music – Page 2 – Heather Fenoughty

21 March 200922 March 2022

Do You Live Your Life Creatively?

black and white image of vintage condenser microphone for voice

Had to share this blog post about creativity and the myths that surround it: Myths about Creativity | Tickled By Life, by Shalu Wasu. Go have a read... then come back here if you like. 🙂 I particularly enjoyed reading his attitudes about the application of creativity to all aspects of life, not just so-called …

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19 March 200914 February 2022

What Is The Value Of Your Music?

The more I think about this, the more the strands of the argument grow and overlap and evolve. I get more questions than answers and I want to know what you think. So... what is the value of your music? Or the value of any art you create? Aesthetic Value The value given to any …

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18 March 200922 March 2022

How to Compose Science Fiction Music: My Personal Recipe

If you been reading my posts for the last week or so, then you'll have noticed that I've recently been spending my days writing science fiction-related music. Also, a lot of the search engine terms used that send traffic here to my blog are along the lines of 'how to write film music', so here's …

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17 March 200922 March 2022

Translating the Director’s Ideas into Musical Reality

I have to be honest. It's day 8 of the 30 Day Challenge to myself to blog a-post-a-day and I was completely stumped on a topic. So today's subject comes from John Hunter, my lovely man. Ta! 8 Points to Keep in Mind... When it comes to chatting to the director during the initial meetings …

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16 March 200918 October 2023

A Day In The Life Of A Composer

As of writing, today is going to be a pretty typical day for me. As in hectic. And exactly the kind of work I like. 😉 Although composing is now my bread and butter, I also do some other work to keep the roof over my head. Today is a pretty good example of how …

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12 March 200915 February 2022

Writer’s Block? Impose Restrictions.

WritersBlock Man sits at a typewriter with a screwed up piece of paper for a head

Sometimes, if I'm a little stumped as to how to proceed when composing music for any sort of media, I realise the reason is that I've too many options. To help me out, I impose restrictions on my options.

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3 February 20099 February 2022

Online Drama ‘THE END IS NIGEL’ goes LIVE

'THE END IS NIGEL' is an online offbeat comedy-drama about a possible impending apocalypse... This project was originally commissioned by SCREEN YORKSHIRE and BLINK to be a two-minute film for mobile phones, but [became] a little high-concept but low-budget online world full of webcomics, blogs and dummy websites, following saxophone-wielding deities, shady corporations and facing life after university as Verity tries to find out what happened to Nigel.

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13 October 200822 March 2022

Is Film Music Art or Just Low-Brow Commercial Fluff?

close up microphone in front of an audience

Is any music that is created for a purpose, other than that of it's own existence, art? Is film music art, or theatre music, or advert music, or music that appears on a CD-Rom presentation, or accompanying a website promo film, or music on a trailer? Even if the music's primary purpose is purely commercial - to sell that product or promote another - does that preclude its intrinsic value as art?

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2 October 200815 January 2025

Tips for Composing Music With A Computer

Composing on a computer sequencer with software/outboard synthesizers and samples is quite a bit different to composing for real instruments. There's no substitute for an orchestra when that's the sound you want. However, if you think of your kit as something other than an orchestra-in-a-box, and write instead to its strengths, you might not ever …

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21 September 200819 January 2024

Writing Music for Theatre – Helium

The 'short adventure for one', Helium, has completed its run at the Barbican. 4 stars in The Guardian The show is a theatrical installation, or 'box show', where an audience member travels through a number of specially-constructed rooms featuring digital audio, video and live performance. The audience is invited to follow Bella's imaginary journey through …

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