Composers From The United States

"Southern trap influenced rap pile of musical forklift platypus... okay, I don't know what these words mean. But if you understood them - we're all good. You know what you're getting, and... that's all I can hope for really. Truth in advertising!"

"You know when you watch a vampire movie and then you walk out into the real world, but you're still sort of in the fictional world because it looked like the real world... and that's where you are now. I call this Persistence of Fiction, and it feels awesome! Capture some fiction by playing this track while walking to the bus... er the Vampire Bus! or waiting in line at the Vampire DMV or sorting Vampire Direct Mail Ads or doing some Vampire Macrame."

"So this one sounds like what is [sic] sounds like."

"Have you ever heard a 4 bassoon ensemble before? Not likely. While bassoonists may create temporary pair-bonds, they are never found in groups of 3 or more. Much digital trickery was involved in this piece to make them appear as though they were all in the same room at the same time. Tuba players, on the other hand exhibit extreme flocking behaviour, and have even been spotted in mass migrations."

"I gotta admit, I've never been to a clambake, only ever fish boils... which are similar, except for clambakes usually involve mollusks and giant sea-bugs, and fish boils involve fish. Also, clambakes are more steaming and fish boils are more boiling. You're more likely to see Green Bay Packers jerseys at fish boils, and more likely to see New England Patriots jerseys at clambakes. This music is west-coast, though... The more I think about it - the less useful this descriptive paragraph becomes."

"What is love? Apparently, it is an odd mix of 1980's synthy love songs and modern trap beats. I don't think there is anything like this out there... which may be a fine thing - or I've just invented a genre. Crooner-Synth Trap-Pop."

"Stop it! Stop complaining, it is supposed to end like that! This is a loopable piece. Why? You never know how long your voice-overed tour of the cardboard factory is going to take... Or your real estate tour... Or your appendectomy video... Or your video of that one train by your house."

"After some amount of introspection, I can only conclude that this is the afterlife, or some entryway to the afterlife... or a really cool club in the Meatpacking district after-hours."

"Part three of seven. Part pipe organ, part broken pipe organ, this isn't just spooky, it is crazy spooky. It also has a musical theme, which not all of this horror moody stuff has. Consider it the jelly filling in your horror doughnut."

"Part one of seven. Sort of an edgy-underwater feel... which isn't common. You can feel the struggle just trying to get the sounds out. Imagine a small rhinoceros at a tea party. The image you have in your head has nothing to do with this piece; But it is quite amusing."

"Part four of seven. This is the pizza cutter of this series, round and edgy. It has a little bit of melodic complexity, but mostly it just sits around being creepy."

"Part five of seven. Airy, but not in the "I'm outdoors, and everything is great 'airy'" way. More like the "the alien machine that sustains our life is slowly breaking down and poison is beginning to seep from its core" way. Whatever is happening... it isn't fast, and it isn't good."

"Oh! The horror! This is NOT a fun piece. It WILL make you feel like there is something seriously wrong. Did those veins on my forearm always look like that? I mean, they're doing a weird criss-cross pattern... and they look REALLY blue. I would have noticed that before, surely! I wonder if this has anything to do with the meteor that came down in Mr. Wilson's pond last night?"

"Part seven of seven. A real mind bender. This one is all acoustic, and no artificial synths, so it has an organic feel. Not Certified Organic, just normal organic. So, that means it looks better, requires less fertilizer, has fewer pests and a higher yield."

"What is meditation for one may be cause for concern in another. - Some Elf"

"Picture a pixellated medieval village... cause that's what this is. It is the kind of music we think they played back in the day. It is not historically. But I'm okay with that, because we also didn't have lich-kings, lich-mages, lich-illithids, lich-warriors, or lich-archers. We did have lichens, though... I like lichens!"

"Welcome to the Holiday Inn, Airport. The presentation will begin shortly. SUCCESS starts with your ATTITUDE! If you are not EARNING, make sure you are LEARNING! AMBITION is the path to success. PERSISTENCE is the vehicle you arrive in. Success is doing the OPPOSITE of what everyone else is DOING! Actually... don't take this last one too literally. If everyone else is using the door, don't try walking through a wall (or whatever the opposite of a "door" is). I mean... there is a reason most people do the same things. Usually because they make sense. Oh, sure... it is okay to QUESTION what people are doing, but just doing the opposite... probably not great. The future of NETWORK MARKETING is UNLIMITED! Oh... Also a bit of hyperbole here. I mean, it literally cannot exceed the gross output of all the world's economies - and will likely top out far before that due to INEFFICIENCIES and REGULATION."

"This piece took almost exactly one year to go from initial idea to produced piece. What was I doing for a whole year!? I mean... it doesn't exactly sound that difficult."

"I say! It is such a lovely brisk day! Aren't the horses lovely? I mean... look at all the horseness they have! They are scoring quite high on the horse-o-meters today! Nothing bovine on this street, Nay! ... ... ... Wait... I was trying to make a joke involving a horse's "neigh" combined with the archaic positive/negative usage of "nay". Then everything went wrong, and I said almost the opposite of the intention. So, without the joke: Picture a street where the only animals are the horsiest of horses... No cows or pigs. Okay, there are two dogs... but one of them is pretty small... and you can see a cat in one of the windows... but MOSTLY horses. If you added up the weights of all the non-horse, non-humans in the picture, they would weigh less than one horse."

"Is it a real Gregorian Chant? Nope. For one - there are no real words in it. Honestly, I don't want a religious exaltation mucking up my fantasy world. So if you're building a historically accurate "Monk Simulator: Year of Our Lord 882!", just move on. The other reason this isn't real is I never learned how to read that notation. There are insufficient sticks for the rhythms in the notation... I know, there is a real convention that you can learn. I just grabbed a few pieces of the sheet music from the 1200s, and guessed at how to do it. Sounds reasonable enough to me! (says the guy who knows virtually nothing about the art)"

"It is always easiest to write for the mood I'm in... and after a few hours, I am almost always IN the mood of the music. Because... that's what music does."

"I started making music because it was a problem that needed solving; it was very hard for filmmakers to get anything done without going through giant rigor morale, or at least it used to be."

"I've been told this is R&B, but it could be a few other things. It is certainly pretty neat, Warning: Very Sticky Hook!"

"Background to an evil political action ad. Add your own alarmist voice over - this was engineered to make people uncomfortable, and not interfere with human voice range. "Tell your congressman to vote NO on the Pollute Our Drinking Water and Send All of Our Money to Canada Act.""

"All you have to do is give me Credit, which has led to my music being used in like, a million YouTube videos and over a thousand movies on IMDb..."

"I Think if I wanted to be famous, I would be working hard at doing that -- I am kind of working hard at not doing that."

"Welcome to the tropical paradise of Port Horizon. Not much to do here but listen to the short wave radios and play guitar. There is also food and drinks with those little umbrellas... Other than that - not much. Except snorkeling. Snorkeling is pretty cool. Oh, there is also Art Night on Tuesday - where you get a volleyball and some paints and make yourself a friend! Beach chess... I forgot about Beach Chess. Don't play white against Todd, though - he plays all-Hedgehog all the time. Come on, Todd - just once, seriously ONCE could you play King's Indian or... you know what? I'd even take the French Defence; Exchange Variation, you boring symmetrical jerk."

"If you're judging any creative effort, longevity is the reward."

"There’s such cool mysterious sounds that I’ve sort of invented or altered, taken something that you might know as a, for a lack of any better word, a bell, and toned it down and taken the attack off, and it used to sound like “ding” and now it sounds like “wha.” So all these kinds of interesting electronically treated sounds are laying in there in a special way for me, and the orchestra plays along. The combination is really interesting."

"The animation can go anywhere, and the music has to go with it. What is especially great from a composer's point of view is that the music in these shows gets featured, not buried; these shows appreciate the value of what the music is doing."

"I love a lot of different genres of music, but, to me, the most exciting genre right now, and probably for the past two decades, is hip hop. That’s where the most innovation is, although electronic music now is starting to produce some real interesting stuff, and I’m really digging on that a lot."

"Another highlight was performing for Nas at his Watches of Switzerland and Haute Living event last year. Although I felt prepared as I arranged the backing tracks for my performance, I was extremely nervous. I honestly couldn’t figure out why because I have over 21 years of experience performing around the country, but this performance felt different. Maybe it was the legend himself or maybe it was extremely important to me, but I haven’t experienced a performance like that in a while. It’s funny that friends and family members of mine were telling me about how much they love Nas, the impact he had on their lives and how cool it was that I’d be performing for him. An old teacher of mine used to tell me, “if you’re nervous, then that means the performance is very important to you.” It’s quite possible that’s what it was, or it’s that I was star-struck, or I kept thinking about my family. I ended up having a great time performing and felt silly I was nervous to begin with."

"I composed original music to reflect the period in history and to pay homage to L. Frank Baum's touching story. The exploration of different genres of music (i.e. romantic, classical, modern, and folk) was used to express a purer sense of the emotions and the intentions of Baum's characters. There is a freedom in composing original music in a period piece. This story takes place in the mid-1800's, it is a fantasy that parallels the realities of that time in history. Oz is a dark and mysterious place, where evils abound, and there is an unknown about the future. Oddly, there are many similarities in the world today."

"The purest way to communicate the human condition is through the beauty of music."

"Ultimately I think about who I want to inspire, and I think it’s important to have people who look like me to inspire other people from my community to join orchestras."

""A master in his craft, he possesses a natural skill in every aspect of his career, bringing musical compositions to life with his own signature flair. However, Hardy is also constantly pushing himself to evolve and challenge himself in new areas of his career, whether it’s taking on new genres of music or new projects, he does so with determination and an extremely charming and amenable attitude that has made him a natural star in whatever role he’s in.”"

"Mama, now I can breathe,...“This is a classical piece that reflects our current time, and as an artist, that is my job–to bring light into the darkness, to convey the pain of what I witness and experience, to inspire change…and, if I’m lucky, to escape the reality of America. Music is, and will always be, my therapy."

"People who are more privileged might have a history of violinists in their heritage. I’m the only musician in my family, which makes it a little difficult with questions like: “What College should I go to?” or “Where should I be playing?” It is difficult, and there are a lot people telling you not to [pursue it] because it’s so hard. Sometimes it can feel discouraging, but I’m someone who’s very driven all the time, especially in the face of negativity. It’s rare, in theatre, to see someone who looks like me and writes music, so that also drives me."

"Me, Dr. Harmon, and the rest of the NOCO Center for Arts Entrepreneurship are so excited to have Mr. Hardy be a part of our team, serving as the Senior Director of Operations and Artist-Entrepreneur in Residence for the center!"

"Edward W. Hardy is a DA student at the University of Northern Colorado. Even before attending UNC, Eddie had built up an impressive resume of recordings, compositions, publications, and even produced an off-Broadway show in New York City!"

"The majority of people that get involved in film music are kind of like me, who had a dream and fell in love with it and then pursued it on the base of their mad love for it. My advice to the young aspiring composer is that film composing is about the long journey, about developing over a period of time, of hopefully creating a career that is constantly rising."

"I think when a composer works on any score there’s never a moment when these kinds of thoughts aren’t running through their mind: while putting gas in the car, taking the dog to the groomer, grocery shopping, taking a shower, etc. Constantly thinking, digesting, and diagnosing."

"What’s really interesting about music and the audience, whether that’s a soundtrack audience or a listening audience… of course, we’re talking about soundtracks. My music was really designed very, very much to go to the image. I was never thinking about people listening to it without the image. There are some composers whose music really lends itself to pleasurable, interesting, listening, and sometimes, that music has been created and made listenable a little bit at the expense of the service of the movie; in other words, the ego of the composer. If you get in there and say, ‘Wow, this will sound so great with the orchestra and it’ll sound great on the soundtrack album,’ and maybe they can actually end up doing too much and writing ‘too many notes’ (laugh). I’ve always been surprised that people enjoy listening to my soundtracks, because I felt like I was part of a team – the filmmaking team. I always loved movies and I just happened to have the skill to create sounds and music and that’s just what got me on the team, but it was always about the movie. I think part of what makes a piece of music your favorite theme has so much to do with the movie and the impact it has, and of course, the synchronicities that occur."

"There were certain sounds in the 80s that were not, in my mind, desirable as a composer, because they kind of called attention to themselves in a nuts-and-bolts kind of way. Like, “pee-owww”. Oh, there’s that sound again, you know? A saw-tooth synth sound. But I really think that our job is to use whatever exists in the world, or even create an instrument for a score because there’s nothing in the universe that sounds like what your imagination is wanting for that film. Electronics and computers help that, but sometimes, literally, you have to take a piano string and string it across some kind of open box and bow it with a cello bow or something. You have to come up with a new sound, and that’s always fun."

"For as long as I can remember, the guitar and music itself is the thing that has gotten me through everything. Whatever it is I'm thinking about, or worrying about, or feeling good about -- anything -- the music has just been there. It's sort of like a model for the way things could actually work somehow. The music itself, just being immersed in the melody and the harmony and the rhythm of it, is so extraordinary, but then I think also all the people I've known... As soon as I started to play, it caused this circle of people to be there where everything was cool somehow."

"Being a composer, although I think it’s an incredible job, it’s not special. There are a lot of people who are composers. There are a lot of people who think they’re composers. There are a lot of people who are songwriters. There are a lot of people who have a musical idea. There are more now probably than there were when I began. There’s more opportunity, I think, for composers than there was back then, but there are many more composers now. So, you’re not special. You’ve got to find some way of getting hired. And I think the more you can refine your objectives, the better you are. The best advice I got about this when I was just starting was, “Ignore all of my advice and do anything you can think of”. And as I said, just get started. Just start."

"Film music is always and only accompaniment. Whether it’s loud or occasionally important in itself, it’s what it is because of where it is — how it’s placed in the film. In a film score, the composer literally measures every note, because it has to be synchronized with the picture. The film strictly determines every element of a film score. The only reason music exists in film is to help tell a story. No one hires a composer for a film to write pretty flute lines. I generally don’t get concerned about this, but I’ll admit to getting irritated or disappointed at times on how the music is used after I’ve composed it. In the United States, all film composers work under a condition called ‘Work for Hire’. Aesthetically, it can be soul-sucking."

"I’m a huge fan of not overemphasizing music. Sometimes you can get a sense of music underlining things the audience already understands. And, as you say, silence is great. The more silence there is, the more chance you have to underline a newer moment with more refreshment."

"Frequently lately it’s reading a script, but that can come with some jeopardy because reading a script predisposes you to a kind of movie you expect to see, and then when it falls short of that expectation you have to realign. Sometimes the best experiences are when I know nothing about this movie, I’ve never met the director and I come and see something and I’m blank because then it’s coming at you in a way it would never come at you if you’d read the script, with an expectation."

"Hot take: this is probably not the first time it’s Rapist v. Rapist for president"