Film Music and Cross Genre PDF

Nuno Dario de Oliveira Sá
Film Music and Cross-genre:

dramatic approaches in contemporary composition
Submitted as part of the degree of PhD in Composition

Royal Holloway, University of London
2013
Declaration
I Nuno Dario de Oliveira Sá hereby declare that the fourteen compositions and
the accompanying commentary comprised in this submission are entirely my
own work.
Signed: __________________________ Date: 11th of December, 2013
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Acknowledgements
I would like to give my very special thanks to:

Nuno Bettencourt Mendes, Brian Lock, and my daughters, Inês and Marta.
I would also like to thank:

the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, Ministério da Educação e Ciência
for awarding me a Ph.D. Scholarship.
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Abstract of the thesis
This research focuses on how film music and pop music genres provide rich and
fertile ground for avant-garde composition. The compositions in this portfolio
explore various relationships between the elements, compositional techniques,
practices and technical procedures employed in these music genres. The purpose
of this research was to produce fresh dramatic effects and new aesthetic results in
the presented compositions.
This research makes extensive use of music technology much in the same
manner as it is used to produce pop and film music. Sample-based virtual
instruments, software synthesizers and sequencers are used to produce the music
alongside traditional notation software. Similarly, mixing techniques, like the use
of different reverb types, volume automation or compression, are used at the end
of the music production process to even out and bring together instruments
belonging to distinct music genres.
At another level, bringing in and merging genres of popular music, such as RAP,
blues and electronic dance music into a hybrid avant-garde language posed
problems of compositional balance, weight and overall coherence. This research
work also proposes a theoretical harmonic system aiming to help solve these
problems.
Although the portfolio of musical works is divided into three categories: film,
concert-hall and theatre, these definitions tend not to be very clear in regards to
performance contexts. Many of these works do not always conform to traditional
definitions and therefore can challenge traditional venue spaces and audiences’
modes of music reception. Aiming to blur some boundaries and performance

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practices between music genres and artists, the compositions presented in this
portfolio suggest live performance setups drawn from pop, film, classical, and
avant-garde music.
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Table of Contents
!
List of examples............................................................................................................ 7!
List of illustrative material.......................................................................................... 9!
Introduction ...............................................................................................................11!
Chapter 1 Research context......................................................................................15!
Chapter 2 Compositional approach ........................................................................28!

2.1 Balancing languages...................................................................................................30!
2.2 Composition cycle: equipment, processes and practices .......................................31!
Chapter 3 Features of work submitted ....................................................................35!

3.1 Concert hall .................................................................................................................35!
3.1.1 Petite Serenade for Guitar Trio: sound production for film and concert-hall
(2009) ...............................................................................................................................................35!
3.1.2 Bagatella for piano n.1a and n.1b (2010-12)............................................................40!
3.1.3 Four Poems in Search of a Music Play (2011) ........................................................47!
3.1.4 Earth is Home: music for a fictional documentary (2011) ..................................56!
3.2 Film................................................................................................................................63!
3.2.1 EVOL (2008) ......................................................................................................................63!
3.2.2 Bricks (2010).......................................................................................................................65!
3.2.3 Mem (2011) .........................................................................................................................69!
3.2.4 GTR Suite for violin, clarinet, piano and other North American Western
sounds (2013).................................................................................................................................76!
3.2.5 Two television commercials: Acura and Pedigree (2012) ...................................85!
3.3 Stage ..............................................................................................................................88!
3.3.1 Dracula (2008)....................................................................................................................88!
3.3.2 Hamlet (2009).....................................................................................................................91!
3.3.3 Life is Getting Better (2011)..........................................................................................94!
Chapter 4 Conclusions ..............................................................................................99!
Appendices............................................................................................................... 109!
Bibliography............................................................................................................ 122!
Audiovisual sources ............................................................................................... 124!

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List of examples
Ex.1 – Petite Sérénade for guitar trio: sound production for film and concert
hall – PERFORMANCE SETUP…………........………………………………32
hall – RACKS OF EFFECTS…..……………….………………………………32
hall – AUTOMATED PARAMETERS IN MVT 2.…..………..………………33
hall – LOGIC’S SEQUENCER LAYOUT…...…….…………………………..34
hall – WAVE’S RACK OF PEDAL EFFECTS..…..………………...…………34
hall – THREE MVTS IN COLOURS…………………………………………..35
Ex.7 – Bagatella for piano n.1a and n.1b – VSL’S VEP 4…………………….38
Ex.8 – Bagatella for piano n.1a and n.1b – LOGIC’S MIXER FOR
BAGATELLA 1B…………………...……………………………………....….39
Ex.9 – Bagatella for piano n.1a and n.1b – HYPER-MULTI-INSTRUMENT 2

AND ITS MIXER….........……………...……………………………………….40
Ex.10 – Bagatella for piano n.1a and n.1b – MVT 1 MAIN MOTIF………….41
Ex.11 – Bagatella for piano n.1a and n.1b – VSL’S VEP KEY RANGE….….43
Ex.12 – Four Poems in Search of a Music Play – SETUP……………………..46
Ex.13 – Four Poems in Search of a Music Play – II ‘MESSAGE’………...…..48
Ex.14 – Four Poems in Search of a Music Play – SEMIQUAVER MOTOR IN

III, ‘AMERICAN FOOTBALL’…………………......………………………....49
Ex.15 – Four Poems in Search of a Music Play – REVERB SETTINGS……...52
Ex.16 – Four Poems in Search of a Music Play – LOGIC’S MIXER……..…...52
Ex.17 – Earth is Home: music for a fictional documentary – MVT 1, THREE

LAYERS………………………………………………………….……………..56
Ex.18 – Earth is Home: music for a fictional documentary – MVT 2…..……...58

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Ex.19 – Earth is Home: music for a fictional documentary – MVT 3…..……...59
Ex.20 – Mem – LOGIC’S SEQUENCER WITH ‘MARKERS’……….……….67
Ex.21 – Mem – CLARINET PART IN SIBELIUS WITH ‘HIT’ POINTS….....68
Ex.22 – Mem – CLARINET’S MAIN MOTIF…………………..………..........69
Ex.23 – Mem – EVOLVE’S MULTI ……………………………….….…........70
Ex.24 – Mem – CLARINET’S NOTATED PART……………...……….…….71
Ex.25 – Mem – CLARINET, PIANO ROLL…...…………...…….………........72
Ex.26 – Mem – OMNISPHERE ‘ELECTRO BOW PATCH PIANO ROLL….72
Ex.27 – GTR Suite – MARKERS VISUAL LAYOUT………………………...75
Ex.28 – GTR Suite – LOGIC’S BLANK ARRANGEMENT…………..……....76
Ex.29 – GTR Suite – SIBELIUS BLANK SCORE…..………………….……...76
Ex.30 – GTR Suite – MINUET PATTERN…………..………………………...78
Ex.31 – GTR Suite – BOURRÉ PATTERN…………..……………............…...79
Ex.32 – GTR Suite – LOGIC’S SCORE EDITOR FOR THE 4/4

SARABANDE…………………………………………………………………..79
Ex.33 – GTR Suite – TARANTELLA PATTERN……...……………………...81
Ex.34 – Acura commercial – REVERSED REVERB…………..……………...82
Ex.35 – Acura commercial – TAPE DELAY……….…………..……………...83
Ex.36 – Hamlet – COURT FANFARE CUES’ ‘RHYTHM SECTION’…..…..89
Ex.37 – Hamlet – ‘THERE’S A WILLOW’ CADENCE…..………………......90
Ex.38 – Life is Getting Better – MIDI AND AUDIO DATA REGIONS….…...94
Ex.39 – Life is Getting Better – TAILING OF THE THREE SCENES….…….95
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List of illustrative material
CD Recordings
CD 1 Works for Concert Hall (Audio)

1. Petite Sérénade for guitar trio: sound production for film and concert hall
- 6’52’’ (2009)
2. Bagatella no.1a for solo piano - 8’06’’ (2010)
3. Bagatella no.1b for solo piano - 8’13’’ (2012)
4 – 10. Four Poems in Search of a Music Play - 10’30’’ (2011)
11 Earth is Home: Music for a fictional documentary - 10’34’’ (2011)
CD 2 Works for film (Audio only)
1. EVOL - 5’03’’ (2008)

2. Bricks - 2’43’’ (2010)
3. Mem - 2’01’’ (2011)
4. GTR Suite - 11’54’’ (2013)
5. Acura - 30’’ NO voice over 37’’ (2012)
6. Acura - 30’’ Voice over 37’’ (2012)
7. Pedigree - 37’’ (2012)
8. The Mousetrap (part of ‘Hamlet’) – 2’39’’ (2009)
CD 3 Works for Stage (Audio only)

1-37. Dracula - 10’ (2008)
38-72. Hamlet - 8’ (2009)
73. Life is getting better - 11’45’’ (2011)
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DVD’s
DVD 1 Works for film
1. Evol (2008)
2. Bricks (2010)
3. Mem (2011)
4. GTR Suite (2013)
5. Acura (2012)
6. Pedigree Jingle (2012)
7. The Mousetrap (part of ‘Hamlet’) (2009)
DVD 2 Dracula (Video)
DVD 3 Hamlet (Video)
Printed Scores I
1. Petite Sérénade for guitar trio: sound production for film and concert-hall
2. Bagatella no.1a & b
3. Four Poems in Search of a Music Play
4. Earth is Home: music for a fictional documentary
5. Bricks
6. Mem
Printed Scores II
1. EVOL
2. Pedigree
3. Dracula
4. Hamlet (with ‘The Mousetrap’)
5. Life is getting better
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Introduction
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The aim of this commentary is to present my creative work in the field of cross-
genre composition, which was largely explored by borrowing elements and
practices from film and pop music genres, in order to create fresh dramatic
effects in my own compositions.
I shall begin by defining the key fields and main concepts that formed the basis
of my research work as well as providing a brief overview of my PhD career. In
the following chapters I will present my compositions as well as address the
issues behind my compositional approach.
The fields of commercial film music and cross-genre composition are the two
main fields in which this research project is based. Commercial film music is
largely defined by an institutionalized industry in which virtually every music
genre and style becomes an available product to serve the dramatic intent of the
film. Composers of original film music scores usually work to briefings from
directors and/or producers with clear instructions on the music style/genre to
employ, function of the music and specific timings. Composers are given
temporary music tracks for composing reference, have quick turnarounds and
ultimately their music has to be accepted by the film studios and film directors
which have in mind the overall interplay between the image, music, sound
effects and dialogue as a final successful commercial product1. Composers
working under this framework (as will be shown in chapter 1) recur to work
methods, practices and approaches like using music sequencers to spot for music,
produce mock-ups with virtual instruments or using studio sound production
techniques to blend in different music genres.
The field of cross-genre composition is mainly characterized by artists and

composers who deliberately set out the intention of employing and mixing
different music genres in their concert-oriented compositions thus producing
hybrid, ‘genre-blurred’, music works. As will also be shown in chapter 1,
although these composers come from the fields of classical avant-garde, pop or
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1
[Rona, Jeff, ‘The Reel World, scoring for pictures’ (San Francisco, Miller Freeman Books,
2000), p.187]
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jazz, their music displays formal, instrumental, harmonic, formal, textural or
technological elements that are borrowed and/or result from cross-pollinating
processes between music genres. These artists/composers’ work also challenge
performance contexts (venues and audiences) by pushing the boundaries between
music genres2.
Thus, as will be demonstrated in the next chapter, this research work departs
from the standpoint that the deliberate employment and/or mix of different music
genres exist, in a self-contained manner, in both fields of commercial film music
and concert-oriented cross-genre composition. Furthermore, it also takes into
consideration the difference between image-driven compositions (functional
music) and concert-driven (absolute music) compositions. In that sense, this
research work aims to put together the practices, working methods, approaches
and procedures behind the production of commercial film music with the
compositional principles set behind the production of concert-oriented works.
The main issues raised by the interaction of these two fields manifested
themselves into three main levels: i) the methodologies, traditions, set of skills,
tools and approaches relevant to the composition and production of commercial
film, pop and concert music presented initial differences, often producing
borders between these music genres; ii) lack of inner consistency of musical
language, since blending in a broader eclecticism of music genres applied either
to film or concert compositions led to problems of balance between musical
languages, namely in terms of harmonic language, form, and instrumentation;
and iii) autonomy of the compositions with and without the connection to film:
while concert music is driven by its inner structure, film music relies on the
visuals as the main driving force media.
Challenged by these concerns, this research project addresses these problems by

i) searching for, and exploring new and shared grounds between these fields,
either in terms of compositional techniques, practices, procedures and
technological tools; ii) borrowing and blending in elements from film, pop, and
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2!Nico Muhly’s work Planetarium mixes pop songs and pop band elements with avant-garde
music in the multimedia show at the Disney Hall in Los Angeles.

Muhly, Nico http://www.laphil.com/tickets/planetarium-sufjan-stevens-bryce-dessner-nico-
muhly/2013-04-22. Accessed on 03/05/2013
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classical avant-garde music into each composition; iii) proposing and making use
of a harmonic system in the majority of the presented compositions that aims to
provide inner consistency to in blending in diverse musical languages; iv) by
firmly grounding each composition (image and non-image related) in a classical
avant-garde structured manner; v) subsequently proposing methodological
frameworks that can be applied to future compositions.
At the beginning of my postgraduate research project, in January 2008, I was

interested in seeking and forging new links between film music, sound
production, and contemporary music. It was at a stage of active experimentation
in which I was mainly discovering music technology as an expressive means to
expand the sound palette of a composition3 much in the same manner as it is used
in recent commercial film scores4.
I started to have my initial contact with today’s virtual instrument sample

libraries and to further my knowledge in the use of the sequencers, especially
Logic, MIDI programming and music mixing. I also began my early cross-genre
explorations by scoring short film clips covering animation, silent film and
advertisements, of which Evol is included in the music portfolio as an early
example of my research work.
At the end of 2008 I engaged in my first collaboration with the Portuguese-based

English theatre company The Lisbon Players, for the work Dracula in which I
had my initial experience producing my first work employing these recently
acquired skills in music technology in a live performance context.
In 2009-2010, I became increasingly interested in the eclectic use of music

genres in film. I realized that modern film music composers like Alexandre
Desplat or Trevor Morris5 not only borrowed and mixed elements from several
music genres in their film works, but also they were able to achieve immensely
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3
I was particularly influenced by Brian Lock’s paper ‘Creative Production for Classical Music’.
The author discusses this and other relevant aspects of sound production for screen. [Westfocus
seminar, London, 2006]
4
An illustrative example to this particular use music technology is Thomas Newman’s
soundtrack for Brad Silberling’s film Lemony Snicket’s: A series of unfortunate events, (2004)
‘Chez Olaf’ music cue. [N, Thomas: Lemony Snicket’s: A series of unfortunate events, 2004 [CD]
track 2]
5
These composers will be addressed in chapter 1, ‘Research context’.!
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effective results through music technology and sound production techniques. At
the same time, film music also led me to gain closer insights into other elements
and practices of music genres outside film music. For instance, the works of
composer Nico Muhly, electronic dance music artist Aphex Twin or pop music
bands such as Muse6 were not only inspirational in my work, they made me more
consciously aware of the common grounds between these music genres and film
music, particularly in terms of their use of music technology, as will be further
explained in this commentary.
From 2011 to 2013 I composed the main compositions of my research work:

Four Poems in Search of a Music Play, Bagatella n.1b, Earth is Home, GTR
Suite. These compositions furthered the ‘hybridization’ of music genres derived
from pop, film and concert music.
In chapter 1, I shall discuss the research context of my work, with a view to

clarifying the main fields and the chief composers that exerted influence in my
work. Chapter 2 will provide an explanation of my compositional approach,
methods and practices. This chapter will also describe critically common features
that run across my portfolio of musical works and explain the principles behind
the development of my harmonic system. Following on from that, chapter 3 will
refer to the features of my compositional work. For the purpose of trying to
provide some clarity to the material this chapter is divided into categories (Film,
Concert-hall, Theatre), although musically and stylistically these may be blurred
much of the time. Some works have required a more in-depth discussion while
others are more obvious and required less analysis and discussion. Finally,
Chapter 4 will present the main conclusions of my research.
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6
Ibid.
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Chapter 1 Research context
!
In my PhD work I came across examples of musical works which were a source
of inspiration and proved essential in defining paths in my own research.
Composers of these works come from different fields of music production: film,
classical avant-garde, jazz and pop. I shall discuss some of these composer’s
works in their fields, aiming to account for their relevance to the methods and
aims of this project.
Film music influences: cross-genre approach, tools, dramatic intent, and sound
production techniques
Film music can encompass a wide range of genres, from the Hollywood
traditional orchestral scores influenced by late romanticism composers
Korngold7, John Williams’s ‘new symphonism’8, to more independent,
experimental scoring approaches such as the work of composers Georges
Delerue and Antoine Duhamel in Jean Luc Godard’s ‘Nouvelle Vague’ films9.
However, for the purposes of my research work I was mostly interested in the
broader eclecticism of music genres, compositional tools, practices and
procedures that permeate through commercial film music today10, as can be
heard, for example, in Thomas Newman’s score for the film The Adjustment
Bureau (2011).11 In fact, commercial films tend to use a wider diversity of music
genres’ interaction in order to cater for wider audiences, and so this has led to a
number of different approaches in film scoring. On one hand, it has either
stimulated collaborations between composers, or perhaps, more importantly to
my own research work, it has compelled composers to create music out of their
comfort zone. For example, the animated film Wreck-it Ralph (2012) required
collaboration between electronic dance music artist Skrillex and classically
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7
Cooke, Mervyn. ‘A History of Film Music’ (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 3rd ed.,
2010),
p. 93
8
Ibid., p. 456
9
Ibid., p. 321!
10
Ibid., p. 489
11
In this album, the cue ‘Elise’, mixes orchestral, electronic soundscapes, ethnic and electronic
dance music elements by recurring to the use of music technology and sound production
techniques. [Newman, Thomas: The Adjustment Bureau (2011), [CD] track 3]
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trained composer Henry Jackman, in order to meet the necessary electronic
music requirements of this film’s original score, while the film Coraline (2009)
asked of Bruno Coulais to compose songs influenced by pop music as well as to
create the orchestral score. On the other hand, films such as Scott Pilgrim Vs. the
World (2010) or Breaking the Waves (1996) featured only pop songs by different
authors as underscore (or non-diegetic) music, an approach to film scoring
explained by K.J. Donnelly as ‘the composite film score’12, which can be seen, as
the author explains, as composing with music genres. Thus, and taking these
approaches into consideration, the gathering and mix of music genres (which is
the central idea of this research project) already exists, to a certain extent, in
commercial film music.
While these approaches to film scoring inspired me to explore the use of music
genres for dramatic effect in my compositions – either by mixing several music
genres’ elements by experimenting out of my comfort zone (in works such as
Bricks), or by placing genres side by side (Evol, and in Bagatella 1a and b
discussed in chapter 3) - it was mostly important to my research work the
techniques, tools, methods and practices employed by commercial film
composers to produce their film scores. Therefore, some film music
composers’13 work was very influential in my research project, since their
compositions - though within the scope of film scoring (image-related) - not only
display an interesting approach to cross-genre composition, but also present
interesting features that I came to apply and develop as methodological
frameworks in my work.
The main title theme cue14 for the television series The Borgias (2011) by Trevor
Morris provides quite a good case of these procedures. Based on a very short
classically influenced ABA cue form and on a simple tonal/modal harmonic
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12
Donnelly, K. J. 'Analytical and Interpretive Approaches to Film Music (II): Performance and
the Composite Film Score' in Donnelly, K. J. (ed). Film Music: Critical Approaches (Edinburgh,
Edinburgh University Press, 2001), p.155
13
I must clarify that ‘film music composers’ will here on be applied to composers that work
mainly for commercial film and television, not including those involved in experimental video art
or those artists exploring relationships between video and music, either recurring to traditional
acoustic instruments or using real-time electronics such as Max-MSP.
14
A piece of music set in film. [Davis, Richard. ‘Complete Guide to Film Scoring’ (Boston,
Berklee Press, 1999), p. 81]
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progression (a very common feature in film and pop music today), it displays a
mix of an orchestral ostinato in the strings and the woodwind sections, followed
by entrances of plucked period instruments mixed with modern guitars, plus a
mock medieval choir15. The evocative nature of using some specific period-
related referential sounds and styles like this, as well as the dramatic possibilities
they also conjure up has become of central importance to my own composition
over the course of the research project. Similarly, the availability of large
collections of sampled instruments tools which are usually employed by film
composers to provide film scores mock-ups to directors for cue’s approval
provide an accessible and resourceful way to incorporate and experiment with
these and other cross-genre referential sounds into any given composition.
Another important aspect is that the performance of this main title cue would be
almost impossible in concert hall, unless it involved amplification of some of the
instruments, as well as modulation effects, such as the use of delays on guitars.
The sound production of this cue for screen (or CD) is a fundamental element
that allows this cue to be ‘wrapped’ in a type of sound that clearly belongs to pop
music, despite featuring classical and period instruments. As with the virtual
sampled instruments, these sorts of sound production techniques, derived from
film music practices, have become a widespread methodological approach to the
composition of my portfolio works. For example, in one of my earlier research
works Petite Serenade for guitar trio: sound production for screen and concert-
hall similar related sound production techniques were employed, though subject
to real-time manipulation in a live performance context, whereas in the work
GTR Suite, sampled virtual instruments’ sounds of North American western-like
instruments were employed as background elements in the composition to evoke
the western film genre.
Some film music works by Alexandre Desplat show relevant compositional

devices, genre-mixing concepts and sound production techniques that were also
influential in this research work. In the Tony meets Bill cue,16 from his music
score for the television film The special relationship (2010), Desplat uses timbre
as a device to blend in different music genres. The composers’ technical
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15
Film music scores are extremely difficult to access, usually not published for public access.
Therefore my analysis was based on my listening experience of this work.
16
Desplat, Alexandre: The Special Relationship (2010), [CD] track 1.
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approach is to orchestrate the same basic motive groove several times, but
instead of orchestrating for the traditional orchestra forces, he rather orchestrates
by borrowing instruments from other music genres. In fact, instruments that are
traditionally employed in classical music, like the timpani, harp or glockenspiel
are, in Tony meets Bill cue, mixed with vibes, electric guitars, keyboards,
saxophones and upright and electric basses. These technical devices were
adopted as methodological approach to the composition of this portfolio’s stage
work Life is getting Better.
Desplat’s cue Traffic for the film A better life17 reveals two interconnect aspects
that I also found of paramount importance to my work. The first aspect is that
this cue introduces and employs its instrumental forces in two related layers,
which are meant to produce a textural soundscape18: one layer, consisting of
electronic looped synthesizer sounds mixed with driving rhythms conveyed by
electronic and acoustic drum kits, strings, brass, guitars, and harp; the second
layer, lyrical legato string phrases. The second aspect refers to the sound
production techniques used to handle the listening perception of these layers: as a
matter of fact, sometimes it is not at all easy to tell the difference between
compositional foreground and background in Traffic. The progressive layering of
sounds that initially focuses the attention of the listener is pushed to the
background, becoming textural and ambient after some time in this recording.
This points out to the use of mixing techniques, like automation, panning and
equalization, which were employed to either push back or bring sounds closer in
the mix. Not only these techniques can be seen as establishing an orchestration
parallel with traditional orchestration techniques19 but they also provided an
important methodological approach to the composition and production of the
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17
Desplat, Alexandre: A better life (2011), [CD] track 10.
18
The term soundscape I use throughout the commentary is (unless specified otherwise) not
intended to be confused with John Cage’s Imaginary Landscapes or derived from the works by
Pierre Shaeffer’s (Traité des Objets Musicaux) and Bernard Parmegiani (De Natura Sonorum)
which address, amongst other subjects, musique concrète and electro acoustic manipulation.
Instead, I use this term to embody the use of electronics in pop music that started in the 1960’s
such as, for example, the use of the theremin by the band The Beach Boys. Similarly, I employ
this term to designate textures produced by software synthesizers like Native Instruments’
Reaktor, Traktor, Massive and sample libraries which form the instrumental basis of artists like
Tim Exile and Aphex Twin, and film composers like Steve Jablonsky. More of this will be
discussed in the next chapters. (See list of bibliographical and listening references)!
19!Adler, Samuel. ‘The study of orchestration’ 2nd ed. (New York, W. W. Norton & Company,
April 1989), p. 467
! 18!
majority of my compositions, especially with regards to their final CD delivery
format. As will be further explained in the next chapters, these studio/sound
production techniques become an inseparable part of the compositional process.
The film music work of composer Alberto Iglesias revealed important to my

project mostly due to the successful compromise between avant-garde and
commercial music idioms showed in his film music as a result from his long-
standing collaboration with art-film director Pedro Almodóvar20. Given that the
concerns to find a balance between art music and commercial film or pop music
languages run across my portfolio of compositions, some of this composer’s
work suggest approaches to address theses issues either at technical and
conceptual levels, that I have implemented in my research project. For example,
Alberto Iglesias’s cue El Asalto Del Hombre Tigre21 for the film The skin I live
in (2011) employs a medium sized orchestra, as well as electronics to create
ambient textures and driving rhythms. Electronic sounds blend in with the string
section using instrumental effects techniques as resources to making it difficult to
tell the difference between electronic and acoustic sound sources, a particular
device I also explore in some of my works22. In this work, and others in general,
Iglesias uses technology to expand the sound palette of the orchestra, while
preserving the orchestra’s sound in a natural environment23. Furthermore,
Iglesias makes use of retro-synthesizers, arpeggiators, samplers and other pop
music instruments across most of his works blurring the music’s genre
definitions. I came to pay special attention to these procedures with a view to a
systematic production of backing tracks (a common practice in film and pop
music) as one of the essential methodologies to blend in music genres and to
provide performance flexibility, as shall be discussed in chapter 3. At a more
conceptual level, Alberto Iglesias’s attitude as a composer is one I find myself
very close to. It is as if he borrows omnivorously everything from everywhere to
express himself through his music, from tradition to innovation. As authors
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20!Vernon, Kathleen M. and Eisen, Cliff. ‘Contemporary Spanish Film Music: Carlos Saura and
Pedro Almodóvar’ in Mera, Miguel and Burnand, David (ed). ‘European Film Music’ (England,
Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2006), p.51!
21!Iglesias, Alberto: The skin I live in (2011), [CD] track 5.
22!Clarinet multiphonics in Mem, and violins’ harmonics in Bricks.
23!By ‘natural’ I mean without any technological intervention, except for the microphones used
in the recording process.
! 19!
Kathleen M. Vernon and Cliff Eisen claim: “For Iglesias…, the issue is not to
gain access to the mainstream European avant-garde and its newer currents –
that inheritance is already part of their musical formation – but to open avant-
garde practices to popular, ‘contemporary’ influences. And cinema offers a
means to do so, as Iglesias observes: ‘ Twenty years ago, the avant-garde
composer’s path was closed with respect to [popular] music. That attitude is
impossible now….Cinema can take you to regions you hadn’t thought of; we live
a kind of polystylistics and a string quartet can have rhythm and blues influences
without having to disguise itself as rock.’”24 I not only largely subscribe to
Alberto’s Iglesias’s views that the evocative nature of film music (due to its
relation to the visual) leads composers to explore all sorts of combinations of
music styles, but also that in terms of dramatic effect, the uniqueness of each
music genre’s intrinsic features makes it almost impossible for a music genre to
replace another.
Classical avant-garde: cross-genre approach, compositional consistency of non-

image related works
Whereas composers in the field of commercial film music suggested practices,

procedures and music technological frameworks to explore cross-genre
composition, cross-genre practices outside film music were as central to my
research work: while commercial film music relies on the visuals as the main
driving media, concert music, on the contrary, relies entirely on its structural and
compositional grounds as an autonomous art form. Looking at how cross-genre
composition was explored within the context of concert hall works stressed the
importance of developing coherence in the fabric of the composition so that
music could still be consistent with or without its relation to the visuals.
Historically, I am very conscious that borrowing elements from different styles

to create a unique musical identity or music work is not new to classical music.
For example, to name some very obvious pieces, jazz has influenced the music
works of George Gershwin (Rhapsody in Blue), as well as folk elements the
music of Bela Bartók (Tanz Suite, Sz. 77), and ragtime that of Eric Satie’s
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24! Vernon, Kathleen M. and Eisen, Cliff. ‘Contemporary Spanish Film Music: Carlos Saura and
Pedro Almodóvar’ in Mera, Miguel and Burnand, David (ed). ‘European Film Music’ (England,
Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2006), p.51
! 20!
Parade. However, in today’s different musical world, I have been interested in
the music of composers who bring to the concert hall a mix of classical tradition
and innovation, in terms of compositional practices, use of music technology,
openness to other music genres and styles.
For example, the three-part work Mothertongue composed by Nico Muhly25

displays a very interesting array of borrowed elements and techniques from
avant-garde classical music styles and other music genres, such as period music
and country music. What stands out as being relevant to my project is the highly
successful compositional coherence in dealing with many different sound sources
and instruments throughout this work. Mothertongue achieves this by employing
avant-garde compositional techniques and procedures like repetitive (drone or
minimalistic-based) patterns with variation, making extensive use electroacoustic
sound manipulation combined with the recording of live instruments. In the first
part of this work I find particularly successful other compositional techniques
such as the counterpoint of layered textures created by the juxtaposition of
eclectic sound sources: loops of women’s voices reciting a text are set against an
aggressive synthesized bass and lyrical strings in the background.
Indeed, mixing timbre elements from different music genres stands out to me as
one of the most important compositional elements: later introduced in this track,
the harp, oboe and pianos add color to the overall sound palette. Part I unfolds
around the voice, while the other elements tend to be coloring and
complementing the electroacoustic voice manipulation: grooves, raw synthesizer
waveforms, keyboard, celesta, harp and sound effects, all of these build a
coherent textural soundscape26 as the work progresses. Another aspect I found
particularly important in this piece is that the mixing stage of this concert hall
work plays an inherent part of the creative compositional process (as it does in
the above mentioned film music cues): the sound sources are leveled, panned and
processed in order to allow room to sit well in the final mix. I was to pay similar
attention to this aspect when applying these concepts to achieve timbre balance
in my concert work Bagatella for piano n.1b, in which a single piano (MIDI
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25
Muhly, Nico: Mothertongue (2008), [CD]
26
In this case, the term soundscape is employed in relation to the above-mentioned works of
Pierre Schaeffer, due to electro acoustic tape manipulation techniques commonly used in musique
concrète.
! 21!
keyboard) triggers layers of compound sounds in real-time performance, as a
solo instrument.
The second part Wonders, and third part The Only Tune from Nico Muhly’s
Mothertongue also displays interesting features of successful cross-genre
composition. In Wonders, I would highlight as influential to the methods applied
in my stage work Hamlet (where I systematically blend in period music,
electronics and jazz), the inclusion and metamorphosis of a fifteen-century’s
English tune with keyboard (harpsichord) accompaniment across the piece mixed
with compositional devices and instruments which include electroacoustic sound
manipulation, avant-garde harmonic language, harp, bass and trombone. The
eclecticism of The Only Tune also integrates elements from avant-garde and
North American country music which are dealt with some compositional
techniques such as loop patterns (in this case withdrawing layers of sounds while
adding a syllable to the voice at each recurrence of a loop) or shifting harmonies
– from atonal to tonal. These techniques contribute to smoothen the transition
from one music genre to the other as well as to provide more consistency to the
compositional language27.
The Concerto for Turntables and Orchestra by Gabriel Prokofiev was also an
important reference in cross-genre composition in terms of consistency of
language, cross-fertilization between avant-garde and electronic dance music
genres and technological intervention. This Concerto pointed to directions that
were to be methodologically applied into my compositions as procedures to bring
in different music genres: practices imported from outside avant-garde music
convey through the technological intervention (use of samples, p.a. systems
and/or backing tracks); matters of weight between music genres within any given
composition; the importance of developing a harmonic system so as to maintain
an overall coherence of language.
In this work, I thoroughly and particularly found effective the orchestral writing
that borrows and integrates hip-hop rhythmic patterns (grooves) as the basis for
the further development of the compositional material. This material, through the
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27!Despite the score unavailability, information can be found at
http://www.musicsalesclassical.com/composer/work/3071/47804. Accessed on 10/03/13.!

! 22!
resource to contemporary electronic dance music practices, is further
manipulated and reverse real-time sampling orchestra played at different speeds
by the DJ at the turntables28. The sampled (recorded) orchestra is consequently
fed back into the concert hall performance through the routing of mixing desk
and p.a. systems which balance the interaction with the live orchestra. Music
technology derived from dance music artists’ performances plays an extremely
important part in this process. Another important feature of this Concerto to my
research work is that the leading role weight is put on the DJ side (pop music)
although the dialogue between soloist and orchestra follows traditional concerto
practices. Furthermore, the turntables reveal itself as a powerfully expressive
instrument: the DJ was not only performing rhythmic motifs featured in the score
by scratching the turntable, but also modulating pitch and volume, thus acting
like for example a solo violin. Although the harmonic language employed in this
Concerto displays suggestions of jazz and textural music (string gestures
reminiscent of Penderecki’s textural music), its overall polychord structures
sound as though Gabriel Prokofiev was greatly influenced by neo-classical
composers like Stravinsky or Prokofiev. Apparently, this virtually overt
borrowing could have risked sounding a bit old-fashioned. However, I believe
otherwise that this type of harmonic language essentially gives this concerto a
more ‘classical’ weight and contour thus helping to successfully balance music
genres from within the fabric of the compositional language.
Musical works such as Steve Reich’s Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and
Organ29 and Philip Glass’s Heroes Symphony30 were influential for their
minimalistic compositional techniques, specifically the use of repetition.
Minimalistic music style and their authors are a constant in the fields of concert
and film music, in fact making an interesting crossover from both fields31. I have
decided that adopting similar compositional procedures in my research would be
very effective, since the seamless, slow development of motifs in minimalistic
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28!Artist Tim Exile can be seen applying similar sound manipulation techniques to a full
orchestra. Exile, Tim http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKwkuiyrEeU – Accessed on 20/11/13.!

29
Reich, Steve: Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ, 1990 [CD]!
30
Glass, Philip: Heroes Symphony, 1997 [CD]
31!Both!Michael Nyman’s score for Peter Greenaway’s film The Draughtsman’s Contract and his
Piano concerto as well as Philip Glass’s score for Neil Burger’s film The illusionist and his opera
Einstein on the Beach provide quite a good example of a cohesive work - in terms of minimalistic
music style - both in film and concert hall (see list of audiovisual references).!
! 23!
music is not only highly coherent in terms of composition language but it also
adapts very well to film music situations where the music ‘washes-over’, without
attracting attention to itself, any given film scene. This principle was
methodically explored in my work Earth is Home - music for a fictional
documentary since it enabled the telling of a story recurring mostly to ambiences,
as hard syncing with the visuals (hitting the action closely) in a ‘virtual film’
would not be important.
Brian Eno’s Ambient Music albums, volume I – IV32 had a huge contextual
influence in concert and film music too. The atmospheric character of Ambient
Music 2/ The Plateaux of Mirror33, fits perfectly in modern film, and I believe it
also opened doors to scores for such films as Blade Runner (1982)34 Moon
(2009)35 or Traffic (2000)36. It displays a creative use of reverberation and
equalization techniques to create space and depth in the mix, applied to a
classically-oriented piano playing style, thus lending an overall sense of
atmospheric element. Not only these sort of sound manipulation techniques
informed my research project, but, put in to a broader context, these rhythmic
pattern looping techniques, use of synthesizers, and manipulation of recorded
sounds are widely common resources and techniques used today amongst film,
pop, and concert cross-genre composers, even if these artists restrict their use to
their specific fields. Nevertheless, these techniques and procedures have
remained the grounds for today’s work, even though terminology has slightly
changed: the digital audio workstation (DAW) environment refers to regions (in
Logic) or clips (in Pro Tools) as either MIDI or Audio sampled data that can
either be converted or extended to loops, instead of using physical tape loops.
Thus, this all points to modern composers taking into consideration the concepts
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32!Brian!Eno states his concepts for ‘ambient music’ on the liner notes of his album Music for
Airports as "Ambient Music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention
without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting." [Eno, Brian:
Music for Airports, 2004 [CD]]. Original release of the album: Eno, Brian: Music for Airports,
1978 [Vinyl]!
33!Eno, Brian: Ambient music, Vol. 2 – Plateaux of Mirror, 2004 [CD]
34
Vangelis: Blade Runner, 1994 [CD]
35
Mansell, Clint: Moon, 2009 [CD]
36!Martinez, Cliff: Traffic, 2001 [CD]!
! 24!
proposed by Brian Eno regarding the use of the studio as a compositional tool37:
in fact, classically trained composer Jon Hopkins’s playing forces and choice of
music technology resources across his album The Insides38, for example,
combine ‘dubstep’ wobble bass sounds with piano, electronic atmospheric pads,
string sections and electronic drum kit grooves, all blended into textural and
ambient soundscapes, that can be seen as a directly related to Eno’s principles
behind the use of music technology.
Furthermore, Eno’s approach was also one of openness to a multitude of genres

(from electronics, jazz, classical avant-garde, or noise) and to their representative
authors, acknowledging pop musicians’ influence, regarding, for example, the
use of music technology. On this topic, Brian Eno stated “Studios have also
offered composers virtual spaces…by the forties, people were getting a little
more ambitious, and starting to invent technologies that could supplement these
natural spaces…but it was popular music which opened the subject up.”39
Furthermore, Eno’s background as a solo artist and producer (co-producing
recordings of Talking Heads, David Bowie, U2, Coldplay) has set a great
example of exchanging musical experiences amongst music genres.
Other influences: Pop and Jazz – common grounds in electronic music practices,
tools, procedures and approaches to cross-genre composition.
The electronic dance music works of Squarepusher, or Aphex Twin have had
quite an impact on my work as well. These artists make use of certain tools and
techniques, which I have too ‘imported’ extensively into my research
compositions: software synthesizers like Massive or FM8, the use of equalization
filters, compressors, audio-editing techniques to produce effects like reverse
build ups, and modulation effects like chorus or flangers. In these artists’ work I
find particularly appealing both Squarepusher’s or Aphex Twin’s heavy
breakbeat rhythms in their albums Ufabulum and Drukqs. The heavy syncopated
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
37! Eno, Brian. ‘Studio as a Compositional Tool’ in Cox, Christoph and Warner, Daniel (eds).
Audio Culture, Readings in Modern Music (New York-London, The Continuum International
Publishing Group Inc, 2007), p.127!
38
Hopkins, John: Insides, 2009 [CD]
39!Eno, Brian. ‘Ambient Music’ in Cox, Christoph and Warner, Daniel (eds). Audio Culture,
Readings in Modern Music (New York-London, The Continuum International Publishing Group
Inc, 2007), p.95
! 25!
rhythms in Drax 240, or 54 CymruBeats41, lend to electronic dance music
complex rhythmic structures that can be methodically integrated in avant-garde
concert music, thus giving way to fresh rhythm effects. Similarly, as mentioned
earlier, Tim Exile’s manipulation of sound sources in real-time, like sampling
and tweaking modulations, filters and panning parameters in live performance42
provided interesting procedures to be integrated in my compositions (discussed
in chapter 3).
Additionally, the band Muse, particularly the album The Resistance43 also
interested me in many ways. This album displays a similar approach to
‘composing with genres’, though it not within the context of film scoring. It
combines references to and mash-ups of music by such bands like Pet Shop Boys
(who were making extensive use of backing tracks and MIDI sequencing in the
late 80’s), The Queen, ABBA and music genres like rock, rhythm and blues, hip-
hop or 1980’s electronic dance music. The last part of the abovementioned album
(Exogenesis, Part 1-3) is a very interesting, enthralling incursion to symphonic
rock. Here, Muse incorporates many elements from classical music, like
Rachmaninoff piano concerto style, which then gives way to a pop song (Part 2 -
Cross-Pollination) accompanied by the piano that is consciously overusing
secondary dominants, with leading tone movements. The general effect is that of
a blend of classical and pop, in spite of Exogenesis being fundamentally rooted
in pop music.
Lastly, Jon Hassell’s album Maarifa Street/Magic Realism 244 provides an

excellent combination of jazz and world music genres processed through
electronic effects techniques. In the song Maarifa Street, very similar, above-
mentioned processes of technological intervention to the works of Clint Mansell,
Brian Eno or Aphex Twin are applied to the realm of jazz music. Maarifa
Street’s mix of jazz instruments with electronic soundscapes and world music
instruments was seen, in the light, of this portfolio as a fundamental
methodological approach to my stage work Life is getting better in which -
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
40!Squarepusher: Ufabulum, 2012 [CD] track 7.!
41!Twin, Aphex: Drukqs, 2012 [CD] Disc 2, track 1.!
42
Exile, Tim http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPCpxJ9U-Fw. Accessed on 04/05/13.
43
Muse: The Resistance, 2009 [CD]!
44
Hassell, Jon: Maarifa Street/ Magic Realism 2, 2005 [CD] track 2.
! 26!
though positioned in the field of classical avant-garde composition - analogous
concepts and techniques are implemented.
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Chapter 2 Compositional approach
I have largely based my creative approach to cross-genre composition on my

conception of what defines a film music composer today: openness to any genre
of music and the versatility in composing within a wide range of genres. In that
sense, I approached my PhD research work from a pragmatic, compositional, and
technological point of view. Moreover, in this respect, it should be stressed and
indeed clarified here, that concepts and definitions of genre, style, confluence or
fusion were neither the main focus of my compositions, nor critiquing subjects
that I believe should be dealt with and argued within the scope of this
accompanying commentary to my portfolio. Rather, my utmost concern was to
comment on how I have borrowed elements from several music genres in order
to produce new dramatic effects in my own compositions. Furthermore, I was
also more concerned about exploring some dramatic approaches in my
compositions, rather than focusing on a single one (for instance, electronic dance
music in contemporary composition).
In the light of all this, my criteria to decide from which music genres to borrow
were grounded in both i) the effectiveness that elements from other than
classical/ classical avant-garde genres (my background training) could bring into
a certain work - in helping to convey what I wished to communicate - and ii) my
personal preference and particular taste for certain music genres. For example, in
Four Poems in search of a Music Play, a twelve-bar blues form is employed as
laments in the interludes. Similarly, the last movement of Petite Serenade for
Guitar Trio: sound production for film and concert-hall filters three classical
guitars through rack effects processors to evoke a ‘Grunge/Metal’ aggressive
sound which can also be suited as a film score.
Furthermore, I did not borrow elements from the employed music genres in a
systematic way. I have instead decided to borrow and cross-pollinate specific
elements like timbre, rhythm or form according to the aesthetical requirements of
each composition. As a result, in some compositions form can be subtly explored
as a verse-chorus song such as in Bagatella n.1 for piano. In other compositions,
however, timbre is very upfront, as in the case of the software drum machines
and synthesizer melodic lines in the ‘hybrid’ trance composition Bricks.
! 28!
Although in the next chapter I shall be looking in detail at the many ways in
which I have explored cross-genre in my compositions, I should be perhaps
stress beforehand that I have mostly mixed elements borrowed from classical and
avant-garde styles (Baroque, Romantic or 20th Century techniques), blues,
RAP/hip-hop, jazz, world, and electronic dance music.
The more I delved into music genres, the more I became aware of the large span
of genres and subgenres in today’s music panorama. For purposes of research
work delimitation, breadth and focus, I summarized some of the fundamental
attributes of these music genres, for in so doing it truly helped me to have a
clearer insight into both commonly shared and distinct features of the musical
genres that I was to explore in my work (See appendix table A).
Some common features run across my portfolio of compositions. With the

exception of the GTR suite, in which I exclusively used the sequencer as the
compositional tool to compose the music, I have maintained the idea that all the
compositions should result in and be available as notated scores, despite the
different processes and methods employed to produce the music.
Nonetheless, the intention to produce a mainly notated portfolio was not only
rooted in my background as a classically trained composer, but also in the
deliberate intention to confer a classical music tradition ‘envelope’ to my
compositions as it were. In the same sense, I limited the room for improvisation
to a minimum, even when the tradition of some of the music genres approached
is largely based upon improvisation. Thus, the borrowed elements from jazz in
Bagatella 1b, 3rd movement, or Middle Eastern elements in Life is Getting Better,
Scene 1 and 3, are either notated or they result from previously notated audio
recordings.
Moreover, I decided to adhere to the notion that my compositions for film or

stage should be autonomously consistent and self-sufficient enough to be
performed/listened without the film or the stage play. Consequently, I believed
that to be able to successfully explore cross-genre composition I would need to
go deeper into the fabric of the composition, while exploring such other elements
as form, instrumentation or rhythm at the same time.
! 29!
2.1 Balancing languages
!
One of the main and early issues raised by my early experimental work was thus
to decide in which musical idiom to write, since music genres tend to present
specific musical languages.
Film music and pop music are largely tonal or modal in language, much in the
same way that 20th and 21st classical avant-garde music is largely atonal.45 I
understand this is, of course, an oversimplification of musical aesthetics, and I
am aware that tonal or atonal music is not solely based on the harmonic system:
form, rhythm, structure or timbre, are also some of the parametrical elements that
help defining a musical language. There are also a number of examples of these
trends being reversed between film and concert music: Jerry Goldsmith’s score
for the film Chinatown (1974)46 makes extensive use of atonal techniques,
whereas Henryk Górecki’s Symphony n.3, op. 36,47 is intrinsically modal.48And,
in pop music, for example, the band Radiohead produced remarkable albums
showing examples of exploring dissonance and textural elements.49
In terms of cross-genre language outcome, I did not wish my music to sound

either decisively pop or classical avant-garde: on the one hand, these pop and
avant-garde music genres first seemed to clash with one another, as if they were
apparently being irreconcilable; but, on the other hand, what I really wanted was
the result from this clash to produce ‘the’ hybrid idiom, in which musical
languages could be explored simultaneously whilst catering for a middle-ground
audience.
I have thus aimed to consolidate a viable harmonic system for my own

compositions, which I felt could be particularly effective in combining disparate
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45
Although I am aware of the existence of many other languages and techniques like
polytonalism, modalism, spectralism, chance music, or free aleatorism, I think atonalism,
particularly the use of dissonance was the predominant language and technique in the 20th
Century.
46
Goldsmith, Jerry: Chinatown 1974 [CD]
47
Gorecki, Henryk: Symphony n.3, op. 36 1992 [CD]
48
Although it is not within the scope of this commentary to investigate the ‘musical meaning’
and use of tonality and atonality in films, a discussion on this topics can be found in [Buher,
James and Neumeyer, David 'Analytical and Interpretive Approaches to Film Music (I):
Analysing the Music’ in Donnelly, K. J. (ed). Film Music: Critical Approaches (Edinburgh,
Edinburgh University Press, 2001), p.19
49
Radiohead: OK Computer, 1997 [CD] and The King of Limbs 2011 [CD]!
! 30!
musical languages, and which could hopefully provide a wide range of musical
expression. (An illustration of the harmonic system and some compositional
procedures can be found in the Appendix). Except for the works produced in
2008, every work uses this system, even if it is sometimes employed more freely.
2.2 Composition cycle: equipment, processes and practices

!
I sought to keep the technical approach to composing and producing the music
for film, stage and concert hall within the same technological boundaries. And to
be sure, this proved extremely useful in aiming to blur the distinction between
these categories.
I have worked both on the Macintosh and Windows platforms. My main set-up
was a single or a couple of computers (in the last case daisy-chained, working
over LAN), a MIDI keyboard, a few control surfaces and a pair of monitor
speakers.
Apple’s Logic Pro was used to sequence music for MIDI and audio editing,
movie synchronization, MIDI programming, instruments effects processing,
mixing and mastering. Avid’s Sibelius was mainly used to notate the music and
was as often as not coupled with Logic via Rewire so as to preview the interplay
between an orchestral score and non-orchestral instruments, like software
samplers and synthesizers.
I made extensive use of virtual instruments libraries that are common tools
amongst media composers and pop music artists. These virtual instruments either
use their own sample player engines, like Vienna Symphonic Library (VSL)
‘Vienna Instruments Pro’, East West Quantum Leap (EWQL)‘Play’ and
Spectrasonics ‘Omnisphere’ or, as in LA Scoring Strings (LASS), Native
Instruments’ Kontakt player.
Also, VSL and LASS were particularly important for providing sampled
orchestral instruments for the majority of my works. In addition, ‘Omnisphere’
and ‘Stylus RMX’ were used to provide sampled or electronic sound effects and
grooves. EWQL RA library provided world instrument samples, and Logic’s
EXS24 was used for different types of electric guitars and basses.
! 31!
Also relevant to producing electronic dance music was Native instrument’s
Massive, FM8 software synthesizers, Battery software drum machine and
Logic’s instruments Ultrabeat, Sculpture and FM1.
In terms of mixing and mastering plug-ins, I have used Logic’s, Waves, BBE,
FabFilter and Vienna Suite plug-ins, which were also employed for instrumental
effects. Vienna Ensemble Pro 4 was used to work over LAN as well as to enable
to construct complex multi-instruments involving 3rd party plug-ins.
I did not use external audio sound sources in my works, except when these
sources resulted from recording live players (Petite Serenade for Guitar Trio:
Sound production for film and concert hall, Bricks, Four Poems in Search of a
Music Play, Life is Getting Better, and Earth is Home).
Although every piece was different in its genesis, the process of producing the
music often consisted in either one, or a combination of the following methods:
i) Developing the composition in Sibelius (for parts involving notation,) then

either exporting as MIDI file to Logic for MIDI programming. If it were not
exporting from a MIDI file, I would play in every part at the MIDI keyboard, and
therefore sequencing. In Logic, I would filter undesired MIDI controller events
(CC’s) from Sibelius and program my own. These included Expression (CC11),
Modulation (CC1), and Panning (CC10). Sibelius was also used to edit and
extract parts for live performance.
ii) Using Logic to sketch out electronic parts and preview sounds. When
composing for film, Logic was used to determine hit points (as markers), tempo
maps and metric changes in the music. In this case, I would export a MIDI file
from Logic to Sibelius. In Sibelius, I would set the MIDI importing preferences
to import Logic’s markers as ‘Hit points’, which would then allow me to have
absolute synchronization with the picture in Sibelius. If there were instrumental
parts involved that I had longed to import to Sibelius, I would need to use a
100% Quantization in Logic in order to display a ‘clean’ notated score in
Sibelius.
iii) In the case of hybrid scores (combination of samples or synthesized sounds

with live recordings), the methods would be: producing a complete mock-up of
! 32!
the full score, extracting the parts for the live players in Sibelius, recording the
players with a click-track and a backing track playing through headphones. I
would then edit each take and create a composite track with the best takes. The
process would end by re-mixing with the full score, therefore replacing the
mocked-up parts with the live instrument. The recorded part of a live player
could also be used for further audio manipulation, as will be described in the
stage work Life is Getting Better.
Nevertheless, a great deal of this work involved experimenting with which

method best suited each work. For example, in Bricks, I deemed it very
appropriate to start in Logic as I could try grooves and synthesizers sounds like
Ultrabeat or FM1, sync with the picture, re-meter and move on to compose the
violin parts in Sibelius. On the other hand , in Bagatella n.1, starting in Sibelius
enabled me to compose the piano score (Bagatella 1a), and to be only concerned
with the multi-timbral sound production in Logic after importing the MIDI file
from Sibelius (Bagatella 1b).
After composing, editing and/or programming, Logic was invariably used as the
final tool for mixing the music. Special attention was paid to this process. As
will be shown in more detail in the next chapter, through the mixing process it
was possible to create virtual spaces, place instruments and sounds in the stereo
field, balance them, and equalize them. Indeed, mixing became an important part
of the compositional process in works like Life is Getting Better, and Four
Poems in Search of a Music Play.
Nevertheless, despite my initial conceptual idea of what a composition ‘work’

should be, there was always ample room for experimentation. And, the above-
mentioned sample libraries and software synthesizers do allow film composers to
create very realistic orchestral emulations and combine instruments and sounds
from virtually any genre of music.
Although each sample library and software synthesizer required an extended

(often ostensible) knowledge of their operational potential, namely their
proprietary engines, it was not my purpose to create any sound from scratch.
Instead I decided to take advantage of the sounds provided in the presets of
synthesizers and sample libraries as starting points. I would then tweak these
! 33!
sounds, for example, by using high/ low pass filters, cut the attacks of
instruments, reverse reverb impulse responses, increase pre-delay time, or
employ other techniques until I obtained the sound quality I desired. Therefore,
instead of creating a wobble bass sound from scratch I would, for instance,
choose a preset, tweak the rate and frequency values and blend it with other
instrument’s sounds.
I have now reason to believe that what the contemporary composer or sound
artist has available to produce music today is an ever-growing expanded version
of Brian Eno’s concepts outlined and actually somewhat foreseen in the ‘Studio
as a compositional tool’.50 Due to the recent technological advancements and to
the availability of large sampled libraries, the composer has at his/her disposal, a
larger amount of resources. In fact, developers of modern software sample
libraries seem to have departed from the pioneering work of Theremin, Varese,
Cage, Eno, or Pierre Schaeffer in allowing modern day composers to easily
integrate sound effects, atmospheric pads and/or drum loops as much as
orchestral instruments into their own compositions. Furthermore, the composer
might wish to be responsible not only for the concept of the music (thus
composing and ‘engraving’ the music via a sequencer or notation), but also to
integrate all parts of the music production cycle as part of the compositional
process (i.e. recording, over dubbing, editing, comping, sequencing,
programming, mixing and mastering) The presented work Four Poems in Search
of a Music Play is a good example of how I have embraced this approach.
!
!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
50!Eno, Brian. ‘Studio as a Compositional Tool’ in Cox, Christoph and Warner, Daniel (eds).
Audio Culture, Readings in Modern Music (New York-London, The Continuum International
Publishing Group Inc, 2007), p.127!
! 34!
Chapter 3 Features of work submitted
!
3.1 Concert hall
!
3.1.1 Petite Serenade for Guitar Trio: sound production for film and
concert-hall (2009)
!
Scores I, p. 5 / CD 1, Track 1 / Dur. 6’52’’
Performed in#2011#by#Milad#Alizadeh,#guitar#I#7#Charlotte#Waldron,#guitar#II#7#
George#Konstantinou,#guitar#III##
Concept and approach
The Petite sérénade for Guitar Trio was originally conceived as a piece of ‘night
music’, exploring elements inspired from jazz, ambient music, Spanish flamengo
and Rock guitar playing styles.
Although I was quite happy with the first cross-genre results, I decided to push
this piece even further through technological intervention, thus aiming to
produce a concert piece whose sonic manipulation could be simultaneously
effective in the concert hall and reusable as a film score.
In so doing, my approach to the presented work was to record the three guitars
through one omnidirectional condenser microphone routed to a single stereo
input recording channel (track) in Logic. The sum of the three guitars’ signal
goes through several processing effects, which are typically employed on guitars,
as will be demonstrated bellow.
Instrumentation and aspects of performance
This work uses three classical guitars, a DAW, one microphone a MIDI control
surface with four assignable knobs and faders to control filters, volume and pan
parameters in real-time. A fourth person (performing as a mix of sound designer
and sound engineer) is required to be at the booth with the notated score,
controlling the DAW. A p.a. system suffices in live performance (Ex. 1).
! 35!
Ex.1 performance setup. Audience stands either between booth and players, or behind the booth.
Racks of stacked processing effects are stored in Logic's project ‘Channel Strips’
settings. These must be recalled when setting up the performance and swapped in
real-time, according to the sections of the score. (Ex. 2)
Recalling and swapping between racks works better in Logic Studio’s Mainstage
application, as it does not break the sound continuity. A pedal should be used to
provide faster swapping.
Ex. 2 racks of effects
Structure
The Petite Serenade’s formal structure is divided into three self-contained

movements. The titles of the movements are illustrative of the character of the
movements and do not conform to any specific internal form. The first
movement is a Prelude, the second a Barcarolle, derived from typical 6/8
swinging rhythm, and the third a Folie which is taken from its literal French
meaning of ‘madness’ or ‘extravaganza’.
! 36!
The first movement is about sparse musical phrases and resonances, in a game
of an improvised dialogue between the first guitar and the other two.
Compositionally, the cadences motifs are extended, while the melody of the first
guitar is shortened. Rack 1 and 2 are employed to generate a tapestry of sound
effects textures. Rack 1 corresponds to the harmonics and Rack 2 to the cadences
motifs.
The second movement explores timbre and harmonic structures in a rotation

dialogue between the three guitars, while tonal triads come out of the atonal
repetitive pattern to play tonal arpeggiated harmonies. Rack 3 is manipulated
with a MIDI control surface throughout this movement, in order to produce
shades of dark and bright tone colour by tweaking the low and high cut filters.
(Ex. 3) The control surface is also employed to make the sound move
horizontally (left to right loudspeakers) as well as to control dynamics, by
increasing or decreasing volume levels.
Ex.3 Automated parameters in Mvt 2: volume, pan and filters.
In the third movement, Folie, elements from Spanish Flamengo techniques of

tremolos and rasgueados are mixed with electric guitar techniques, such as the
finger tapping, hammers-on and pull-offs very common in hard rock or heavy
metal music genres. These techniques, as in the previous movements, are further
processed by several racks (numbers 4 to 8), which in this movement are very
much used to define form. Thus, notated sections on the score are reinforced by
the use of specific racks (Ex.4).
! 37!
Ex. 4 Logic’s sequencer layout (bars 38 to 60), in terms of rack swapping and form: white
regions are muted and green regions are active. In blue , on the left, various racks.
Each channel strip rack was built with several effects in order to shape a specific
desired sound. Similarly, effects inserted on the channel strip where further
tweaked so as to achieve the desired sound results (Ex. 5).
Ex.5 On the left, the channel strip rack. On the right, Waves’ guitar rack of pedal effects software
plug-in, GTR Solo.
! 38!
The presented recording does not result from a live performance. And as such,
the real-time live manipulation of rack swapping and effects manipulation had to
be ‘simulated’ in Logic. To do so, I took the ‘clean’ audio recording region of the
score, copied and dragged the audio regions onto the correspondent channel strip
racks. These were cut and muted according to the score sections. The effects in
movement two were automated by drawing lines in Logic’s ‘Hyper draw’ and in
the ‘Arrange window’.
The overall arrangement structure in Logic resulted as illustrated bellow (Ex. 6):
Ex. 6 Mvt 1 in yellow, Mvt 2 in orange, and Mvt 3 in green.
I have recorded this work with a single omnidirectional microphone, placed

about one meter in front of the three guitars. I believe, however, that better
results could be achieved using an overhead microphone, as it is best suited for
capturing the overall sound. Due to the guitars distribution on stage, the type of
microphone and placement employed led to eventually one of the guitars
standing out in volume and in the mix. For the purposes of this recording I
attempted to balance this unevenness by compressing the original audio
recording file, which truly resulted in less volume amplitude between the lower
and louder parts. A ratio of 4:1 with a threshold of -12 Db seemed to work well.
However, in live performance, the input signal from the three guitars might need
a different compression setting, depending on the placement of the microphone
and the room acoustics.
! 39!
3.1.2 Bagatella for piano n.1a and n.1b (2010-12)
!
Scores I, p.21 / CD 1, Tracks 2 & 3 / Dur. 8’13’’
This work was composed as a request from pianist Eduardo Regula to perform
this piece on the cycle ‘Pianistas Bracarenses’ at the D. Diogo, Museum of
Archeology venue in Braga, Northern Portugal.
This work was formerly envisaged as two different musical objects: Bagatella
n.1a is a solo piano piece which explores elements from pop songs mixed with
classical piano style and idiomatic writing. Bagatella n.1b shares the same
compositional fabric of Bagatella n.1a, but it aims to turn the piano (in this case
an 88 key MIDI keyboard) into a hyper multi instrument (please see the next
section for a concise definition and brief description), i.e. a sound sample real-
time generator borrowing from several genres of music.
Bagatella n.1a is therefore the ‘core’ composition itself, which aimed to be

autonomous as a piano cross-genre composition. It features and balances three
genres of music: pop, atonal and atonal-‘jazzy’. Bagatella n.1b furthered the
cross-genre possibilities by the use of music technology as a means of building
three different piano compound sounds that would better translate each
movement’s character.
In order to be able to merge a piano style of playing derived by pop songs like,
for example, Adele’s song Someone like you (simple struck chords and
arpeggiated - based progressions), with a more classically-informed piano style,
I took the approach of composing Bagatella n.1a first, which draws inspiration
from the ‘Classic-Romantic’ period. Consequently, works such as Beethoven’
Sonata op27, n.1 (Sonata quasi una Fantasia) or Franz Schubert’s C minor
Sonata D 958 (I) were preferred as the main musical influences rather than the
avant-garde piano works like those of Pierre Boulez’s Sonata pour piano n.2 or
Pascal Dusapin’s Sept Etudes pour Piano.
! 40!
Bagatella 1a employs a piano and Bagatella 1b uses a velocity-sensitive MIDI

Keyboard (88 keys), connected to a DAW (in this case Logic). Each movement
matches a different software instrument track in Logic, which is loaded with
what I have designated as a ‘Hyper multi instrument’ (described below).
Typically, multi-instruments are layers of instruments or instrument patches

stacked in the same sample player engine (like Kontakt), and routed to either the
same or different MIDI channels. The disadvantage of this technical procedure is
that it only allows using libraries that are programmed and compatible with that
sample player engine.
Since in the case of Bagatella n.1b, I needed to build three different multi-
instruments comprising libraries that used different sample player engines, as
VSL and Kontakt-based libraries, the solution found was to use VSL’s recent
technology, Vienna Ensemble Pro (VEP 4), which allows hosting any compatible
3rd party sample players as an ‘umbrella’ host. (Ex. 7)
Ex. 7 VSL’s VEP 4, hosting Kontakt instruments, Native Instruments’ FM8 synthesizers and the
software drum machine, Battery.
! 41!
This resulted in a ‘Hyper-multi-instrument’, which was a more complex set-up
from those I was used to working with, but one that not only exponentially
opened the doors for the use of regular multi-instruments, but also provided
further control options over the patches employed.
When affecting the technical set-up, the major difference between a traditional
multi-instrument and the VEP 4 solution employed is that traditional multi
instruments do not provide separate mixers to mix the stacked multi patches.
Despite allowing to balance volume levels, panning or tweaking the parameters
provided by each patch in the sample player, any further processing and mixing
has to be routed to the mixer provided in the DAW.
Thus, in this case, every instance of VEP 4 (Hyper-multi-instrument) has its own
mixer, as shown in the example above. This allowed me both to mix each virtual
instrument patch internally with great detail, and to bypass Logic’s mixer. Only
‘mastering’ plug-ins were employed at the end of each Hyper-multi-instrument’s
channel strip (Ex.8).
Ex. 8 Logic’s mixer for Bagatella n.1b: ‘Hyper multi instruments’ 1, 2 and 3 channel strips, with
Mastering Equalizers, Limiters and Multi Meters (to monitor each output signals).
! 42!
Following my concept of using one distinct piano per movement, Hyper-multi-
instrument 1 employs an ‘Alicia Keys’ virtual piano, rendering a ‘pop’ music
timbre. It is stacked with three instances of the FM8 synthesizer, one instance of
the Battery ‘pop’ kit drum machine and one instance of the Massive synthesizer.
Hyper-multi-instrument 2 uses a ‘Rubinstein’ style of virtual piano samples due

to the more classical ‘avant-garde’ nature of the second movement. It is stacked
with five instances of VSL samples of vibraphone, celesta, marimba, harp and
glockenspiel, one instance of Battery ‘Tight Kit’ drum machine, one instance of
FM8 synthesizer, and two instances of Massive synthesizers (Ex.9).
Ex.9 Hyper-multi-instrument 2 with its mixer.
For Hyper-multi-instrument 3 I chose to employ a ‘Chet Baker’ style of virtual

piano samples, as the third movement is ‘jazzier’ in character. It is stacked with
a ‘C3 Jazz Vintage Organ’ sample, one instance of Omnisphere’s ‘Simple
mellow Organ’, one instance of a VSL solo double bass pizzicato patch, one
! 43!
instance of the Battery ‘Full Jazz Kit’ drum machine, and one instance of the
Massive synthesizer.
In terms of live performance, Bagatella n.1b requires the MIDI keyboard to be

connected to the DAW. The VEP 4 instances containing each Hyper-multi-
instrument can be recalled as a preset, either in Logic, or any other sequencer
such as Ableton Live, Pro-tools or Cubase, given that no Logic instruments are
employed. Lastly, it requires a P.A. system.
Structure
Bagatella n.1a’s is inspired in its formal structure by a ‘verse-chorus’ pop song

form. Movements however, take the place of ‘verses’, and ‘chorus’ sections are
derived from the Intro (Chorus 1) and subsequent bridge.
To balance out the music genres in this work, the Introduction/Chorus 1 (bar 1
to 12) and the bridge are based on a common simple I-iii-IV7-V7 chord
progression. This rhythmic/harmonic cell is drawn from a simple, even kitsch
pop piano accompaniment and is intended to be ambiguous in character, aiming
to blur the listener’s perception to what s/he is listening to: either the beginning
of a classical work or a pop piano song, or both. (Ex. 10).
Ex.10 Mvt 1, Bagatella 1a
The bridge (bar 17 to 22) is used to try and get the dominant 7th chord out of
focus and reduce its tonal harmonic function by blurring musical languages (pop-
! 44!
tonal and modern-atonal). Extreme registers in both hands and a small structural
rhythmic series of 3 + 4 + 7 + 2 attacks, with a fixed duration of 3 + 1
semiquavers were used to achieve this effect.
The first movement/Verse 1, bar 24 to 50, is worked out as a through-composed

section. It is a death march derived from the original rhythmic pop piano
accompaniment cell. The musical language aims to be largely atonal, although
tonal triads occur, exploring again the duality between the stability of tonal
chords vs. the tension created by atonal chord structures. The Chorus 2 motif
occurs from bar 51 to 57 and is juxtaposed with the atonal accompaniment of the
left hand.
The second movement/Verse 2 features the balance between hints of

Beethoven’s piano writing style (as mentioned above), quadratura, 4 + 4 bar
phrases, non-functional harmonic sequences, and a ‘jazzy’ character conveyed as
an A-B-A’ form, all derived from the primary rhythmic cell.
Chorus 3 was set as the climax of the work. This climax deliberately comprises
a development from the main pop rhythmic cell, so that greater weight is put on
the pop music genre, instead of classical-derived material.
As for Bagatella 1b, it employs one hyper multi instrument per section of the
work: intro, first and second movement. As mentioned above, each of these
hyper-multi-instruments aims to further cross-genre possibilities by employing
sound samples derived from several genres of music, such as C3 organs for jazz,
Massive’s ‘wobble bass’ from dubstep electronic dance music, or harp, celesta
and marimba as commonly employed in classical (vs. pop) music.
Technically, each Hyper-multi patch is routed to the same MIDI channel, so that
a single note played by the MIDI keyboard may trigger all sounds at the same
time. However, this was resulted in a rather undefined stacked ‘compound’
sound, which was neither sublimated nor even partly annulled by mixing each
Multi. Inspired to a certain extent by the Klangfarbenmelodie compositional
technique of the Second Viennese School,51 I wished that each time a certain
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
51!Anton Webern’s Concerto for nine instruments, Op.24, is a good reference of the employment
of this technique.!
! 45!
note was played on the performer’s MIDI keyboard, it could trigger just a few
timbre sample sounds.
To accomplish this, I limited the key range of each patch so that only certain
octaves could be ‘active’ to produce sound. In the example below, in the white
areas, the selected key range of the notes that are active triggers the samples.
This is the display of two virtual keyboards (Ex.11).
Ex.11 Celesta on the left, Vibraphone on the right. VSL’s Vienna Instruments Pro sample player
key range.
With this procedure, I was able to very precisely distribute sound samples across
the performer’s full MIDI keyboard range.
I do believe, however, that the presented Hyper-multi-instruments set-ups are

three of only many other ways of doing it. . In fact, following this very pragmatic
path, it is possible to build Hyper-multi-instruments employing many different
patches which would enable Bagatella 1b to be presented in new tone colours.
If the performer knows the technology well enough s/he may set up their
preferred Hyper multi instruments before each performance. In that sense, the
performer can, to a certain extent, take on the role of the composer: if the
performer cannot make choices regarding the (already) notated composition, s/he
may however change the timbre ‘look’ or ‘cover’ of the composition.
! 46!
3.1.3 Four Poems in Search of a Music Play (2011)
!
Scores I, p.35 / CD 1, Tracks 4-10 / Dur. 10’30’’ / Complete poems in Appendix
C
Performers: Vítor Vieira, violin - Katia Santadreu, viola - Valter Marrafa, cello -
Sofia Neide, double bass and singer
Four Poems in Search of a Music Play reflected at the time, my concern to

produce a music work that could speak directly to the audience. I had come
across some of Harold Pinter’s poetry, which I found very appealing due to its
direct speech, concision, intensity, and vigour in the use of language.
Furthermore, I found my own personal concerns about negligence in today’s
society, as well as individual and collective lack of responsibility, beautifully and
astutely reflected in some of these poems. In a nutshell, I decided to select four
of Pinter’ poems which I believe he wittily resorts to irony and sarcasm when
addressing these issues, and searched to give them a dramaturgic musical unity.
(See appendix with the four selected poems)
The title is inspired by Luigi Pirandello’s play Six Characters in Search of an
Author (1921)52, as I see each poem as a ‘character’ aspiring to play a role, all
poems shaping a common theme, as a playwright or an author often does.
Setting these poems to music gave rise to a few challenges in terms of exploring
cross-genre. Songs seemed to be a very effective way to communicate the
content of the poems, and they seemed to do so across virtually every genre of
music. However, I sensed that the act of singing a text often leads to making the
text (or, in pop music, the lyrics) incomprehensible. Inspired by this issue, I
opted to treat the text of the poems as a voiceover, a technique largely employed
in audio-visual media, and so I asked the singer to perform as a kind of a
television news report anchor. This technique, if further supported by a closed
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
52
Pirandello, Luigi. ‘Six Characters in Search of an Author’ (New York, Dover Publications, Inc.
1998)
!
! 47!
miked voice, seemed to be very effective, in order to communicate the concise
strength of Pinter’s words. Thus, the singer was largely confined to a speaking
role, singing only very occasionally53.
Since from my personal point of view the music needed to be as intense and
concise as the poems, I realized that the overall song cycle would not only be too
short, but also the nature of the poems needed a contrast in terms of balancing
the dramatic tension of the cycle. Consequently, I decided to incorporate an
Intermezzo between each movement: if the nature of the poems is direct speech
and confrontation, the Intermezzi were planned as laments - or ‘elegies’ –
reflecting upon each previous poem.
This work was written for the following ensemble: oboe, clarinet in Bb, bassoon,
French horn in F, violin, viola, cello, double bass, piano and female voice with a
mezzo-soprano vocal range.
Instrumentation choices were based on having at least one solo instrument

representing the traditional orchestral sections, thus translating a full register
span across the ensemble. The French horn was chosen as the single brass
instrument for its mid-range quality and power, and the piano for its harmonic,
resonant, and percussion-like quality. Other criteria for choosing this ensemble
was its flexibility in dynamics range: it can either produce a powerful ‘mass’ of
sound with sharp attacks or be dissolved into more lyrical and light instrumental
effects. Furthermore, ten players would still be within the boundaries of a more
intimate, ‘conversing’ sound (chamber music), thus better translating my concept
of this work.
In live performance, these instruments should be divided into three groups and
distributed on stage: viola, bassoon and oboe, centre-left; violin, clarinet and
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
53
In this respect, I decided to distance myself from other approaches to setting text to music that
seemed in my view more common, like the text declamation in Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony
n.3 ‘Kaddish’, Mvt1, or the Sprechgesang compositional technique employed, for example, in
Pierrot Lunaire op.21 by Arnold Schonberg)
!
! 48!
double bass in the centre; cello, French horn and piano, centre-right. The singer
should be placed in the centre. The underlying idea to create these groups was to
deliberately mix the sound of the instruments in order to have blocks of
undefined timbre quality, thus helping to achieve a more indistinct ‘urban’, noisy
sound.
A P.A. system, comprising a microphone and a loudspeaker should be placed at

the centre of the stage for greater voice-over effect of the singer. A conductor is
required.
An ideal performance live set-up would be as illustrated bellow.
EX.12 performance setup
For the purposes of my PhD portfolio I have separately recorded live strings and
voice, and programmed the other instruments in Logic, thereby producing a
hybrid recording.
Structure
! 49!
Poem (Don’t look) – Intermezzo I –Message – Intermezzo II –American Football
– Intermezzo III –Restaurant (and epilogue)
For purposes of clarity, I shall begin by addressing the poems and leave the
Intermezzi to the end of this section.
The first poem, Poem (Don’t look), displays a modern style of writing for the
ensemble along with a television style of television news report.
It begins with a full ensemble musical gesture that pushes some instruments to
their extreme ranges in order to depict a chaotic outburst that sets the tone and
motto for the whole song cycle: ‘The world’s about to break’. This movement
alternates between static and more fluid paces to illustrate the ‘world’s’
indecision and anxiety. The role of the singer, alongside his reporting the news,
is also to be an active participant in society. As such, the singer is literary
‘anchored’ to the score: her part is thoroughly rhythmically structured together
with the full ensemble.
The second poem, Message borrows from Rap and Hip-hop electronic dance
music. It starts with a motif played by the clarinet that is influenced by turntable
scratch techniques54 achieved by syncopated and hesitant rhythmic looping in
which the attacks are mainly structured according to the pitch-class set I (11, 6,
5, 1, 2) of my harmonic system series. Similarly, the rests serve both to stress the
syncopated ‘turntable’ effect and to allow room for the player to breathe.
In order to purposefully create an imaginative sense of an underscore effect
whilst a dialogue is taking place on a film, violin, viola and piano create a
textural pad of harmonic resonance effects using some instruments techniques,
like sul ponticello and tremolo. The cello and double bass add a long pizzicato
groove layer, thus creating a certain laid-back Hip-hop feel. (Ex. 13)
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
54
A fine example can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DB65ByRMr9M.
Accessed on 05/05/13.
! 50!
Ex.13, II - ‘Message’
The movement evolves, changing in orchestration at bar 42 where a clear Hip-

hop section begins. I used col legno battuto and pizzicato techniques to create a
groove that is usually played by a kick drum and claps of a drum machine in
Hip-hop music. The singer, whose role in this poem is to play the character of the
mother who leaves a message on her daughter’s voice mail, is asked to perform
the text rhythmically as written in the score, though pitches are not given to
allow for room for eventual changes in intonation, as it happens in RAP music.
In terms of musical expression, I asked the singer to be quite vulgar and to put an
emphasis on a stronger American accent, thus aiming to both create a ‘dirty
mother’ character and to sound closer to North American Rap. The piano adds
ironic ‘baroquish’ embellishing motifs to stress the Poem’s irony in this section.
The third poem, American football borrows mainly from jazz and action-
adventure film music. The singer (news anchor) is asked to tell the news in the
same manner as if preaching in an Afro-American community church in the
United States of America, thus somehow evoking Gospel music. I aimed at a
double dramatic effect: I actually used this as a conscious kitsch resource
generated in films like Coming to America (1988) – to which audiences relate
very easily - but also because in this poem the name and word of God is evoked
! 51!
with irony, used in vain and also set to sharply contrast with the uttered
obscenities.
A steady semiquaver motif runs across the major part of the movement as an
energetic rhythmic motor, inspired by common action film music ostinati.55
EX.14 semiquaver motor used in poem III – ‘American Football’
In this movement the three groups of instruments portray three American football
players, who pass on the ball to one another (in this case the steady semiquaver
motif), thus giving full meaning to the ensemble’s stage distribution: on a real
stage, the panning effect (left-right) in the stereo field is naturally enhanced and
that is how it is recorded in the presented CD.
At the end of the poem I decided to compose jazz music, as this music genre is
capable of conveying a North American sense of warmth and charm to
complement the singer’s text.
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55
Danny Elfman’s Alice’s Theme in the film score for Alice in Wonderland (2010) film provides
a good example of this type of ostinati. [Elfman, Danny: Alice in Wonderland, 2010 [CD] Track
1]
! 52!
The last poem, Restaurant, is influenced by the typical ‘ambiences’ of television
advertisements: the piano plays an ostinato while the double bass, the clarinet
and piano create the background groove inspired by rhythm and blues music.
Bars 12 to 21 were written in the style of a musical in which a jazz progression
(F-Em7-Fmaj7add6-Cmaj7-Dm7-G7add6-Fmaj7) is punctuated by atonal chord
structures aiming to corrode the ‘happiness’ of the singer.
The performers are asked to echo (loop) the text delivered by the singer, so as to
illustrate a collective conscience. In the recording I have presented here, I chose
to record several takes of each string player whispering the text separately. This
technique seemed the best to serve the sound production of this work, as it
allowed more control at the mixing stage, given that the players’ whispers would
not be mixed up with the sounds of their own instruments.
The Intermezzi draw upon the blues, a genre of music that I tend to see as a
‘lament’ in its essence. As I blend in the blues style with a modern style of
writing, the three Intermezzi share the same compositional concept: indeed, they
are all structured as a twelve-bar blues form, although they do not directly
conform to the harmonic progressions.56 A slow tempo was chosen, leaving
ample space for the harmony to ‘focus’ and ‘defocus’, straddling between atonal
and dominant 7th chords in every bar. The cello ‘sings’ long phrases
accompanied by the full ensemble and the humming of the singer.
Intermezzo I was composed around a triplet swing feel motif, typical of Blues. In
this piece the harmony is more dense and the ‘focus’/ ‘de-focus’ effect clearer.
The clarinet and bassoon were used to produce a darker tone, while double bass
harmonics fill in the space with resonance. The piano plays a rhythmic ostinato
aimed to illustrate the swinging gestures of rural slave work. The music becomes
more intense as the dynamics increase and the cello and viola are forced to play
in high register.
Intermezzo II portrays the cello as a lonely, solo voice dirge. The overall texture,
unlike that of the first Intermezzo, is intended to be very light and transparent,
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
56!From the common twelve-bar blues form, (I7 - 4 bars / IV7 – 2 bars / I7 – 2 bars/ V7 – 1 bar /
IV7 – 1 bar/ I7 – 1 bar/ V7 - 1 bar), only one cycle (12 bars) is implied in each intermezzo.!
! 53!
only barely punctuated by the full ensemble’s dark tone implying dominant 7th
chords.
Intermezzo III shares the same principles as the first two. The pizzicato effect
aims to illustrate an acutely painful heartbeat. The piano plays a blues style of
tremolo together with waltz-like accompaniment producing an odd and
deliberately mischievous ‘halfway-house’ between classical music and blues.
Special attention was paid to the dubbing process of the voice in the presented
CD recording: not only is it derived from film and television sound production
techniques but it should also be translated in live performance.
The voice reverb was set to very dry, with only a small amount of additional
reverb so as to make the voice sound very close to the listener, but not
necessarily louder. This mixing technique is commonly employed in mixing
dialogue with music and sound effects in visual media, where dialogue is almost
invariably the most important element, as stated by Richard Davis “Ninety-nine
per cent of the time, the dialogue reigns”57. Similarly, the voice was set to be at
the centre of the mix, thus sharing equal energy between both speakers, in a
stereo mix. To leave room for the voice in the dubbing process, the whole
ensemble was pushed further back in the mix by adding more reverb as well as
being panned wider across the stereo field. This panning was not extreme
(neither hard left, nor hard right panning was employed): values remained within
ten to two o’clock, much like it is perceived in a real concert hall (Ex15).
Because I wished to emulate a real hall space, a convolution type of reverb was
used with an impulse response of 1.7s which proved adequate to suit both the
faster and slower tempos (Ex.16)
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57
Davis, Richard. ‘Complete Guide to Film Scoring’ (Boston, Berklee Press, 1999) p.148
! 54!
Ex.15 Logic’s mixer with panning positions in Four Poems in Search of a Music Play
Ex.16 reverb settings employed in Four Poems in Search of a Music Play
Four Poems in Search of a Music Play is one of the main pieces in my portfolio.
It is unique in the sense that that is the one piece where technological
intervention is least seen, as well as the one piece in which I have significantly
employed my harmonic system.
! 55!
3.1.4 Earth is Home: music for a fictional documentary (2011)
Scores I, p.75 / CD 1, Track 11 / Dur. 10’34’’
Earth is Home was inspired by Armand Amar’s score for the film-documentary
Home (2009).58 Amar’s use of string pads, acoustic instruments mixed with
synthesisers as well as elements borrowed from world, ambient, and classical
avant-garde music seemed to create a very interesting soundscape
complementary to the film.
I had felt the urge to produce a fictional film score (without recurring to any
film) for the concert-hall before, i.e. a score that could bring similar music
elements to those featured in Armand Amar’s score to a concert hall structured
composition.
The way I see it, the lack of the music-image dialectics puts a greater ‘stress’ on
the compositional fabric itself; and there is a commonly held view that concert
hall music leads every aspect of the dramaturgy, whereas in film, it is the image
that takes on the leading role.59
My approach was thus to create a score which interweaved electronic sound
effects and sampled instruments with acoustic instruments in the same
compositional fabric. The purpose here was to create an overall soundscape that
could expand the sound palette of the acoustic ensemble in the concert – hall by
means of electronics and sampled instruments as they are normally used in film
scores. In terms of programme, Earth is Home is about placing Humankind at the
centre of the global climate change problem.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
58
Amar, Armand: Home, 2009 [CD]
59
Regarding music-image dialectics, in the book Analysing Musical Multimedia, Nicholas Cook
developed a theoretical framework that proposes three models of multimedia analysis:
conformance, complementation and contest [Cook, Nicholas. ‘Analysing Musical Multimedia’,
Oxford, Oxford University Press, (1998), p.98.]!
! 56!
This work was written for clarinet in Bb, bassoon, trumpet in Bb, piano,
keyboard (Evolve patch of prepared piano), cymbals, wind gong, tam-tam, snare
drum, tom-toms, glockenspiel, marimba, vibraphone, sampled women choirs
patches, backing track with Omnisphere patches, violin and cello.
The CD recording presented here is a fully programmed emulation of the work,
except for the short plainchant violin phrase in the second movement, which I
decided to record live, inasmuch as the expression of bowed solo strings is the
most difficult to emulate when one uses orchestral sample libraries.
As in the bulk of my other PhD works, I decided to produce a recording
emulation of Earth is Home, not only to take advantage of the accessible high-
realistic sample libraries, but also to give this work more options as far as
performance practicalities are concerned.
Although the backing track consisting of Omnisphere and VSL patches is
mandatory, there is a dual option here: either you may select any of the acoustic
instruments to be performed live, or you may leave them as part of the backing
track. This option allows for more performance flexibility, for instance, in terms
of hiring musicians and dealing with stage dimensions.
In any case, amplification for each instrument should always be employed so as
to blend in with the backing track. A click - track is essential for accurate sync
between live instruments and the backing track. A conductor is also required.
Structure
Three interweaved movements plus and an interlude convey the structural

narrative of the story.
I – Wrong way; Interlude; II – Our choice; III – Ghosts and Angels
The first movement Wrong way, aims to depict humankind senselessly paving
their way down into the abyss of climate self-destruction and being constantly
poisoned due to huge collateral problems with air pollution. In trying to achieve
this effect I layered electronic patches together with the acoustic instruments.
! 57!
Six Omnisphere patches were employed for their dark and ‘corrupt’ sound-like
characteristics. Dark forest is a string-based patch with considerable reverb, thus
adding depth to the overall soundscape. The Big boomer atmo patch punctuates
the first movement with ‘impact’ sounds, while the Reverse Music Box,
Psychodelic bowing and Air blast patches create a texture of ‘intoxicating
sounds’ that merge with the acoustic instruments.
The Omnisphere Kick Minimal Sinecrush patch, looped, was chosen as the four-
to-the-floor groove. The arpeggiator in Omnisphere was turned on and set to one
single octave remaining in the lower register. Equalization was applied at 80 Hz
with a gain of +8.5 DB, with a Q-value of 4.00 to increase the punch effect on
the kick drum; in this way, it also adds a complementary bass range to the
acoustic ensemble sound pallet.
Tension and anxiety are the most important emotional features in this movement.
To create this, for example, from bar 4, the violin and vibraphone begin on the
central pitch A – derived from the ‘A’ matrix on my harmonic system - on a
steady quaver staccato beat. Longer notes in the clarinet and bassoon are set to
‘glue’ to Omnisphere sound effects.
From bar 43 to bar 52, three interweaved layers aim to create a textural blend of
timbre between the acoustic instruments and sound effects. To achieve this, the
first layer employs certain instrumental effects techniques on the trumpet (flutter
tongue) and on the violin and cello (both moving from natural to sul ponticello
buzz tremolos). The second layer features the clarinet, bassoon, glockenspiel and
piano, all playing ascending and descending scales for coloristic purposes. In the
third layer, the Kick Minimal Sinecrush and Airblast sound effects patches keep
repeating until the end of the movement, acting as the unifying backbone of the
full ensemble (Ex.17).
! 58!
Ex.17 Mvt I, bars 43 to 52, three layers
The short Interlude, Orfeu aux enfers, aims to depict Humankind’s agonizing
souls in the realms of hell/purgatory. It is a short section without technological
intervention, set to contrast with the other movements. Nonetheless, harmonics in
the strings, as well as tremolo effects in the strings, woodwinds and piano aim to
give continuity to the same idea of ‘intoxicated’ timbre and texture.
The second movement, Our choice is the longest movement in Earth is Home.
Programmatically, it aims to place humankind ‘reflectively’, with both its tragic
and redemptive possibilities. It is intimate and contemplative in character.
To convey these programmatic aspects, Our choice draws upon ambient music,
the powerful influence of Brian Eno’s work Ambient 1- Music for Airports being
certainly a case in point60 - as well as with reminiscences of medieval music,
namely plainchant, and Ars nova works in the style of Guillaume Machaut. The
tempo was set to 56 BPM, aiming for a slow, ‘relaxing’ mood. A monophonic
Gregorian chant-like phrase interacts with three subsequent variation sections in
the style of antiphony.
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60
Eno, Brian: Ambient music, volume 1 [CD]
!
! 59!
The sampler was thought of as a prepared piano sound: in order to create a more
complex and ‘source-undefined’ timbre, it was set up as a Kontakt multi-
instrument with two different piano patches from the Evolve library, routed
through the same MIDI channel. Due to the almost complete absence of pitch
definition, the attacks and ‘debris’-like timbre quality were the most important
characteristics to take into account, especially when they were placed in sharp
contrast to the Gregorian chant motif.
Aiming at producing a transparent ‘ambient’ sound, I chose Omnisphere’s

Adagio Fairissimo patch, as it consists of soft sounding strings together with a
music box sound. Together with Dark forest both patches were used as the two
ambient music types of sound which were ‘glued’ to the acoustic instruments.
The neutral character and the ‘colour effects’ of the marimba, piano and
glockenspiel were also essential to blend with the synthesiser patches.
With a view to achieving an overall ‘ambient textural quality’, each of these

variations slowly builds up in terms of rhythm (quavers to triplets to semi-
quavers), length (6 bars, 18 bars, 24 bars), dynamics (p to ff) and orchestration
variety until the end of the movement (Ex.18).
Ex.18 Mvt II
! 60!
In terms of program, the third movement Ghosts and Angels does not dignify
the story with an emotionally optimistic, celestial, beyond-the-skies answer.
Rather, it relates to humankind’s on-going struggle to make the appropriate
decisions when dealing with today’s critical issue of global climate change.
The main idea of this movement was to borrow similar rhythmic motors, choir
and background timbral textures from film scores61, and emulate them within the
full ensemble.
Two choir patches were used to illustrate the ‘ghosts and angels’ characters: for
its clean, pure sound, VSL ‘Soprano choir’ was employed to illustrate the
‘angels’, while Omnisphere patch ‘Choral FX Vertigo 3’ was employed as the
‘ghosts’ choir, due to its dissonant and swinging character (it pans left to right by
itself, thus producing a more frightful effect). These patches are not to be
performed by live choirs. Instead, they are part of the backing track.
Pads and textures were produced juxtaposing layers of sustained notes, with
steady rhythmic cells. Adding sul ponticello effects to the cello and violin helped
to produce the blending of electronic patches with the acoustic instruments. To
create an overall effect of suspense, the harmonies move between tension and
relaxation, and the texture moves between lighter transparency and higher
density, by adding or removing instruments (Ex.19).
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
61!Tykwer, Tom; Heil, Reinhold and Klimek, Johnny: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, The
Method Works! [CD] track 10. Elfman, Danny: Milk, Postscript, [CD] track 25; Bataller, Arnau
de La Herencia de Valdemar, La Huída [CD] track 20.!
! 61!
Ex.19 Mvt III
! 62!
3.2 Film
!
3.2.1 EVOL (2008)
!
Scores II, p.5 / CD 2, Track 1 / Dur. 5’03’’ /DVD 1 (Video)
Concept, approach and some highlighted features
Evol was part of my early experiments with the kind of music technology I was
subsequently to use throughout my PhD work. It involved dealing with many
aspects of the DAW, like movie synchronization, virtual libraries, sequencing,
MIDI programming and editing, and mixing the music. It also reflected my
initial research concerns on how to place and deal with different music styles
within the same composition. At the same time, this work raised some of the
early issues regarding the balance of languages, which led me to the development
of my harmonic system.
Evol (Love, backwards) is a short film about a man and a woman falling in love
in a world running backwards. I have used three musical styles: avant-garde,62
general dance-like orchestral music, and a waltz. These styles were placed side
by side, in order to experiment with the structure of the film, while conveying the
right emotional mood to support the moving picture.63
In Evol, despite styles being placed side by side and not blended, they still aim to
play a specific dramatic role. Thus, I firstly employed dissonant intervals,
extreme registers, and complex rhythmic cells as a poignant, multifarious device
for a modern avant-garde, dissonant character, aiming to express feelings of
human loss, melancholy, and a nostalgic mood. A traditional film scoring ‘hook’
love theme was then used to wash over the scene where the two characters meet.
A consonant tonal language was employed, with harmonic sequences and simple
progressions to give an overall sense of both stability and progress. Lastly, a
waltz was chosen to accompany the couple dancing on the screen.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
62!In this case, taken as simply ‘dissonant’. See [Buher, James and Neumeyer, David 'Analytical
and Interpretive Approaches to Film Music (I): Analysing the Music’ in Donnelly, K. J. (ed).
Film Music: Critical Approaches (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2001), p.19
63!In terms of the function of the music in films, see also [Davis, Richard. ‘Complete Guide to
Film Scoring’ (Boston, Berklee Press, 1999), p. 141-149]

!
! 63!
For the sake of the consistency of the film score, I kept the same instrumentation
across the three styles of music. However, I also expanded the sound palette of
the virtual orchestra, by using such effects as delays (cellos in the end), distortion
with added delay effects (flute in the beginning), and synthesizer sounds to fill in
the soundscape with some pads.
This score also reflects the process I was using at the time: as a matter of fact, I
was composing the music in Sibelius, and simultaneously taking notes for any
effects processors to be used in Logic. Though I found this process worked well,
I largely abandoned it later, in favor of a more experimental attitude. Instead of
pre-determining which effects to use, I would for example use the MIDI data
regions in Logic to experiment with other instruments, or simply try out different
effects processor plug-ins.
Instrumentation
Evol uses one flute, one oboe, one clarinet, two French horns, one trumpet in Bb,
one trombone, snare drum, suspended cymbals, glockenspiel, harp, piano, two
EFM1 synthesizers, and full string section.
! 64!
3.2.2 Bricks (2010)
(Remixed in 2012)
Scores I, p.103 / CD 2, Track 2 / Dur. 2’43’’ / DVD 1 (Video)
Performed by Vítor Vieira, violin I and violin II. Parts were recorded separately.
I composed the music for this short silent film exploring the interaction of three
elements: image, two violins and electronic dance music (mainly Euphoric trance
and dubstep). This work was composed in 2009, but in 2012 I found the original
sounds employed slightly old-fashioned, so I decided to ‘revamp’ the work by
changing the patches to more up-to-date sounds. Native Instruments’ Massive
patches were the main resource I used to revamp the overall sound, which helped
provide a more aggressive dubstep character. The work was also remixed and
better sounding plug-ins (BBE and Fabfilter) were employed at the end of the
mastering chain.
The short animation film Bricks is about two colour-subjects (red and white)
keeping up with each other so as to create objects which are, however, defeated
at the end of the film by a more powerful yellow subject.
The story of this film, and particularly the animated visuals attracted me so much
that I decided to score it. The two competing colour-subjects suggested to me the
employment of two identical solo instruments which would mimic the action on
screen by means of hard-synchronization and wall-to-wall film scoring
techniques. The film visuals (based on simple shapes and simplicity of colours)
also suggested to me the use of simple melodic motifs, grooves and sound
effects. In addition, the moderate-fast pace of the editing seemed to be adequate
for the use of a dance-like background groove.
The interaction between image, violins and trance music made me adopt the
following method: the film was spotted in Logic, and some hit points were
selected; tempo was determined according to the pace of the editing and visual
events, and the work was re-metered having per basis a 4/4 meter with a four-to-
! 65!
the-floor trance-derived beat. Drawing upon electronic dance music practices, I
sequenced three electronic dance grooves to sketch out the structure of the
piece64, throughout which I would compose the violin parts.
A MIDI file was exported from Logic into Sibelius, containing the re-metered
score and Logic’s ‘Markers’ as hit points. Similarly, the video was also imported
to Sibelius to preview the film while composing the violin parts. Since electronic
dance music does not use notated scores, the provided score only shows the
violin parts and the click-track.
Bricks uses two live violins and a backing track consisting of three of Logic’s
EFM1synthesizers instances, one instance of Heavyocity Damage library, seven
Logic ES2 synthesizer instances, four Native Instruments Massive instances, two
Logic Ultrabeat instances, one Native Instruments Battery instance, and one
instance of Spectrasonics’s Trillian Bass Module.
Synthesizers were used to generate grooves and sound effects, Massive for
melodic motifs and Ultrabeat and Battery for the drums.
The live performance requires amplification for both violins (panned left and
right for better distinction) to allow for volume level balancing with the backing
track. A click track is required to provide accurate syncing of music and film.
The DAW’s sequencer should trigger both the backing track and click-track.
Structure
Bricks can be seen as a through-composed work that combines the film’s visual
structure with a common 4 + 4 bars trance music structure. Tempo changes and
the 4/4-meter regularity is broken in function of the visual structure of the film.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
64
In the book Dance Music Manual, the author Rick Snoman addresses these and other processes
of producing trance music. [Snoman, Rick. ‘Dance Music Manual’ (Focal Press, 2010), p.253]
! 66!
In the face of the many existing subgenres of trance music, I took on elements
borrowed from Euphoric trance, which, in my view, would allow more ‘room’
than some other forms of trance to blend in the two violin parts. As pointed out
by Rick Snoman “In the case of Euphoric Trance, it is viewed as being an
anthemic form of music, which essentially means that it has an up tempo,
uplifting feel that’s very accessible to most clubbers. As a result, it can best be
illustrated as consisting of a relatively melodic synth and/or vocal hook line laid
over a comparatively unsophisticated drum pattern and bass line. The drums
usually feature long snare roles to signify the build-up to the reprise and
breakdowns, alongside small motifs and/or chord progressions that work around
the main melody.”65
Although Euphoric Trance music moves, in general, between 125 BPM and 150
BPM, I decided to use a more contained 120 BPM to allow time for fast
rhythmic riffs in the violins66.
The arrangement of Bricks consists of four layers: drums, arpeggiated rhythmic

grooves, sound effects and the two violins. A modern style of writing in both
violin parts was employed to interact with the Ultrabeat mainstream dance
groove. The two violins replace the ‘leading melody’ in trance music, and are
basically structured as a free two-part canon, mimicking the competition between
the two colour-subjects. However, when aiming to blend the violin parts with the
visuals, I decided that the canon should derive from the visuals: as such, the
entries of the violins are, for example, synced with the entries of the colour-
subjects on screen.
In order to blend in the two violins with the synthesizer sound effects in the more
static sections of the film, both violins are required to play instrumental effects
techniques (harmonics, sul ponticello, ‘buzz’ tremolo, scratching the strings with
the bow) in order to display a more ‘electronic sound’.
Other techniques were used to combine the dance music idiom with a modern
style of writing. Polyrhythm was employed in the crescendo ‘build-up’ from bar
49 to 54 where the second violin plays a main dotted crochet/crotchet pattern
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
65
Ibid., p.251
66
Ibid.!
! 67!
(subdivided in semiquavers) against the heavy laid-back feel (kick on the first
beat and snare on the second beat). The dance groove is built upon a non -
functional harmonic sequence, by major 3rds, in a different approach to the bare
chord progressions that usually harmonize the leading and the bass parts in
Euphoric trance.
! 68!
3.2.3 Mem (2011)
!
Scores I, p.111 / CD 2, Track 3 / Dur. 2’01’’ / DVD 1 (Video)
Mem is a silent short film with a clear narrative structure about the synthetic
production of a ‘mechanical’ insect. The film’s visuals display a high level of
contemporary science technology, which I found very appealing and actually
inspired me to write a piece of music that could match such high-tech visuals.
The film suggested to me a high degree of synchronization between the music

and the events on screen, in which the music could closely mimic the visual
events and yet help to tell the story. Similarly, I felt the urge to musically explore
the contrast between more static and dynamic visuals, as well as the duality
between technology (artificial insemination, computer scanning-like) and the
lyricism (embryo, cocoon and insect).
Moreover, I viewed the film as an elegant visual piece of design focusing on only
a few visual elements and a limited colour palette. This simplicity suggested to
me to write a piece for a solo instrument which could be expanded enough to
complement the action on screen.
The timbre, register, dynamic range and agility of the clarinet seemed to make it
the most suitable instrument to use: the clarinet in my view is able to provide the
expression and the ‘high-tech’ shapes to go with the film’s visuals. Moreover, I
found that a similar style of clarinet gestures seen, for example, in the works of
Franco Donatoni (Clair for Clarinet Solo, 1980) or Luciano Berio (Sequenza IXa
for clarinet, 1980) could be especially effective with the film, as these kinds of
writing extensively explore the technical possibilities of the clarinet.
Sound effects and electronic drum grooves are used to provide the background,
thus wrapping the film in an overall electronic soundscape. I then aimed to
produce a piece for solo clarinet exploring a symbiotic relationship between the
film, the clarinet and the kind of electronics seen in such popular television series
! 69!
as Crime Scene Investigation (2000 - ), Fringe (2008-2013), or films like The
Adjustment Bureau (2011).
As a technical method adopted to deal with the interaction between these

elements, the film was spotted in Logic where hit points where laid out as
‘markers’. A ‘comfortable’ tempo was chosen, to compromise the clarinet
attributes, film cuts, hit points and the visual events (Ex.20).
Ex.20 Logic’s sequencer with ‘Markers’ on top, coloured.
Re-metering was necessary to provide a better sense of musical phrase and to

confine the clarinet synchronization to the film, mostly to downbeats and
upbeats, thus resulting in a better, easier score to perform. I viewed the clarinet
functioning as the ‘hinge’ between music, sound effects and film, so I first
composed the clarinet part in Sibelius after importing the MIDI file from Logic
(Ex.21).
! 70!
Ex. 21 Clarinet part in Sibelius, with ‘hit’ points in boxes, above the click-track staff.
After the clarinet part was completed I exported the MIDI clarinet part to Logic
and started to incorporate sound effects and drum grooves.
Mem is a fully sequenced and programmed work, making extensive use of

software samples and software synthesizers. It employs a clarinet in Bb (VSL),
celesta, three instances of Native Instruments FM8, one multi instance of
Heavyocity’s Evolve, with five patches routed through five different MIDI
channels and track outputs (not a manufacturer’s preset), one multi instance of
Spectrasonics’s Omnisphere with three different patches routed through three
different MIDI channels and track outputs, one multi instance of Spectrasonics’s
Stylus with six patches routed through 6 different MIDI channels and tracks
outputs, one Native Instruments Retro Machines MK2, one Logic EVP88 MK4
electric keyboards, and one Logic EX24 upright bass.
! 71!
This work requires a click-track for syncing the backing track, clarinet and film
and should be triggered by the DAW’s sequencer. The clarinet should be
amplified to blend in with the electronic sounds in the backing track. The use of
the electronics is optional, since the clarinet alone was conceived as the
‘backbone’ of the piece. In the case of performing the piece without the backing
track, the amplification for the clarinet is not required.
Structure
The clarinet material derives from the simple motif at the beginning, and evolves
according to the five sections that I determined after the film’s spotting: i) Search
for the Embryo – bar 1 to 16, ii) Artificial insemination – bar 17 to 31, iii)
Conception, iv) Cocoon – bar 32 to 38, V) Unfolding of the cocoon and
emergence of the butterfly – bar 39 to 53 (Ex.22).
Ex.22 main clarinet motif
In general terms, the clarinet material evolves by following the film sections and
making extensive use of the mickey-mousing67 film scoring technique.
I used particular devices to better merge the clarinet with the sound effects.
Clarinet multiphonics were used, for example, to blend in with the layers of
Evolve and Omnisphere patches. In these libraries I searched for patches that I
could purposefully mix up with the clarinet sound instead of separating the sound
sources, i.e. between the clarinet and sound effects. Sweeps and ‘Stings’, are
derived from Evolve. Omnisphere provides the mainly synthesized sustained
notes patches, as well as the arpeggiated patches. The arpeggiator was tweaked
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
67
According to Richard Davis “When the music mimics every little action on screen it is called
mickey-mousing.” [Davis, Richard. ‘Complete Guide to Film Scoring’ (Boston, Berklee Press,
1999), p. 142]
!
! 72!
to capture the desired effect: from bar 40 the ‘Pluck Dream Piano arp’ patch was
set to follow a pattern of 8 subdivsions of the 9/8 meter, and the internal clock set
to 1/16 (semiquaver value). This device aimed to create a slightly rhythmically
displaced groove, thus becoming more ambient and textural.
Omnisphere and Evolve patches are mainly employed as textural elements,

which through the use of delays and reverbs generate pulsating rhythms and
ambient sounds. As an example, from bar 16 to 24 the Evolve patch ‘Wood Pop
Melody’ was tweaked in the time parameter and set to 3.0, thus resulting in a
semiquaver rhythm (Ex.23).
Ex.23 Evolve’s Multi, featuring the ‘Wood Pop Melody’ patch on top routed to MIDI channel 1.
Similarly, from bar 16 to bar 24, the clarinet motif was harmonized according to
my system’s harmonic progression while at the same time three instances of
FM8 synthesizer patches were used to create an accompanying pad. A stereo
delayed celesta was added, with the volume envelope attack slightly cut (set to
! 73!
73 on VSL’s sample player) to make the celesta sound like an electronic
instrument.
Electronic drum grooves and loops are used to propel the music with punchier
energy but also to help the clarinet performer with a stronger sense of beat and
meter. For example, from bar 4 to 15 there is a feeling of a fast laid-back feeling
with a kick drum and bass sound on the first beat of each bar that change into a
semiquaver feel on bar 16 to 24, to merge with the clarinet’s tremolo effect.
From bar 25 to 30 a floor to the floor bass sound is employed together with a
shaker sound to anticipate the meter change in bar 31 (9/8). The clarinet staccato
section is intended to blend with the Stylus RMX Shuttle Tribal patch building a
somewhat confused ‘granular’ sound, to depict the angular and revolving shapes
of the cocoon on screen.
Some of the backing track patches and samples are employed for their timbre
quality only. In that sense, from bar 40 to 48 the upright double bass patch plays
up to the C6 octave, which would be nearly impossible with a real acoustic
instrument. The purpose was to orchestrate the clarinet ‘waltzy’ three-feel,
creating a more colourful and resonant compound sound.68
A technique I found particularly effective to mix the clarinet part with the
backing track sound effects, was to select the original clarinet MIDI notes data
region and drag and copy this region to the other tracks (which have different
patches) and listen to the resulting sound. Later some MIDI notes can be edited
(shortened, augmented, muted, change octave for a fuller sound, for instance).
This technique and practice is similar to those found in many electronic dance
music genres69 (Ex.24).
Ex. 24 clarinet part, notated
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
68!I define ‘compound sound’ as a single pitch that is made up of more than one layer of patches.!
69!Snoman, Rick. ‘Dance Music Manual’ (Focal Press, 2010), p.231!
! 74!
Ex. 25 clarinet part, piano roll
Ex.26 Omnisphere’s ‘Electro bow’ patch piano roll, with Chorus/Echo settings of: Delay 1/8
(quaver), Feedback 37.5%, Rate 1.51 HZ and Depth 100%. It not only orchestrates some of
clarinet’s pitches but also generates textural sounds. Notes are shortened and only the upper
octave was chosen. MIDI data for the clarinet’s lower pitches were deleted.
! 75!
3.2.4 GTR Suite for violin, clarinet, piano and other North American
Western sounds (2013)
!
NO SCORE / CD 2, Track 4 / Dur. 11’54’’ / DVD 1 (Video)
The music composed for the short film The Great Train Robbery (1903) was the
last piece to be composed for the PhD portfolio. The Great Train Robbery is a
short action Western film that tells the story of a train robbery in the United
States of America. The narrative is divided into four main sections: breaking into
the railroad office, train robbery, escape and pursuit of the bandits.
I wanted to structure this work by basing it on 18th-century dance suite forms.70

Since these ‘old’ music forms are usually self-contained short pieces in length,
each with specific meter, harmonic and rhythmic features, in the GTR Suite I
have chosen to explore these forms as film music cues (from now on referred to
as cue), employing similar compositional structuring. The main reason for
employing a traditional dance suite was to cross-pollinate between old and
modern dance music forms, as well as to contrast the ‘old’ film with the ‘new’
music genres in order to bring the film closer to modern times.
I deliberately decided to go against the film’s action-adventure character, which

usually employs a wall-to-wall film scoring approach.71 Therefore, unlike the
music for Mem or Bricks, this music is not, generally speaking, hard synced with
the film. Instead, I intended the music to wash over each of the film scenes,
adding elements that are not present in the film: mood, ambience and emotional
depth. It aims to take the film into other emotional paths, and yet keeping its
general underscoring function.
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70
An example of a dance suite is J. S. Bach’s Cello no.2 in D minor, BWV 1008. Its set of
dances embody a Prélude, Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Minuet I, Minuet II and a Gigue.
However, I decided to include a Chaconne and a Tarantella (the latter in some way replaces the
Gigue; however, the Tarantella would best suit the scene due to its implied ‘Italian’ flair), which
are usually not part of the 18th century suite.
71
Wall-to-wall is a common expression meaning music that follows closely the events on screen.
Notable examples of this film scoring approach can be found throughout film music history. An
earlier example would be Max Steiner scoring of the airplane scene for the film King Kong
(1933).
! 76!
Traditionally, a Western film would be accompanied by Ragtime music or
perhaps Aaron Copland’s ‘Americana’ and ‘cowboy’ style, like Fanfare for the
Common Man or Billy the Kid,72 which would somehow mirror the pace of the
action on screen and convey the proper mood for these sections. In the case of
ragtime, the style could include piano, upright bass and banjo, common I-IV or
(ii dim –VI) harmonic progressions with chromatic passing chords on a steady
eight - note accompaniment motifs, against a syncopated melody. In the case of
Copland’s ‘Americana’ style, North American folk tunes, driving rhythms, meter
changes, modal and pentatonic scales, open 4ths and 5ths intervals, diatonic
dissonances, would be ‘Coplanesque’ features conveyed through a full orchestra
or a chamber ensemble.73
To blend in these music genres, however, I decided to embark on a different

approach, keeping some of these elements, like the sounds of the banjo and
upright bass, more suggested than actually being explicitly felt. Thus, sounds of
Western instruments go along with synthesizer patches and effects processing to
create textures of sound effects. As a result, I was not so much concerned to
compose idiomatically for these instruments as to use them as colouring or
accompanying effects. On the other hand, I gave more prominence to the
electronic dance music elements such as the drum machines and an electric bass
and to the classical trio consisting of violin, clarinet and piano.74
Unlike the majority of my PhD compositions, I did not therefore produce a

notated-based score or use any notation software to compose this work. I
produced this work exclusively in Logic, thus aiming to fully cross-pollinate
practices, techniques and tools shared between film, electronic dance music and
classically trained composers.
As an example, following a common procedure in preparing the ‘score’ for a
film, I imported the video and spotted the film in Logic. I set Logic ‘Markers’ to
match the scenes of the film and any eventual hit points: ‘Markers’ were a useful
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72
Cooke, Mervyn. ‘A History of Film Music ‘(Cambridge University Press, 3rd ed., 2010), p.124
73
A good example of this style’s features can be found in Aaron Copland’s score to the ballet
Appalachian Spring.
74
Many works can be found for this ensemble, of which Béla Bartók’s Contrasts (Sz 111), and
Aram Khachaturian Trio for clarinet violin and piano I particularly enjoy.!
! 77!
tool, not only to structure the work, but also to provide timings and duration for
each cue/ movement of the suite (Ex.27).
Ex.27 Logic’s sequencer, in GTR Suite. ‘Markers’ (in orange) were set to provide a visual layout
of the film’s scenes and eventual hit points.
Tempo maps were then built taking into account the pace of each dance and
adjusted slightly so that each cue would begin on a downbeat. This adjustment
usually required no more than a span of +5 BPM or -5 BMP, which does not
drastically alter the intended original tempo. Re-metering was necessary not only
to convey the character of each dance, but also to add or subtract beats in order to
match the film editing. These procedures produce an ‘arrangement’ layout
(Ex.28), which resembles a blank notated score (Ex.29): it displays tempo
markings, bar numbers, empty bars and meter changes that provide the basis to
start creating the music.
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Ex.28 Logic’s sequencer ‘blank’ arrangement
Ex. 29 An illustration of Sibelius software’ equivalent ‘blank’ score (which was not used to
compose this work).
Although most film and classical music requires pre-compositional work in

terms of score structuring (sketching themes for instance), dance music artists
rely on other practices and techniques, as mentioned above, to produce their
music75. A common procedure would be setting a main tempo, and loop some
drums and bass parts to provide the groove structure76 to try out the melodies,
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75!Snoman, Rick. ‘Dance Music Manual’ (Focal Press, 2010), p.219!
76
Ibid.
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motifs or pads on the keyboard that could be recorded in real-time. MIDI data
would then become available for further arranging and programming.
I employed a sequencer preparation derived from film music, like using markers
to define where cues would start and stop, and to create the music borrowing
from the same experimental practices of electronic dance music artists.
The GTR Suite uses violin, clarinet, piano, sounds of Washburn guitar, mandolin,
banjo, two electronic drum kits, electric bass, upright bass, didgeridoo drones
and a few other synthesized sounds form FM8 synthesizer. This piece is not to be
performed live. Live performance (with or without the film) requires notation
parts for the violin, clarinet and piano as well as a backing track for all the other
sounds. A click-track should be used for accurate synchronization between the
musicians and the video.
Structure
Although the film’s narrative comprises four main sections, I subdivided the
story into five music cues. Five main musical pieces borrowed from the 17th-
century suite were employed to further the dramatic structure of the film. A
Prelude and an Outro where also added as described below.
Prelude – Minuet - Four to the Floor Bourré – 4/4 Sarabande – Chaconne –

Tarantella - Outro
The suite’s Prelude serves as the film’s ‘Main Title’ music, greatly influenced
by main title music like the above-mentioned work by Trevor Morris in The
Borgias. Its function is to set the tone of the film and to sum up the most
important features which will be heard throughout the piece: ostinati, rhythmic
motors, mix of classical, North American and electronic dance music
instruments. Similar to what happens in many of my other PhD works, my
harmonic system moves between common-practice tonal progressions and ‘odd’
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notes which blur the tonal system convention. A pedal note in G defines this
piece’s ‘tonal’ centre.
Drawing from the traditional Minuet is the 3/4 meter, the binary (A-B) form,
which however repeats in a different manner (A-B-A2-B2), and a traditional
Minuet’s rhythmic pattern (Ex.30).
Ex.30 Minuet pattern in Logic’s Ultrabeat software drum

machine
This pattern was sequenced in real-time through Logic’s Ultrabeat ‘Downtempo

kit’, aiming to give it a laid-back Hip-hop feel and timbre. A kick drum
alternates with juxtaposed snare and claps sounds. There was a need to use full
quantization on the drum kit (100%) so that the synchronization could be more
effective, if it is to run through a click-track in live performance context.
While in the A section, the piano, clarinet and violin add to the entire groove feel
as accompaniment, in the B section these instruments come to the foreground
taking on a more solo character, interplaying a dialogue with the drum machine,
which ends with a sustained atonal ‘odd’ chord. The A and B section come back
slightly differently orchestrated, this time giving prominence to the electric bass
as well as to a newly introduced arpeggiated, crunchy sound effect provided by
the synthesizer.
Other devices were used to blur the boundaries of these genres: a distorted
‘Grunge-like’ electric bass accentuates the first beat of every bar to add extra
punch and harmonic drive. Also, since this electric bass sound neither belongs to
Hip-hop, classical nor ‘Country’ music, it helps to blur this work’s genre
definition.
The goal of Four to the Floor Bourré was to change the traditional Bourré
pattern into a 20th-century house dance groove. The use of loops is a common
! 81!
feature in electronic dance music and so I used it to the extreme as the rhythmic
drive of this movement. To achieve this, a separate piano loop track is triggered
by the previous piano motif (dove-tailed).
In contrast to the previous movement, the Bourré’s rhythmic pattern rotates
between the violin, clarinet and piano in a repetitive manner, basically changing
register and timbre (Ex.31).
Ex.31 Bourré pattern in Logic’s Ultrabeat software drum machine
Common techniques from House dance music are employed, such as a kick drum
on every beat of the bar, thus creating a four-to-the-floor feel and the addition of
other layers of sounds to add diversity, since the piano and kick drum loop are
constant throughout the movement.
I decided to borrow from electronic ambient/chill-out music77 to compose the 4/4

Sarabande. This movement is a ‘blurred’ Sarabande, since the original dance
form is usually in 3/4 meter. A repetitive (loop-like) harmonic tonal progression
is also employed in contrast to the traditional Sarabande, since too much
harmonic contrast would draw attention to the music itself. The main device to
keep it like the traditional Sarabande was to let the pattern of stressing the
second, prolonged beat of each bar keep going together with the upbeat to the
next bar (Ex.32).
Ex.32 Logic’s score editor illustration of the 4/4 Sarabande pattern
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77
The Area 51 song, from the album Open up, by the band Urban Myth Club specifically
illustrates the chill-out music (sub)genre that influenced the 4/4 Sarabande. [Myth Club, Urban:
Open up, 2011 Track 8]
! 82!
To emphasize the ambient effect, a second Ultrabeat instance was used with a
‘Rhythm and Blues Lo-Fi Kit’, since, in my view, lo-fi kits add more ‘natural’
ambience to electronic dance music chill-out sound. The kit’s kick drum was
placed on the first beat of each bar, and claps on the second beat, so as to
produce a light laid-back feel, thus blending with the Sarabande’s rhythmic
pattern.
To convey an overall ambient feel, other devices were also employed: while the
harmonic progression repeats four times, the piano and clarinet either play long
and sparse phrases that do not draw full attention to themselves, or the piano fills
in the texture with short notes and added reverberation. The addition of hi-hats
and maracas contributes to the overall chill-out groove. It also was important to
keep soft the dynamics and a transparent texture. I realized that the FM8 ‘Crystal
Clear Guitar’ patch would be a good option as it has a thin and well-defined
sound quality. The arpeggiator in FM8 was turned off and a delay effect was
timed to sync with the main tempo: the time parameter was set to 78% and
feedback to 0%. A didgeridoo patch was also used as a drone, stressing mainly
the second beat of each bar.
The Chaconne was the most literally imported from the baroque/classical
tradition: the piano gives way to a repeating harmonic progression (in triplets),
while the violin and clarinet play variations. However, since the suite does not
have a clear melodic theme, the variations are built upon rhythmic cells and
structured according to the beats of the bar. Thus, the Chaconne progresses,
departing from single attacks on the violin and clarinet to full staccato or legato
phrases filling in the whole bar with increasing rhythmic activity. The result is
that they become more intense as they progress. The bass adds dramatic weight,
while synthesizers and western instruments orchestrate the repeating harmonic
progression, thus aiming to create a ‘multi-genre’ textural sound.
The Tarantella uses its characteristic rhythmic pattern, merged with a sequenced
laid-back groove, drawing from Hip-hop (Ex.33).
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Ex.33 Tarantella’s common dance pattern: ‘galloping’ pattern over a triplet feel.
At the same time, the attacks of the electric bass trigger a bouncing style of
upright bass playing, inspired by bluegrass Country music bass players.
Borrowing from standard phrase length in electronic dance music, a simple
harmonic progression (I-IV-iii-V) is repeated every sixteen bars. The iii chord
basically acts like a substitute chord for I, and modulations by thirds - commonly
used without any preparation in film scores - are a device to produce a stronger
dramatic effect.
The Outro reprises the Prelude. I found particularly effective ‘orchestrating’ the
gunshots synched with the film by layering the violin, clarinet, piano, banjo,
Washburn guitar, FM8 and the sharp snap sound of the two Ultrabeat snares and
claps.
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3.2.5 Two television commercials: Acura and Pedigree (2012)
Acura commercial – NO SCORE / CD 2, Tracks 5&6 / Dur. 37’’ / DVD 1

(Video)
Pedigree commercial - Scores II, p.25 / CD 2, Track 7 / Dur. 37’’ /DVD 1

(Video)
Pedigree commercial – performed by Heather Ogilvy, Soprano
Although the music for these two short commercials were composed outside the
scope of my PhD work, I decided to include them, as I believe both illustrate
how I can apply my research work effectively in commercial TV advertising
music.
The Acura car explores the use of technology through the use of a single piano.
This commercial required elegance, aggression and technology as the main
components to promote the product. I therefore sequenced a piano track in Logic
as the piano seemed to fit well as an elegant, ‘classy’ or classical instrument. To
give it a contemporary, technological input, I duplicated the original piano
settings from the first track twice, and inserted one instance of reverb in each of
the two channels strips, one for the bass sound, the other for the high sounds.
These reverb instances were not meant to create any additional depth or space,
but rather to use the reverse reverb feature where the reverb sound builds up after
its initial attack (Ex.34).
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Ex.34 piano bass notes reversed reverb
A tape delay was also inserted in each of these tracks with long values and little
feedback time, to provide more echoing for prolonging the sound rather than
producing a delay effect (Ex.35).
Ex.35 logic’s Tape Delay with a delay value set to two seconds, synced with the sequencer’s
tempo.
The same reverb technique was used on the celesta, which I used by slightly
cutting the volume envelope attack as a means of ‘orchestrating’ the high register
of the piano, thus filling the register span from low to high.
! 86!
In the Pedigree commercial I decided to make a contrast between a classical
piece of music and pop music. This commercial required an intimate atmosphere
that could illustrate the reciprocal affection between the portrayed dogs and their
caring owners.
To accomplish this effect, I composed a ‘J.S Bach style’ Minuet together with
pop song style of singing. I asked the singer to perform like a mix of Adele and
Jim Morrison, and to record her voice very close and dry. Instead of using an
expected harpsichord, I used Logic EVP88 MK II jazz organ and Logic’s
‘Motown’ bass patch to double the organ bass line as a sort of ‘walking bass’.
The end of this commercial features a music quotation from the song The End by
the 1970s band The Doors as a parody to the lyrics. This uses the same principle
of employing a music genre to convey a specific mood, like the one I used in the
poem American Football, part of the song cycle Four Poems in Search of a
Music play.
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3.3 Stage
!
3.3.1 Dracula (2008)
!
Scores II, p. 29 / CD 3, Tracks 1-37 / Dur. 10’ / DVD 2 (Video) - Complete
working cue/track list in appendix D
Performed by Sofia Neide, double bass
Concept, approach and features of this composition
Dracula was my first collaboration with the semi-professional Portuguese-based

English theatre company, The Lisbon Players. It was directed by Keith Davis and
based upon the 1931 original script. The director required a score full with lots of
dramatic tension in the style of German music expressionism to serve as
background music. For stylistic purposes I drew upon Anton Webern’s Concerto
for Nine Instruments op.24 and Arnold Schoenberg’s Five Pieces for Orchestra
op.16, and composed the score techniques derived from the 2nd Viennese School,
like the concise Webernian motif cells, Klangfarbenmelodie, and a twelve-tone
series.
Here I wanted to explore for the first time the possibility of using a full orchestral
score produced with software virtual instruments in a theatre venue. The
challenge was to make the virtual orchestra sound as real as possible: I was
aware that in the film music field, orchestral mock-ups are employed to their
highest possible realism, so that film directors may accurately preview how the
live orchestra, yet to be recorded, will sound like with the film.
Although there are no other genres of music but the required serial and
expressionist music style in Dracula, I believed at the time that this would be
very important for my next PhD compositions, as I could somehow feel free
from budgeting concerns of hiring live musicians, and instead of that I could
employ virtual instruments to compose any piece of music featuring any sort of
instrumental forces. Furthermore, this also led me to think more thoroughly
about the combination of live recorded and virtual instruments (as in Four Poems
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in Search of a Music Play- a hybrid sound production) or the employment of
backing tracks (pre-recordings) in live performance (Bricks).
Thus, I felt this work would be the ideal place to employ the recently acquired
techniques of MIDI sequencing and programming on sample libraries. I
composed the full score in Sibelius, and used Logic’s score editor to fully copy
the Sibelius notated score into Logic. At the time, I was not aware of the simple
procedure of exporting the MIDI file from Sibelius to Logic which would have
not translated the instrument articulations; rather, it would have imported all the
notated parts, thus easing the workflow. Actually, for the last three years the
Sound Set Project78 has allowed for a full integration of software instruments
libraries between notation and DAW applications.
In this work I used the VSL Special Edition library only. I inputted key-switches
to change the instrument articulations and used ‘note velocity’ on the VSL
sample player to control the instrument dynamics. At the time, I accomplished
instrumental expression by using volume automation and not CC 11 (the default
MIDI expression controller), or, as in modern libraries, CC1 that cross-fades
between velocity layers using the modulation wheel of a MIDI keyboard.
In this work I also experimented with recording a live double bassist for the cue
‘Blood on finger’ (CD track 19) as well as recording the voice of the Dracula
character laughter (CD track 32) which was further enhanced with the addition of
a digital tape delay for greater theatrical effect.
Other experiments in Dracula opened the doors for future PhD works: I was
asked to create some sound effects of bats flying, dogs howling and dripping
water (the latter I mixed with the samples of pizzicati strings to achieve a textural
effect). To create these sound effects I employed Apple Loops, which I further
manipulated with delays, equalization and by automating the panning.
Dracula was also important, because a complete mix and mastering of the CD
for this work was needed. I used several mixing techniques like a reverb instance
per instrument, which I later abandoned in my works: in larger instrumental
works, I realized this mixing technique would be too CPU taxing on the
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
78!http://www.soundsetproject.com. Accessed on 17/05/2013.!
! 89!
computer, and that would therefore reduce the amount of instruments and effects
I could get hold of. Learning from this experience, I felt I should in the following
works use other techniques like, for example, three buses on the mix, one for
each stage depth to where instruments could be sent, thus proving more CPU
effective.
Instrumentation
Dracula uses flute, oboe, clarinet in Bb, French horn in F, trumpet in Bb, bass
trombone, xylophone, gongs (antique cymbals where employed on the MIDI
virtual instruments), tam-tam, suspended and crash cymbals, timpani, two
pianos, harp, celesta, two violins, viola, cello, and double bass.
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3.3.2 Hamlet (2009)
Scores II, p.71 / CD 3, Tracks 38-72 / Dur. 8’ / DVD 3 (Video) – Complete

working cue/track list in appendix D
Hamlet was my second collaboration with The Lisbon Players and can be viewed
as a follow-up to Dracula, in terms of techniques, methods and procedures.
This play was based on the original Shakespeare play and was directed by
Jonathan Weightman. The director had in mind a mix of elements from different
time periods: the play was to be set around the 1940s, costumes where drawn
from late nineteenth- century styles, some props from the seventeenth century,
and the play would finish with a reference to nuclear age employing anti-
radiation masks and the sound of helicopters. According to the director, the
overall music and soundscape should relate to those elements. As such, the
music I composed spans from the period of classical music, to jazz and
electronics. Furthermore, the director also wished me to compose the music score
for the silent film The Mousetrap (in DVD 1) that was used as a staging device to
move the plot forward in the director’s play adaptation. For the The Mousetrap
film score, I composed a fanfare overture in the style of the Twentieth Century
Fox logo, and the film score was composed in the style of the ‘Hollywood
Golden Age’ film composers like Max Steiner, Erich von Korngold or Franz
Waxman.
I was thus challenged by the eclecticism of music genres and styles that could
suit this particular Hamlet staging and for the possibilities that eclecticism gave
me to explore cross-genre. This score, as I see it retrospectively, wraps up most
of the elements I was to explore further in subsequent PhD compositions.
Since basically the same technical procedures were employed in both Dracula
and Hamlet, in the following section I shall single out a few cues and technical
features employed in Hamlet, which are different from those of Dracula’s, and
have somehow furthered my research explorations.
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Instrumentation and some highlighted features
Hamlet uses piccolo flute, English horn, clarinet in Bb, bass clarinet in Bb,
contrabassoon, French horn in F, trumpet in Bb, tenor trombone, tuba, timpani, a
percussion ensemble of bass drum, cymbals, large gong, snare drum, tambourine,
crotales (plate bells in the CD recording), tubular bells, glockenspiel, xylophone,
marimba, vibraphone, harp, EXS24 sampler for prepared piano (to sound like an
out- of-tune harpsichord), string quartet, electric bass, jazz drum kit, and Evolve
library patches.
The instrumentation was chosen to convey several music genres and styles. In
that sense, piccolo and English horn where preferred to the C Flute or oboe, since
in my view these instruments have a characteristic tone quality closer to ancient
music, thus ‘taking’ the audience back into the past. The same thing can be said
about the plate bells and the tambourine. The chosen brass instruments (one per
section) however, seemed quite suitable for both jazz and period fanfares.
In Hamlet’s Court fanfare cues (CD 3, tracks 43, 50, 52, 53, 59) I am using a
jazz, swing-feel blended with a mix of period and modern fanfares. To obtain
this effect, I used an electric bass, a jazz drum kit, brass, woodwinds and
percussion with a sort of a sixteenth-century rhythmic pulse in the background
(three-feel downbeat of quavers in a 6/8 metric). In the foreground, brass
instruments play more traditional fanfare consonant intervals (4ths and 5ths).
Woodwinds, xylophone and crotales perform borrowed avant-garde musical
gestures, dissonant in character, helping to illustrate the ‘corrupt’ Denmark’s
court (Ex.36).
Ex.36 ‘rhythm section’ of the court fanfare cues blending bass drum and tambourine with electric
bass and drum set over a ‘three’ feel.
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Another example in Hamlet is Decadance (CD 3 track 47), a very short jazz cue.
To merge the jazzy language with sixteenth-century inspired period music, the
same instrumental palette is kept. This also helps placing the jazz genre in an
uncertain period of time.
The cue There’s a willow (CD 3 track 64) is rather mysterious, sorrowful
dissonant in character which comes to an end in a sort of a ‘Palestrina’ style of
renaissance cadence in the marimba, violin 2, viola and cello (Ex.37).
Ex.37 There’s a willow cue.
The medieval character in the Funeral procession cue (CD 3 track 66) takes its
influence from an audio or MIDI loop, in the sense that there is a mechanical
repetition tailing the end of a region to the beginning of that very same region. It
is an eight-bar phrase, which repeats four times, differing from a loop only as it
suffers slight instrumental variations.
Besides exploring cross-genre by mixing the above-mentioned elements, the

production of the music for Hamlet also included my first use of Heavyocity
Evolve, one of the libraries I came to use in order to expand the sound palette
resources of my PhD compositions. This library is designed for film and
television composers as it consists of pre-designed patches of sound effects,
drum loops, ambient atmospheres, stings and transitions. I used it on all Ghost
cues (CD 3 track 39 as an example) as an atmospheric pad and in the cue New
Order (CD 3 track 70) as a drum loop patch, tempo-synched with the orchestral
ensemble and the sound effects of crowded noise.
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3.3.3 Life is Getting Better (2011)
Scores II, p. 125 / CD 3, Track 73 / Dur. 11’45’’
Performed by Milad Alizadeh, guitar - Bahare Fattahi, voice
This work was composed for the physical theatre stage performance by Iranian
artist Bahare Fattahi, as the final project of her Masters in Physical Theatre at
Royal Holloway, University of London.
The programme behind this project is, in general terms about the context of
women within Iran’s political regime during the last few decades.
I attended several rehearsals and decided to film the final rehearsals when the
choreography was more-or-less set. This allowed me to change my working
methodology as a film composer rather than a composer for theatre. The reason
for this was that my experience of writing for theatre was normally to work on
the script and with the director’s guidelines for the music (as in Dracula or
Hamlet). Moreover, the limited time to produce this score (around a week) also
made me decide to film it: it proved to be faster and more comfortable to produce
the music watching the performance in my sequencer and notation software. This
method also provided me with very accurate timings for each scene and the
performer’s movement on stage. The performer could then slightly adapt, in a
symbiotic process, once the music was completed.
In collaboration with the performer I decided to use a full orchestral palette.

Since there was no budget available for a live performance, I produced a full
orchestra emulation taking advantage of the possibilities of virtual instruments.
For the two stage performances of this work, only a CD recording of the full
orchestral mock-up was used. The version presented here is my full, complete
concept of the work, which due to time constraints was not presented at the time.
The performer asked for an overall orchestral sound, with hints of Middle
Eastern ambience. At the same time, Bahare Fattahi wanted the music to contain
some solo instruments to symbolize her lonely voice within the women’s crowd.
! 94!
To achieve this in the presented CD version I blended elements from classical,
jazz and world music by employing two mixed groups of jazz and Middle
Eastern instruments.
Instrumentation
This work uses two flutes, one piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons,
four horns, two trumpets, two trombones, one bass trombone, one tuba, timpani,
bass drum, cymbals, tam-tam, marimba, celesta, harp and a full string section.
Group 1 comprises a duduk, dumbek and an electric ‘clean sound’ guitar. Group
2 an oud, bass guitar and a drum set consisting of a hi-hat and snare drum. Scene
two employs both a live recording of the guitar part and the recording of the
performer Bahare Fattahi singing in the rehearsal.
Structure
Scene one and scene three are both through-composed pieces. In general terms,
I was inspired by Ravel’s Bolero, and so the main idea was to depart from a
simple instrumental solo into a final big tutti crescendo, by gradually adding
layers of instruments and widening the register span.
To convey an urban and Middle Eastern hybrid sound, I decided to structure and
weave the two ‘foreign’ instrument groups into the fabric of the composition, in
much the same way as any other orchestral instrument. Compositionally, I used
short rhythmic/melodic cells that gradually fill in the bar space until the full
instrumental force is assembled like a puzzle at the end of the movement. In that
sense, these ‘foreign’ or ‘alien’ instruments aspire to be a ‘legitimate’ part of the
orchestration procedures and techniques. Thus, I also decided to employ these
instruments away from their improvisation-based tradition.
Scene two starts by evoking the performer’s memories and ‘ghosts’ from the
past. To attain this goal, I sequenced in real time six Evolve patches from the
‘Tonality and FX’ kit to create an overall ominous feeling pad. These were
combined with a sequenced free pattern of dumbek and jazz kit, to provide a
continuous offbeat percussion sound which relates to the previous movement.
! 95!
To blend the recording of the voice of the performer with the ominous sound
effects pads, I created nine tracks, each with edited audio taken from the original
audio recording. I found cutting, dragging and copying portions of the original
audio region, and then adding delay effects, reversed reverbs (to achieve slight
build-ups), and time stretching (thus making the audio file lengthier and lower in
pitch), were efficient techniques to blend in the voice with the sound effects
soundscape.
In Scene two, the guitar part was used to deploy some sort of the ‘cinematic’
soundscapes. While the two ‘foreign’ instrument groups are used in Scene one as
part of the orchestration, in Scene two these are employed in a non-idiomatic
sense: in fact, these virtual instruments samples are used to produce textures,
with effects like delays, tremolo and extra reverb to add depth.
As mentioned before, MIDI data regions allow dragging, dropping, and/or

copying regions into other virtual instrument tracks, which read the MIDI data
and ‘perform’ what is written. Since the guitar part is an audio file, not a MIDI
file, I did not have immediate access to the guitar score data (i.e, pitches,
duration, and register). To be able to use the audio recording of the guitar, I
firstly attempted to quantize and create a groove template from the audio file,
which could be read by the other virtual instruments tracks. However, leading to
a cluttered and inaccurate MIDI region, this did not prove to be accurate enough.
Rather, the solution which proved much more effective was to use Logic’s audio
to score function in the ‘Sample editor’. Setting the granulation parameter to 60
ms and the velocity threshold to 1 conveyed a much cleaner ‘score’ data.
Regardless of slight further editing of the MIDI data in the ‘piano roll’, the new
MIDI regions could be in sync with the original guitar recording, thus achieving
the desired result (Ex.38).
! 96!
Ex.38 In red, the MIDI data regions synced and juxtaposed with the original guitar recording
(yellow)
The mixing of Life is Getting Better played a crucial role in the final result. In
fact, besides panning the instruments to place them across the stereo field, I
found the blend of orchestral, jazz, world instruments, cinematic soundscape
effects as well as the audio editing from both voice and guitar parts in Scene two
very difficult to achieve. To overcome this, in any of the three scenes, the sound
of the instruments was manipulated, for example, by using volume automation to
bring some instruments to the front of the mix, like the duduk doubling the flute,
and the clarinet or the trombone solo phrases. Similarly, in terms of dynamic
range, the oud would not be able to ‘compete’ with the full orchestra or the
amplified electric jazz guitar in a real live concert performance, unless it was
either amplified or manipulated in the mix. In addition, a Limiter was employed
at the end of the mastering chain to make the overall track louder, thus reducing
the difference in dynamic range between the lower and louder parts. The Waves
L316 limiter was used with a carefully set threshold of -6DB so as not to produce
any unwanted sound artefacts (i.e, pops or clicks), and an output ceiling of -
0.3DB was set so that there would be no loudspeaker distortion.
Although these processes produce a somehow ‘unrealistic’ live performance

sound, I found they fitted very well in the sound production of the CD recording:
in the production of film music similar mixing techniques allow for a lower
! 97!
powered instrument to be heard ‘on top’ of the orchestra. The cue ‘Carlos leaves’
from Alexandre Desplat’s A Better Life film score79 illustrates this by employing
guitars playing softly but very upfront in the mix, which result in sounding
louder than the string section, which is placed further back in the mix.
In order to tail the end of a scene with the beginning of the next one, in the
presented CD recording I produced and bounced each scene as an individual
Logic project, and then bounced the juxtaposition of the audio of the three
scene’s regions into a single AIFF file. For that effect, a metronome click was
employed when recording the guitarist that matched the 102 BPM crochet tempo
of scenes 1 and 2 (Ex.39).
Ex.39 tailing of the three scenes in Life is Getting Better in a separate Logic ‘project’
Life is Getting Better can be viewed as furthering many of the techniques, the
procedures and the practices used in the early PhD stage works Dracula and
Hamlet.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
79
Desplat, Alexandre: A better life (2011), [CD] track 13.
! 98!
Chapter 4 Conclusions
In this PhD portfolio I have aimed to propose an eclectic set of dramatic

approaches to contemporary composition, which are greatly influenced by
combining elements from film music and pop music genres.
The main challenge was to incorporate these elements into the fabric of the
presented compositions by stripping them down from their ‘natural’ music
environments, and make them available as resources to be crossed with the
classical music tradition as a hybrid and consistent musical language.
Composing music for films was, I believe, an exciting and fertile soil to depart
from, inasmuch as I see it as a ‘hub’ for further developing music genres, and
even more so because film music composition is nowadays deeply rooted in the
use of music technology. Other challenges involved moving between
compositional practices, methods and processes: indeed, I have employed
technological tools like virtual instruments, sample libraries, software
synthesizers, and methods like MIDI programming, audio recording, mixing and
the use of click-tracks and backing tracks, which are a common ground in the
productions of film, pop and concert music.
As my research work progressed, the potential provided by music technology led

me to give more and more prominence to the studio (or home studio), when
producing my musical works. The need to engage in collaborations with artists
from other music genres in the compositional process was not primarily essential
to my work, and so my approach was more genre-appropriation-like rather than
collaborative. At the same time, this pushed me to take over the full production
of the music cycle – from composing, sequencing and recording to mastering the
music – and to further my knowledge in these areas. This set of acquired skills
become central to the work produced, and it is inseparable from the process and
working methodologies of the majority of my compositions.
However, the extensive use of music technology tools also raised many questions
regarding live performance and/or contexts of recording formats. The
compositional elements, like instrumental playing and sound production to be
! 99!
delivered in a recording format (i.e., CD, mp3, DVD, tape, vinyl) do not
necessarily have to be reproducible live. For example, the sequenced double bass
sampled-instrument motifs that were used in Mem to orchestrate the clarinet are
clearly unidiomatic and serve as a timbre effect only.
Although my compositions are either a mix of recorded live instruments with

programmed samples/sound manipulation (hybrid productions), or fully
programmed, I thought it was interesting to be flexible in the music delivery /
performance format. The solutions I have undertaken were, on one hand, to
produce idiomatically notated scores for those instruments that could be
performed live, and on the other hand to leave to the pre-record or backing track
(without a notated score) every other sound. This method has proved efficient in
terms of live performance flexibility: whenever desired, any notated instruments
can also be easily removed from the backing tracks and performed live, as long
as there is amplification involved.
The three categories of the presented works were also meant to be flexible in
blurring their performance contexts. To achieve that, I was concerned to give non
concert hall compositions identical compositional planning and consistency as
seen in my concert hall music, so that, for instance, a composition relying on the
relation of the music to the image could still be perceived as consistent if the film
were to be removed.
The final research result in the presented compositions proposes a set of

methodological approaches to the successful achievements of cross-genre
composition that can be applied to further new works. The research’s major
findings are itemized as follows:
Petite Sérénade for Guitar trio: sound production for film and concert-hall
explores the manipulation of sound production techniques, with one single
microphone recording a guitar trio ensemble driven by ambient music and guitar
style riffs of rock music. This work could be listened to in a live concert or taken
to the film realm as underscoring music cues (perhaps in the categories of
suspense or thriller).
! 100!
• Creating a fully notated score first, having in mind a further real-time
ambient and rock music-derived sound manipulation proved an effective
approach to the composition of this work.
• One omni-directional microphone placed about one meter in front of the
ensemble enables capturing the full ensemble: this technique can be
applied to any small group of instruments (one to four).
• Both ‘rack’ swapping through a foot pedal (common practice amongst
pop guitar players) and sound manipulation through simple external
MIDI controllers allow for a comfortable set up on stage.
• Applying a single one omni-directional microphone might cause issues of
level balance between the instruments thus becoming more difficult to
compensate in the mix or in real-time sound manipulation. The
employment of one unidirectional microphone to each instrument, further
routed to a single audio channel would provide greater control over the
sound sources. This technique could be better employed, for example, not
to obscure so much the clearness of the notation parts, when overdrive
distortion is applied.
• Setting up players close to each other might result in better cohesion in
live performance, however it causes issues of stereo widening in the
mixing stage.
In Bagatella n.1a and Bagatella n.1b I was concerned to explore a piano

composition derived from a piano pop song accompaniment. While Bagatella 1a
can be put into a concert hall venue context, in Bagatella1b the piano turns into a
MIDI keyboard and triggers elements from jazz, dubstep and classical music,
recurring to Hyper-multi-instruments which place timbre as one of the main
compositional factors and parameters. In this case, I not only believe that a
concert hall could be suitable for the performance, a nightclub could also be an
adequate performance venue.
• The structure of a pop song can produce effective results when the use of
different music genres is emplyed in each of the verse-chorus sections.
• Placing the pop music genre both as the chorus and climax of the piece
causes greater shocking effect in terms of audience’s expectations.
! 101!
• The harmonic system proposed helps to blend-in musical languages by
keeping a balance between tonal and atonal structures.
• The hyper-multi-instrument allows the performer to have an input on
timbre choices.
• Applying a hyper-multi-instrument per section of the work helps
clarifying form.
• The hyper-multi-instrument offers more flexibility of control over the
usual multi instrument due to its own internal mixer.
• For purposes of a clearer mix, lesser amount of stacked instruments
should be employed in each hyper-multi-instrument. At the same time,
the mastering channel for each hyper-multi-instrument would benefit
from less amount of compression so that the dynamic range of each
instrument (timbre) is higher.
Earth is Home is a composition that aims to be a concert hall piece and a film
score at the same time. It brings into a strongly concert hall informed score,
soundscapes, choirs and sound effects derived from film music to be
synchronized via a click-track in live performance.
• A pre-compositional plan to provide the composition with a strong story-

telling functional structure, increases the chances to achieve overall
coherence when non-traditional, film music-derived sound effects are
integrated.
• Tonal and atonal harmonic structures used with the intention to describe a
fictional story revealed powerful specially when combined with typical
choir and ambient electronic sound effects.
• Minimalistic-inspired compositional techniques help to establish a proper
balance between moments where the music draws attention to itself (thus
driving the story clearly) or when it functions as background, ambient
music (driving the story at a more sub-conscious level).
• The use of backing tracks consisting of commercial film-derived sampled
sound effects furthers the sense of a ‘film score’ in the context of a
concert hall composition.
! 102!
Four Poems in Search of a Music Play explores several music genres like hip-
hop, jazz, blues and TV inspired news anchor reports ‘singing’ four of Harold
Pinter’s poems, which I set into a cycle. Although it is clearly a concert hall
work, it has a theatrical dramaturgic element that also belongs to the stage
domain. It is the one work where my harmonic system was employed more
strictly, balancing tonal and atonal elements. Several instrumental effects like col
legno and pizzicati where used to illustrate a hip-hop groove or a clarinet
breakbeat - inspired rhythmic cell to emulate a turntable groove.
• In terms of methodological approach, the incorporation of rap, hip-hop

and ‘news report’ style of singing can be combined effectively into a
strict, rigid, concert hall notation. In fact, the more structured these
elements are integrated in the fabric of the composition, the more this
work assumes a ‘concert hall’ character. The opposite was also found to
be true in the early research stages for this work: if those elements were
dealt with more freely, the composition would tend to slightly slide
towards the pop music field, which was not the aim in this work.
• The ‘news report’ style of reciting text appeared as an effective,
straightforward way of delivering the poem’s text, which, together with a
closed microphone amplification helped to cross over between the fields
of TV and concert music.
• Applying a 12 bar blues form (and its implied harmonic progression) as
the music genre framework to the cycle’s ‘laments’ delivered a greater
reference to the North American culture, thus bringing it closer to the text
of the poems. I found this method of using a music genre to depict a
‘physical location’ (which is strongly influenced by film scoring
approaches) could set any composition directly into a certain culture.
The film music compositions Bricks and Mem explore different genre-
approaches to the visuals. The visuals helped determining form as well as the
development of the notated composition material. These compositions could be
performed either in a club or a classically oriented venue. Both compositions aim
to have the notated instruments (two violins and the clarinet) performing a
modern style of writing blended with either dance or sound effects/electronics
textures found in film and pop music.
! 103!
• Instrumental effects like harmonics or scratching the violin strings with
the bow were devices found to effectively blend in synthesized sounds
with acoustic instruments as well as to build bridges between music
genres.
• Hard synchronization and mickey-mousing film scoring techniques
provide a higher, noticeable degree of interaction between the music and
the visuals.
• Structuring a notated score’s metric after the sequencer’s markers (as hit
point results when spotting the film) can provide the grounds for a
concert hall composition.
• When exploring more complex rhythmic and metric features in relation to
the visuals, not only a click-track reveals essential but also clear music
‘cues’ should be given to the performer either in the backing track and/or
score to give way to an accurate performance.
In GTR Suite I explored the composition of a work for a trio (clarinet, violin and
piano) without producing a notated score - though still idiomatic - using only
film scoring and dance music procedures. This work was fully sequenced in real-
time and explores a combination of mostly rhythmic patterns from 18th-Century
dance suite with a variety of genres, like ambient, house and country music.
Software drum machines and synthesizers, and North American virtual
instruments were used to produce textures, thus wrapping the piece in a Western
film genre sound.
• As a classically trained composer rooted in score notation to objectively
produce concert compositions, experimenting dance and pop music
production practices to compose a film/ concert-hall oriented work leads
to the removal of a ‘safety net’ in terms of score structuring and
composition.
• The lack of a visual score reference was not replaceable by sequencing or
MIDI region procedures. Dance and pop music practices improve the
speed of the production but I’ve acknowledged issues in terms of a higher
degree of compositional elaboration, namely, voice leading, harmonic
structuring and counterpoint.
! 104!
• I found composing following these practices gave a significant
contribution to blurring the distinction between music genres, as the
classical trio assumed a more ‘pop-ish’ character within the overall
balance of work, regardless of the classical variation techniques applied
as the movements of the suite unfold.
• I also found that basing contemporary electronic dance music styles as
classical dance form patterns helped achieving a more controlled balance
between genres in this composition.
Life is Getting Better explored the integration of orchestral, Middle Eastern and
jazz instruments, as well as the manipulation of audio recordings to generate
filmic ambient textures. The use of panning, volume automation, compression,
limiting, as well as delays and reverbs proved essential in blending this work as a
consistent stage work.
• Strictly applying common orchestration procedures to jazz and Middle

Eastern ‘instrumental combos’ into the realm of the full orchestra proved
and effective way to expand the sound pallet of the orchestra.
• In terms of methodology, the concept of orchestrating with instruments
belonging to other music genres can be applied to any composition,
although a thorough knowledge of these instruments’ characteristics
proves to be essential for proper balance.
• In the case of the presented recording, sound production techniques from
film music were effective to solve issues of dynamic (volume) balance
between groups of instruments, thus putting aside the concerns mentioned
in the above point.
• The audio to score functions in Logic appeared as an effective music
technology solution to produce - after a guitar’s audio recording file -
‘cinematic’ textures in a concert or stage work.
• I found that in terms of the final CD recording, replacing instruments for
their immediate relatives (duduk for the flute, in the woodwind section
for example) could be more effective than doubling as this orchestration
technique might lead to a cluttered final mix.
! 105!
Evol, Dracula and Hamlet were ‘labs’ where I carried out my first experiments
in dealing with different music genres, as well as with music technology, from
movie synchronization in Logic, through score preparation and MIDI
programming with virtual instruments and synthesizers, to the mixing and
mastering of the music. These works required me to produce realistic
instrumental emulations that could be used to produce backing tracks in live
performance, enabling me to assess the effectiveness of the CD recordings
during the live stage performances of Dracula and Hamlet. Likewise, the
eclecticism of music genres and styles employed in these works has opened the
doors to further cross-genre explorations and methodologies.
My research work proposed live performance setups that mix pop and classical
music traditions, thus catering for a wider variety of audiences. In my view,
music has to be listened and put into context, whether that context may be social,
cultural or civilizational.80 Thus, I tend to see the discussions on high/low culture
(as well as, for example the debates in the recent past over the Frankfurt School
and Theodor Adorno’s critical theory studies81) or pop vs. art music82 not so
much important for the contemporary composer as the need to embrace and
reflect the pluralism and diversity of music’s global phenomena in his/her music.
I believe further exploration of cross-genres in contemporary composition

involves learning more about music genres, the underlying methods, techniques,
practices, and ideologies, so as to critically incorporate them into the composer’s
own vocabulary. Furthermore, I believe this is only possible due to the wide
dissemination of information technology, like the Internet, or social media,
otherwise it would be almost impossible to engage in live collaborative processes
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
80
Ethnomusicologist John Blacking provides an example of this view in the chapter Music in
Society and Culture, of his book How Musical is Man?. [Blacking, John. How Musical is Man?
(Washington University Press, 6th ed., 2000), p.32
81
Namely those exposed in the chapter The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception,
of the book Dialectic of Enlightenment. [Horkheimer, Max and Adorno, Theodor W. Dialectic of
Enlightenment: philosophical fragments (Stanford University Press, 2002), p.94
82
Composer Ben Neill discusses interesting aspects of the relation between high/low art, culture
and music in connection with today’s music technology, in his article Breakthrough Beats:
Rhythm and the Aesthetics of Contemporary Electronic music. [Neill, Ben. Breakthrough Beats:
Rhythm and the Aesthetics of Contemporary Electronic Music in Cox, Christoph and Warner,
Daniel (eds). Audio Culture, Readings in Modern Music (New York-London, The Continuum
International Publishing Group Inc, 2007), p.386
! 106!
with such a wealth and diversity of music genres. In fact, accessing information
on how to produce dance music, or about world music instruments, for instance,
is not only primarily found in specialized books or by attending music courses,
but, and this being almost as relevant to my work, by searching Youtube videos
where specific techniques or instrumental playing are shared instantly and
demonstrated by many artists.83 Similarly, as the musicological study of classical
music is still much ahead of those of popular music studies, in terms of a
systematization of popular music genres, theoretical languages, styles and
practices84, many qualified as well as rather informal websites prove to be
invaluable resources in order to improve the knowledge about many music
genres, subgenres and styles.
As a composer trained in classical, classical/ avant-garde notated-based

composition as well as in the field of electro-acoustic music, my PhD work led
me to experiment with and explore creatively many different areas and trends of
music technology, music genres and practices with which I was much less
familiar before 2008. Taking into account the many possibilities of today’s
composition panorama, not only has all of this work clearly changed my views,
my composition methods and procedures, but it is also now pointing out and
leading me to new paths, as well as new stages of development and growing
maturity as a musician.
For the near future, I am very excited to continue exploring cross-genre and film
music composition. I believe the exploration of cross-genre and film music in
contemporary composition is virtually limitless and an ongoing process, given
the constant advancement of music technologies, tools and practices. Personally
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
83
A freely shared ‘stuttering effect’ technique can be seen at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=os1J7gz_CME. (Youtube. Subtraktr, 2010) Acessed on
08/05/13.
Tim Exile can be seen sharing his real-time sampling practices at:
http//www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYcfCRDt3lk. (Youtube, Tim Exile, 2011).Acessed on
08/05/13.
Dukuk instrumental playing can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYoDSVvSTCI.
(Youtube, Music of Armenia, 2010). Accessed on 09/05/13
84
Notwithstanding the remarkable books from authors such as Simon Frith’s Performing Rites:
On the Value of Popular Music [Frith, Simon. ‘Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular
Music’ (Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1996)] or Robert Miklitsch’s Roll
Over Adorno Critical Theory, Popular Culture, Audiovisual Media [Miklitsch, Robert. ‘Roll
Over Adorno Critical Theory, Popular Culture, Audiovisual Media’ (Albany, State University of
New York Press, 2006)], these books tend to be within the realm of popular music studies alone,
dealing primary with cultural, social and music reception problematics.
! 107!
speaking, I am already currently engaged in forming my own eclectic-genre
band, where I wish to put an emphasis on the collaboration of musicians from
other areas in the compositional process. I also wish to explore more deeply the
relation between diegetic and non-diegetic music in live performance, with or
without the presence of the moving image.
! 108!
Appendices
!
Appendix A
Music genres’ characteristics overview, towards cross-genre composition*

I
Genre Instrumentation
Percussion Melodic Harmonic Bass
/Rhythm section
Pop/Rock Drum sets Ex. Voice, Keyboards, Electric bass
(Kick, Snare, Guitars, Saxes Guitars
Toms, Cymbals)
Ethnic/World/Folk Pitched, Non - Ex. Voice, Ex. Gamelan, Ex. Double
pitched Oud, Duduk Cymbalon, Koto bass, Tuba,
Didgeridoo
Electronic Dance Drum machines Voice, Synthesis, Synthesis,
(Software and Synthesizers Sampling Sampling
hardware)
Classical, avant- Pitched, Non Ex. Voice, Full orchestra Orchestral
garde, electronics pitched acoustic Orchestral Keyboards, instruments,
instruments Harp, Synthesis
electronics
Jazz Drum set Ex. Voice, Keyboards, Double bass
(Brushes) Guitars, Brass, Guitars
Woodwinds
*- Other characteristics not included here would be: metric, rhythm, timbre, texture, dynamics,
and articulation
II
Genre Computer Form Harmonic and melodic
structure
Pop/Rock Yes Ex. Verse-chorus, Tonal, modal
AABA, 12 -16 bar
blues, episodic, through-
composed
Ethnic/World/Folk No Ex. Ragas, repetition, Tonal, modal,
improvised with micro-tonal, different
ornaments tunings
Electronic Dance Yes Ex. Loops, 8 bar Tonal, modal
phrases, builds, drops,
breaks
Classical, avant- Yes Ex. Binary, ternary, Tonal, modal, atonal,
garde, electronics sonata, rondo, variation, micro-tonal
through-composed
Jazz Yes AABA, improvisation Tonal, modal, atonal
over themes.
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Appendix B
Harmonic System (I): matrix in ‘A’

Degree V I III IV T
O
Quality M M m (M/ N
(7) m) A
Cell (C) (A) (B) (D) L
P.C. Region 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
PCS I A=0 0 1 5 6 10 11
PCS II B=0 0 1 2 5 6 7
PCS I/II O P T1 T2 T3 T4 T5 T6 T7 T8 T9 T10 T11 R

NC U/C P A Bb B C C# D Eb E F F# G G# P
4 U- T1 Bb B C C# D Eb E F F# G G# A T1
2 C T2 B C C# D Eb E F F# G G# A Bb T2
1 C+ T3 C C# D Eb E F F# G G# A Bb B T3
2 C T4 C# D Eb E F F# G G# A Bb B C T4
4 U T5 D Eb E F F# G G# A Bb B C C# T5
4 U T6 Eb E F F# G G# A Bb B C C# D T6
4 U T7 E F F# G G# A Bb B C C# D Eb T7
2 C T8 F F# G G# A Bb B C C# D Eb E T8
1 C+ T9 F# G G# A Bb B C C# D Eb E F T9
2 C T10 G G# A Bb B C C# D Eb E F F# T10
4 U T11 G# A Bb B C C# D Eb E F F# G T11
Factors 1 2 1 2 3 3 4 4 5 6 5 6
Hexachord 1
Hexachord 2
Tetrachord 1 A
Tetrachord 2 T
Tetrachord 3 O
Triad 1 N
Triad 2 A
Triad 3 L
Triad 4
! 110!
PCS I
Harmonic system (II): TIPO PCS II
TIPO I C TIPO I C
T3 2 o Pitch - Class Set I & II T3 4 o
T9 5 m T9 3 m
m Tipo Tipo Tipo m
TIPO II TIPO II
T2 1 2 o 1 2 3 T2 3 6 o
T4 3 5 n 3 2 1 T4 4 5 n
T8 2 4 9 4 5 T8 2 3
F F
T10 5 2 TP/I.C. X 8 6 T10 1 4
a a
TIPO III X 10 7 TIPO III
c c
T1 1 2 4 6 T1 2 3 5 6
t X X 11 t
T5 3 4 5 6 T5 1 4 5 6
o o
T6 1 3 4 6 r T6 1 2 5 6 r
T7 1 2 3 4 Same Pitches 1 2 4 T7 1 2 3 6
s s
T11 1 3 5 6 Dif. Pitches 5 4 2 T11 1 2 4 5
Unity -- -+ ++
Contrast ++ +- --
Quality -F +F +f
Progressions and technical procedures
Note - Calculating de progression TIPO within the same Pitch-class set

transposition:
Ex: T3 to T8
T8-T3=(T) 5 (Int. Class)
(T) 5 = Tipo 3
About both Pitch-class set’s character:

PcS I
• Harmonic prominence: Tonal
• Less tense, more consonant
PcS II
• Melodic prominence
• Atonal
• More tense, dissonant
! 111!
‘Tonalisms’ technical procedures
Pitch-class set I
Harmony
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Resulting harmonisations for each triad
! 112!
Other harmonic suggestions
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Melodic/Scales!
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Modulations
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Pitch-class Set II
Harmony
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Melodic/Scales
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Rhythmic technical procedures
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Appendix C
Harold Pinter’s Poems

in
Four Poems in Search of a Music Play
Poem (Don't look...)
Don't look.
The world's about to break.
Don't look.
The world's about to chuck out all its light
and stuff us in the chokepit of its dark,
That black and fat suffocated place
Where we will kill or die or dance or weep
Or scream of whine or squeak like mice
To renegotiate our starting price.
Message
Jill. Fred phoned. He can't make tonight.

He said he'd call again, as soon as poss.
I said (on your behalf) OK, no sweat.
He said to tell you he was fine,
Only the crap, he said, you know, it sticks,
The crap you have to fight.
You're sometimes nothing but a walking shithouse.
I was well acquainted with the pong myself,

I told him, and I counselled calm.
Don't let the fuckers get you down,
Take the lid off the kettle a couple of minutes,
Go on the town, burn someone to death,
Find another tart, giver her some hammer,
Live while you're young, until it palls,
Kick the first blind man you meet in the balls.
Anyway he'll call again.
I'll be back in time for tea.
Your loving mother.
! 117!
American Football
Hallelujah!
It works.
We blew the shit out of them.
We blew the shit right back up their own ass

And out their fucking ears.
It works.
We blew the shit out of them.
They suffocated in their own shit!
Hallelujah.
Praise the Lord for all good things.
We blew them into fucking shit.

They are eating it.
Praise the Lord for all good things.
We blew their balls into shards of dust,

Into shards of fucking dust.
We did it.
Now I want you to come over here and kiss me on the mouth.
Restaurant
No, you're wrong.
Everyone is as beautiful
as they can possibly be
Particularly at lunch
in a laughing restaurant
Everyone is as beautiful
as they can possibly be
And they are moved

by their own beauty
And they shed tears for it

in the back of the taxi home
http://www.poemhunter.com/harold-pinter/
http://www.haroldpinter.org/poetry/
! 118!
Appendix D
CD
Track - Script Working Guide Cue Sheet
Dracula
Act Scene Cue Track Page Length Description

I - M1 1 1 01:10 Overture
M2 2 2 :10 Laughter 1 (Renfield)
M3 3 3 :14 Dog+Chorus-1
M4 4 8 :10 Bat 1
M5 5 10 :30 Lucy’s entrance
M6 6 11 :10 Dogs barking-2
M7 7 16 :09 Dogs leitmotif-3
M8 8 21 :12 Low wolf+Dogs barking-4
M9 9 22 :10 Bat noise 2
M10 10 22 :10 End of Act I
II - M11 11 23 :10 Single Dog-5
M12 12 23 :35 Ragtime Radio
M14 14 26 01:35 Hypnotism 1
M16 16 32 :10 Bat noise 3
M17 17 33 :10 Bat noise 4
M18 18 35 :12 Bat noise 5 + shattering glass
M19 19 35 :15 Blood on finger
M20 20 36 :50 Hypnotism 2
M21 21 37 :12 Gunshot+Bat noise 6
M22 22 41 :10 Hypnotism 3(hit ‘gets message’1)
M25 25 41 :09 Dogs howl in terror 8
M26 26 42 :10 End of Act II
III 1 M27 27 43 :45 Wolf/Dogs 9 +Beginning Act III
M29 29 49 :56 Dripping water+pizz.etc
M31 31 54 :10 Laughter 2 (Dracula)
2 M32 32 55 01:41 Scene change-vault-funeral-water dripping
!Skip! M32 33 55 :15 Dripping Water extra 1
!Skip! M32 34 55 :15 Dripping Water extra 2
M33 35 57 :10 Stake through heart
M34 36 58 :21 Final curtain
M35 37 58 :10 Bat noise 7 (Post final curtain)
! 119!
CD
Track - Script Working Guide Cue Sheet
Hamlet

I i M1 38 1 00:20’’ Intro
M2 38 1-2 01:20’’ Crashing waves below, cold, wind UD
M3 39 3 01:00’’ Ghost’s entry (pad-like chord)1 UD
M3a 40 3 01:20’’ Waves UD
M3b 41 5 00:45’’ Ghost’s entry UD
(M4) NO 5 (00:03’’) (Cock crow)
M4a 42 5 00:35’’ Waves UD
ii M5 43 6 05-07’’ Court Scene ‘fanfare’
discordant/grandiose/brassy?
M6 44 8 00:03’’ Canon once loud, reverberating on ‘come
away’
45 00:13’’ Bell Tolls
iv,v M7 46 14 00:25’’ The watch: waves, wind, cold
M8 47 14 00:20’’ Decadance music in
-- distance/decadent/strident/raucous/fade in and
out with the wind (mixed), big band feel
M9 48 15 04’:25’’ Ghost’s entry UD
M9a 49 17 01:30’’ Waves, Wind
II II,ii M10 50 21 05-07’’ Court/modified version of M5
M11 51 31 00:02’’ ‘...the play’s the king...king’ followed by
subtle chord or phrase
M12 52 31 00:05’’ Court/even more modified version of M5 (out
of tune?)
III III,ii M13 53 38 00:05’’ ‘Danish march’ (kind of court fanfare but
w/martial touch)
M14 NO 40 DVD 03:00’’ Elsinore productions + The Mousetrap
FILM (Waxman style)
III,iii M15 54 46 00:02’’ Discordant phrase or chord-male?-for entrance
of Claudius-related to court music. King
chord?
III,iv M16 55 48 00:02’’ Another snatch? Female-entry of Gertrude
(queen chord?)
M17 56 50 00:05’’ Entrance of ghost: a deep chord that fades out
in 5’’
M18 57 51 00:05’’ Ghost chord again
M19 58 52 00:08’’ Hamlet drags Polonius off stage comic/horrific
INTERVAL
IV IV,i M20 59 52 00:03’’ Modified court music (M5)-even more

discordant
IV,iii M21 60 54 00:02’’ (Entrance of Claudius)-King chord
IV,v M22 61 57 00:02’’ (enter Ophelia)Ophelia chord-mad deranged
sweet
FOLLOWS A CAPELLA
! 120!
M23 62 59 00:08’’ Loud though distant intrusive noise with
bangs, shouts’Laertes shall be king! Clash of
swords banging and explosions etc getting
closer.noise within UD?
M24 63 61 00:02’’ (enter Ophelia) Ophelia chord
FOLLOWS A CAPELLA
M25 64 66 01:00’’ Under Gertrudes speech ‘there’s a willow..’ a
snatch of strange music echoing Ophelia’s
song UD
V M26 65 67 00:05’’ 3 tolls of a bell to announce gravedigger scene
FOLLOWS A CAPELLA
M27 66 70 01:00’’ Funeral procession. Very minimal and simple.
Bell tolling and funeral march as procession
crosses the stage (echo of Ophelia song?)
M28 67 75 00:05’’ Final court music...now very distorted,
discordant enter court
M29 68 77 00:10’’ 3 loud explosions possibly w/ answer of brass;
-- cue: Claudius…and let the kettle to the trumpet
speak UD
M30 69 78 00:04’’ 1 loud simple canon explosion As Hamlet is
about to take poison cup cue: Claudius…here’s
to thy health
M31 70 80-81 01’:10’’ ‘and in this harsh world draw’ March heard
-- distantly different to all the music we’ve heard
so far, triumphant, martial, the explosions
continuing-music comes nearer UD
Approaching martial sound, drums, brass, etc,
triumphant but not beautiful comes to a climax
with entrance of Fortinbras and soldiers
followed by silence NEW ORDER
MECHANIC(03’’)??
71 00:10’’ Helicopter sound
M32 72 81 00:15’’ Long drum roll- 02’’ of silence-loud cannon
-- explosion- 05’’ of silence-2nd cannon
explosion. Silence
FINIS
UD-under dialogue
Music
Sound FX
! 121!
Bibliography
Academic dissertation
Tagg, Philip., 1979. ‘Kojak Fifty Seconds of Television Music, Towards the
Analysis of Affect in Popular Music’. University of Goteborg. (New York
University Press, 2nd ed., 2000).
Articles
Claydon, E. Anna. ‘Film Music, Musicology and Semiotics: Analysing The
Draughtsman’s Contract’. Journal of British Cinema and Television, Edinburgh
University Press, 2011.
Lock, Brian. ‘Creative production for classical music’. Westfocus seminar, 2006
(Unpublished).
Moore, Allan F., ‘Categorical Conventions in Music Discourse: Style and Genre’
Oxford Journals, Oxford University Press [e-journal]
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3526163. Accessed on 26/10/12.
Selected reading material

Adler, Samuel. ‘The study of orchestration’ 2nd ed. (New York, W. W. Norton &
Company, April 1989)
Adorno, Theodor and Eisler, Hans. ‘Composing for the Films’ (London,
Continuum, 2007)
Blacking, John. ‘How Musical is Man?’ (Washington University Press, 6th ed.,
2000)
Butler, Christopher. ‘Postmodernism: A Very Short Introduction’ (Oxford,
Oxford University Press, 2002)
Chion, Michel. ‘Audio-Vision Sound on Screen’ (New York, Columbia
University Press, 1994)
Cook, Nicholas. ‘Analysing Musical Multimedia’ (Oxford, Oxford University
Press, 1998)
Cooke, Mervyn. ‘A History of Film Music ‘(Cambridge University Press, 3rd ed.,
2010)
Cox, Christoph and Warner, Daniel (eds). ‘Audio Culture, Readings in Modern
Music’ (New York-London, The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc,
2007)
Davis, Richard. ‘Complete Guide to Film Scoring’ (Boston, Berklee Press, 1999)
! 122!
DeRosa, Richard and Pejrolo, Andrea. ‘Acoustic and MIDI Orchestration for the
Contemporary Composer’ (Focal Press, 2007)
Docker, John. ‘Postmodernism and Popular Culture A Cultural History’
(Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997)
Donnelly, K. J. (Ed.) ‘Film Music: Critical Approaches’ (Edinburgh, Edinburgh
University Press, 2001)
Frith, Simon. ‘Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music’ (Cambridge,

Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1996)
Gilreath, Paul. ‘Complete Guide to MIDI Orchestration’ (MusicWorks Atlanta,
3rd ed., 2006)
Horkheimer, Max and Adorno, Theodor W. ‘Dialectic of Enlightenment:
philosophical fragments’ (Stanford University Press, 2002)
Mera, Miguel and Burnand, David (ed). ‘European Film Music’ (England,
Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2006)
Miklitsch, Robert. ‘Roll Over Adorno Critical Theory, Popular Culture,
Audiovisual Media’ (Albany, State University of New York Press, 2006)
Pejrolo, Andrea. ‘Creative Sequencing Techniques for Music Production’ (Focal
Press, 2005)
Pirandello, Luigi. ‘Six Characters in Search of an Author’ (New York, Dover
Publications, Inc., 1998)
Rona, Jeff. ‘The Reel World Scoring for Pictures’ (San Francisco, Miller
Freeman Books, 2000)
Shaeffer, Pierre. ‘Traité des Objets Musicaux’ (Seuil edition, 2002)
Snoman, Rick. ‘Dance Music Manual’ (Focal Press, 2010)
!
!
!
!
!
! 123!
Audiovisual sources
Selected Films and TV Series
A Better life, 2011. [Film] Directed by Chris Weitz. USA: Summit Entertainment
Alice in Wonderland, 2010. [Film] Directed by Tim Burton. USA: Walt Disney
Pictures
Battleship, 2012. [Film] Directed by Peter Berg. USA: Universal Pictures
Blade Runner, 1982. [Film] Directed by Ridley Scott. USA: Ladd Company
Breaking the waves, 1996. [Film] Directed by Lars von Trier. Denmark: Argus
Film Produktie
Chinatown, 1974. [Film] Directed by Roman Polanski. USA: Paramount Pictures
Coming to America, 1988. [Film] Directed by John Landis. USA: Eddie Murphy
Productions
Coraline, 2009. [Film] Directed by Henri Selick. USA: Focus Features
Crime Scene Investigation, 2000- . [TV Series] Created by Ann Donahue and
Anthony E. Zuiker. USA: Alliance Atlantis Communications, CBS Productions
Fringe, 2008-13. [TV Series] Created by J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and
Roberto Orci. USA: Bad Robot
Home, 2009. [Film] Directed by Yann Arthus-Bertrand. France: Elzévir Films
King Kong, 1933. [Film] Directed by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B.
Schoedsack. USA: RKO Radio Productions
Lemony Snicket’s: A series of unfortunate events, 2004. [Film] Directed by Brad
Silberling. USA: Paramount Pictures
Moon, 2009. [Film] Directed by Duncan Jones. UK: Liberty Films UK
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, 2010. [Film] Directed by Edgar Wright. USA:
Universal Pictures
The Adjustment Bureau, 2011. [Film] Directed by George Nolfi. USA: Universal
Pictures
The Borgias, 2011- .[TV Series] Created by Neil Jordan. Canada: Showtime
Networks
The draughtsman’s contract, 1982. [Film] Directed by Peter Greenaway. UK:
British Film Institute
The Great Train Robbery, 1903. [Film] Directed by Edwin S. Porter
(uncredited). USA: Edison Manufacturing Company
! 124!
The skin I live in, 2011. [Film] Directed by Pedro Almodóvar. Spain: Blue Haze
Entertainment
The illusionist 2006. [Film] Directed by Neil Burger. USA: Bull’s Eye
Entertainment
The special relationship, 2010. [Film] Directed by Richard Loncraine. UK:
Rainmark Films
Traffic, 2000. [Film] Directed by Steven Soderbergh. USA: Bedford Falls
Productions
Wreck-it Ralph, 2012. [Film] Directed by Rich Moore. USA: Walt Disney
Animation Studios
Selected listening material
!
Adès, Thomas: Powder Her Face (EMI Classics, 1998) ASIN: B00000DFNX
Amar, Armand: Home (Naive, 2009) ASIN: B002B4TG08
Andriessen, Louis: Gigantic Dancing Human Machine (Cantaloup Music, 2003)
ASIN: B00008IXAA
Anton, Webern: Complete Webern (Deutsche Grammophon, 2000) ASIN:
B00004R9F0
Artists, Various: Breaking the waves (Hollywood Records, 1996) ASIN:
B000000OGO
Artists, Various: Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World (ABKCO Records, 2010) ASIN:
B003SG810Y
Artists, Various: Wreck it Ralph (Walt Disney Records, 2012) ASIN:
B0094WK9FQ
Bartók, Béla: Tanz Suite (Deutsch Grammophon, 1995) ASIN: B000001GOT
Bataller, Arnau de: La Herencia de Valdemar (Saimel, 2011) ASIN:
B0067DB9SG
Bernstein, Leonard: Bernstein Conducts Bernstein (Sony, 1998) ASIN:
B000009CYI
Boulez, Pierre: Piano Sonatas Nos. 1-3 (Naxos, 1995) ASIN: B00000147K
Boys, The Beach: 20 Good Vibrations, The Greatest Hits (Volume 1) (Capitol,
1999) ASIN: B00001IVJY
Brubeck, Dave: Time Out (Columbia, 1997) ASIN: B000002AGN
Cage, John: Imaginary Landscapes (Stradivarius, 2012) ASIN: B008A5QGWI
! 125!
Cash, Johnny: The essential Johnny Cash (Sony, 2002) ASIN: B00005Y1M2
Cent, 50: Get Rich or Die Tryin' (Shady, 2003) ASIN: B000084T18
Club, Urban Myth: Open Up (TRL Music, 2011) ASIN: B004INTNGC
Coulais, Bruno: Coraline (Koch Records, 2009) ASIN: B001QBC2GW
Davies, Miles: Bitches Brew (Sony, 1999) ASIN: B00000J7SS
Desplat, Alexandre: A better life (Nacional Records, 2011) ASIN: B0051RQP60
Desplat, Alexandre: The special relationship (Varèse Sarabande, 2010) ASIN:
B0047Z1PFS
Dixon, Willie: I Am the Blues (Columbia, 1993) ASIN: B00136NSRM
Dowland, John: Songs from the Labyrinth (Deutsche Grammophon, 2006) ASIN:
B000HXDESU
Dusapin, Pascale: Etudes for Piano Nos. 1-7 (Actes Sud, 2012) ASIN:
B008OJ29A8
Elfman, Danny: Alice in Wonderland (Walt Disney Records, 2010) ASIN:
B002ZTQVCA
Elfman, Danny: Milk (Decca, 2008) ASIN: B001H3KMOS
Eno, Brian: Ambient music, Vol. 1- Music for Airports (Astralwerks, 2004)
ASIN: B0002PZVH0
Eno, Brian: Ambient music, Vol. 2 – Plateaux of Mirror (Astralwerks, 2004)
ASIN: B0002PZVHA
Eno, Brian: Ambient music, Vol. 3 – Day of Radiance (Editions Eg Records,
1992) ASIN: B000003S2N
Eno, Brian: Ambient music, Vol. 4 – On Land (Astralwerks, 2004) ASIN:
B0002PZVHK
Exile, Tim: Listening tree (Warp Records, 2009) ASIN: B001MK00HA
Gershwin George: Rhapsody in Blue (Philips, 1990) ASIN: B0000040WS
Glass, Philip: Einstein on the beach (Nonesuch, 2012) ASIN: B000005J28
Glass, Philip: “Heroes” Symphony (From the music of David Bowie & Brian
Eno) (Philips Import, 1997) ASIN: B0000040VA
Goebbels, Heiner: Surrogate Cities (ECM Records, 2000) ASIN: B00004RKK5
Goldsmith, Jerry: Chinatown (Varèse Sarabande, 1995) ASIN: B0000014XW
Gorecki, Henryk: Symphony No.3, op. 36 (Nonesuch, 1992) ASIN: B000005J1C
Hassell, Jon: Maarifa Street/Magic realism 2 (Nyen, 2005) ASIN: B0007N4J84
! 126!
Hopkins, John: Insides (Domino, 2009) ASIN: B001VFV1D8
Iglesias, Alberto: The skin I live in (Lakeshore Records, 2011) ASIN:
B005T5OACA
Jablonsky, Steve: Battleship (Back Lot Musi, 2012) ASIN: B0080H5YWY
Levin, Todd: Deluxe (Polygram Records, 1995)
Lock, Brian: Rêve (Yello Cello Music, 2007) ASIN: B00155IC68
Ludwig V., Beethoven: Complete Sonatas: 1-32 (Deutsche Grammophon, 2008)
ASIN: B001CGJ3QS
Mansell, Clint: Moon (Black Records, 2009) ASIN: B002FG9NLY
Martinez, Cliff: Traffic (TVT, 2001) ASIN: B000056JZH
Morris, Trevor: The Borgias (Varèse Sarabande, 2011) ASIN: B004V7XWSA
Muhly, Nico: Mothertongue (Brassland Records, 2008) ASIN: B001AZ8BH8
Muse: The Resistance (Warner Bros., 2009) ASIN: B002GZQYMK
Newman, Thomas: Lemony Snicket’s: A Series of Unfortunate Events (Sony,
2004) ASIN: B00065GII2
Newman, Thomas: The Adjustment Bureau (Relativity Music Group, LCC,
2011) ASIN: B00AM957ES
Nyman, Michael: The draughtsman’s contract (Michael Nyman, 2007) ASIN:
B000BGR31M
Oliveros, Pauline and Masaoka, Miya: Accordion Koto (Deep Listening, 2008)
ASIN: B00117E55M
Parmegiani, Bernard: De Natura Sonorum (INA-GRM) ASIN: B001QNYESO
Prokofiev, Gabriel: Concerto for Turntables and Orchestra (Nonclassical, 2009)
ASIN: B002JP9I20
Radiohead: OK Computer (Capitol, 1997) ASIN: B000002UJQ
Radiohead: The King of Limbs (TBD Records, 2011) ASIN: B004NSULHM
Reich, Steve: The Four Sections/ Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and
Organ (Nonesuch, 1990) ASIN: B000005IZS
Roses, Guns n’: Use Your Illusion II (Geffen Records, 1991) ASIN:
B000000OSG
Satie, Eric: Parade (Suite 102, 2010) ASIN: B0043348R6
Schneider, Maria: Coming About (Enja, 1996) ASIN: B000005CC5
Schonberg, Arnold: Pierrot Lunaire/Herzgewächse/Ode to Napoleon (Deutsch

Grammophon, 1998) ASIN: B00000DBV6
! 127!
Schubert, Franz: Piano Works (Decca, 2011) ASIN: B0042LJTQO
Squarepusher: Ufabulum (Warp Records, 2012) ASIN: B007OA0XGU
Steiner, Max: King Kong (Rhino/Wea, 1999) ASIN: B00000JZAL
Twin, Aphex: Drukqs, Disc II (Rhino, 2001) ASIN: B00005QD9N
Twin, Aphex: Selected ambient works, Volume II (Sire/ London/ Rhino, 1994)
ASIN: B000002MNZ
Tykwer, Tom, Heil, Reinhold and Klimek, Johnny: Perfume: The Story of a
Murderer (EMI Classics, 2006) ASIN: B000K2UG7K
Vai, Steve: Sound theories Vol. 1&2 (Red Ink, 2007) ASIN: B000QFCCV4
Vangelis: Blade Runner (Atlantic, 1994) ASIN: B000002IZM
Zimmer, Hans: Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (WaterTower Music,
2011) B005ZHB84U
Websites
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_electronic_music_genres!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_popular_music_genres
http://www.euppublishing.com/journal/jbctv
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/
http://www.haroldpinter.org/poetry/index.shtml
http://www.imdb.com
http://www.laphil.com/tickets/planetarium-sufjan-stevens-bryce-dessner-nico-
muhly/2013-04-22
http://www.musicsalesclassical.com/composer/work/3071/47804
http://www.oud.eclipse.co.uk
http://www.poemhunter.com/harold-pinter/
http://www.soundonsound.com
http://www.soundsetproject.com.
http://www.youtube.com/user/powdermonkeydan?feature=watch
http://www.youtube.com/user/PrimeLoops
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fsB4TFYZSM&list=PL268890B1D2EED0F
8&feature=plcp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYoDSVvSTCI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DB65ByRMr9M.
! 128!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPCpxJ9U-Fw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsrPBNmh5Qk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=os1J7gz_CME
http//www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYcfCRDt3lk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKwkuiyrEeU
!
! 129!

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How does the author explore relationships between elements of different music genres?

How does the author explore relationships between elements of different music genres?

What music technologies does the author make extensive use of?

What music technologies does the author make extensive use of?

Nuno Dario de Oliveira Sá

Film Music and Cross-genre:

Submitted as part of the degree of PhD in Composition

Signed: __________________________ Date: 11th of December, 2013

I would like to give my very special thanks to:

I would also like to thank:

fertile ground for avant-garde composition. The compositions in this portfolio

explore various relationships between the elements, compositional techniques,

the presented compositions.

manner as it is used to produce pop and film music. Sample-based virtual

belonging to distinct music genres.

problems of compositional balance, weight and overall coherence. This research

performance contexts. Many of these works do not always conform to traditional

modes of music reception. Aiming to blur some boundaries and performance

List of illustrative material.......................................................................................... 9!

Chapter 1 Research context......................................................................................15!

Chapter 2 Compositional approach ........................................................................28!

Chapter 3 Features of work submitted ....................................................................35!

Audiovisual sources ............................................................................................... 124!

Ex.9 – Bagatella for piano n.1a and n.1b – HYPER-MULTI-INSTRUMENT 2

Ex.12 – Four Poems in Search of a Music Play – SETUP……………………..46

Ex.13 – Four Poems in Search of a Music Play – II ‘MESSAGE’………...…..48

Ex.14 – Four Poems in Search of a Music Play – SEMIQUAVER MOTOR IN

Ex.15 – Four Poems in Search of a Music Play – REVERB SETTINGS……...52

Ex.16 – Four Poems in Search of a Music Play – LOGIC’S MIXER……..…...52

Ex.17 – Earth is Home: music for a fictional documentary – MVT 1, THREE

Ex.18 – Earth is Home: music for a fictional documentary – MVT 2…..……...58

Ex.20 – Mem – LOGIC’S SEQUENCER WITH ‘MARKERS’……….……….67

Ex.21 – Mem – CLARINET PART IN SIBELIUS WITH ‘HIT’ POINTS….....68

Ex.22 – Mem – CLARINET’S MAIN MOTIF…………………..………..........69

Ex.23 – Mem – EVOLVE’S MULTI ……………………………….….…........70

Ex.24 – Mem – CLARINET’S NOTATED PART……………...……….…….71

Ex.25 – Mem – CLARINET, PIANO ROLL…...…………...…….………........72

Ex.26 – Mem – OMNISPHERE ‘ELECTRO BOW PATCH PIANO ROLL….72

Ex.27 – GTR Suite – MARKERS VISUAL LAYOUT………………………...75

Ex.28 – GTR Suite – LOGIC’S BLANK ARRANGEMENT…………..……....76

Ex.29 – GTR Suite – SIBELIUS BLANK SCORE…..………………….……...76

Ex.30 – GTR Suite – MINUET PATTERN…………..………………………...78

Ex.31 – GTR Suite – BOURRÉ PATTERN…………..……………............…...79

Ex.32 – GTR Suite – LOGIC’S SCORE EDITOR FOR THE 4/4

Ex.33 – GTR Suite – TARANTELLA PATTERN……...……………………...81

Ex.34 – Acura commercial – REVERSED REVERB…………..……………...82

Ex.35 – Acura commercial – TAPE DELAY……….…………..……………...83

Ex.36 – Hamlet – COURT FANFARE CUES’ ‘RHYTHM SECTION’…..…..89

Ex.37 – Hamlet – ‘THERE’S A WILLOW’ CADENCE…..………………......90

Ex.38 – Life is Getting Better – MIDI AND AUDIO DATA REGIONS….…...94

Ex.39 – Life is Getting Better – TAILING OF THE THREE SCENES….…….95

CD 1 Works for Concert Hall (Audio)

CD 2 Works for film (Audio only)

1. EVOL - 5’03’’ (2008)

CD 3 Works for Stage (Audio only)

DVD 1 Works for film

DVD 2 Dracula (Video)

DVD 3 Hamlet (Video)

The field of cross-genre composition is mainly characterized by artists and