Archive for the ‘composition’ Category

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A quick update!

November 19, 2010

A quick overview of what’s going on:

School:

Registered, classes paid for, and classes start Jan 5th. I’m very excited!

Job:

I’m being laid off in April, due to outsourcing. I’m happy about getting ready to take the next step in my life, although I have no idea where my income will be coming from, and how much I’ll be making to pay my bills while in school.

Movie:

Picture lock is almost here, and hopefully next week I will have the full film ready to be scored. The deadline is Nov 30th for submission for a film festival, but I will be able to work on it until I start school in January. After that I will be making small finishing touches on it until the ‘red carpet’ premiere in May.

iPhone game:

I have a list of compositions I need to do, and I’m very excited about this project. It looks like this will be a long term contract, and I’m happy to be working with such a great developer.

That’s it for now!

Yes, I am still writing the choral piece and some other chamber music, but as of right now they are on hold for these two big projects. I’m really happy to have a Documentary and an iPhone app to be adding to my overall music resume and experience for my business.

-Kyle

Please check out the documentary at: Abandoned Allies
The iPhone app is being made by: Tantrum Apps


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I am composing for Tantrum Apps!!

November 2, 2010

 

As of September, I have officially been on the team of Tantrum Apps for development of a new iPhone and iPad game geared towards education for kids. I have started composing for Lawrence, the develop for Tantrum Apps and also TriOut, and we hope that this partnership will remain strong as we work on this application together and hopefully others in the future.

Here is a small sample of the app that I’m composing for:

 

You can check out more of my works at kyleowen.com and you can find Lawrence’s work at TriOut and Tantrum Apps.

I’m very excited about this new venture for my composition and to have the opportunity to work with Lawrence on this and hopefully future apps!

-Kyle


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Why I don’t perform my own works

October 12, 2010

Recently I was asked why I don’t play my own compositions. I know that some modern composers do, but I tend to stay away from it for several reasons. I’d like to explain them here, so people understand my feelings on my music and why I am against performing it myself.

As a composer, the gift of the music is being able to listen to someone else’s interpretation of it. Some composers write to get their music out there, and want it out there regardless of how it is played. I don’t personally feel that way. I really enjoy working with performers, and having them interpret my music to suit them. The best experiences I’ve ever had with my music have been when I have worked with the performers of my music, and have been able to get their emotional feedback and response to the notes I had written. Because of this, I know that it becomes more limited for me to get my work out there and performed, but I’m willing to wait until a partnership with performers is developed and they are able to impart their feelings and emotions into the music.

If I record my own pieces, I then take more ‘ownership’ of the performance. If I take ownership of it, and people look to the recording as a reference for what the piece ‘should’ sound like, they lose the ability to decide for themselves how things should be interpreted. I have experienced this several times as a performer, where the recording of the piece I was listening to and learning would directly change the way that I would prefer the piece. Music, in many ways, is about emulation of performances we have heard before, or have been taught to replicate. It is hard for a performer to be completely unique in their performance of a piece, and often when you can find it they are the best and most interesting recordings you can find or pieces.

I consider myself a composer first, performer last. I enjoy working on compositions written by other people, but I enjoy creating it a lot more. The process is therapeutic, and it is very natural to me after doing it for so long. If I felt I wanted to market myself as a performer I would record my own pieces, but realistically performing is a very small part of my creative life right now. I still play here and there for small things, or with ensembles when I get the chance, but my focus creatively is on composition and writing new music for people who may enjoy it. My goal is to get out as much of the music I hear in my head as I can. To get it out there and to have it be interpreted by performers who know what they are doing.

I know there are many people that could potentially disagree with my statements on this issue, but it is a matter of what I personally believe when it comes down to my art. My art is putting out the music, not performing it, and I’m well aware of that. Also, my fulfillment is in the creative process of composing the music and working with the performers that enjoy playing my music. That being said, if you are a performer, and are interested in performing any of my works, please contact me, and I’ll gladly give you a copy for free. I’m willing to make my music easily available to those who want it, and who would like to perform it. All is ask for is that I’m notified if the piece is being performed and when. If I’m available to make it to the performance, I will do everything I can to be there and to support you!

Best always,

Kyle

Note:

You can visit kyleowen.com to listen to samples of my music. This is not a complete listing of all of my music, but only that which I’m ready to share with the world. I have many projects that are currently going through the creative process, and once they are completed they will be on the website. Please contact me personally, if you would like to arrange a performance of the music.

Thank you

Posted in art, composition, Music, opinion | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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Compositional goals from 2004

June 19, 2010

Back in 2004, when I really started to consider composition as a major I made a list of pieces that I wanted to write within my composition ‘career’. I put it aside as my life priorities changed, and I found it yesterday. I think it is time that I bring back this list, and hope to start crossing more things off. So that I can hold myself accountable, I want to make it public. This isn’t a complete list of ideas, but as of right now it is a big enough one to always remind me that I have projects I can and need to be working on!!

List of Compositions to complete:

Solo Works
Piccolo
Flute – Romantic style piece, “Jig”, and others.
Alto Flute
Bass Flute – Low Register stuff
Oboe
English Horn
Clarinet – 3 Sketches for A Clarinet (also other A Clarinet pieces)
Saxophone
Viola
Cello
Trumpet
Baritone
Tuba
Marimba
Soprano
Tenor
Bass
Soprano Sax
Tenor Sax
Alto Sax

Solo with Piano:
Piccolo
Flute
Alto Flute
Bass Flute (unamped)
Bass Flute (amp)
Clarinet
Soprano
Tenor/Baritone
French Horn
Trumpet
Marimba
Soprano Sax
Tenor Sax
Alto Sax

Chamber Music:
Piccolo, Flute and Piano
Flute, Alto Flute and Piano
Flute, Bass Flute and Piano
Piccolo and Bass flute
Flute Duo/Trio/Quartet/Quintet
Flute Choir (up to 8 parts)
Flute and Clarinet
Flute and Marimba
Bass Flute and Clarinet
WW Quintet (standard)
Brass Quartet (Trombone)
Brass Quartet (Trumpet)
Trumpet, Trombone, Violin, Cello
Flute, Marimba and Trumpet trio
Sax duets and trios
Sax Quartet (Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass)
String Quartet
Soprano and Alto with Piano
Soprano and Bass with Piano
Tenor and Bass with Piano

Bassoon Quartet/Quintet/Sextet

Small to large ensembles:

2 piccolo/3 flute, 2 oboe, 3 clarinet, 2 bassoon, 2 alto, 1 tenor sax, 1 baritone sax, pitched percussion, snare drum (16 musicians).

2 Flutes, 2 Clarinets, 2 Bassoons, and 2 French Horns (double quartet)

Early Bands (Elm. and JH)

Beginning Band (HS)
Intermediate Band (HS)

Symphonic Band (with English horn, Soprano sax, and alto flute) (C)
Symphonic Band with Flute Quartet (Picc, C, alto, bass). (C)

Picc/2 flutes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 violins (2 parts), 2 violas (1 part),
4 cellos (2 parts), 2 Trombones, 2 trumpets, 1 tuba,
3 mixed percussion (24 musicians)

String Orchestra

Full Orchestra

Men’s choir (TTBB)
Treble Choir (SSAA)
Mixed Choir (SATB)


Posted in composition, experience, Flute, goals, Music, opinion, Sibelius | Leave a Comment »

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TILT scoring contest results and what is next for me!

June 6, 2010

Well, as some of you may know by now, I didn’t make it into the 2nd round of the TILT: The Movie scoring contest. I don’t know what percentage of votes I got, but I wasn’t in the top 3, so therefore didn’t move on to the next round to be considered for the job. Regardless, I enjoyed the process, and have found some people that I’d like to stay in contact with and potentially work with in the future if given the opportunity. I appreciate your votes for me and all of the great feedback I got! It was great to hear what you thought of my entry, and I hope to share more of my music with you soon. I will be doing a blog post about my process for the TILT scoring contest entry, but I don’t know if I will get it done this month. I should be able to!

What else is going on?

Movie:

Fortunately, I have a lot going on and that I am going to be doing within the next couple months. The movie I’ve been composing for: Abandoned Allies; is getting closer and closer to editing being complete. This means that once all the editing is done that I will be working with the director to work out the music and thematic development to help tell the story. I’m really excited about this, and since being on the project since January *as the composer* It has been really exciting to see the editing come together and the movie’s form start to take place! Camden has been a pleasure to work with, and I’m excited about getting closer to this project finishing so that we can start to get it out.

First Choral Piece:

I decided that it was time to write a choral piece. So, I started to go through the people that I chat with a regular basis with on twitter and I stumbled upon (@missxkaren) and her work. I contacted her and asked her if she would be interested in doing a collaboration piece. She has been writing poetry for years, and has written over 200 poems! So, since we started talking about it, I have started composing a piece called “Frozen in Time” for SATB based on a poem by Karen-Maeby McCormick. I’m excited about this project, and will be talking with local choral directors to see if I can possibly get it performed!

National Band Association Composers Competition:

I will be entering in the 2012 NBA Composers competition and to be prepared for that I am going to have to write as much of the piece as I can this year so that I can work on getting it performed and recorded so that I’m able to submit it for the contest! I’ve started doing my preliminary research and I know a band director who will be willing to play it after it is done J I have an idea of what I’m going to do with it, I just need to make sure that I can execute it well.

Flute + Electronics set:

Currently, this project is on hold. I don’t have the time to invest in it with all of the other projects I have going on. I hope to complete it by the end of next year though!

Flute quartet:

I will finish the flute quartet this year. I have the first movement done and now I am just waiting for the movie project to be over so I can finish it. I’m very pleased with the first movement, and you can hear a sample of it in my music section of my web page!

Potential collaborations:

I have started to set up potential collaborations with some other people I know on twitter. Some composers, and some visual artists. I hope that these end up happening after I’m done with the movie and that as I continue to finish projects that I continue to add them. I’ve started to realize that I really like working with people (I know this sounds funny, but I’ve spent a lot of time as a composer locked away by myself, and not sharing my work!).

CompTIA A+ Certification:

I start my 2nd class for my certification on the 16th of this month! I’m ready for the classes to be over and to have the certification, because I haven’t been able to give it the time I’ve really needed to this year with the composition stuff. It is going to continue to be a challenge for me to balance my composition, studies, and personal/family life!

I will feel much better about things overall once I get my first tech certification done so that I can start to prepare for the others that I have planned out. I really want to get into a career that can and will help support my artistic endeavors and I feel the tech industry is the right one for me. I just need to make it happen and continue to move forward!

Thanks for your support as always,

Kyle


Posted in collaboration, composition, movie, Music | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

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TILT Scoring Contest!

May 5, 2010

I have been given the opportunity to enter in a competition to get the chance to write music for an independent film collaboration. I found out about TILT by someone I follow on twitter (@philontilt) and decided that I’m at the point in my ‘composition career’ that I need to do everything I can to get my name out there and build my resume by attaching myself to strong people who I’d like to work with now and in the future. I thought that this would be a great opportunity, and I’ve been plugging away at my contest entry for the last couple weeks. Submissions are due by May 15th. I’m really excited to see what type of feedback I get from the people who follow and interact with me regarding my music.

The way the competition will work:

All composers have been given from April 21st to May 14th to score a video (1 video; 2; 2 minute clips) downloadable from Vimeo.

Once submissions are received, TILT will do another blog posting with the entries and people will have until May 31st to cast their vote for which they like the best.

After all votes are received, the top 3 entries will be considered by the TILT team and someone will be selected an offered the opportunity to score the movie. The winner will be announced on June 3rd!
(paraphrased from TILT website)

Here is my entry!

Voting starts May 17th!

To say that I want this opportunity is an understatement. I know that I would do everything I can to give them what they are looking for to score their film, and I hope that I can at least make it to the top 3 so that I’m truly ‘in-the-running’. I’ve talked with Phil, and interacted with other members of the team, and they seem like a great group of motivated and talented people. To be able to work with them would be a great opportunity and a pleasure, and I’d love to be part of their creative team to help bring their vision to life. If you’d like more information about TILT, you can go the following places:

TILT Website
Twitter: Phil (director), King and Keck (writers), TILT on twitter

While working with Camden, the Director of Abandoned Allies, I realized that I really enjoy the process of creating music for someone else’s vision. It is a very different creative process than what I would normally do when just composing music for me and it is something I really enjoy. I’ve had nothing but a great experience working with Camden, and she has been a great motivator for me to move forward to look into other scoring opportunities. I’m still currently working on Abandoned Allies, and progress is being made as the film comes together and more research and interviews are added. I’m really happy to be part of Camden’s team, and as more happens with Abandoned Allies, I’ll post! I’m meeting with Camden on Thursday to see the movie where it stands now and to talk about musical needs. Thank you Camden for your support and faith in me as we work together, now and hopefully in the future!

If you like my entry, when the contest is open for voting, I ask that you please vote for me and my submission to get me in the top 3. Again, I’d love this opportunity to work with the TILT team, and I can’t do this by myself. I need the support from those who like my music and who want to see me succeed in this area of music composition. I’ll be posting updates here as I find out what is happening with the contest, and you can check out other samples of my work at my home page, kyleowen.com!

Thanks again,

Kyle


Posted in composition, experience, movie, Music, Sibelius, technology, youtube | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

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Questions to help define my personal business model for my music.

March 11, 2010

As I write more music on a regular basis the thought of what I want to do with it becomes something I think about more and more. I have been composing technically for about 10 years with some time off to move from place to place and settle. Now it is time for me to start thinking about the projects I’m doing now and what I want to be doing with my music in the future. Right now I’m lucky enough to be composing for a movie, but I don’t know when/if I’ll get other opportunities to work with such great people again. I feel incredibly lucky to have this opportunity, and I’m not taking it lightly as a commitment I have made.

I have the option of “locking things down” and making all of my music and projects “paid only” but that doesn’t help spread the openess that music promotes. Realistically, I’m lucky if I have 1 or 2 fans of my music. Mainly because I haven’t put it out there for people to have access to it. I’m sure that as I put more and more of my music out there and expose myself to more people, I will eventually have 10 fans, and maybe even 100. I know that I’ll greatly appreciate anyone that says they like my music, and I’m willing to take criticism and feed back from those who don’t. I want to better myself as a composer, and one of the only ways I can do that is to get feedback from those who know about music and those who just enjoy listening to it.

Can a “freemium” (free content with an optional buy-in) business model work for a composer? I’m unsure if it really can. I think that I’d rather give my music away and find out where my fans are, and if they exist, rather than holding onto my music without anyone able to hear it. I think I have more to gain by giving it away, even if it comes down to just getting feedback. Yes, I’d love to make money off my music, but I don’t know if it is realistic to think that I ever will. One can always hope, but it isn’t something that I expect. I have invested a lot of time and money into my music education and experience and I hope that it translates in my final product, but I can’t make people decide that my music is ‘good’ or ‘respectable’. Ideally I’d give my music away, and then just give a way for people to donate to me if they wanted or felt my music was worth the money. That way it would be completely opt-in, and hopefully all parties would be happy.

I do have some larger goals that I still want to accomplish: Getting my music published, and getting a CD made (even if only digitally distributed). I feel they can both happen, it is just a matter of how. With everything digital now, it makes it much easier to distribute music (PDF, MP3s, etc) and I want to utilize it the way that ‘my audience’ wants. So I guess the best way for me to get my name out there will also still allow me the opportunities to accomplish those bigger goals. Realistically though, no matter what, I’d just be happy if people were playing my music and talking to me about it, outside of the small group of people that know about it.

I’m currently in the process of setting up my main domain, that will have samples of my music and information about my music and projects. I hope that this will become a good way for me to start interacting with people and to share my music with them. I plan on having samples, if not full piece downloads (PDF, MP3) for people to have and interact with. I just have to do some soul searching and decide how I want to peruse these goals while still keeping everything else going.

Any ideas or thoughts?? Please comment.

Thank you,

-Kyle


Posted in composition, experience, Flute, opinion, technology | Tagged | Leave a Comment »

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I’m writing music for a local documentary!

March 6, 2010

Yesterday was amazing! I am now officially writing music for a local documentary with some amazing people involved. This is my first “scoring” experience so it is going to be a great learning opportunity for me. I told myself that I will never turn down an opportunity that requires me to grow and move forward in my life. I will be creating music with a specific tone and that needs to invoke specific feelings. From a composition level that can be really difficult, but I know I’ll be able to do it. There will be some challenges, such as no budget and only a few months to compose, but I know I can work around it with what I have.

In many cases the music I write, writes itself. I do editing and I move things around. Once I got used to the process of composing it has become very natural to me. To write music for “someone else” is a different process. You cater to different needs and you have to try and be 100% objective and willing to make changes when the other people don’t like or agree with what you did. You have to be willing to change things you pour your heart into to make it work. A lot of give-and-take will be essential to a successful project. Fortunately I’m working with people who love what they do and are just happy to have me as part of the team.

Last night I gave the director/producer and music coordinator samples of my music and they listened to it as we spoke music. So much of last night was spent talking about the overall tone of the movie and the roles that the music needs to play in it. My biggest challenge will be taking music from the natives (in the movie) and using it as inspiration for some of the music I’ll be writing. I want to create music to honor them, not insult, so the way I write it will be done with as much research as I can beforehand to insure that tonally I’m where I need to be. This is a fun challenge in itself.

I’m nothing but excited for this project and I will be trying to document everything I can regarding my experience so that I can learn from
It more. I have software that I need to get comfortable with (outside of Sibelius) and it needs to become a tool and not an obstacle. On top of working on my Computer Certification I also have software I need to learn!!! Time to take my notes and start writing music.

-Kyle

Posted in composition, experience, Sibelius, technology | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments »

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