Author: labanemusic

I been walking since my heart attack in 2018. I average around 2 1/2 – 3 hrs of walking a week. During the walk I would listen to a variety of genres of music (mostly soundtracks) and find myself learning by analyzing the orchestration, arrangement and emotion of the music while I’m walking.

Today’s listening session is Mark Isham’s score “Honest Thief”

Synopsis

Tom Carter (Liam Nielsen) is a ex- marine, an expert in demolition, and also the “in and out bandit” who has stolen millions of dollars from banks and has never been caught. He eventually meets a girl and falls in love and wants to go straight and settle down; so he decides to turn himself in to the FBI for a reduced sentence. The two FBI agents who are assigned to the case are tempted by the opportunity and attempts to steal the money and frame him for murder. Tom Carter now has to prove his innocence before it’s too late.

Score

Years ago, a friend and I attended a composing seminar by Mark Isham. I remember that he said having a voice is important to composing for film. What came to mind was a scene from a movie he scored. This was the ending flying scene of the movie “Fly Away Home” where the young girl reached her destination in the small plane she was flying with the geese flying with her. It was such an epic emotional impact in that particular scene. The music had rhythmic motif textures and did not have any sense of time, it just basically followed the singer’s rubato interpretation of the song. To me Mark Isham’s voice in his scores are very chameleon like and his voice in his scores are in his subtleness with his choices of musical and rhythmic textures; this is the case with the score “Honest Thief” a hybrid approach of textures he does throughout the film. I also feel that the music is always in the moment which might explain his approaches to his scores due to his jazz background. I did not hear any kind of theme throughout the film, mostly just what emotionally was needed in the scenes; which is what Mark Isham does so well at.

I’ve always wanted to do a ukulele project; both of my parents played the ukulele and I gradually learned to play it through them. This project brought back my childhood memories with my parents who share their love of playing music to us kids growing up. I hope to bring that kind of euphoria in the recordings.

People of my generation will remember the Monkees version of “Daydream Believer” but it was John Stewart who composed “Daydream Believer” as a songwriter for Capital Records shortly after leaving the Kingston Trio group. John Stewart had another Top hit called “Gold”. Anne Murray also recorded this song and her version reached #3 on the US country chart and #12 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Best known version of this song ”I feel for you” was by Chaka Khan on her 1984 album “I Feel For You” ; the song received 2 Grammys for best R&B song and best female R&B vocal performance. Prince who had written this song originally recorded it on his 1979 self titled album.

Sound of Silence was written by Paul Simon and he and Art Garfunkel we’re a rock folk duo and was one of the most best selling groups in the 1960’s . Their biggest hits were “Mrs Robinson” (1968), “The Boxer” (1969), and Bridge Over Troubled Water” (1970). All these songs reached number one on single charts worldwide. Disturbed, a heavy metal group shares their version as a rock epic dramatic tone that speaks emotional volumes.

Beatles songs are worldwide known and practically performed by so many artists and musicians in various styles of music, vocal and instrumental. Some interpretations of “I wanna hold your hand” starting with original version by the Beatles.

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We are always faced with difficulties and obstacles when it comes to personal goals we make for ourselves. Most personal goals you make are usually something you want to do, be, or have in your future. Some goals you make comes and go and never attained; and then one day an opportunity comes up, and that goal you had was one of the many comes and go’s goals never attained; and fits that opportunity in front of you.

If this sounds familiar you are not alone. The constant struggle to be consistent is daunting. The only thing you can control with your personal goals that has helped me is having the right support and preparation; having the opportunities for them are the only part of your personal goals that will always be consistent; but having the right support and preparation is never consistent, it requires totally knowing yourself and what you need you to do and understand in order to attain your personal goals. Maintaining consistency can come with many different levels of degrees; and understanding them why it matters is the key to being consistent in achieving the outcome of your personal goals.

We make personal goals for ourselves, set a target and go after them; but we often overlook the journey to it; consistency is the journey.

My new fitness health watch

My kidneys

Staying healthy has been a focus for me especially since living abroad here in Australia. In the first 2 years living here I had issues with my kidneys, apparently it was around 65-70% optimal but after a few visits with the kidney doctor here and after he started reviewing my City of Hope health records from my bone marrow transplant in 1994, it was expected to be around that percentage and it looks like so far its been stable but the doctor has been monitoring them since.

My gout

Gout has been bad for me and could not figure out how to address it. It kept coming back frequently and I suffered chills at night and pain with swollen toes, ankles, and knees. I have adjusted my diet accordingly and the gout has decreased to around 1-3 gout attacks this past 2 years. The goal is to get it down to one or none a year which was where it was when I was living in California.

My heart attack

In early 2018 I had a heart attack. I had two blockages at 90%, and had two stents put in. I now carry nitroglycerin (spray) in case I suffer another attack. I attended a rehabilitation program that consisted in cardio exercises and attended classes on eating and maintaining a good diet. Since then I walk briskly around 2-1/2 to 3 hours a week. I have been seeing my Cardiologist once a year; he puts me on a treadmill and monitors my heart. So far it’s been good and my heart seems to be good and stable.

Australia’s healthcare

The advantage for me here has been the Australian healthcare system. Within the first month of my arrival in Australia I got a Medicare card. My wife’s family had their family doctor and he became my doctor. From that doctor he referred me to a kidney specialist, a chiropractor for my upper back, (covers 5 free visits a year through Medicare) and when I got my heart attack I got a cardiologist. All my medications were under my Medicare and cost $5.00 per prescription due to my wife’s sponsorship and my current residency; but will probably go to regular price when I start employment. My meds will then be at regular price between $10-15 dollars; which is still inexpensive. I stayed at 3 different hospitals and they took me in an ambulance from one hospital to the other for my heart attack, and stayed in another hospital for a week due to a hand infection.

Overall, my health issues here in Australia has been a challenge but when it came to medical expenses I’ve accumulated since being here I’ve paid nothing; I did however had to fork out some money for medical tests that I had to do that added up to around $500; my wife said to me it’s ok we will just file a claim and send it to Medicare; about a month later, we were reimbursed for 90% of it. I cannot imagine if this happened to me in America; I probably still be paying for all the medical costs.

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I just heard about the passing of Al Harrington Jr; my condolences to his family. I remember he came to a gig I was playing at. One of the most kindest and humble gentleman; he called me sometime after asking if I wanted to do a charity gig with him. What I remember of him was his natural connection with the audience. Pic was taken after the charity gig. RIP sir.

Since updating my setup, I’ve been working on a couple of album projects for licensing. Here is one of them.

I am in the middle of reorganizing and updating my music writing setup. I have added a PC (bottom right) and currently adding a windows emulation on my Mac; also my 2 motif racks (under piano) needs to be reworked in. The goal is to host my PC (already hooked up) and the windows emulation on the Mac running my sample libraries through my DAW (Logic). The goal is to keep the CPU on my Mac from overload; although I have not had any problems before but the research I have been doing, I like the idea of spreading the CPU load throughout the setup I am doing.

My orchestral template is going through its 3rd generation and I started saving the virtual instruments as patches in my DAW; this would enable me to create any kind of template or music genre in a project I am doing; I’m looking to write more orchestral stuff and do future film and music projects down the road.

Update 10-25-21: In the process of adding another PC to this setup and also replacing the old PC; makes it 2 new PC’s; hopefully up and running by mid November. My layout diagram below.

Update 12-13-21: I picked up a 27in Imac last week. It will take some time to configure the whole setup, hopefully up running by Jan 2022 for the new year.

I been walking since my heart attack in 2018. I average around 2 1/2 – 3 hrs of walking a week. During the walk I would listen to a variety of genres of music (mostly soundtracks) and find myself learning by analyzing the orchestration, arrangement and emotion of the music while I’m walking.

Today’s listening session is James Horner’s score “Mask Of Zorro”

Synopsis

A young thief name Alejandro is seeking revenge for his brother’s killer and gets trained by the once great aging Zorro (Don Diego), who is also seeking his own vengeance. Diego’s mortal enemy, Don Rafael Montero has raised his daughter as his own, wife killed and then imprisoned him; now two decades later Don Rafael returns and Diego makes a daring escape from prison and runs into the unrefined Alejandro and takes him under his wing to help him revenge his brother’s killer who works for Don Rafael with hopes for him to be the next Zorro. Now under his apprenticeship, Alejandro learns of Don Rafael sinister plans and he and Diego sets the stage for a final battle confrontation to stop him and as fate would have it both are taking their vengeance for their love ones.

Score

One of my favorites by James Horner; an adventurous swashbuckling and valiant score, he creates a spaniard ambiance in the music. The main theme (Zorro’s) is a melodic line that can be passionately romantic, suspenseful or majestically heroic; I also hear it use as a preparation process in Alejandro’s training and battling sword scenes. The Spanish flamenco guitar sets the tone of the film at the beginning, although not used much throughout the film, it does comes during moments like Alejandro and Elena’s battle sword scene; which goes the same for the sounds of flamenco tap dancing. I hear hints of the song “I Want To Spend My Lifetime Loving You” instrumentally, but subtle seaming effortlessly with the main theme throughout the movie.

I have been walking since my heart attack in 2018. I average around 2 1/2 – 3 hrs of walking a week. During the walk I would listen to a variety of genres of music (mostly soundtracks) and find myself learning by analyzing the orchestration, arrangement and emotion of the music while I’m walking.

Today’s listening session is Howard Shore’s score “Hugo”

Synopsis

A story about an orphan boy named Hugo who is living in the walls of a train station in 1930’s Paris; he learned to fix clocks and gadgets from his father and uncle which he puts to use to keep the station clocks running. The only thing the connects him to his father who is now deceased is an automaton (mechanical man) that doesn’t work without a special key. Hugo needs to find the key to unlock the secret it contains. On one of his adventures he meets George Melies, a shop keeper who works at the train station and his adventurous seeking god-daughter; Hugo learns that they have a surprising connection between his late father and the automaton and he discovers it unlocks some memories that the old man man has buried regarding his past.

Score

Prior to scoring the music to Lord of the Rings movies, Howard Shore had numerous scores under his belt and this particular one to me is an enchanting, endearing and nostalgic score. Watching this movie, took me on a journey back to 1930’s Paris in a pipe dream sort of way. The music really orchestrated a genuine chord in the film. The piano seems to set the emotional tone throughout the film. The instrumentation of the score reflected a time that gave it its authenticity in a contemporary sort of way. This storyline, actors are playing roles portraying people that has its own internal complexities; and it seems that the music needed to be developed with that same kind of complexness, but the music needed to be heard (outputted) and created in the highest form of simplicity to compliment the story, which is a challenge to do; there is a quote that comes to mind “The more complex the mind, the greater the need for the simplicity of play “. I see this in myself and other fellow composers who are challenged with understanding the storyline and laboring to create and developing melodic themes; but when it feels right with what you are seeing then your on the right track to composing good emotional music to the film. Howard Shore’s Hugo score kept me there at that train station; he created an ambience that kept you in the journey and moment throughout the film. This film is about George Melies (played by Ben Kingsley) who was at the time, trying to forget his past as a innovative filmmaker. Howard’s score portrays the character reflecting his past and deep dismay and trying to deal with his present. This score seems to have no main theme but follows all the characters emotions genuinely.