Daily Film scoring bits
Welcome to the Daily Film Scoring Bits. On this page I post little tips, tricks and advices about film scoring in general but also more specific topics like orchestration, composition, working relationships, business advices etc.
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Homogenous (String) Voicings
When you want to create a homogenous sound for example in the string section, take care that adjacent voices don’t exceed an octave. This is just a rule…
Music Mix for “Smartphone” Use
In current times, you can not expect that your music will be listened to under ideal conditions (e.g. in a cinema or good speaker systems) but many…
The End of Daily Film Scoring Bits?
2020 marks the tenth anniversary of Daily Film Scoring Bits. What started out as a small idea has quickly developed into a very popular resource for…
Writing for Mallets
When writing parts for mallet instruments that need the player to hold two mallets per hand (like marimba/vibraphone chords) it is very tricky for the…
Close Mic Sound Characteristics
The sound of orchestral instruments is heavily influenced by the room it plays in. With some instruments, the interaction with the room is essential…
Cluster Voicings
Cluster voicings are another possibility to add interesting harmonic structures to your music. As opposed to “normal” clusters that stack minor OR major…
De-Emphasizing
Apart from emphasizing certain scenes/actions/lines etc., music can also do the complete opposite and de-emphasize. This might be needed especially when…
Package Deals
There are basically two different ways of how the music budget of a production is being coordinated.1.) The composer gets a fee for writing the music…
Exotic Scale Runs
When writing runs for any instrument that is capable of playing runs, you should stick to plausible scales.Instrumentalists practice their whole life to…
Mixing Dialogue Underscore
Scoring dialogue scenes comes with a few specific requirements, all of which put emphasize on the necessity to keep the speaking voices understandable…
“Treading Water” Between Hit Points
Writing music for film often has a danger of just writing “bridgeing” music that just fills time until the next hit point. While sometimes it can’t be…
Season Greetings to Stay in Touch with Clients
At least in the western world, Christmas time is the one annual chance to get back in touch or to revive the contact with clients that you maybe haven’t…
Standing in Front of an Orchestra for the First Time
Depending on the status of your career, sooner or later every composer working professionally in the film or media music business at one time will have…
Trombone Glissando
Seamless glissandi are one of the things that due to the unique construction of the Trombones can be executed very easily on them. However, their…