The Faith in Ailao Mountain is the first documentary I’ve written music for. It examines the cost of China’s one-child policy on the caregivers whose job it was to carry out the policy. It is a personal story between the filmmaker, Zhang Ci, and her mother, who was one such caregiver. The documentary is set in the Ailao Mountains in Yunnan Province where many …
Ex Machina: How Sound Links A.I. to Atomic Weapons
Have you ever wondered how sound influences your experience of a film? Beyond dialog, loud sound effects, or prominent music, people often don’t pay much attention to sound when watching a film. Instead, they tend to focus on the visual dimension of film: acting, set design, lighting, photography, and so on. But sound is a vitally important tool for the …
Designing sound logos that last
We’ve all heard sound logos in advertising. The Intel sound logo is probably the most widely recognized one. A sound logo is a sonic signature used to associate a brand with a listener. Successful sound logos have the primary characteristics of being unique, memorable, and fitting. When a sound logo plays, a brand lives. When it comes to brand reinforcement …
Conforming Pro Tools Session Tempo to Loop Tempo
This is the first in a series of Pro Tools music creation tips and tricks I plan to post over the next few months. Pro Tools is widely used both in post production and music production, and is a mature program with a lot of features. This series is aimed at composers and sound designers who are familiar with the …
18 Birds in a Winter Sky
This song was inspired by a dream I had in which I was walking through a snowy landscape, alone beneath a dark, foreboding sky. I caught a glimpse of a flock of black feathered birds high above the clouds. As I watched them glide silently through the winter sky, I heard music. At that moment, I woke up with the …
Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night
One evening early in 2009 my wife played me a podcast of the actor John Lithgow recorded on the PBS show Bill Moyers Journal. During the show he recited several poems, but I was struck by one in particular – “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” by the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. The poem resonated with me, particularly …
Resurrection
Resurrection features my music and the soaring, captivating vocals of Akasa. Through her mesmerizing, powerful performance, Akasa lifts the song to an exalted level, her voice working its healing power on the listener. Akasa’s talent is a rare gift, and it is beautifully showcased in this song. About Akasa Akasa is a singer, songwriter, performance artist, and conceptualist of positive-message …
Soundtrack 2011.11.a
Ableton Live’s capability to treat audio like elastic and sync up sets of tracks together, or allow real-time improvisation using clips of music make it an incredibly popular tool for DJs and remix producers. Although I have used Live in that way, what I love most about Live is its sound design capabilities. Often I’ll just dive in, create rich …
It’s Real (Intro Cue)
The owner of a coffee shop is quietly serving a line of customers eagerly awaiting their morning cup. Suddenly two menacing figures materialize at the register. The look on their faces means only one thing: something terrible is about to happen. And then one draws a gun. They demand all the money from the register. But there’s something amiss here. …
Google Tech Talks Sound Logo
This is a sound logo I composed for the closing credits of vidoes on Google Tech Talks. The sound had to be synchronized to an animated text logo. The first phase of the animation spelled out titles letter by letter. So to sonify that kinetic energy, I used a fast arpeggio on a bell-like tone generated by Native Instruments Reaktor. …
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