June update

Been a busy time here at SquareSpiral over the last few weeks with plenty of tracks going out the door, but here is a quick update of just one of the latest projects I have worked on.

Bridal Enchantment

Here's a short fashion shoot video by Zoneone Studios of a photo session by The Image Cella featuring a huge back stage cast of talented creatives and 2 beautiful models. Check the credits at the end of the video for all the details.

The musical brief was to create a darker more interesting track than your usual bridal shoot backing track. So, out went all the strings and instead I started with some ethereal pianos over a modern percussion beat. I then switched it up in the middle with the addition of trashy guitars, filtered synths and big beats.

Check it out - and remember that you can find this and plenty more tracks over on my SoundCloud page.

Welcome to the (Audio) Jungle!

A new year, a new website (SquareSpiral) and one more final property for the you to check out.

As of yesterday a limited number of Square Spiral productions are available for license at very reasonable cost at my AudioJungle marketplace page. Watch this space closely over the coming months as I plan to populate it with more high quality tracks just waiting to be incorporated into your media productions.

For now though, here's wishing you all a very happy and productive new year!

Chris

A new home for 2014

The Square Spiral blog has been running for around a year and a half now, and I admit to being guilty of not being very prolific on the posting front! I intend to keep the blog running and will try to give it more attention in 2014.

However, the purpose of this short post is simply to promote the new home of Square Spiral on the web at www.squarespiral.co.uk.

The commercial work that Square Spiral has been doing over the past 12 months has been slowly gathering pace and I am hoping for big things in 2014 for the studio, and so the website is born. Initially it will be a simple affair providing what amounts to essentially an on-line business card, but over the coming months I will expand the scope of what is there.

So take a quick look there to see what things are coming out on my commercial side - And of course, check back here for updates on everything else coming out of Square Spiral's studio.

Wishing everyone a happy new year!

Chris

Liberty ship - Martin Barlow

This is one I forgot to mention in my recent updates, but it is well worth a mention as its a truly beautiful song. Martin approached me with his acoustic demo of the song recorded with his former bandmates Dan Tucker and Monique Houraghan and asked if there was anything I could add.

After taking a listen to the really well recorded and performed demo I could hear space for a little extra instrumentation, so I set about with some additional production work.

The original demo came to me as a finished stereo track consisting of all the acoustic guitar parts and the vocals. To this I added bass, drums, piano and some synth textures. I also added some electric guitar to the chorus. The result very successfully enhanced an already excellent demo by adding a touch more power and drive to the arrangement.

Martin loved the new version - maybe you will too....



Enjoy!

Chris

Autumn update

Just another quick update from Square Spiral for you all..

More video scoring work live on the web

In my last post I mentioned that I had a project in the pipeline for ZoneOne studios, and while the final web site for Greysons Restaurants is yet to be finished by the creative teams, the promo video is now live on the landing page. Why not go take a look and hear my track 'Busy work' in context with the video it was written for here.

The final site redesign for The Orangery is also now complete and features my track 'One Beautiful Day' alongside ZoneOnes fantastic promo video - You can find it here

Beck Songreader - remixed

After the recent mix and mastering session I did for the artist Rich Thomsen to finalise his creations from the Beck Songreader project I decided to do a little remix of my own.

Working with Rich's great vocal track I remixed 'Eyes That Say I love You' giving it a modern EDM spin complete with dubstep basses and a rock solid rhythm track. I was a little unsure how it would be received, but Rich was pleased with this new version and even commented that he liked it more than his original! Praise indeed.

Here's the track for you to take a listen to.

Suffice to say, Rich an I are currently working on some new material so watch this space!!

Chris

A Quick update!

Have to confess to not keeping up to date with the blog in recent months, but needless to say I have been busy musically none the less.

Scored another short film

Back I april I once again took part in the SciFi London 24hour film challenge, where you have exactly 24 hours to write, shoot, edit and submit a 5 minute short film based around a title and some other critera given to you on the day of the challenge.

This year we upped the stakes with a bigger team, a more full on story and even a spaceship set we had created!

We shot for about 10 hours straight on the first day and got most of what we needed in the can. The following day myself and the director Steve Hayes locked ourselves away for a marathon 22 hour edit session. Steve handled all the video editing and visual effects work while I got busy with dialogue editing, foley creation and mixing and finally music scoring.

I was an incredibly tough 2 days but also massive fun as well. Here's our final film - "Robot"

Music Production

I love working on music productions whenever I can. Earlier in the year I was able to get James White into my studio to record a couple of tracks over the course of a weekend. This was a great opportunity as we normally only get to work remotely transferring files over the internet as the song progresses. Being in the same room for once really enabled us to work much more quickly and explore new ideas for the songs we were working on. Here's one of the tracks form those sessions - "Stranded"

Mixed an album

Had my first commission to mix an album last month when Rich Thomson came to me to mix and master the 8 songs he had recorded in response to the Beck Song Reader project. You can here the final mixes on Rich Thomsons Soundcloud page.

One of personal faves from the sessions was this number:

More work for Zoneone Studios

I continue to work closely with Zoneone, providing bespoke music tracks for the high quality video promotions they produce. Currently we have one in the pipeline, but here's one we finished earlier this year for a beautiful wedding venue in Kent called The Orangery

A very brief review of some of this years activities, but if any of the above has sparked your interest then why not get in touch? Perhaps I can bring your next project to life with music or sound?

Also why not check out my Soundcloud page for more examples of my work

Chris

A Song for the studio - Part 2.

The writing session

I wrote before about creating a new song with my brother for us record at our upcoming studio session. I wanted to write a short post to document the writing session and describe the process in a little more detail.

A guitar, pencil and pad, a few chords and a dash of time. All you need to write a song...

It's been a long while since I had written a new song as I mostly concentrate my efforts on producing tunes for others these days, and in the week running up the the writing session I felt I should be trying to note down some ideas, but as hard as I tried I found myself coming up blank!

Generally as a writing pair my brother is the lyricist and I create the music, but these lines are not definitive and we will both contribute to the song as a whole. We haven't had a chance to write directly together for many years so I was a little nervous approaching this session whether we would still click quickly into place and start to feed from each others ideas.

Getting started

The session started as all good writing sessions should, with a cup of coffee and a chat. Colin (my brother) had brought along his song book and ideas file and we spent some time getting into the zone by reviewing old songs we had written or worked on together and also skimming through some of the half finished ideas he had in there.

One song caught our attention, originally entitled 'Better late than never' it consisted of a verse, verse middle and a few lines for the chorus. Essentially the song was about rediscovering an old song and realising that it never really got the time it deserved, we both felt that this was an interesting concept especially considering the context of what we were doing. Colin couldn't remember the melody or chord sequence associated with the song but that didn't matter as it gave us a blank staring point, and the few lyrics we had would make a great jumping in point.

So we had our starting point.

Working quickly

Now was the time to work quickly and to get the idea moving while inspiration was still fresh. In my experience about 80% of the song gets written in the first 40 minutes of a writing session, because if the idea is exciting to you it will begin to suggest  its own direction and you simply hold on for the ride. We quickly settled on chord sequences and melodies for the various section of the song, and began to flesh out the lyrics often with lines we both agreed were simply placeholders to be revisited later. As I said it is key at this stage to let the song flow and not get too hung up on details - These can be worked out later.

Although I feel sure that this song will end up centred around the guitar, when I'm writing I prefer to work out chords and melodies on the piano. As this is my stronger instrument and allows me to be more inventive and creative when working out chord changes and I can better visualise how a melody needs to move. My limited guitar playing ability always leads me to the same few chord choices which can be a problem.

Along the way the song gained a new chorus and title based on the line 'Play it again'. We wrote a new second verse and a bridge, while also editing and rewriting parts of the original song's first verse.

Job done - for now..

We spent around 4 hours in total writing the song, and by the end we had a finished piece - all be it one still with a way to go both lyrically and structurally. I feel that it needs as short break possibly after the first chorus, and a proper intro is called for too.

But time our was up. Our wives had returned with the kids and it was time to call it a day.

One last job remained, and that was to record a quick one take 'scratch demo' of the song for us to both go away and listen to so we could refine the thing towards being 'ready'. So if your interested, here is that very recording. Rough round the edges and full of plenty of mistakes, but it's our version 1.0

Final thoughts

I was a little worried going into this that we would not be able to come up with the goods on the day, but deep down I knew it should work as long as we could keep our egos at bay were just be open to comment and suggestion from each other.

It was a hugely enjoyable session which produced a song that neither of us would have written alone, which is great as it means we both feel attached to it and totally on board with the idea.

However, the biggest thing I've taken away for the process is that there is no such thing as writers block in music - all you need to do is make something, anything - if is good then great - Job done. If it's just 'OK' then you, or maybe someone you know can probably improve it, change it and mould it into something better. If just plain stinks then you at least have made something and it might spark other ideas to move forward with!

So I will leave you with this thought (which I think I originally heard in some form or other from Merlin Mann)

Make a version 1.0 - it can always be improved in version 1.5!!

Chris 

Back to basics - Such a complicated task!

Who would have thought that going right back to basics and composing a simple solo piano piece would be so hard.. Not me fool that I am!

The Brief

Towards the end of last year I was asked by a friend if I would like to write a piece of music to be played at their up coming wedding during the signing of the register, "Of course I would!" I said. After hearing a sample piece they had chosen as reference (Le Onde by Ludovico Einaudi) I thought to myself that's right up my alley, this should be easy!

So I set to work. Just me, my piano and my best ideas....

The brief was to create a piece of background music for the signing, and my aim was to write a simple piano solo at around 4 mins long in a 'modern classical' style. I was certain that my piece would be played alongside the reference piece so I wanted to keep that in mind too so that they would blend nicely.

Background music is an unusual beast in that it has several contradicting properties. On the one hand it needs to blend into its surroundings both thematically and tonally to serve its function, but the composer has a duty to ensure that the music is never bland. It must also not be overly dramatic so that it commands attention, but it must never become distracting through virtue of being annoying like the hum of a fridge or a dripping tap!

Setting to work

With nothing but a blank 'canvas' in front of me I set to work finding some chords and melodies to hopefully spark an idea. Several different themes presented themselves but I found that I tired hearing of them very quickly - If I was bored of it after a minute or two playing about with the ideas how would the listeners feel after 4 minutes! This block persisted for several weeks. Each time I would sit down for a writing session I would end up seemingly further from an idea! The panic was starting to set in, but my saving grace was I had started my writing process over Christmas and the wedding was not until early April so time was still on my side at this point.

Many, many hours of playing, composing and frustration ensued until finally the germ of an idea began to grow ever so slowly. The melody for main theme began to take shape and I felt I was onto something special. From this was able to write the second theme melody and started to play with ideas on structuring these themes into a full piece. To my ears my main theme was both simple and elegant, and worked equally well in all registers but really found its warmth in the lower octaves, so I decided that this would be its 'home' and the piece would ultimately want to resolve to this inversion of the melody.

A second block in the road

So by this point it was plain sailing all the way home right? - Wrong!

It's been a long time since I have composed an instrumental piece, let alone a solo piano piece. The baulk of the music I have written and produced in recent years being pop or rock songs. I found myself struggling to structure the piece and the realisation I came to was that I was thinking about it in a conventional song style (verse - chorus - verse etc.) and not in a more organic way where the piece grew and evolved without such obvious section lines. Time for some research... A listen to a few of my favourite classical pieces soon brought some clarity and gave me the push I needed to get this thing done - Phew!

I nurtured it and coaxed it into shape and finally finished the piece around a month later. By this time I had created a new middle section and added simple variations to each repeat of the main themes to ensure the piece always had a degree of forward momentum.

Delivery

After spending so much time with a piece it becomes very personal, but ultimately this wasn't my piece of music and had to be passed onto it's new 'owners'. After a nail biting wait after to the 'client' I am pleased to report that they loved my efforts. Here's a direct quote from Lee's post to me on Facebook after hearing my piece:

"How about a few more words

Incredible , emotional , perfect , tears , professional, talent"

"What can I say Chris you have captured exactly what we wanted with very little to go on, it really does not seam to do it justice but thank you, what a talent you have my friend"

Kind words indeed which make all the effort and heart we as musicians pour into our works worth while. The piece had been a lot of work, but I had gained so much from it. Spending so much time purely playing piano had really brushed up my playing, and I had rediscovered some of the tricks and secrets of the solo instrumental - Most of all I had created a new piece of music which I was truly proud of. 

The piece in question? - The heart Sonata - I would love you all to take a listen. 

Thanks for reading,

Chris