Music for Ebooks?

kindle and coffee
Well, why not? In a world with a constant drive for added value, could the lure of a deliberately chosen or even composed soundtrack be the decision making option when buying your latest ebook? Could it actually enhance the reading experience? I noticed on a thread on a certain social networking site that someone commented …

How To Make Virtual Instruments Sound More Realistic

close up microphone in front of an audience
Short answer: Think like an instrumental player. This is just a thought I had as I was tweaking a string part I’d written for a new piece. Sampled, sequenced strings sound fake when they’re 'perfect'. I’ve already written about introducing imperfection to humanise an instrumental part. In order to make an acoustic (or even electro-acoustic) …

How To Write Shed Loads of Music in Very Little Time

music recording studio
I have just this very day finished a full draft of musical score for Anthology, an epic series of shows produced by the indefatigable Slung Low in association with the Liverpool Everyman. Wooh! From the Slung Low site: 7 routes. 7 stories. Told in different places on different paths in Liverpool. Take your chance, take your seat and discover which story chooses you. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not condoning quantity over quality. But sometimes needs must as the devil drives, and quite frankly you didn't realise at the time what you signed up for... that the deadline would be quite so tight.

Sound Designing Experimental Theatre: Silica

black and white image of vintage condenser microphone for voice
I'm in the process of sound designing a new piece of experimental theatre: Silica. It's a highly visual theatre installation that merges live performance, composed sound, sculpture and film. The piece explores erosion, both of landscape and of the mind, presenting shifting, beautifully surreal and blurred perceptions of reality. It uses the language of landscapes to discuss disappearance and the ephemerality of moments within our lives and looks at memory not as a link to the past but the construction of a present “reality”.