layover for about four hours in Detroit, so I had some dinner and a drink. My flight for Amsterdam left at about 10:00PM Eastern (22:00).

I arrived in Amsterdam at about 11:00AM local time (5:00 Eastern). We were delayed on the way to the gate and sat on the tarmac for about an hour waiting. I had a layover, so it wasn’t a big deal.

Once we got off the plane, I made my way to the gate for the flight to Leeds. Amsterdam is a weird airport in that you have to go through security to get to any gate. It slows the process up, so I was glad I had plenty of time to get to the gate.

The flight to Leeds was supposed to leave at 2:00PM local (14:00; 8:00 Eastern), but it was about an hour late boarding. Then, we sat on the runway for 90 minutes waiting to get de-iced. I finally arrived in Leeds, and caught a cab to the hotel, The Village North Leeds, and got there at about 6:45PM local (18:45; 1:45PM Eastern).

I took a nap for about two hours, and I’m just getting ready to go down to the hotel restaurant for some dinner. Conference check-in is at 12:00-1:00PM tomorrow (Friday), so I should be able to get a good night’s sleep.

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