PLAYING MUSIC TO SILENT MOVIES / adapting to the moment

Hello again! So, first a quick update on ''getting a job'' from the previous post - I didn't get it and I sort of feel good about it. First of all, it was my first ever proper job interview so I don't feel bad about not getting the job because not a lot of people make it the first time around. I was a bit down when I got the news but then I thought - well, maybe an even better opportunity is waiting for me out there so it's maybe OK not to grab the first thing that came about. Also, when I took a sneak peek at my summer schedule, I realized I now don't have to worry about getting ''days off'' from work to be able to play shows and work on other projects and there are a lot of shows and projects to do over the summer. My band Moskau will be playing INmusic Festival in a week's time and we are very excited about that. Also, I'm promoting my solo work in Ljubljana, Slovenija next month and Moskau is also doing a performance/project for an Andy Warhol exhibition in Zadar this summer so there's a lot to look forward to.

(there we are, within the official INmusic lineup)

Anyway, the real theme of this post is PLAYING MUSIC TO SILENT MOVIES, a project I was offered to do and another completely new experience to come face to face with.
Playing music to silent movies is something I know nothing about. I've done one film score in the past (https://steemit.com/music/@grobens/my-first-movie-score-understanding-music-in-movies) and that was it for me and the movies. Now I got a call to do something similar, but very different. The idea is simple - you get a lot of short, silent movies and you play on top of them. It sounds simple but it's really not that easy. I mean, when you do a film score, you can sit down, watch the scene as you play, rewind and try again. You can also divide your work to do the scenes you are inspired for first and then work on the ones you need to think about. You can also do a test song and sync it with the scene to see how it works and there are a lot of times when you don't need to do anything because there are dialogues or other pieces of music fitted in the movie. In other words, you can do trial and error as much as you like until you get it right. This time around, such a thing is not possible because this is supposed to be a LIVE EVENT. The idea is to play music live as the movies are played. That means I have to prepare everything in advance, practice it, remember it (or write it down) and then do it live. There's no trial and error. Of course, I could always improvise if things get messy adn I forget my way around, but it would really impact the overall experience for people coming to see the event. So, the only thing to do is GOOD PREPARATION!.

NUMBER ONE: TAKING NOTES

(here's a bunch of movies I received)

The movies all vary in lenght and I'm supposed to play for the entire time so I really needed to take some good notes. The first thing I needed to do was to review them, see how long each one of them is, see what it's about, is it black or white or in color, what kind of atmosphere it evokes and so on. Some of them (like the one called The Golden Cat) were evoking a 50's Charlie Chaplin kind of atmosphere and were shot in B&W while others (like Nothing Can Be Brought Back) are straight forward modern indie films. The good thing is that they are all about 6+ minutes long so I know how much time I have to develop my musical idea for each film. I also took notes about each film's plot so I could determine how much of a dramatic effect I need and what kind of music to come up with. It took some time but taking notes is essential for this kind of project because it helps you in knowing your way around different plots and atmospheres.

(here's a still from ''Nothing Can Be Brought Back''. It's about two women spending a day in nature, trying to take some photos. It's really atmospheric, the scenes are very long, not much is happening and it's shot in a modern indie film style)

NUMBER TWO: CHOOSING THE INSTRUMENTS

This was a very tricky one. Since there are a lot of films and they are all different, I had to make sure I use different kinds of instruments that create different kinds of feelings. You can't really cover any plot with just a guitar. Since I have total freedom in choosing how I'm going to do this and nobody told me to use a specific instrument, I decided to use as many different instruments as I can to be able to evoke different emotions but I also decided to use only the instruments I really know my way around so I could remember (or write down) what I want to play and really be able to play it. I mean, I do know my way around a lot of different instruments, but having a decent technique is really important here. Technique allows me to bring my ideas to reality and make more complex arrangements. Also, I want to be comfortable with the instrument I'm playing - I don't want to have to think about playing when I play and I also want to be able to improvise, which I can't really do on an instrument I barely know how to use. So I opted for an acoustic guitar, electric guitar with lots of effect pedals, a fretless bass, a piano, some percussion and my own voice (with effects). This way I'll be sure to deliver what I had in mind and I'll also be able to combine them differently for each movie.

(I have to be able to play without looking. Ok, so that's probably a bad joke but you get the idea...)

NUMBER THREE: SKETCHING. A LOT OF SKETCHING

Here's where things get similar to making a movie score. Sketching and a lot of it. The only way to do this properly is to spend a lot of time at home just sketching the ideas while playing the movies. Sketching helps in developing your idea and taking it to that final place you want to take it to. It also helps to sketch a bunch of totally different things to see what kind of music works best with the film and then work on that particular sketch more. Probably the biggest benefit of sketching is that if you play it over and over again while making a sketch, you will begin to remember it and play it by heart, which means the performance will be more confident and there will be a lot less information to write down. The fun part is tha tyou never know what you might come up with and some of the sketches may be used for future projects or become real songs. Another thing I never used to do but decided to do now is to record the sketches on my mobile phone rather than with a proper recording softwear. When I record in a real software (like Cubase), I tend to always thing about the production and start mixing along the way and this time it would only get in the way of the creative process since this thing will be a live event. Anyway, I've only just started working on this so not a lot of it is done but I have a few sketches so I want to share one of them with you. It's a SKETCH NO.5 for ''Nothing Can be Brought Back''.

I am very interested and excited to see how this will turn out and I'll make sure to post more of these silent movie sketches as my work progresses. For now, I feel I'm really lucky to be a part of this because it's a beautiful project and a great opportunity to learn new stuff and to see what a fish does when it's out of the water!