Composition

Here is a sampling of things I’ve composed in the last few years.  Excerpts in the video.  Full tracks in the player.

They are all instrumentals and they are all intended to be used with video of some sort.  All are short, and some are cue length.  Some are underscores and others are like short songs.  One is a quasi-double fugue, sort of. 

Some of them are in the catalogs of production music libraries, so if you want to license one for your podcast or whatever, you can do that on their site:

They are in a variety of genres and moods.  I hope you enjoy them.

About These Tracks

All the tracks on this page were created “in the box.”  I used a variety of sample libraries, loops, etc. but there are no live instruments.  Some were written to briefs from production music libraries.   Some were composed to briefs from music brokers like Taxi and Songtradr.   Some were just things I thought sounded like a soundtrack for something.  If you’re someone who uses stock music, I hope you’ll give a listen.  Maybe something will strike you.  If you have any questions or comments or suggestions (especially if you know of a library or a music supervisor who might be interested) please send me a note. 

Composing wasn’t a regular line of work for me until the last couple of years.  I’ve always composed, though.  Choral pieces, instrumentals of many kinds, art songs, pop songs.  Mostly I’ve done it for my own enjoyment, or to have something to perform, in the case of pop songs.  Occasionally I’ve composed something for a client.  I got my first formal commission around 1980 when GALA Hispanic Theater in DC asked me to compose and arrange the music for a Peruvian musical farce for which they couldn’t find the original music.  (An unusual job: It required fluency in Spanish and knowledge of popular music in the 40’s.)  In the years since then a few odd composition jobs came my way:  a setting of two 16th century Spanish devotional poems, for a church choir; music-on-hold for a DJ company;  some cues for a documentary short on the Honduran civil war; music for a video somehow connected to an environmental class action lawsuit. (Odd jobs, as I said.)

Anyway, about five years ago I decided to make composing a regular line of work.  I’m concentrating on production music (aka stock music).  I’ve been producing tracks on spec and pitching them to stock music libraries and brokers.  My first placement was pretty random:  Tik Tok added one of my tracks (#15, above)  to their library of background tracks (which was on Songtradr) and some thousands of users have used it in their posts, which earns me some modest sync fees.  I had no idea such a license existed.  The business is like that.
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Custom music?

As I said, I’ve composed a few things to clients’ specifications over the years.   I’m always interested in doing more of that sort of work.   If you have a project that needs original music and something here sounds like the sort of thing you’re looking for, please contact me.

How much does it cost?  This is not like arranging or production. I don’t have a set fee because the deliverable is different every time.  Contact me and tell me what you have in mind, and if it’s something I can do I’ll come up with a bid.  If it’s a really exciting job, I’ll bid low.  If you are a non-profit doing good work, I might be able to do it pro bono.  If it’s something I don’t think I can do well, though, I will pass.
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