When Music Catches Your Ear
I think that you would agree that music can be an amazing thing. It can make you feel certain emotions or make you recall memories and when you’re a musician yourself it can create even more for you.
I listen to an eclectic mix of music and am very guilty of listening to the stuff I already know and like on a loop rather than experiencing new things. However my good friend Pete Vanderveen, in an effort to help me break this habit, gave me some music written by the Japanese composers Kawai Kenji, Toshihiko Sakahashi and Ishii Tatsuya. I have to say that I’ve really enjoyed listening to them. I’d liken the genre of music I’ve been listening to with that of film music, often featuring full orchestras with the addition of more popular instruments like electric guitar, keyboards and drum kits.
The soundtracks are epic!! (And incidentally they’re great to run to.)
But as a musician there were just a couple of phrases here and there that had a great impact on me. It can’t be that much of a surprise that these were all trumpet lines that made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.
It’s difficult for me to explain why I felt this way. I’d say that it’s less the feeling of the music having a strictly emotional impact like an orchestral piece or a good jazz lick and more of an “I can imagine playing that myself!” excitement. It’s hard to put into words but I knew I wanted to take a stab at it so I isolated the opening theme from a particular track and took a stab at it.
This is an exciting clip of music and when I first heard it I just thought what a great and effortless tone this trumpet player has (I’m still trying to track down their name) and how they’ve capture the excitement of the music whilst managing to maintain such a big and relaxed sound.
Now I know that putting a slightly raw clip of myself playing up on the internet could leave me open to criticism but to be honest, I don’t care 🙂 .
I’ve spent so much time over the past few years, particularly these past few months, facing up to my own flaws so that I can improve myself, for myself, I think it’s important not to hide.
Plus it’s a bit of fun.
So here is the original track. It’s a segment taken from the “Gundam” series written by Ishii Tatsuya and it’s called “Code Name Heero Yuy”.
[podcast]http://37.9.62.138/~mattrobertsmusic/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/Gundamorig.mp3[/podcast]
I think the trumpeter is great on this so I took my pen to manuscript and scribbled out what I could hear and spent 10 minutes in my studio to see what I’d get. It lacks a little energy without the kit and full band but I’m only one person 🙂
[podcast]http://37.9.62.138/~mattrobertsmusic/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/Gundam.mp3[/podcast]
I’d say that the transcription is pretty bang on. There are a couple of uncentered notes peppered around and I’d like to blow out a fatter F sharp in the climax but it’s not too bad and it was great fun to play.
And now I have a new ring tone 😛