Iconik

I’ve had various guises in my life and one of them was/is as a composer. I’ve written loads of tracks for tv and theatre productions – some I’m proud of others, and I’d rather forget about- but hey, that’s the lot of a jobbing composer. Most had to be written, arranged and recorded with ludicrously short deadlines but I coped and never missed them. Below are few pieces that stick in my mind:

Cuckoo:
This piece was commissioned by a production company to accompany a video about the English countryside. The client had asked if they could get some music that sounded a bit “Vaughan Williams”. Ok, Vaughan Williams was a genius and normally had a full orchestra to compose for, but I was up for it… Just one catch… the commission reached me at5pm and it was required for an edit starting at 8am the next morning – gulp. I sat down at my trusty keyboards and Atari 1040st running Notator (it’ll mean something to the techies!)and summoned up my recollection of Vaughan Williams music, – The Lark Ascending, Greensleeves, Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis etc. I started composing and within 3 hours I’d composed, arranged and recorded a 4 minute piece. Unfortunately, I’d got so engrossed in the process, I forgot to save it and, sure enough, the computer crashed and wiped out everything. I didn’t panic.. much, so I sat down and did it all again. The following morning I arrived at the studios, on time, with the tape including the main theme and a variety of 30 and 5 second stings. The client was delighted, the producer astonished and me barely able to string a coherent sentence together. I went home and slept. Ah, the joys of freelance composing!

Cuckoo2 by Robb Williams

Phoenix
This track was written for a spoof spy sci-fi TV series. Sadly the series never got made but it was meant to be about an almost “Barberella” type female spy set in a post apocalyptic future – a sort of Modest Blaise character. The producers wanted the feel of the classic 60′s series like “Mission impossible”, “the Avengers” and for those who remember it, “Adam Adamant”. The music had to reflect this so I went for a retro feel with a hint of technology thrown in

Phoenix by Robb Williams

Crispin’s Day
This track represents one of my first attempts at composing for theatre. It was part of my collaboration with Nick Hennegan for Henry V – Lion of England, a one man version of Shakespeare’s classic history. Because of the somewhat minuscule cast, the music lights and sound FX needed to bolster the action. Crispin’s day is probably one of the most iconic speeches in the whole world of theatre, so it was with some trepidation that I ventured to underpin such a classic with music. I could almost hear the purists cringing at the very idea. Nick was adamant that it was needed so I set about writing a piece that would reflect the mood of the speech.

The speech is basically a rallying call to raise the spirits of the troops. Henry starts off in a very personal way. He identifies himself with the foot soldiers and acknowledges that they’ve got their backs against the walls, but slowly he builds up the morale of gathered band of fighters suggesting that their feats on the battleground will become the stuff of legend, talked about for centuries to come. He culminates in a battle call of ‘Cry God for Harry, England, and Saint George!’ and they all go off and merrily bash the French in a resounding victory.

I wanted the music to reflect this so I started of with a simple guitar theme, building through a flute and slowly adding in strings until, finally, it reaches a crescendo of brass and tympani drums at the end. During the live performance there were certain points that I liked to hit in the speech and I rode the volume sliders throughout to get the right mix of actor and music, only releasing the full volume as Henry reached “… St George!!!!”. When it worked well, the backs of the neck never failed to tingle!!

21 crispins Day top and boost by Robb Williams

The Crucible.
This was written as the main intro theme to Rear Window Theatre’s production of Arthur Miller’s play, the Crucible. The crucible is centred around the witch trials in Salem of 1692. It was a tale of gossip, false accusation and paranoia which led to the execution of many alleged witches and even 2 dogs who were deemed to be witches familiars. I wanted to get a feeling of oppression with muffled voices accusing behind closed doors. As my inspiration I took a leaf out of the 1963 film “the Haunting”. In one chilling scene the muffled voice of an angry man could be heard shouting at a child. The words were indistinct but the menace was there.
This was exactly what I wanted to achieve for the intro to the second act and to create this feeling I used a breathy, almost vocal synth sound, using the modulation wheel to open and close the filter. I kept to low octave for the male voice and higher registers for children and women and set them quite far back in the mix. You can hear this in the second half of the track below. To open the first act I used a piano passage which was kept very stark with discordant strings cutting across to lead into the more orchestrated passages. It’s all done using sythns as I had to run the music “live” using sequencers for the performance. We performed the play at an old church on one occasion and the effect was quite remarkably eerie as the first notes rang out in the darkness. I think the audience were suitably spooked! lol

The Crucible by Robb Williams

Ethiopia

Ethiopia was a track that I wrote for a Tear Fund documentary about the women of Etheopia.  Sally Murcutt, the director and presenter of the documentary, recorded a group of tribes women singing in a group and wanted to use it in a more upbeat version to the original, slightly mournful version of the basic recording. I sampled the singing time stretched (or in this case “Shrunk”) the original vocal track and then set about putting a chord arrangement around it. The timing of the singing wasn’t very consistent but speeding the track up helped disguise this a little. I tried to get a joyful African feel to it borrowing a bit from my impressions of Paul Simon’s “Graceland” Album. The result was a far more upbeat and joyful rendition than the original vocal track!

Ethiopia by Robb Williams

Asia
Written for a documentary about destitute women in India, this track is a simple piece written in about 15 minutes. Mainly a piano piece, I tried to introduce a flavour of the world carrying on by using a repetitive sitar sample almost mimicking the sound of car horns and the buzz of the city. I deliberately made the main theme almost wander through this soundscape as though completely detached from its surroundings to portray a feeling of isolation.

Asia by Robb Williams

Bollywood

Written for the same production that featured the “Asia” track, this was design to be the complete antithesis. I underpinned a section about the vibrant colours and excitement in the new India and needed a brashness to reflect a more confident world personified by Bollywood glamour. It starts off with a sitar riff over a drone which was used behind images of the sun rising over the city, before bursting into life as the frantic bustle of business day kicks in. Various Asian themes are used throughout like voices and tablas to help root the piece in its environment.

Bollywood by Robb Williams

Henry V – battle siren
Some years after my first foray into theatre music I revisited Henry V when I was asked to create a score for a full cast version. This version was set in an almost tribal urban gangland setting slightly in the future. The production and the battles, in particular, was very choreographed. In this version I made the feel very synth orientated with screaming Moog sirens slicing through thick sequenced bass lines and drums. The Battle was fun to write. I love the power of drums so I used multiple snares to create the feel of two armies advancing on one another, The first section is very structured and disciplined with the excitement being signalled only by a throbbing string bass rise and the moog siren all with lots of slapback echo to further heighten the sense of expectation. Eventually the call for the charge is made and I break the drums into solo of toms which is eventually shattered by a manic moog arpeggio. Then all hell breaks loose until the serious of the situations slowly builds with a deep string rise. The battle was blocked almost like a dance for the production and lighting was used to chase and accent key breaks in the scene – all in all, exciting stuff

Henry V battle siren by Robb Williams