Three more pieces of music for film and TV:

• Ghost Train
• Tao Traveller
• Abbey Lane

They were great fun to make, a real ‘journey’.

The brief was ‘electronica/ambient type instrumentals a la Sigur Ros, Air etc.’

So the first thing I did was to start listening to their music, and I was very pleasantly surprised! I loved it, very original and imaginative, with a wonderful surreal quality. Something I have wanted to do all my life but always thought nobody would be interested. They proved me wrong!

So, inspired by their creativity, I set to work:

• Ghost Train

The dobro section is taken from an improvisation I recorded in 2007, and it is actually still on my myspace page. I took the ‘signature bars’ from the improvisation and then let it take me where it wanted, with a couple of other sounds from my recently acquired Casio keyboard.

I realised that the mid section reminded me of the eerie call of an old steam train, and it suddenly all made sense. I changed the attack of one of the percussion sounds a little to make it more like gas escaping.

I really like this one. It’s spooky!

The next one was…

• Tao Traveller

For this one, I searched the internet for samples with a suitably surreal and ambient quality. I stumbled onto a 3 bar sample of a sequenced synth, with a 5th interval. I started playing around with it and detuned it to create harmonies, thus creating chords. I tried my best to keep my intellect out of it, and just experimented until I had something I liked. The rest was easy, just a couple more sounds to help develop it, always with the principle that ‘less is more’. The whistle at the end reminds me of The X Files!

I realised it had the linear quality of a journey, with little sidesteps and with a spiritual quality, so I called it ‘Tao Traveller’, after the video I posted the other day.

Finally…

• Abbey Lane

I originally came up with the guitar chords when I was a teenager. At the time, I played around with it for a while, but I never actually did anything with it. Perfect for this listing I thought!

This one is slightly different from the first two, and explores the Beatles-esque quality of some of the music of Sigur Ros and Air. I even recorded some ‘hah-hah’s’. I could have sung them a bit more in tune, but I quite like them slightly off key.

So, lots of fun was had!

This is what I like so much about creating music for film and TV. I get to explore different types of music, and it gets me writing and playing in a very different way. Very refreshing.

Fingers crossed I am not the only one who likes the results!