Most film scores have one vibe, and they stick with it.
One of the first things I want do when I start writing music for a film is to create its own sound world, its own music world.
'Raaga' is one of those movies which is very special for any music director to compose music for.
When I compose for any film, I always work with the story in mind.
I took part of Alan Silvestri's theme on the original movie, which I really liked, and I pulled it into it new theme, which became kind of a hybrid. I really enjoyed that.
A good idea for lyrics and a melody to expand on.
It took me three weeks to write the 'Rhapsody in Blue.' I had always wanted to write something blue and Paul Whiteman inspired.
It can even be a single note which defines the entire song.
I am not satisfied with the ending of 'Mount Eerie' the album, so maybe by calling myself that, I am attempting to elaborate on the ending.
The way jazz works is that we take a theme, and then we write using the same structure, same chord changes, and then we can do different tunes.
The thing I realised about composition is, we remember most composers for four bars of music. Four singable bars of music. Pretty much any major composer from Debussy to Ravel to Mozart to whoever else - you can kind of hum it.
I think a melody is a melody. And the way I usually start is I start writing my themes without even writing to picture to just try to find the tone for the movie or the TV show.
However, there's no theme or concept behind Heathen, just a number of songs but somehow there is a thread that runs through it that is quite as strong as any of my thematic type albums.
My music and lyrics became an extension of this Indian philosophy.
'Iceman' covers a bigger scope than 'Long Day's Journey.' But they're both fabulous pieces of work. 'Iceman' is like a symphony. It's got all the movements, all these different voices. 'Long Day's Journey' is more like a beautiful string quartet.
Hanson plays music that is very much a part of everything.
You would find in a lot of Zep stuff that the riff was the juggernaut that careered through and I worked the lyrics around this.
I find that albums generally tell a story. Because it's music, it doesn't have to be in chronological order.
The way I see it, there's only one melody for any song.
It's interesting what a new song can do to the other songs. A new song can be the grout of the record, tie the songs together, and define a new room in the house, helping the other rooms make sense.
Some want to do pretty songs with pretty words about pretty people, but that ain't me.
If I'm soloing, I usually try to start with a theme, which will often stem from the blues.
There are only a few notes. Just variations on a theme.
'Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow,' if you go through the lyrics, is such a haunting melody, and the words are, for a pop song, pretty deep and dark.
I always think it's important to choose your initial theme very carefully because you're going to be married to it for a long time. You might have to generate an hour's worth of music from a very short, little piece of theme.
