Professor Tin!

Hah. Not really.

But these days I'm getting plenty of opportunities to indulge in one of my favorite pastimes: teaching.

Tonight I spent an hour at the UCLA Extension Program chatting with students about scoring commercials (and also throwing in various tidbits about films, games, and my album as well).

Next week I return to UCLA to speak at Dr. Ali Jihad Racy's graduate seminar on ethnomusicology. I'll be talking about Calling All Dawns and discussing different philosophies and approaches to using ethnic instrumentation in commercial music. I definitely have my own opinions on this matter.

And finally, next Friday my director friend Jon Goldman is hosting a private 'lecture series' for all of his friends. It's a pretty fun idea, actually; we're all taking turns spending an hour talking about a subject we know well. Since we're a pretty diverse group, the topics covered range from emotion-coding to Fashion Week to an exposé on Scientology. My lecture is entitled 'How To Conduct An Orchestra,' and I'll be making everyone air-conduct an excerpt from Prokofiev's 'Romeo and Juliet' ('The Dance Of The Knights,' if anyone is interested.)

And speaking of Romeo And Juliet, it's pretty much my favorite ballet, and it's coming to LA on February 13th at the Wilshire Theatre in Beverly Hills. The St. Petersburg Ballet is performing it....I can't vouch for their quality, but it's never a bad thing to let Russian dancers do a Russian composer's work. (I've seen the ballet three times, and the one that blew me away was the Kirov Ballet performing at the Royal Opera House in London. I'm madly in love with the principal who danced Juliet.)

Abbey Road Pt. 1

Dear blog readers,

Today I had the privilege of recording my debut album in one of the holiest of places in the music industry: Abbey Road Studios.

It's 1:30 AM (my typical blogging time), and despite having been working for about 16 hours today, and having only gotten four hours of sleep the night before, I'm still wide awake. People have been asking me if I was "excited"--and the truth is, I was a little too busy to be excited, and so I never really reached any point where I was blown away by what was happening....even up through the moment when I first heard the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra start to play my music. The best way to describe my mood all day, and indeed, the reason why I'm still up right now, is that for the entire day I was extremely, incredibly FOCUSED.

I literally can't wait to dig into the recording files that I left the studio with, and start editing and mixing them. I may even post a sneak preview or two of some of the tracks in time. But for now, I thought I'd start by sharing a few pictures.

My first day back in London I paid a visit to my old alma mater, the Royal College of Music, to do a little guest lecture to the composition students about what life is like in Hollywood, the game industry, the commercial industry, and as an independent recording artist making his first album. It was a very enjoyable day--I always love to teach and lecture, and was thrilled at the opportunity to do it at the RCM.

Then the next few days were spent alone in my little academic suite that I rented at my old dorm, preparing for the session. There was a bit of a last minute panic with the parts preparation, and so I really didn't get a chance to go out and have any fun in London. But ultimately all the preparatory work paid off, and Monday night, before the session, we were able to load into the studio.

That's when the fun really began....and for that, I'll wait until my next post.