CHRISTOPHER TIN'S BLOG

Album Sneak Preview: Madokara Mieru

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Tin) — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 17:42:00 +0000

I started getting emails about this, so I figured I'd better blog about it.

Surprise surprise! The second song on my album has already been released....sort of. It's called 'Madokara Mieru' (or 'Mado Kara Mieru') and the reason I say that it's sort of been released is because it's actually been covered even before the official release on Calling All Dawns. I know that sounds unusual, but here's the gist of it: Corner Stone Cues, a music library that does licensing of music for movie trailers, heard an early demo of the song and liked it so much that they thought they could license it for a variety of uses; movie trailers, sports coverage, etc. And so with my permission, they recorded their own version of the song, months before I recorded my own. Their version has been released on an album called Corner Stone Cues Presents: Eton Path, which is available on iTunes, Amazon, Walmart, and a number of other places. Already it's been licensed for use for the BBC's coverage of the Premiere League FA Finals, so if you happen to be a British football fan, you might have heard it already.

What are the differences between the two versions? Theirs was recorded by the London Studio Orchestra at AIR Lyndhurst. Mine was recorded by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at Abbey Road Studios. Theirs features a British choir and percussion. Mine features an LA based taiko group and a Northern California based choir. Mine also has slightly different orchestrations and arrangements. So all in all, they're not outrageously different.

But just for fun, I thought I'd post a clips from both versions so you could get a sneak preview of what's to come. Here's the intro from my Calling All Dawns version (and by the way, this is still a rough mix):

And here's the dramatic outtro from the Eton Path version:

As for the lyrics, it's sung in Japanese, and is based around a series of five Haiku, each corresponding to the changing seasons: spring, summer, autumn, winter and ending on spring. Each verse is sung by a singer in a different stage of their life; so a young girl sings the first spring verse, an adolescent girl sings about summer, an older woman sings about autumn, etc. The song ends with a return of the young girl singing about spring, therefore completing the cycle of the seasons. So in essence, it's a song about the cycle of life.

As for the lyrics, they are:

SPRING
madokara mieru
(kagayaku) ume ichirin
ichirin hodo no
(sono) atatakasa

SUMMER
madokara mieru
(mabushii) me ni wa aoba
yama hototogisu
(aa) hatsugatsuo

AUTUMN
madokara mieru
(sawayaka) akikaze no
yama o mawaru ya
(ano) kane no koe

BRIDGE
yomei
ikubaku ka aru
[yo mijikashi]

WINTER
madokara mieru
(hieta) yuki no ie ni
nete iru to omou
(nete) bakari nite

SPRING
madokara mieru
(tanoshi) ichihatsu no
ichirin shiroshi
(kono) haru no kure

The translations to all these lyrics (with a nod to their authors) are:

Hattori Ransetsu:
Through the window I see
on the plum tree
one blossom, one blossom worth
of warmth

Yamaguchi Sodo:
Through the window I see
a view of greenery
a wild cuckoo
the first bonito

Kaga no Chiyo:
Through the window I see
the autumn wind
resounds in the mountain—
temple bell

Masaoka Shiki:
how much longer
is my life?
[A brief night…]

Masaoka Shiki:
Through the window I see
all I can think of
is being sick in bed
and snowbound….

Masaoka Shiki:
Through the window I see
this lone iris
white
in spring twilight

Special thanks to Ohgi Midorikawa, who helped me with the adaptation of the poetry!

Backing Vocals

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Tin) — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 04:32:00 +0000

Yes, I've been lax in blogging. But the reason is because I'm on a very cool Microsoft project that's had me completely wrapped up for the better part of a month now. I can't really talk about it until I'm done (hopefully in another month), but it's a rather unique--and somewhat odd--opportunity that I couldn't pass up!

In the meantime, the report on the album is that I spent the month of June flying back and forth to the Bay Area to record backing vocals for my album! Most of the tracks are done....just a little minor tweaking left to do, and the album will be ready to send out to guest soloists, and possibly even labels for distribution deals.

Anyway, the singers that I've been working with are actually my old singing group up at Stanford University, Talisman. Many of you may know them as the group that sang Baba Yetu--well, I spent four weekends recording with the current singers, as well as a handful of alums--a sort of Best Of Talisman group, so to speak. And just for fun, here are some pictures from the sessions.

As I get closer to being able to release the album, I'm going to start posting preview MP3s here of the songs. So keep an eye out for them!

Writing Music In My Sleep

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Tin) — Tue, 13 May 2008 17:00:00 +0000

Sometimes I actually write music in my sleep. The most common scenario is that I'll be doing something random in my dream, like walking on my old college campus. And in my dream I'll be listening to my Discman (this was the mid-nineties)...and on the Discman will be playing a new piece of music that I've never heard before.

Sometimes, if it's simple enough, I'll wake up and actually *remember* what I heard in my dream. Most of the time, that doesn't happen...especially if it's a complicated piece. In one dream, I went to the Disney Concert Hall and listened to the LA Philharmonic perform a very complicated symphonic work for a good five minutes. I woke up, and couldn't remember a damn thing about the piece.

Last night, instead of writing music passively in my dream (that is, by dreaming that I was hearing new music), I actually dreamt of sitting down and writing it. It was sophomore year in high school (which would correspond to the approximate age I started composing). My friends and I were riding our bikes in circles around my front lawn, when one them stopped and told me that he was taking a class on commercial production. His homework assignment was to create an ad for a beer company, and so he asked me if I could write the music for his ad. I said, "Sure, let me think up some ideas," and went inside, and sat down at my old out-of-tune upright piano. I then banged out a Lynyrd Skynyrd-esque Southern Rock tune, complete with lyrics:

"Where you gonna go, Jimmy...
Where you gonna go..."

Okay, well, the lyrics aren't exactly brilliant...but hey, it's not like dreams are supposed to make *sense*.

Drums...Lots And Lots Of Drums

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Tin) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 08:28:00 +0000

An update on the album!

I spent three days at Sage And Sound Recording Studios in Hollywood with an arsenal of percussion. 8 of the 12 songs on Calling All Dawns require percussion of some sort, ranging from African ashikos and udus, Brazilian surdos, Middle Eastern dumbeks and frame drums, Japanese taiko...in other words, the works.

The bulk of the percussion was played by Greg Ellis; session musician (check him out on this summer's blockbuster Iron Man), drummer for Juno Reactor, former founder of Vas, and all around talented guy. We spent two and a half days laying down all manner of raucous noise.

Day three, the neo-taiko group On Ensemble came in to record the Japanese percussion, as well as to add some low-frequency bottom end for the entire album. Shoji Kameda, Kris Bergstrom and Maz Baba came in and played well into the night. Shoji, Kris and I go way back, actually; we all attended Stanford together, and played in Stanford Taiko as undergrads (those two were a helluva lot better at it than I was!).

In addition to their guest appearance on my album, they've got a great sophomore album in the works right now. Keep an eye out for it!

The session was engineered by the incomparable John Kurlander, of course. My album's in good hands with him.

Art Center's Graduate Showcase

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Tin) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 08:23:00 +0000

We went to the Art Center College of Design's year-end graduate showcase last Friday night: me, my actress friend Jessica Quinn Donaghy, and my graphic designer girlfriend, who was an alum of the school (and former valedictorian, I might add). We spent three hours browsing through the portfolios of Art Center's graduate students--various disciplines on show included graphic design, motion graphics, transportation design, product design, environmental design, and many others.

I was most impressed by the environmental design work. This may be because my own particular design fetish has to do with furniture and interior design, but really, some of the work on hand was pretty phenomenal. One grad had an underwater theme to her work: lamps made up to look like jellyfish were suspended from the ceiling and attached to the wall.

The transportation design students were clearly very skilled, but after awhile I got tired of seeing The Car Of The Future everywhere I went. Perhaps if I understood the nuances of what made good trans-design, I would have a better appreciation for what I was looking at. Instead, it all looked like a bunch of car junkies wet dreams.

The product design room had some interesting work. This one in particular caught my eye, for obvious reasons:

It's an electric slide bass. There's a handle on the top of the neck with a clamp that presses against the strings. The bassist slides his or her hands back and forth to modulate the pitch. An interesting concept, except that it's completely counter-intuitive for any bassist to put his hand on the *top* of the neck. All bassists move around the neck with their left hand on the bottom--sort of akin to the motion of pumping a shotgun. Add to that the fact that if you have your hand above the neck, and slide the clamp all the way to the high register, you put your wrist in an extremely awkward, potentially painful position.

What ever happened to form follows function?

Music To Be Played vs. Music To Be Heard

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Tin) — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 09:32:00 +0000

Over the past 100 years or so, there has been a gradual migration in the way that music is conceived by its creators. 100 years ago, before the invention of recording technology, there was only one way that music could be heard; you had to be in the presence of a musician, who actually *played* the music for you. Now, if you want to hear music, all you have to do is press a button or two on your CD player/iPod/car radio/computer.

This is a fairly obvious statement, but it has implications, both good and bad, on how music is written. 100 years ago, as a composer, you had to take into consideration the performer of the music: you had to write something that could be played reasonably well by any musician. You had to take into consideration the limitations of both the players, and the spaces that they were playing in. And what's most important, since the act of listening involved being in the presence of a performer, you had to give them something to *perform*--and by that, I mean that you had to write in a manner that gave the instrumentalist something to show off their skills.

Let me elaborate first by establishing a principal that is dear to me (and I will put it in bold, so the point is not lost):

Very, very simple music can be very, very good music.

What I mean by this, is that it's not necessarily about how many notes you cram on a page, or how technically groundbreaking or virtuosic your composition is; quality is not necessarily dictated by complexity.

But when you write specifically for a performer (whether a specific performer, or instrumentalists in general), you really want to give the performer something to show off. So in other words, even though a piece of music might be made of ridiculously simple and technically mundane gestures (and still be a quality piece of music), your performer will be lacking something because they're still going to want to show off how quickly and brilliantly they can play fast figures and scales. And frankly, 100 years ago, performers had considerably more sway over the composers writing for them, because if it weren't for them, no one would hear their works.

I recently attended a chamber music concert at Zipper Hall of the Colburn School, by the Calder Quartet, of the Mendelssohn String Quartet in A minor (op. 13) "Is Est Wahr?" It was a gorgeously written piece....a lot of stretto entrances, fugal writing....moving parts, so to speak. And no doubt it was a showcase for the technical proficiency of the players too (and let's face it...of the composer, as well). It was a great reminder of the way music used to be written, in the days before recording technology.

On to what has changed in the last 100 years: because of recordings, now music can be heard without the aid of the live performer. This gives rise to a new methodology of thinking of writing music; that is, now you think about the recorded process first, then think about how to perform it live later on. This is how virtually 99.9% of popular music is conceived these days; in recorded form first, live form second. Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily. On one hand, it's liberating to the pure musical process of composing; that is, your palette is suddenly limitless, and you can make your music as complex--or as simple--as you want it to be. But on the other hand, it's easy to lose sight of the factors that make live music great, and to short change the performers that may ultimately be playing your material.

What winds up happening is that a lot of the music being written for popular outlets these days is frankly well below the technical abilities of those people performing it...especially in orchestras. You see this in the recording studio a lot--orchestras come in to do film scoring sessions, and are bored silly by the simplicity of the music that they're playing. I'm sympathetic to that--but at the same time, because something is simple, does it necessarily make it less of a piece of music? I don't think so.

Those are my rambling thoughts for the day.

The Record Industry's 20 Greatest Screwups

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Tin) — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 21:54:00 +0000

For some reason I take perverse pleasure in reading disaster stories about the record industry. It's not that I have any sort of deep-seated hatred towards them; it's more about taking comfort that mistakes get made up to the highest levels of the industry, and if I wind up making a few of my own, it's still comforting to know that I'm not the guy at Decca who passed on the Beatles. (The #2 all-time worst mistake.)

Anyway, read the whole Blender article here.

Baba Yetu....The Role Playing Game?

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Tin) — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 17:59:00 +0000

One of the great joys of having written something that people connect with, is that you get to see all the creative works that your own work has inspired. Over the two years since the release of Civilization IV, I've been sent all sorts of writing, music, and videos from fans who found something in my music that sparked their creativity....and I love seeing that! But perhaps the most unique derivative work that I've seen thus far is the Baba Yetu Role Playing Game.

Apparently it's about lions. You create a lion character, then you wander around the prides, hunting, challenging other lions for territory, and occasionally mating (I'm really curious how they plan to make that work). Unfortunately, I think the game's creators have given up on trying to develop it....I think they may have gotten a dose of reality, and realized that creating and maintaining an online world is not the easiest thing to do. But still, I have to give them credit for trying.

A Recommendation: Keren Ann

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Tin) — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 09:05:00 +0000

It’s been awhile since I’ve stumbled across something new and worthwhile, but this singer’s got me good. And the thing is, she’s really not all that new….I’ve just been in a cave, apparently.

Keren Ann is an Israeli-born, Paris-based singer/songwriter. She writes, among other things, acoustic guitar ballads: but not the clichéd whiny-coffee-shop-emo variety. She writes GOOD SONGS. This is the one that caught my attention…it’s called “I’m Not Going Anywhere”:

Here’s another one….check out the Lou Reed-inspired semi-spoken vocals (the classical term for this is singspiel…forgive me, but I’m in Professor Tin mode these days…):

“Lay Your Head Down” makes me feel like I’m listening to the Velvet Underground, and I don’t mean that in a derivative way; I mean that she’s very economical with all her musical gestures, which is something that I admire in musicians, and practice in my own writing. She gets straight to the point—no fussy intros, no long lead-ins. I believe strongly in that.

Here’s one more, called “Chelsea Burns.” just because I like to do things in threes:

UPDATE: It’s Tuesday evening, and I’ve been listening to “Not Going Anywhere” on repeat for the last 72 hours. That song has hit me in a soft spot. The chord changes, the phrase lengths, the performance…..I just love it!

My Wikipedia Page

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Tin) — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 19:02:00 +0000

Brent Woo, a student at UCLA, just overhauled my Wikipedia page.

Wow! Thanks, Brent! Talk about grassroots efforts to help get the word out about my music!

Game Developer's Conference 2008 Collected Notes

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Tin) — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 05:27:00 +0000

I spent all of last week at the Game Developer's Conference, the annual meeting of the minds for the video game industry. It's a fun (but exhausting) week, and this was my third year attending. At last year's conference, I was nominated for a GANG Award for "Baba Yetu" (ultimately wound up winning two awards, actually) and I spent the entire conference trying to generate some sort of interest in my music because of that. This year, already being a somewhat familiar face, and being repped for video games by Soundelux DMG, I had a number of meetings set up for me even before I attended the conference, with companies like Sony, Disney and Atari.

Since we're now onto my third year of being a part of the video game community, I have to admit that I'm starting to feel really at home amongst the other composers there. A big part of that is because of Video Games Live. As usual, VGL did a concert at the end of the conference (at the Nob Hill Masonic Center, with the Skywalker Symphony Orchestra and Choir--presumably a pickup band), and as usual, all the composers spent two hours afterwards signing autographs and meeting with fans. It's through all these Meet-And-Greets, lectures at GDC, and other events, though, that I'm really starting to get chummy with a lot of the other game composers. They're all really nice, genuine guys--low on ego, high on creativity...a genuine pleasure to know! I'm proud to call myself one of them.

As usual I bumped into Gerard Marino, of God Of War fame. He won the Rookie Of The Year award the year before I did. Laurie Robinson (Advent Rising) and I hung out again....she and her husband Emmanuel Fratianni are familiar faces from all the VGL concerts. Mike Reagan (God Of War, Conan) and his wife Savina Ciamarella were everywhere; Savina in particular has been a saving grace to the video game community because of her work in getting the American Federation of Musicians to have a contract for video game scores.

I got a chance to talk with Marty O'Donnell a bit--you probably know him from his beautiful Halo music, based on Gregorian chants. And then there were the Blizzard guys...Russell Brower and Jason Hayes. Jason and I have been trying to get lunch for ages now; he's working on an album as well, and I want to know more about it. I pointed out to him once that, because of his World of Warcraft music, day in and day out, he's probably the most heard single composer in the history of the world. Truly.

Last week's VGL concert featured a few new segments. Richard Jacques (Headhunter) came out and played a jazz piano arrangement of the music to Outrun that sizzled. And of course, my buddy Martin Leung, the Video Game Pianist (pictured here) played medleys from Final Fantasy, Chrono Cross and Super Mario Brothers. John Debney, primarily a film composer (Passion Of The Christ, Sin City), came out and conducted his music from Lair. It was great meeting him after the concert, as I think he does great work.

I was also hanging out with Will Littlejohn and Kyle Johnsons of the Guitar Hero camp afterwards....my game designer friend Soren Johnson (Civilization IV, Spore) sat next to them at the Meet-And-Greet. Kyle turned to us and said "You know what's funny is that during our lunch hour, we all put Guitar Hero away and play Civ IV!" To which Soren replied, "That's funny because during our lunch breaks we used to put Civ IV away and play Guitar Hero!" That little exchange made my day.

Most importantly, however, I have to give kudos to Tommy Tallarico and Jack Wall for everything they've done for game composers. Really, I can't stress this enough: those guys are two personal heroes of mine. Not only did they found GANG and work tirelessly to build this wonderfully friendly community, but they also created the Video Games Live concerts and have been instrumental in bringing game composers out from behind the scenes....myself included. All the happy memories I have of last week's conference were due to the work of these two. I'll say it again: those two are my heroes.

Art As A Mirror?

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Tin) — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 08:17:00 +0000

There's a school of thought that believes the following:

The purpose of art is to shed light on the human condition.

Lately I've been watching some great movies that seem to do just that. This is all part of my indie/foreign cinema-of-substance kick of the past year: I've been passing up all those movies that, at the end of the day, add nothing to my appreciation of life and beauty, in favor of those that do. (In other words, I didn't see a single movie this summer.) And so for this post, I'm going to recommend two great movies.

On Monday I saw this beauty:

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days is a doozy of a film. I saw it with a mixed group of men and women, and it was amazingly polarizing in the way that the events of the film were viewed by different sexes. The characters were very well-written; complex and multi-faceted--and the performances behind them reminded me that outside of American mainstream cinema, filmmakers actually give their audiences credit for being able to appreciate subtext. And there's something about 1986 Romania that's just *naturally* expressionistic....patches of snow on the ground, dogs roaming freely on the streets, the sharp contrast of a flock of birds against the sky....the camera did a great job of lingering over the coldness of their world, without resorting to deliberately staged Murnau-esque long shadows, or any other overly self-conscious scenery.

And tonight, I saw The Savages:

Aside from the obnoxious score, it was a great blend of the comic and the tragic (Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman as a spin on Salinger's uber-siblings, Franny and Zooey). On the comic side, it was great seeing these two self-involved intellectuals/artists cope with basic human issues of mortality, without being able to hide behind the walls of their own art (because all artists have an innate ability to use their art as a defense mechanism). (And it was also funny watching Philip Seymour Hoffman play tennis.)

The tragic side hit close to home, though, as I've had elderly family members suffer through dementia and ultimately death. The world of nursing homes and assisted living facilities troubles me on a very visceral level...the sights, sounds and smells of slow death...

Professor Tin!

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Tin) — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 06:29:00 +0000

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.)

Cornelius: Wataridori

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Tin) — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 01:10:00 +0000

My director friend Jon Goldman and I got another chance to catch one of our favorite artists at the Disney Concert Hall last week: Cornelius. It was a great show, *despite* the acoustics of the concert hall...and what I mean by that is, while DCH is no doubt a gloriously rich and reverberant space, the sound tends to favor a blended, warm sound that benefits a symphony orchestra; whereas Cornelius' music relies on tight, rhythmic interplay between instruments that is better suited toward a drier space.

Nevertheless, it was thrilling, and we were both excited to see his drummer again...a tiny Japanese woman who goes by the name of Mi-Gu, but who sounded like the second coming of John Bonham. We're both amazed by the way she's able to internalize Cornelius' complex drum parts (especially on Fit Song), and she drew a standing ovation from our mutual drummer friend Andy Featherston. (Side note: Andy, again, my apologies for not calling you back two years ago!!!)

Here's another track by Cornelius, entitled Wataridori. He uses delay (music jargon for 'echo') to great effect in this one.

Delicato: The 'Calling All Dawns' Font?

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Tin) — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 01:05:00 +0000

I think I may have found my font for Calling All Dawns. Introducing Delicato, designed by Stephan Hattenbach for the Fountain type foundry (based in Sweden). I think it's quite good; it looks classic, without being overly used, and without the baggage of a font like Trajan.

Here's the creator of the font describing his product:

"After spending my early years experimenting mostly with display faces, my focus now is to make functional text fonts, incorporating both traditional and modern aspects.

Delicato is, in many aspects, built in a traditional way. Still, some modern details have been implemented which classic designs sometimes lack. The prime goal was to make a strong text font for books and longer texts in general. This fact does not exclude the possibilites for use elsewhere.

Throughout history existing designs have often been the source of inspiration for newer ones. Delicato is no exception and looking closely, similarities can be found in the lowercase of Jeremy Tankard’s Enigma and the stems of Petr van Blokland’s Proforma. My goal is to respect these sources and turn my own creation into something new with a unique and personal touch.

Most text faces carry a basic set of weights like regular, italic, bold and small caps. I wanted to expand that a little bit further and added a medium, alternates and a set of ornaments to make the family complete and versatile."

I know I have some artistic readers out there....what do you all think? Thumbs up? Thumbs down?

Three Typefaces

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Tin) — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 03:48:00 +0000

I'm dating a graphic designer these days, and since I'm a big-time design aficionado, the topic of typefaces (otherwise known as fonts) comes up frequently. In most cases, I'm a fan of sans-serif fonts--that is, fonts without the little 'feet'--like the one utilized in this blog, verdana. On the whole, they're cleaner, more modern, and easier to read. In certain cases, though, when I want to tap into various traditions or subconscious associations, I'll utilize serif fonts. Here's what I mean:

Trajan is 'the movie font'...and it has been heavily overused in motion picture advertising, especially with epic blockbuster summer tent-pole fare (which I have to admit, I hate). But if a typeface carries any sort of subconscious association that I want to tap into, then it might not be a bad idea to utilize that font. So in the case of Calling All Dawns, if I want to convey that the scope of the album is epic and cinematic in some way (which it is), I may consider using Trajan as the principal font.

On the other side of the coin, however, is my favorite font Helvetica--a modern classic sans-serif that is purposefully devoid of distraction and meaning, preferring to let the words express themselves without coloration of typographic associations. You've seen Helvetica everywhere; it's the default font for Apple Computers, used in countless corporate logos, and pretty much pops up in all manner of signposts and advertisements. So you can see just how pervasive it really is, here's another clip, from the documentary "Helvetica," created for the 50th-anniversary of the font:

And finally, just for fun, I'm posting this YouTube video of a tribute to Akzidenz-Grotesk, an early predecessor to Helvetica. Some people just really, really love their fonts.

The Shakti Foundation: 'Miracle 2003' Revisited

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Tin) — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 08:27:00 +0000

This evening I took five minutes out of my schedule to perform an annual ritual; writing a 'letter of support' to the Shakti Foundation.

Back in 2003, I had the rare honor of playing keyboards and bass in a benefit concert organized by the Shakti Foundation entitled 'Miracle 2003.' The concert raised awareness and money for the cause of accessibility for the disabled population of Chennai, India; wheelchair access, elevators, and other such amenities that we take for granted here in the States are sorely lacking.

Headlining the concert were avant-garde guitarist and producer Michael Brook and mandolin virtuoso U. Srinivas--both outstanding musicians. Really, I was just there to back them up. The best way to describe the collaboration would be to declare it a world-music jam band; my job was just to provide some basic harmonic backup to let them do their soloing.

But wow, what a concert...and what an appreciative audience! I had a great time connecting with the fans and media (which I tend to like to do), and I think they rather liked me as well (in fact, the review of the concert in India's national paper, The Hindu, called me amicable and charming! Must have been the haircut...)

Since then, every year when they do their annual 'Miracle' concert, I've been writing a letter that they print in their program pledging my continued support to their cause. It's the least I can do, really....and frankly, I think it's important for musicians and artists to contribute to the greater social good, whether through the beauty of their works, or through championing causes and rallying the public (like the way that St. Bono does). There's just so much crap out there that adds nothing to the world, if you ask me. I yearn for the attitude towards music that was fostered in the 60s--the idea that music had the *responsibility* to be socially involved. But alas, my entire generation has been raised in a fog of apathy.

Two Deborah Dickson Documentaries

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Tin) — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 08:59:00 +0000

I never really mentioned this before, but over the course of the past four months I also somehow managed to score two feature-length documentaries for director Deborah Dickson. Deborah and I were introduced through a film editor, and she's a pretty fantastic director; the fact that she's been nominated for three Oscars for her other films should attest to that. This afternoon I put the final touches on the second of the two films, and so I thought I'd finally blog about them, as a little diversion from all the album-talk that's dominated over the past few months.

The first one is called Another Day In Paradise, and is executive produced by Mel Gibson and his company Icon Productions. It follows a six-month deployment of the USS Nimitz as it heads to the Persian Gulf in support of the war in Iraq. It's a great film; at once a character study of the men and women of the armed forces (and the lives of those they leave behind), and at the same time, an exploration of the role of an aircraft carrier in modern warfare (hint: it wasn't designed for ferreting out insurgents).

The second is called Witnesses To A Secret War, and chronicles the history of the Hmong of southeast Asia. During the Vietnam war, the US government recruited the Hmong people to wage a secret war by proxy against the Viet Cong; but when the US pulled out, they abandoned the Hmong to the persecution of the communist forces. Those that weren't killed immediately fled across the Mekong River into neighboring Thailand, where they lived in poverty in refugee camps. Eventually they were given the chance to relocate to the US. This film follows one such family as they leave their country--and its tragic past--and resettle in a land where they have a future.

Both films were recorded with the City Of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, which is one of the oldest of the low-budget session orchestras of Eastern Europe. The cost of recording with them is ridiculously affordable; and while they're not exactly a premiere orchestra, you still get a good bargain out of it. Their string sections seems to be their strong suit, which benefitted my 'Witnesses' score tremendously.

Abbey Road Pt. 3

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Tin) — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 21:13:00 +0000

My day at Abbey Road started at 8:00 AM, when I showed up at the studio. Already the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra's massive truck was outside, and roadies were loading various large instruments into the studio, including the timpani, celeste, the battery of ethnic percussion I hired, as well as the mother of all taiko drums. (Here's a picture of me having a little fun with it!) Jeff had already shown up early to put all the musicians parts out on the stands, and John was already there making last minute adjustments to the microphones. My ace conductor Lucas Richman arrived shortly thereafter, and with that, we were ready to roll.

The morning session started at 10:00 AM and lasted three hours. The afternoon session was four hours, starting at 2:00 PM. The final lineup I settled on was an orchestra of 85:

3 Flutes
--w/ piccolo, alto flute
3 Oboes
--w/ English Horn
3 Clarinets
--w/ Bass Clarinet
2 Bassoons
Contrabassoon

6 French Horns
3 Trumpets
2 Trombones
Bass Trombone
Tuba

Timpani
5 Percussion
Harp
Piano/Celeste

14 1st Violins
14 2nd Violins
10 Violas
8 Cellos
6 Basses

Our goal was to record, over the course of 7 hours, 46 minutes and 40 seconds of music....which is incredibly ambitious! (Why the rush? Frankly, I couldn't afford any more time.) We were able to accomplish this with few hiccups, mostly due to the amount of time I had spent in advance preparing every last detail. It wasn't a 100%-smooth process, though; because of a last-minute fiasco in the parts preparation, there were a number of missing notes in the horn parts that had to be corrected from the podium. All in all we wasted about 5 minutes with these problems, which doesn't seem like a lot on the outside; but considering every minute elapsed costs me about $150 in musicians salaries and studio rental, I was cursing my head off in the control room the whole time.

Most people don't realize this, but orchestras that are contracted to do recording sessions don't actually rehearse the music in advance. They simply show up and read it on sight. It's actually quite incredible; these are some of the finest players in the world, and are capable of playing something nearly perfectly on first-read. However, that means that some adjustments that you need to make to the music will often catch you off guard on the day of the session. After every take, Lucas and I conferred on the podium and made minor changes to the sound. Most were things that can't easily be conveyed with written musical notation; for example, how short to make a staccato note, or how legato to play a melody.

At 7:30 PM The Purcell Singers showed up to record the chorale to my Polish song, Hymn Do Trojcy Swietej (Hymn To The Holy Trinity). Directed by Mark Ford, this 45 member choir spent an hour recording first working on the pronunciation of the text (courtesy of a Polish coach), and then doing take after take trying to find the right sound.

We capped off the evening in exhilarating fashion. I've mentioned before in this blog the Maori tradition of the haka--well, at 9:00 PM four Maori guys came in and laid down take after take of chants, stomps, and body slaps for my closing Maori song Kia Hora Te Marino (May Peace Be Widespread).

10:00 PM, and 14 hours after I had arrived at the studio, we finished with a celebratory pint of Guinness. One of the longest and most exhausting days of my life...and hopefully the beginning of a great journey for me.

Abbey Road Pt. 2

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Tin) — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 03:17:00 +0000

The night before the session we were able to get in to Studio 1 to set up for the next day's events. John Kurlander's main task was to get the room set up to his exacting specifications....and when I say exacting, I really mean exacting. One of the reasons I feel very comfortable working with John is his level of attention to detail. Weeks before the session, I was getting detailed floor plans from him with proposed orchestra layouts, microphone setups, etc. The night before the session, he and his team of assistants, headed by the capable Richard Lancaster, got everything ready for the big show.

My task was two-fold; first, to get the ProTools sessions set up with Richard for click tracks and pre-records, and second, to make sure that all the orchestral parts were there. Richard is frighteningly fast on ProTools--the poor man works long hours, but it seems like it will all pay off for him in short time.

As far as parts preparation goes, I had the assistance of a long-time friend of mine from when I was a conducting student, Jeff Eckstein. Jeff has worked in many capacities around orchestras before, from conducting to managing, and so together the two of us sorted through every single part of all 12 songs and made sure everything was there for the session.

That night I climbed into bed at about midnight; it was about 4:00 AM when I finally fell asleep. Three hours later I woke up to start my marathon day.

Abbey Road Pt. 1

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Tin) — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 00:21:00 +0000

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.

Imminent Departure!

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Tin) — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 15:38:00 +0000

I leave for London tomorrow, everyone! Wish me luck!

I've got a busy week ahead of me. First, I visit the Royal College of Music on Friday to do a little guest lecture at my old alma mater. Then meetings with some old friends and old professors. Then the day before the session, meeting with the conductor, the contractor (who will be bringing the orchestral parts) and finally going to the session set-up at Abbey Road the night before.

Then it's showtime! 7 hours with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, 1 hour with the Purcell Singers, and 1 hour with some Maori guys performing a 'haka' (see previous blog entry). A busy day!

I'll post pictures when I return.

TED 2006: Do Schools Today Kill Creativity?

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Tin) — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 05:00:00 +0000

Happy Thanksgiving to all you Americans and American expatriots! I had a very productive week, and churned out the third (and pretty much final) draft of my album. It's pretty much ready to go, with only minor tweaks left to be done in the next week. And to celebrate, I'm letting myself blog again.

I was sent this YouTube video by a Facebook acquaintance, Mark Mahaffey. It's a great lecture given by Sir Ken Robinson at the TED Conference 2006, an annual invitation-only summit of the best and most innovative minds across all the disciplines. ('TED' stands for 'Technology Entertainment Design'.) It's a bit on the long side, but it's well worth setting aside the time to watch.

For those who don't have time to watch the whole thing, the most poignant moment of the video for me was when he talked about the early childhood of choreographer Gillian Lynne, who's probably best known for her work with Andrew Lloyd Webber on, among other things, Cats. Make all the snide comments you want--fact of the matter is, that choreography is something special.

An adolescent Gillian was taken in to see a counselor because she was always squirming about in class, and never seemed to sit still. The counselor listened very patiently to the parents concerns, and then asked them to step into the hallway with him. On the way out, he turned on the radio. Outside, in the hall, they peeked back in the room to see that Gillian, thinking no one was watching her, was suddenly dancing all about the room. The parents promptly enrolled her in a dance class, which eventually led her to where she is today: a choreographer who's brought beauty and joy to millions of people.

The point of the story is, though, that if that had happened today, she would have 1) been diagnosed with ADHD, and 2) been put on medication. The world would have lost a formidable talent, because our public school system devalues creativity in favor of the basic R's: that is, Reading, wRiting and aRithmatic. In fact, it is that over-emphasis on these basic principals that quite frankly squashes a lot of artistic talent in its infancy.

(A side note to those of you who had to suffer through a traditional Asian upbringing....you know exactly what I'm talking about. You're only allowed to be brilliant on the violin, as long as you don't think about making it your career. Fortunately, my parents were very progressive in that department, which is why I'm where I am today.)

You can't blame public schools; they have enough problems as it is. But that story took me back to my own experience at the dawn of my own life as a composer, when the administration of Palo Alto High School did a pretty fantastic job in almost crushing my nascent artistic talent.

It was senior year in high school, and as an eager theatre student who could actually hold a tune, I was disappointed to find out that they had cancelled the school musical that year. So, frustrated, I decided that I would write my own musical (how hard could it be?). Trouble is, I wasn't the only one with that idea....a fellow student (a drummer in a rock band) decided that he wanted to write one too. So that year at Palo Alto High School became an unofficial story of dueling original musicals.

The administration, rather than being pleased that their music program churned out two burgeoning composition talents, felt that they couldn't support having two such projects going on at the same time. So first they tried to make us collaborate and write one musical. And then they decided to throw all their administrative power behind one of the shows, and pretty much did everything they could to discourage the other one. For whatever reason, they chose the 'other show' to put forth--maybe it was because that show's creator lobbied better than I did. Who knows.

Point is, they wouldn't let me use their stage to put up my show. They wouldn't give me any resources. They did their bureaucratic best to ensure that my show wouldn't go up, short of actually shutting it down themselves (because that would probably make them look bad).

So my version of being a rebellious high schooler, of course, was to mount the damn thing myself. I convinced the choir teacher, Mrs. Fujikawa, to let me use her tiny classroom as a stage. I begged my physics teacher to stay late on campus, so that I could have a supervising teacher for my rehearsals. (Thanks Mr. Geller.) My production staff (pretty much one guy: Chris Karabats) and I used to break into the classrooms on weekends just so we could build my pitiful little set. I wrote the music, I wrote the script, I did the publicity, I played the guitar in the pit band, and through sheer force of will, my heroic cast of five and I managed to put up three sold out performances. (It's not hard to sell out when you've only got room for 60 people in a classroom.)

My first ever large-scale project, Such Sweet Thunder, was born. It was a bloated two and a half hours, with 17 musical numbers with ponderous dialogue-heavy scenes in between. It tackled an imaginary scenario where a jazz-singer--loosely based on Ella Fitzgerald--dies, and a young upstart tries to take her place. It tackled issues of art, entertainment, and the co-marriage of the two, and quite frankly was way too heady for a 17 year old to tackle, much less for a high school audience to appreciate.

But damn it, people were impressed. And the next day, the popular kids came up to me and said they were humming my tunes all day. (To this day, I'll occasionally have an old high school friend sing one of those songs back to me.) The show was taped and broadcast on local Cable Access TV. My friend Lisa came and saw it, and brought her dad, Steve Jobs--yes, THAT Steve Jobs. She later told me that he said it was the most brilliant thing he ever saw a 17-year old do. (I will carry that comment with me to my deathbed.)

The one person who was conspicuously absent, however, was the principal of the school. Not only had they withheld support for my massive undertaking, but they didn't even deign to attend one of the performances. Now THIS is the problem with public schools: the lack of resources is one thing, but to not even show support for a young artist is another sin altogether. Principal Sandra Pearson, if you're reading this, I ask you: what kind of message are you sending about the importance of creativity when one of your best students writes a two-act musical, and you don't even bother to show up for it?

As a young artist, it filled me with rage. Here I was, trying to create something, and here was 'the system' doing its best to prevent me from doing so. Allow me to psychoanalyze myself for a moment: it's because of this early experience that made me the independent-minded artist I am today. I have a deep-seeded mistrust for any entity or system that holds power over me; I feel much more secure taking control of my own destiny, and not relying on the handouts of others. I don't want to be constantly kissing ass and hoping someone will give me a job; I want to be focusing on writing good music and creating good art. I'm doing this album on my own, free of record labels, free of outside publishers because I CAN. I refuse to let all those Sandra Pearsons out there hold me down.

Whew.

Anyway, the epilogue? A month after my show wrapped, I attended a performance of 'the other musical.' It was presented at the 2000-seat Haymarket Theatre, with lavish costumes, full on-stage pit orchestra, dancers, expensive lighting, and a press-blitz that celebrated the fact that a young high school student had written a musical (wow....how novel). It was a 90-minute comedy about a 17th-century composer who's frustrated that his music is going nowhere, and so he invents rock and roll, and suddenly cellists trade in their bows for guitar picks, the village starts rocking, and everything becomes right with the world, Bill And Ted-style.

Excellent, dude.

Maori Haka and the New Zealand All-Blacks

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Tin) — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 22:26:00 +0000

The Maori people of New Zealand have an old tradition called the haka. It's a choreographed group dance that's commonly associated with a pre-battle ritual, whereby Maori warriors would shout, stomp and make threatening gestures at their opponents as a means of intimidating them. Today, the Maori aren't waging too many wars, but the tradition is alive and well, most famously with the New Zealand All Blacks, pretty much the best rugby team in the world. The All Blacks have been performing the haka for over a century now, and it's one of the great traditions in sports.

It really is just an awe-inspiring. (Except if you're the French team in this video, in which case you're probably wetting yourself at this moment.)

I'm closing my album with a Maori song, and with the help of Jerome Kavanagh, a Maori collaborator who happens to be an expert on traditional Maori instruments and music, I'm integrating parts of this tradition into the track. I figure if I can harness just a tenth of the goose-bump-inducing power of the All Blacks haka, I'll have a fine finish to the album. Yet at the same time, I have to be careful; the Maori are very proud of their heritage, and are very protective of their traditions. Whatever I do, and however I do it, I need to proceed with the utmost respect for their culture and traditions. I hope, though, that my intentions will be considered honorable; at once I want to increase awareness of their extraordinary musical and oratorical traditions, and at the same time, integrate it into the over-arching message of Calling All Dawns: that we are all one and the same, and all travel the same journey through life and death.

Takeshi Murakami Pt. 1: Louis Vuitton

noreply@blogger.com (Christopher Tin) — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 08:43:00 +0000

I’m blogging again because it’s 3:00 AM, and I can’t sleep. Mostly album related issues, but I’ll get to that later….

In the meantime, I’m going to ramble about Takeshi Murakami, probably the most famous pop artist since Andy Warhol. The LA MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) is running a show of the Tokyo-based artists works, and it’s driving me nuts that I don’t have the time to just run downtown to go see it.

Murakami is the founder of the Superflat movement—which in essence is both a rebellion against the staid restraint of traditional Japanese art, as well as a celebration—and sometimes criticism—of contemporary Japanese pop culture. It’s a largely character-based movement—that is, much of the art deals with manga-inspired cartoon characters who require no more reason for existance than that they’re ridiculously cute.

Like Warhol, his work is a marriage of fine art and commerce—and one of the most noticeable unions of these concepts is his design of a Louis Vuitton handbag (which sells for a mere $1520). Murakami goes one step further with the partnership, however, and actually created a little animated film to promote the product:

What I love about it in particular (being a musician) is the soundtrack, a song by a great J-Pop artist called Fantastic Plastic Machine. J-Pop is a particular interest of mine, just because I find it so much more creative than American pop (which for various reasons—cough Clear Channel cough American Idol cough hip-hop culture cough—has become image driven and homogenized). Some of my favorite artists (including previously-blogged-about Cornelius) all come from the trendy Shibuya district of Tokyo, and FPM belongs to this Shibuya-kei movement.

What’s particularly ingenious about this music, though, is that it seems to be a reinvention of a concept in German avant-garde concert music of the 1910s called klangfarbenmelodie, which translated, means ‘tone color melody.’ That technique, pioneered by Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern (who, along with Alban Berg, comprise the Second Viennese School) is the utilization of tone color as a new element to the progression of a melody. So for example, instead of having a melody played by just one instrument, these guys would break up the melody amongst different instruments in the orchestra, so that each note was sounded with a different tone color. Fantastic Plastic Machine has done this here as well—although the melody and chords would fit very handily with one instrument, the main riff is broken up into various combinations of acoustic guitar strums (going forwards and backwards), keyboards, pizzicato strings, filtered synths, and weird honking sounds. It’s mesmerizing, and works really well with the schizophrenic nature of Murakami’s visuals.

Oh, and guess what the name of the song is? “Different Colors.” How appropriate, both to Murakami AND klangfarbenmelodie.

And in other news, the reason I’ve got insomnia is because I spent much of today thinking over the comments that I’ve gotten from various people I played my most recent album draft for—and I’ve realized that there comes a time when an artist simply needs to stop collecting feedback, and just does what they want to do. And so even though there were some valid suggestions that came from my friends and colleagues in the past couple weeks, I’ve nevertheless reached a point where I’m comfortable with my material, and can confidently move forward with it. And truthfully, one could workshop something forever, and each time someone will have something new to say. It has to stop somewhere! More than anything else, this is telling in that I’ve finally reached a total comfort point with all my material. Next stop: Abbey Road.