Exciting times ahead. Very close to coming up with a way to issue tracks in digital and physical formats with a twist.
I’ve just added this track that I wrote called Sink Below[Audio http://radiomovies.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/aqua-voce.mp3]
Here’s a track called Not Coming Back[Audio http://radiomovies.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/not-coming-back.mp3]
Hope you like it! The awesome photo below is by Trey Ratcliff. SLR genius…
Photo by Stuck in Customs
PS. Link to me on Twitter if you want updates on other tracks – http://twitter.com/PhilipSheppard – Free downloads regularly there – also if you leave me a message below, you may find an mp3 or two on its way..! Thanks for the continued support from Jane Austen fans – click here to know more…
Here’s an extract of a new track for solo cello, prepared piano and strings called close your eyes. If you like it you might like these tracks tooDrop me a comment below if you want to buy the single!
Blue Attraction by Reciprocity
Stumble It!
I play music for the sense of solace, and sometimes the texture of a sound is enough to make you feel everything could be ok.
Layers of sound can define an architectural place in your head through suggestion and perception. The bass note in this piece is more of a feeling than a real note – try and listen with headphones if you get the chance.
An extract from my video diary from the day of the Beijing Olympics closing ceremony.
The Chinese rehearsal was extraordinary. I was able to talk to many of the performers, and filmed them from up close as they hurtled towards the stadium roof. This was shot on a very small HD camera – I’d drunk a lot of coffee so excuse the odd shake. (Also I’m a better musician than film maker – so please excuse any bad edits etc).
The most striking image was the silken volcano – really simple but very classy.
The music is a piece I wrote for string orchestra – as yet untitled…
Meanwhile our handover cast were getting ready in the compound for the very brief bus rehearsal.
There are some new tracks added this week from past albums including Harrison’s Chronometer which I released as the other track on the EP length Glass Cathedral album, way back in 1999.
You’ll find them all in the sidebar to the right under Pages, including The Diver in the Crypt and In-I stage show.
Soon to come… the score of Sacred Monsters, (the Sylvie Guillem Akram Khan dance piece) and a very weird piece I wrote about the Venetian Underground System…
I like sites with long streamed mp3s where I can listen to music while I work – kind of webpage radio stations for each album, show or film project (where I own the tracks or have permission from the publishers). I’ve had lots of nice requests for the scores to recent stage shows, and I don’t want to charge people for the music – especially if they’ve already paid for a ticket!
I’ve had a really encouraging response from posts such as this.
So.. I’ll post tracks along with all their associated images and artwork.
So far, lead tracks from The Glass Cathedral and Diver in the Crypt are up. Their B sides, and other album tracks will get posted soon, but I’ll also be adding the full sets of Jane Austen piano pieces, more electric cello works, string pieces and recent stage shows.
Sacred Monsters which starred Sylvie Guillem and Akram Khan will be put here soon, as a partner toIn-Iwhich is getting nice reviews for the score – it’s playing this week at the Sydney Opera House.
Transmission dates for the new David Starkey series on Channel 4 are to be announced soon, as well as news about Moon Machines, Shadow of the Moon and a recent project, Dream with Korean Director Kim Ki-Duk.
In the meantime here’s a string orchestra piece (written in Suffolk..!) called Primary Colours:[Audio http://radiomovies.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/01-primary-colours.mp3]
So… The Jane Austen lovers have come out in force behind a certain piece of piano music, In-I has opened at the Sydney Opera House – and the score / soundtrack is now online here and Channel 4 are to shortly announce the transmission dates of David Starkey’s new series on Henry VIII - the Mind of a Tyrant.
Meanwhile I’ve started to put my albums online. I realised that it was ten years since I recorded The Glass Cathedral, and so I’ve decided to release it as a one tune radio station.. okay, so it’s actually a webpage with a Piranesi engraving and a tune… but, as with the dance scores, i like the idea of people being able to dial it up and listen. A lot of people have paid to see concerts, films, shows – for which I’m really grateful… why should I ask people for more money, and anyway, what’s wrong with giving the odd tune away?
The dance project In-I starring Akram Khan and Juliette Binoche continues its world tour – taking in venues from Beijing to Sydney. I’ve worked with Akram for a number of years now, as a cellist and writer. Our previous project together was Sacred Monsters in which he partnered Sylvie Guillem.
My score for In-I uses lots of multitracked cello, prepared piano and electric cello as well as samples of Juliette’s voice which is, to say the least highly lyrical.
I promised I’d put the score online – so here it is!
I’ve just found something on youtube that I’ve been searching for for years – literally…
I’ve been so lucky to have been able to play the cello with some of the most amazing musicians, but by far the greatest was Jeff Buckley. Of course he’s shot up the charts recently through his beautiful cover of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah – surely the antithesis of X-Factor..?
This is Henry Purcell’s Dido’s Lament from Dido and Æneas. But listen to this – Just. listen. to. it…
I mean, no-one can sing like that. No-one should be physically able to sing like that.
Jeff Buckley singing, withpianist Catherine Edwards, violinist Ian Belton and me on cello, in Elvis Costello’s Meltdown Festival, July 1st 1995.
I remember, this singer arrived really late, just before the show, dishevelled, all cheekbones, cool hair, black jeans and the biggest boots you’ve ever seen supporting a rake thin body.
He apologised – got out his music – a kid’s exercise book with the lyrics of the songs written out in a crazy biro scrawl. – If a word was written high up the page, well then it meant it was a high note.
At one point he asked me what country he was in… he was confused between Germany and the UK that day as I think he’d flown in with little sleep.
And then he sang.
As Elvis Costello remembers;
When he started singing Dido’s Lament at the rehearsal, there were all these classical musicians who could not believe it. Here’s a guy shuffling up on-stage and singing a piece of music normally thought to be the property of certain types of specifically developed voice, and he’s just singing, not doing it like a party piece, but doing something with it.
That’s an understatement… I remember the lights being pretty bright and the silhouette of his frame as he bent almost double to wrench every ounce of meaning from a song written 300 hundred years ago. Better than any classical musician I’ve ever heard.
As he was singing, a photographer shuffled along past the feet of the audience in the front row at the Queen Elizabeth Hall to get a shot, unaware that they were for that second the most hated person in London, and got a good clout round the head for their troubles from someone who should remain nameless.
I can’t remember anything straight after that, but Elvis Costello wrote in Mojo:
My last memory of him was at the little party in the green room afterwards. There were all these people sitting round Jeff who’d never met before – Fretwork, the viol group, a classical pianist and some jazz player – all talking and laughing about music. He’d charmed everybody. I’d much rather remember that than anything.
I just wish i could find a photo…
Here’s an extract from a Radio 4 Documentary when I talked about it:
Tips for breaking into the covert world of composition for new media, such as film soundtracks, TV, adverts, arranging and games. How get on the path to becoming a film, television, web or games composer
Music technology tips by Philip Sheppard February 2009
(These are key points from lectures I’ve given recently, and a recent article for Classroom Music Magazine)
WORK really hard. Work harder than anyone else you’ve ever met.
If you don’t love working really hard you won’t enjoy being a composer (and believe me, it’s a great job)
Ask people to show you how they do what they do. No composer minds being asked how they put a track together
Learn how sound works – if you study the physics of sound, you’ll be more likely to be able to shape it into agreeable forms
Make a portfolio of what you do. A showreel can be virtual – myspace is a start but can look fairly horrible. WordPress is excellent as a shop window
Specialize in something unique. A small business advisor will call this your USP – Unique Selling Point. (I got into the business by doing leftfield things with string instruments)
Always work with people who are better than you. I do, and I hope they can’t tell. this keeps me on my toes, and I learn from every job
Network network network… but in a cool way. If a player writes to you asking for work, it’s less appealing than if they write to invite you to a gig isn’t it? A mailing list/website with news and forthcoming events is a surefire way for people to see how busy you are. Once you’re seen to be terribly busy, this will attract more work. this sounds like a catch 22 – but it isn’t. You are likely to be self-employed, so employ yourself now!
Listen emotionally, analytically and critically to everything. If you love a piece you hear, try to work out why you love it. Dissect it into its elements. Equally if music doesn’t move you or grab you, try to work out exactly why.
Always carry a bit of manuscript paper with you (or a dictaphone if you don’t read music). Moleskine do really nice pocket manuscript books. Your best tunes will always hit you when you’re not looking for them
see point number one…
Coffee is your friend and enemy. Keep it close, but use it wisely.
How I got into it all…
I trained as a cellist at the Royal Academy of Music where I have been a cello Professor since about ’94. I had several composition lessons there as a second study, studying with Melanie Daiken, before second studies were abolished! However, by that point I was heavily ensconced in the Contemporary Music scene.
Luckily the RAM had a policy of drawing in great living composers, so I was able to play under Berio, Tippett, Messaien and many other truly inspiring musicians. At the same time I felt compelled to start improvising, and joined a quintet with Keith Tippett which specialised in ‘spontaneous composition’. At this point I learnt the value of knowing when not to play…
I’m motivated to write music that I’d like to hear – which sounds obvious and a bit selfish, but, it’s a pretty good filter.
My ‘break’ into composition came when I tried to multitrack some pieces on the cello, was encouraged to put them on a CD, that sold well and found its way onto the desk of an ad agency who threw me in at the deep end to devise the ident music for a major broadcaster… which was a learning curve, and a great break.
Pros and Cons: Pros – I love my job. Every day is different. I can be based at home and still write and record (very different from my former touring existence). I meet really exciting people – last year it was 5 moonwalkers in one day.
I’m my own boss. I can be creative and still be working. Cons not many.. Very late nights – but, I love working late. Oh yes – developing a studio tan (that’s very very pale) and having a habit of buying a new Mac every year and convincing myself I really need it.
I’ve finally started reading Haruki Murakami’s books. I bought Norwegian Wood at a second hand bookshop and steamed through it, becoming increasingly upset that I was nearer to the end than the beginning. It’s an immersive and profoundly lyrical book. I’ve ordered everything else he’s written in a fit of impetuousness. When I was at school I read Yukio Mishima’s book, The Sailor who fell from grace from the sea which had a similar effect on me. Unfortunately Mishima became bizarrely locked into his own fascistic ideas as he got nearer to his self-inflicted end, whereas Murakami appears to shy away from the cult of his own personality.
Complicite at the Barbican 2003
I went to see London production of The Elephant Vanishes back in 2003 at the Barbican, when Simon McBurney directed a radical interpretation of three of Murakami’s short stories. The production used a cello piece I’d written based on a Turner Painting (Rain, Steam and Speed) for the scene when a Tokyo housewife finds escape from her drudgery of routine by forcing herself into a state of insomnia. The character was represented by four different actors moving in a constant short-cycled blur.
I have never seen anything so utterly different onstage (though what was being acted was too good for my music I fear…). The combination of technology, astounding physical theatre and magic realism imprinted images and emotions that only surfaced a few weeks later when I realised I’d seen something exceptional.
I’ve got the same sense from Norwegian Wood – the story is looping in my head like an infinished scrap of music. This man’s a genius. Now let’s leave him alone so he can keep at it…
Stumble It!
