Andy Hill

This past weekend we had Andy Hill come teach the class. I really hate going into class on a Sunday, but that aside it was a REALLY good weekend. I already mentioned in my previous blog that he started class off with asking us all questions about ourselves. I forgot to mention that he asked what people say about my music. I honestly don't know what people say, but when Christopher Young was visiting he listened to my music and said it was "introspective beauty". I really liked that phrase so that's what I told Andy Hill. He said that brings to mind the film composer "Thomas Newman". Completely made my day! I even just recently watched "A Series of Unfortunate Events" and noticed how much I love the music in that... and of course it's Newman. Then I said that I struggled in college with writing music for "music's sake". That I always had to have a story or theme even if it was secret. So my catch phrase became "secret story".

Andy taught us about the development of Film Scoring Vocabulary. He brought us through the different time periods of film and pointed out how things that changed, how things stayed the same and how things are progressing today. I definitely have 8 pages of notes from his 3 days of teaching...

On Sunday, we all showed him our recent Brass Quintets. I really didn't want to show him cause I'm not very proud of the writing or the recording of it. I had to go "mix" it Saturday night in order to show it to him as well... which means I snipped and clipped the best takes together to get a good "whole" piece but I didn't work hard on making it clean, doing EQ or anything. I messed with reverb a little... anyways the point is that it isn't the cleanest recording. I was 4th in line (out of the 5). He gave everyone very nice feedback about the writing for the instruments and so forth.... but when he heard mine this is what he said: "True to your claim yesterday your music evokes a story. I imagined a family on Ellis Island or a merging of people about to go on some big trek". He was pretty much smack on with the theme I had envisioned! Again, made my day.

Because of the long weekend, Derek gave us the day off. I was going to go register with the GNIB but it didn't work out. I have to get a copy of my bank statements from my Ireland Bank. I couldn't figure it out online so I went to the bank this morning. Ends up they can't just print them, they have to mail it. The banks out here suck. Just saying. SO hopefully that comes soon cause I have 2 weeks or will get deported. HA. No, I am sure I will be fine. I instead went to the gym, ran some other errands, cleaned my computer files up (we have SO many folders from different teachers I needed to make better sense of it all), composed a little..... Good, semi-relaxing day. It raining and looks like it will rain all week. I had a friend from Colorado post this picture on Facebook:

Colorado weather can be so bi-polar! From 73 to 7 degrees in one week! lol :)

This is Dublin's weather.... pretty predictable. Rain. I actually like the rain. Not being in it or riding bike in it. But if I am inside, I love the sound. The smell. It's nice.

The next composing assignment is for a mixed ensemble. Derek decided we should try to write for Bandoneon. --Had to google what that was.... it's like an accordion. I am kinda  excited about trying such a strange instrument. BUT, if we don't have someone come talk to us about the instrument it's hard to just guess how to write well for it. I am not sure if they're planning on doing that. The other thing is that the sound of an accordion instantly makes you think polka or rumba.... SO, do I go with one of those styles or TRY to do something different? I have been listening to minimalism and South American music and think I might try to merge the two using this instrumentation... we will see if it's successful. The other instruments are: flute, clarinet, bandoneon, guitar, marimba, piano, violin, cello, bass. Interesting.