This weekend saw the premiere of Greg Barker’s new documentary ‘The Final year’ at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).
The movie charts the astoundingly exhaustive efforts by Barak Obama’s diplomatic team to manage complex international problems. The unfettered access to Obama, John Kerry, Samantha Powers, Ben Rhodes and Susan Rice has created an incredible witness document to the often unseen and unappreciated efforts that operate below the surface of a successful administration.
Control Room at Abbey Road during our session. Photo by Nathan Azopardi
We recorded the string score in Abbey Road Studio One with an orchestra after not many weeks of writing. The soundtrack for this movie was one of the hardest challenges I’ve ever faced as a composer. Putting music under political figures is fraught with ethical and artistic problems. In documentary, the role of the composer is to frame the action, NOT tell the audience what to feel. I wrote entire soundtrack three times until I found a way in, that didn’t feel biased or dramatic.
The reviews from the Hollywood Reporter and Variety are here and I feel reflect the importance and peculiarity of this movie.
Here’s a track from my recent album ‘Somewhere along the edge’
My friend the photographer Trey Ratcliff is a master of making poetry from light. His images are a constant source of inspiration for me. See his work here.
I’ve been working on the soundtrack to an incredible documentary called ‘Keep Quiet’ which has just been selected to premiere at New York’s prestigious TriBeCa Film Festival.
The film concerns a passionate anti-Semite, Csanád Szegedi who was a rising star in Hungary’s far-right party – Jobbik – until he discovered his family’s extraordinary secret…
His maternal grandparents were Jewish.
“I couldn’t believe it, I just couldn’t believe it,” says Szegedi, still perhaps shaken by the ultimate branding of Jewish hatred and persecution. “I thought, this is the worst thing that could ever happen – there couldn’t ever be anything worse than this.” –Daily Telegraph profile
This extraordinary revelation prompts an unlikely, but seemingly genuine and heartfelt conversion from anti-Semite to Orthodox Jew.
My soundtrack was largely recorded live at Abbey Road Studio 2 – with Gordon Davidson engineering fantastically. It’s written for solo cello and based around a scordatura technique – that’s when an instruments’ strings are tuned in an unlikely fashion rendering weird overtones and resonances.
The film’s director Sam Blair and producer Alex Holder were clear from day one that the score needed to be unsettled, fragile, airy and peculiar – in the best sense of the word. Editor Ben Stark did an incredible job at hearing beyond my sketches, and the results are a real departure for me. Some of the music from the film is below.
Director: Joseph Martin, Sam Blair Producer: Alex Holder, Danielle Clark, Nicole Stott Editor: Kim Gaster, Ben Stark Cinematographer: Márton Vízkelety Executive Producer: John Battsek Composer: Philip Sheppard Cast: Csanad Szegedi, Chief Chabad Rabbi Boruch Oberlander, Anne Applebaum, Eva ‘Bobby’ Neumann, Katalin Molnár Szegediné
CONTACTS
Press Contact
Susan Norget
Susan Norget Film Promotion
New York City, 10013 Phone: 212 431 0090 susan@norget.com
It’s been a busy couple of weeks chez Sheppard with some new releases…
I wrote & recorded the string parts for Queens of the Stone Age album title track, Like Clockwork. This track also featured my mate James Lavelle. The album went straight in at number 1 in the charts (which was gratifying).
I’d also written for a very left field band called These New Puritans who I rate really highly. They divide critics as they’ve an uncompromising approach to music & performance. Their new album Field of Reeds came out last week. One of my heroes, Michael Van der Aa also worked on the album – great company to keep…
In the world of moving pictures I’ve been finishing composing the score to a film I can’t talk about as it’s horribly secret, but it’s involved creating a sound world involving glitchy electronica and paranoid soundscapes (no change there then..!).
I’m also featured as a soloist on the forthcoming Jason Statham film, Hummingbird, scored by my friend – the genius Dario Marianelli. It’s a violent yet sensitive film – and I’m providing some disturbed noises on electric cello for some of the more psychotic sequences. I drank a lot of Earl Grey in the studio that day…
Monday June 17th at 9pm on HBO sees the network premiere broadcast of Love, Marilyn. I wrote the soundtrack for this lovely film, and have compiled a playlist of some of the tracks:
Featuring F. Murray Abraham, Elizabeth Banks, Adrien Brody, Ellen Burstyn, Glenn Close, Hope Davis, Viola Davis, Jennifer Ehle, Ben Foster, Paul Giamatti, Jack Huston, Stephen Lang, Lindsay Lohan, Janet McTeer, Jeremy Piven, Oliver Platt, David Strathairn, Lili Taylor, Uma Thurman, Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Wood. Written and directed by Liz Garbus; produced by Stanley Buchthal, Liz Garbus and Amy Hobby; executive producer, Anne Carey; executive producers, Olivier Courson, Harold Van Lier and Enrique Steiger; edited by Azin Samari; cinematography by Maryse Alberti; music by Philip Sheppard; co-producer, Julie Gaither.[wpvideo RcSINxwA]
This Sunday sees the broadcast of Chris Riley’s wonderful account of the life of one of the great thinkers & polymaths of our time, Richard Feynman. I’ve written the music for the film. Here’s are a couple of tracks from the score;[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/91542152″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /][soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/91544836″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]
Feynman brilliantly embraced the concept of playing – playing with ideas until they resolved into simple models of extraordinary concepts.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyqleIxXTpw&feature=youtu.be]“But when it came time to do some research. I couldn’t get to work. I was a little tired; I was not interested; I couldn’t do research!… And then I thought to myself, “You know, what they think of you is so fantastic, it’s impossible to live up to it. You have no responsibility to live up to it!”… Then I had another thought; Physics disgusts me a little bit now, but I used to enjoy doing physics. Why did I enjoy it? I used to play with it. I used to do whatever I felt like doing – it didn’t have to do with whether it was important for the development of nuclear physics…. So I get this new attitude… I’m going to play with physics, whenever I want to, without worrying about any importance whatsoever. Withing a week I was in the cafeteria and some guy, fooling around, throws a plate in the air…. I had nothing to do, so I start to figure out the motion of the rotating plate… And before I knew it (it was a very short time) I was ‘playing’ – working, really – with the same old problem that I loved so much, that I had stopped working on when I went to Los Alamos; my thesis-type problems; all those old-fashioned wonderful things. It was effortless. It was easy to play with these things. It was like uncorking a bottle: Everything flowed out effortlessly…. There was no importance to what I was doing, but ultimately there was. The diagrams and the whole business that I got the Nobel Prize for came from that piddling around with the wobbling plate.” –
I’m delighted to let you know that the next Not So Silent Movies… is going to feature two fantastic guests…
In this Roxy Music Special, the fabulous NSSM… house band are joined by Andy Mackay and Phil Manzanera from Roxy Music!
Pick up some popcorn and enjoy musical improvisations along to classic silent films. Perfect for all ages from kids to those who remember watching these films in their youth.
Talvin, Evelyn Glennie & Philip Sheppard – photo Julian Macedo
I’m very happy to announce that Talvin Singh has invited my group, Not So Silent Movies… to perform with him at the Royal Festival Hall on April 14th at 7pm, as part of the Alchemy Festival at the SouthBank Centre.
Not so Silent Movies… is my project which accompanies classic silent film comedies at monthly events at Kings Place. The musicians are extraordinary, as they improvise with no rehearsal, no sheet music, and no previewing of the films.
The Festival Hall group will include, Elspeth Hanson – violin, Pete Furniss – reeds, Mark Neary – bass, Hami – drums, Julia Thornton – harp and me – cello, all performing with Talvin Singh.
We’ll be accompanying a classic of silent Indian Cinema, which none of us will see until the performance itself…
The image above is taken from a photo I took of a bowl my dear friend Josh Simpson made for me. He’s a total genius, and by coincidence has a strong space connection as his wife is Cmdr Cady Coleman, the astronaut!
[youtube=http://youtu.be/O3Zldg4j88A]I’ve just launched a new project with my friends The Milk and dubstep pioneer Benga. It’s a soundtrack to your journey if you’re travelling from Victoria to Gatwick. It’s called Espressivo.
It’s a free download with a ticket for the train (if you book online). There’s rather a clever site for it here. Benga and The Milk took my 35 minute track and re-imagined it in a totally new fashion…
I’ve always wanted to do something like this, ever since I first heard Night Mail, the early experimental film featuring Benjamin Britten and W.H.Auden. If you haven’t heard it recently, take a look here. [youtube=http://youtu.be/FkLoDg7e_ns]
I’ve always loved John Betjeman’s love letter to the Metropolitan Line, Metroland[youtube=http://youtu.be/LhIZlJgFgWk]
This film, Let’s go to Birmingham makes me laugh too… especially as I can glimpse my village at 960mph at one point! [youtube=http://youtu.be/NmPzB0qTy4M]
I’m hugely excited to announce the launch of Not so Silent Movies…
This monthly event takes place at the wonderful Kings Place in London. First gig is Sunday October 2nd at 3pm. Tickets from here.
The photo of Harold Lloyd is appropriate, as what we’re going to be doing is risky, thrilling and often hilarious.
Here’s the pitch:
Great silent film comedies,
Great musicians together on stage,
No sheet music,
No rehearsing,
No plan,
& No watching the films in advance…
Yes… it’s totally improvised (spontaneously composed if you want to be pretentious..!), utterly great when it all clicks, and unintentionally hilarious when it goes awry.
Our band is amazing… we have Guy Pratt on Bass (he’s been in Pink Floyd & Roxy Music for starters), Geoff Dugmore’s playing drums (He’s an incredible drummer – one of the greatest session players in the world), Pip Eastop on Horn (he’s a stalwart of the London Sinfonietta, a Professor, stunning soloist and one of the wittiest people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing), Elspeth Hanson (violinist currently wowing audiences in Bond, was also glimpsed by about two billion people on a bus with David Beckham & Jimmy Page), Mark Neary (Pedal steel player and alchemist of weird and wondrous noises – last time I saw him he was laying down some lines for Flood!), Me (I play the cello a bit), and some amazing surprise guests too (not Jimmy Page… yet… but we’re working on it! see photo).
Geoff Dugmore, Jimmy Page, Me & Guy Pratt at a recording session
Future Not so Silent Movies are featuring Dame Evelyn Glennie (world famous percussion soloist), Robin Millar (Sade’s producer), Steve Mackey (Pulp’s bassist), Julia Thornton (wizard harpist & percussionist), Pete Furniss (Reeds – a mainstay of the extraordinary Impropera), Roger Eno (maverick keyboardist), Stephen Warbeck (composer, Oscar winner), Cherisse Osei (Mika’s drummer), David Le Page (former Menuhin pupil, Subway Pirhanas, Orchestra of the Swan) and many, many more…
You can probably tell I’m a bit excited about this…
Come and join us for the greatest comedies ever made – (featuring Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Joe Keaton, Fatty Arbuckle & co), and to see a group of musos having a busman’s holiday. We may even get you up on stage to take part!
Let me know who else we should invite, and which films you’d like to see us tackle!
This is the soundtrack to Liz Garbus’ celebrated film about the life of troubled chess genius Bobby Fischer, ‘Bobby Fischer Against the World’.
I wrote the score around themes by Bach keyboard works. You can sample the full album here. Thanks for listening,
Philip Sheppard
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC2Ea0So2CY]April 12th This year sees an extraordinary anniversary. Fifty years ago to the day Yuri Gagarin became the first person to see the Earth from space. To mark this extraordinary anniversary, I’m proud to be involved in a project devised by my friend Christopher Riley.
By matching the orbital path of the Space Station, as closely as possible, to that of Gagarin’s Vostok 1 spaceship and filming the same vistas of the Earth through the new giant cupola window, astronaut Paolo Nespoli, and documentary film maker Christopher Riley, have captured a new digital high definition view of the Earth below, half a century after Gagarin first witnessed it.
We have partnered with YouTube to share First Orbit with the World in a special global streaming event on the 12th April. The Yuri’s Night network will also be showing the film at over 120 parties around the world that day. If you would like to watch it at one of these events then please contact the organizers directly through the Yuri’s Night clickable party map.
“We’d been working with some of these tracks on another project” says Chris, “and we suddenly realised how perfectly they could compliment ‘First Orbit’ as well. We contacted Philip to ask his permission to use them, only to find that his entire Cloud Song album was already in orbit onboard the International Space Station!”
NASA astronaut Cady Coleman, had them on her iPod… Her husband, Josh Simpson is a friend of mine and they’d listened to a lot of my music together before she left, so I made up a playlist for her. Quite by coincidence Cady had been listening to the music in ‘First Orbit’ at one end of the Space Station whilst European Space Agency astronaut Paolo Nespoli was shooting for the film at the other end, without either of them knowing the connection!
Bobby Fischer Against the World, a film by Liz Garbus, has just premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Here are a few tracks from my soundtrack composed for the film, plus… the title track as a free download. (Click to download & please leave a comment below).
I first heard about Bobby Fischer when I was a kid, heavily into performing classical music. Many of the great Russian virtuoso musicians and composers had a reputation for being chess fanatics, and I remember my mother’s violin professor Beatrix Marr, describing the friendly rivalry between Boris Spassky and David Oistrakh (one of the world’s greatest violinists). Beatrix regularly thrashed me in chess matches in her cottage, making no allowance for my age…
Music begins with an opening gesture, a phrase or a hook and runs along a temporal plane before reaching a cadence, resolution and ending. Great music lives on as an impression of an experience intertwined with emotion and context. You don’t need to be able to interpret what the blobs and squiggles on a musical staff mean in order to be enveloped in a mindblowing musical experience. You don’t need to learn the ‘rules’ of harmony to be profoundly moved by a performance. The great chess grandmasters inhabit a world we can literally never comprehend. A great chess match is a performance, a spontaneous composition of pure elegant counterpoint.
The supreme master of counterpoint in the entire history of music is J.S.Bach. Even as an experienced musician, I cannot begin to grasp how he processed vast amounts of mathematical musical data, rendering it into perfectly structured miniature cathedrals of sound. The inside of his brain must have had parallels with that of Bobby Fischer, but despite this vast intellect he (unlike Fischer) was able to live a life as a complete human being. (I mean, he had fourteen children for a start…).
Bach’s famous first prelude in C was my starting point for scoring Bobby Fischer against the World. I took the theme and turned it inside out – it begins as fragmented and hesitant gestures as if unsure before playing out to an inevitable endgame. (That’s the piano and string orchestra track above by the way).
The whole of the rest of the score is composed from Bach’s themes – from the Goldberg Variations to the keyboard concertos. This piece below is based on the D minor keyboard concerto, though it’s totally unrecognizable as it’s more like a romantic American/Russian prelude that descends into a shameless waltz. This piece runs underneath the famous match between Spassky and Fischer known as the Game of Placid Beauty. This track was written in New York, against the clock when we were rushing to finish the film, and was a piece that went through so many versions and changes before settling on what became ironically known as The Brooklyn Symphony (there’s always one cue in a film which is a major problem and this was it..!)
On a final note, one deeply sad aspect of the making of this film was the loss of the brilliant editor Karen Schmeer. I had already worked with Karen for two years on Greg Barker’s extraordinary film Sergio, and Karen was a joy to work with. We knew each other purely through emails, Skype chats and the odd phone call. We never met, and it’s a strange kind of mourning when the person you knew and liked existed purely at the end of another laptop. Karen had plotted to get me involved in this film by surreptitiously working my older pieces into the rough cut of the movie, without Liz Garbus (the director) fully catching on to what was happening. The day before Karen left us, she had confided to me that her cunning plan was working very nicely.
The film is naturally dedicated to Karen, and the music is wholeheartedly for her (well, the good bits at least…).
Here below is the score for the Brooklyn Symphony with her dedication at the top. Thanks for reading this – Philip Sheppard
The score for the Brooklyn Symphony from Bobby Fischer Against the World.
It’s been a bit crazy round here… but I’ve been working with some amazing friends & musicians who’ve kept things sane and very happy.
I’ve been writing and recording with Evelyn Glennie, or Dame Evelyn Glennie O.B.E. as she should really be addressed. She’s one of the most phenomenal musicians I’ve ever worked with – stunning improviser, percussionista par excellence with a wicked sense of humour. By day two of recording together along with the great engineer Jake Jackson, we had completely forgotten the fact that she can’t hear a thing.
I really can’t wait to play you what we’ve come up with…
Meanwhile… The Tillman Story soundtrack is out on iTunes this week thanks to the sterling efforts of The Weinstein Co and Lakeshore records (who previously released my Shadow of the Moon Score). The film is featured in this week’s London Film Festival.
I’ve been back into the studio, (Abbey Road 2 this time), with the brilliant producer Ivor Guest to develop some nasty noises using a big string section for the latest release from France’s most idiosyncratic chanteuse Brigitte Fontaine. This woman is like Bjork’s cooler granny. Here’s a track I did with her with my electric cello doing some very disturbed things over the top… [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlLJqORNu2Q]
She’s wonderful, outrageous and a darn good musician. The last album we worked on was called Prohibition and is worth a listen as I think it’s truly unique.
Meanwhile… I’ve been hard at work on recording and mixing my latest project, an incredible film about the chess genius Bobby Fischer. We assembled a fantastic string section in Air Studio 1 along with master engineer Geoff Foster who’s fresh off working on Narnia & Tron Legacy.
Geoff Foster looks up to see the orchestra left some time ago…
It was lovely being able to record the score with friends I’ve been in chamber groups with since the very early days, Pro Corda & Royal Academy and so forth, and yet pick up where we left off – the only downer being that we were playing my octets rather than Mendelssohn’s…!
You’ve read this far… that mean’s you’re awfully nice or haven’t anything better to do – so by way of an apology & thanks, here’s a track that isn’t particularly melancholic at all… which, if you like it, can be downloaded by clicking the down arrow. Leave me a note if you want!
My soundtrack for PBS’s forthcoming series God in America is out now on iTunes.
We had the launch party for the series in New York the other day together with the lovely stars of the series Michael Emerson (of Lost fame) and Chris Sarandon (Whom I know from The Princess Bride).
The series also stars Toby Jones – better known to some as Truman Capote and Dobby the house elf!
The Tillman Story has been getting the press we had hoped for in the USA – it’s coming to London too in the London International Film Festival. Please go and see it if you get a chance – it’s an important film (despite my soundtrack). He was an incredible man who was let down by his country. Possible soundtrack release on the cards too.
Relish opened at the Tramshed performed by the National Youth Theatre who I absolutely adore. I first worked with them at the Beijing Olympics, and we hatched this project right after that event. It’s on this week too – nb lots of swearing – especially from a foul-mouthed Florence Nightingale!
Meanwhile I’m in post on a couple of films which I’d love to tell you about.. but that’ll have to wait.
Here’s a new track called ‘Why I do what I do…’. If you like this kind of thing, then join my mailing list and I’ll send you free tunes![soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/5205635″ params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=3585be” width=”100%” height=”81″ ]
Here’s a sketch I’m working inspired by the incident at the Gare de l’Ouest. A touch of Victorian melodrama with a steampunk symphony orchestra…
[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/murder-on-the-great-western” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=a38036″ width=”100%” height=”81″ ]
Here’s a new track called Kinderszenen. Hope you like it.
[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/kinderszenen” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=846d11″ width=”100%” height=”81″ ]
Hard at work in the studio dubbing two different films – one for National Geographic, the other a slightly hush hush PBS series… I could tell you more, but I can’t.
The image above is the dub engineer Rob at LipSynch tweaking something that goes BANG. I love my job…
I’ve been watching BBC 4’s lovely series on maps recently – The Beauty of Maps – and had the slightly unnerving experience of wondering why I recognised some of the music.
Turns out it was mine. (Was on the the verge of wondering out loud who could of written something like that – not in a good way… ooops). Well, see what you think…
Online music promotion & why musicians should make their own record deals… [This is a section of a talk I gave at the Royal Academy of Music]
[If you like this… then read the supporting article CLICK HERE]
Wilhelm couldn’t help feeling the Wigmore makeover was a little too contemporary
During my lecture a student asked if they should send a huge dossier of references, biographies, programmes and recordings to prospective venues/employers.
Err.. nope!
A CD with a handwritten note – all nicely designed & personally directed is much better, especially if solicited via an initial email.
(The former package would in all likelihood end up in a recycling bin)
Harsh maybe.. but true!
Humphrey thanks Mrs Watson for the Gutbuster tailcoat
Here are some simple steps to:
Promoting tracks online
Releasing tracks online
Getting income through sales (though this may not be the primary aim at this stage).
You want people to hear you, join you, and get excited about what you produce next (and hopefully turn up in droves to your next recital).
The Burberry string trio’s Morton Feldman season wasn’t going well
Getting it out there…
Let’s assume you’ve already recorded a really well thought-through programme of pieces/ songs… (This is a whole other massive subject, and something that classical musicians can often get very wrong…)
The obvious place to start a web presence is myspace, but it seems (at best) an inelegant way to present yourself as an artist, especially when there are so many other free hosted sites with beautiful templates out there.
I have a myspace page, (it’s so very ugly.. I won’t even link to it here) but its primary purpose is to redirect traffic to my own sites!
The traffic on my MySpace page at the moment
WordPress
I love WordPress (where you’re reading this).
It’s free – it has excellent templates, so even a klutz like me can make something look half – decent…
I can place a track like this
by entering a piece of simple code, and it looks professional.
It’s designed as a piece of blogging software, but rather than using it purely as an online diary, I find it is a great place to host your biography and showreel.
More importantly, it’s a great place to engage in regular chats with people who might like what you do.
The more people that comment and link to you, the higher you page goes in Google’s rankings, so make sure it’s appealing!!
Also, when people leave comments, good or bad, try to respond as soon as you can! This can be difficult if you’re busy, but shows that what you’re doing is artist led, not just a facade by a record company to ‘get down with the kids’…
You can get a WordPress blog here – highly recommended.
The chaps in Led Zep felt Jimmy had gone too far…
Mailing list
If you want to link with people who like what you do, then maybe use a company to administer a mailing list for you. I use Constant Contact and find them very effective. They have a good policy against spam and there are lots of safeguards in place to ensure you communicate properly in your (hopefully) mass emails.
Obviously Twitter links into this whole pattern very neatly too!
Getting a great look for your album
Sometimes technology creates more niggling work for us and leaves a big creative void in the heart of your soul… and then sometimes, it proves itself to be a thing of simple beauty.
I love Flikr.
I am a massive fan of specific photographers like Lucy Martin, Trey Radcliffe, TonTon Copte and many others. Something in their imagery and artistic sensitivities links with my music.
I found all of them through the site, and in fact recently licenced an image from Lucy Martin which was a perfect fit for my Henry VIII album. Have a look here and you can see why!
Mailbox was in a right grump
SoundCloud
A different way of grouping/ hosting your music for free is presented by SoundCloud.
What is neat about this is the way people can place comments along the timeline, and even better, anyone (if you like) can stream it to their own blog/site.
Here’s a recent piece of mine which is being streamed from the SoundCloud website.
Listeners can add comments at specific points in the track – you can see them by hovering over the pictures.
I use SoundCloud to determine whether a track has ‘legs’ or not.
It’s very meritocratic – if something’s good – it’ll get lots of plays!
Now, if you’re feeling generous, you can make the tracks downloadable (although you should tag them in iTunes first so the mp3 has your web address in its code – google ‘iTunes metadata’ if you want to know more).
This track is a download track – again, it’s being streamed via a simple bit of code from SoundCloud:
[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/in-i-the-apotheosis-akram-khan-juliette-binoche”]
The downwards arrow on the right is a download link.
Here’s a site where someone’s placed a block of my tracks leading to free downloads.
Later in casualty, Fritz regretted selling the viola
Lastfm
A well-established streaming music service is lastfm.com. This is a curious amalgam of fansite and radio station. Personally I find it a bit disjointed, and also it concerns me that unreleased tracks often appear there from dubious sources. There are tracks of mine on there that I’ve never released!
The Sixty one
A completely different approach to new music streaming and downloads can be found at thesixtyone.com.
This is a really hard site to describe as it is as much about gameplay as it is about streaming music. There are two types of (free) account. Artists or Listeners. The Listeners get a higher ranking depending upon how they scout for new songs that the Artists place on there. They give ‘hearts’ to tracks they like, a little like buying shares in a stock that looks like it’s going to perform well.
Frankly, no-one really knows how it works.
Also, as with SoundCloud, you can tell pretty quickly if a track has merit as it will get voted onto the front page!
Players also give ‘tips’ which I hadn’t realized translate into Paypal dollars.
From my page here, I have enough for two cappuccinos already… hurrah!
However – it was a superb place to place your music, but following a recent makeover, users have expressed dismay at the frankly confusing navigation…
The Albert Hall’s sitemap left a little to be desired
Setting up a label and generating paid downloads
Setting up a label appears at first to be an onerous and difficult task. This certainly used to be the case, when there was a baffling array of requirements; barcodes, encoding, registration and so forth.
This is no longer the case thanks to intermediary companies that have sprung up to help us confused and frustrated independent players and composers.
CDbaby
CDBaby was established by the very brilliant Derek Sivers (whose blog is essential reading). They distribute to a huge number of digital outlets, and have excellent accounting procedures for small labels. They started as a physical distributor of CDs but seem to have made a smooth transition to digital marketing. You can read about joining here.
Ditto Music
One of the most impressive of these new services is Ditto Music.
They have created a brilliant service where the tasks of creating a label for your releases is streamlined and organized for a one-off fee.
They also take 0% of your royalties when tracks are sold online, and they can distribute to 700 digital outlets.
The real icing on the cake is that they have created a means by which independent musicians can get their tracks loaded onto Spotify, and iTunes.
Whenever I have a soundtrack album for a film or concert project, they are my first port of call.
Xavier didn’t feel the sponsorship deal with Dunkin’ Donuts had compromised him at all
Spotify
There’s a widely held belief that as an independent artist, getting your tracks onto Spotify and iTunes is nigh on impossible unless you’re with a major label. This is happily untrue as discussed above. Spotify is an exciting way of streaming (and now temporarily downloading) tracks which has begun a seamless integration with phones and mp3 players.
Spotify are themselves trying to approach smaller, independent labels, and you can register interest as a future partner here.
What’s next..?
I’m going to write about physical CD production, as well as other merchandise… But I need a big mug of coffee first! Let me know if this is useful…
Whilst our politicians in the UK struggle to create a government, I started thinking an ideal society.
Music can sometimes describe the impossible. I love the escapist potential of music and sound design, and my constant struggle is to write pieces that act as soundscapes to imaginary places. This piece is called ‘If there is a Heaven’.[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/if-there-is-a-heaven” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=1b5a7a” width=”100%” height=”81″ ]
If you enjoy this kind of thing, then feel free to download it (right downward arrow) and subscribe here for more like this.
From his birth in Rio de Janeiro in 1948 to his untimely and tragic death in Baghdad in 2003, Sergio Vieira de Mello led an extraordinary life.
Vieira de Mello joined the United Nations in 1969 and would devote his life to the organization and its ideals. Known to most as simply ‘Sergio’, Vieira de Mello worked in some of the world’s most volatile and distressed regions. His career spanned assignments in Lebanon, Peru, Bosnia, Sudan, Cambodia, Cyprus, Mozambique, East Timor and Iraq. Working mostly for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Sergio achieved some astonishing successes. These achievements were not easily won. Sergio grew up with the UN, developing several guiding principles along the way.
When Sergio died he was serving as the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary General to Iraq. He had managed to find a balance between pragmatism and idealism, principles and compromise. He was the UN’s ‘go to guy’, having spent decades refining his approach. In the words of his friend and colleague Dennis McNamara, Sergio was, “one of the bright stars, maybe the brightest. He was the master magician, mediator, manager, massager of egos.” This was the tragedy of August 19.
Things have been very busy here at Radiomovies Studio – It’s been a long time since the last post! Sergio has just been shortlisted for the Oscars!!
[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/sergio-end-credits” params=”auto_play=false&player_type=artwork&color=c48c1e” width=”300″ height=”300″ ]
BBC Radio 3 have playlisted one of my Henry VIII tracks – and I’m releasing an EP any minute of the vocal tracks from the series.
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In the dance world, Akram Khan and Sylvie Guillem are to present Sacred Monsters, score by me, in Japan before Christmas.
Working on ‘In the Shadow of the Moon’, and meeting many of the astronauts from the Apollo programme led me to fall in love with all things lunar.
Here’s something I wrote recently after listening to the Apollo 8 Genesis reading.. I noticed they all spoke around B flat major, and that their voices are inherently melodic.[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/radiomovies/apollo-good-earth” params=”show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=c48c1e”]
Featured voices are; Frank Borman, James Lovell and Bill Anders.
Philip Sheppard is a composer specializing in film and television soundtracks. He is also a solo cellist and a Professor at the Royal Academy of Music.
Recent films include In the Shadow of the Moon (which won numerous awards including the World Documentary Prize at Sundance), Henry Mind of a Tyrant for David Starkey
This series was fascinating to work on. The series focuses on the brains behind the mind-blowing technology that got man to the moon more than just the once. If you liked In the Shadow of the Moon (and I hope you did) then you might enjoy this too. My favourite sequences show how the software to run the craft was literally knitted by expert seamstresses using looms.
This show starred Akram Khan and Sylvie Guillem. I wrote the score and toured with the production as onstage cellist (with a great band) for the best part of a year and a half. I hope to post the soundtrack online soon as a free listen (as per my other Akram show; In-I).
I’ve had a lot of emails asking about the possible CD release of the Henry Mind of a Tyrant score on CD (and other media). It features Alamire, Fretwork, Dot Allison and Charles Mutter.
We’re working on it fast… The more messages that come through, the more likely it is to happen so it’s looking good.
Thanks everyone!
PS. check back regularly in the Free Bits section as limited edition tracks will appear there often!
Anyway, sitting in the garden, writing music. Today’s one of those days I’m grateful to be a self-employed person… shouldn’t go on about it as it’ll start raining, and for all I know you may be sitting at a PC somewhere cold..?
I wanted to let you know that there’s a new tag in the top right hand corner called Free Bits. It’s where I’ll post anything that appears on my other posts such as free mp3 downloads and sheet music, plus the odd preview invite and so forth.
Join me and you’ll be the first to know about future freebies, Henry VIII soundtrack release and download (Mind of a Tyrant), Jane Austen piano tracks and release dates for some films I’ve worked on in the US.
Moon Machines is on the Science Channel this week – the companion series to In the Shadow of the Moon. I wrote the music for the series last year which aired on the Discovery Channel.
Henry Mind of a Tyrant continues its run on Channel 4 this evening at 9pm with the second episode – Warrior. Channel 4 have put a series of short films, images and even (oh no…) an interview with yours truly at this site. Don’t forget the soundtrack is a free listen on this site.
Sergio is going to be shown at HotDocs in Ontario – click here for more details.
Lots of people (hundreds in fact!) have downloaded the sheet music for Crystallised Beauty this week, and I’m asking for suggestions for the next piece to be made available. Let me know at this page!
On this site, I’ve put up a couple more archive album tracks;Aqua Voce now online, together with Penitential Psalm.
Thanks for all the messages and comments – it’s great to hear from you…
Latest show news. As you can see there’s a beautiful poster for the forthcoming Sergio directed by Greg Barker – due to be shown on HBO in June. This recently won Karen Schmeer the editing award at Sundance.I hope to put a number of the tracks online soon as a free stream.
Looking at the above I realise I’m lucky to work on projects where the PR material seems to be thought through…
In-I, my project with Juliette Binoche, Anish Kapoor and Akram Khan is in Beijing this week, having transferred from Shanghai. You can hear the score here.
It’s going to have a break before opening at BAM (Harvey Theatre), New York, for the latter part of September.
I’ve recently completed work on the score for a new documentary by Greg Barker called ‘Sergio’. It’s based on the extraordinary biography of Sergio Vieira de Mello by Samantha Power called Chasing the Flame.
It has just premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The soundtrack features an orchestral score with the beautiful solo playing of Brazilian guitarist Ife Tolentino who made the score come alive for me.
I’m glad to find a buzz around a film brought here by the BBC and HBO. This is Sergio, and it recounts the life and death of Sergio Vieira de Mello, heroic womaniser and daredevil James Bond/RFK of humanitarian politics, who was buried under the rubble caused by a car bomb, dying in Baghdad. I wanted for a change to see a film about someone admirable, and I can see people crying through the film. A Variety critic tells me that Sergio does catch something of a new mood, mournful but in quest of something to admire.
I’ve been working on the soundtrack to an incredible documentary called 
Featured voices are; Frank Borman, James Lovell and Bill Anders.
Summer’s landed – So soon after Easter?
