MUSIC GALLERY
FILM And MEDIA
Sister From the South
Short Film
Sister From the South follows the true story of a South African born person of colour battling intense schoolyard racism in 1970s Australia. The largely light-orchestral score (presented third in the adjacent video) follows a brief era-setting doo-wop track (second).
The score culminates in a song form moment as the protagonist retaliates and stands up for herself (first). This final cue, leading into the credits, serves to connect the soulful and brassy tones of period relevant artists such as Aretha Franklin with a twist of modernity, reminding the audience that while this film may be set in the 70s, similar incidents of racial vilification continue to occur around the world.
Dirt Game is an Australian TV Drama centred around the Australian mining industry. These excerpts come from a university assignment tasked to score a significant portion of the pilot episode as well as providing opening titles music. The aesthetic for this score combines and contrasts the grit of miners working hard in the heat of the day with the clean and slightly pretentious business world with which their fates lie.
The open title (presented first) demonstrates this using aggressive metallic percussion to contrast a smooth string quartet and piano. The subsequent transition cues show the continued thematic use of percussion, quartet and piano as they reflect the mis en scene. The final cues presented contain diegetic and meta-diegetic music of styles dictated by location.
Dirt Game
TV Drama
Budget Direct
TVC
The adjacent Budget Direct TVC was provided as a university project in which the entirety of the sound design (including voice acting) and a score was to be submitted. Foley techniques were utilised in creative ways particularly in capturing some of the more out-of-this world moments such as squirting slime balls and flying demons.
The score aims to capture the mystery genre through clichés such as intense ostinato patterns, airy ambience and dramatic juxtapositions. This reliance on common tropes aides the parody genre, adds comic value, and hastens the audience’s ability to ‘get it,’ even in abridged segments as is usually required for television promotion.
Old Mate stories a young man forced to work with the elderly and gradually building a connection with a slightly confused older gentleman who mistakes him for his son. As the senior character passes away the young man faces a moment of processing the reality of death.
The score demonstrates piano-based thematic and motivic writing as well as blurring score and sound design to show the passage of time as the protagonist performs menial tasks in his mandatory service.
Old Mate
Short Film
The following tracks are part of a series for a proposed console game; Tubular. The game was described as a futuristic, combative, racing game that takes place across three environments. The brief described the game to be of a Gameboy Advance era in style.
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The score reflects the brazen aesthetic of classic Gameboy scores, utilising a heavily synthesised sound in the menu and loading music. The other tracks listed below are an example of environment specific music. These pieces are written for the shoreline/beach environment. They use bold calypso beats with variations of the main thematic material to place the audience at a fun, energetic and entertaining coastline reminiscent of the Caribbean.
Tubular
Video Game
TV Police Drama (Chase Sequence)
Copstinato
A synthesised ostinato in the modern police drama genre. This piece develops to build tension and action, as well as passing through different sonic landscapes imagined as an action chase sequence moving rapidly through a variety of locations.
Meteorite
Song Form to Media Brief
A song written to a brief requiring a David Bowie inspired number. Both lyrically and musically the piece draws on inspiration and aspiration of space travel as a way of escaping the mundanities of life.
Early to Mid 20th Century Period Piece
Jazz on tape
Recorded to tape, this track provides an authentic representation of early jazz with all the nuanced idiosyncrasies captured in the recording process.
That's how it grows
Short Comedy (Credits Sequence)
A comedic song written to a brief for a film about a bald man who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for hair regrowth only to find it is unable to stop as he turns into the Bigfoot!
Song writing
Dark, Modern, Poetic
Etude for saxophone, computer and monsters
Monster, Monster in my head; why can’t we be friends again. This dark exploration of mental health and its physical manifestations sits a top a delicate and luscious bed of harmony, synthesised pads and layers of saxophone samples including the percussion processed from clicking keys.
It ain't history
Orchestral, R&B, Soundtrack
Written as the climax for the short film Sister From the South, this song connects a history of racial abuse to modern struggles, dispelling the myth that racism is simply history. Vocals performed by young American artist Courtney Doucet.
Sapphire patch
Absurdist, Comedy, Poetic
An absurdist peice with incredulous lyric that hit a heart of truth and passion. At first glance the gaiety of the arrangement may mask the pain in the poetic content, deliberately imitating the human experience of vulnerability through humour.
Don't give me love
A Capella, Sincere, Light Jazz
A lush a Capella song orchestrated for a single voiced vocal ensemble with a focus on intimacy, smooth harmonic transition and lyrical fragmentation. It relies on vocal instrumentation more heavily than deeply intricate lyricism.
Silent House
Minimalism, Poetic, Light Rock
A minimalist light-rock track using two cyclical chord progressions creating a self-perpetuation momentum symbolic of the nature of eternity studied thematically in the lyrical content.
Kids, Pop, Uptempo
You can be a star
A commercial kids-pop style track written and recorded at Action Drama Studios Popstars holiday programme. Through the song writing workshop, the performers aged between 6 and 9 years old, wrote their own verses to a pre-written chorus and backing track. The track was written, learned and recorded by the children in a single day.
I'm in your head
Dark, Character Driven, Music Theatre
A music theatre piece with a Disney villain approach to mental health struggles. Painting one’s darkest inner monologue as an unrelenting entity separate from reality, yet all too real.
Living it up
Slow Build, Funk, Demo
Combining elements of modern vocal production and funk music, this demo demonstrates the care-free tropes of the funk genre with tight horn stabs and groove whilst also maintaining a consistent poetic phraseology.
Orchestral
Full Orchestra, Bold, Exciting
Fanfare for the essential worker
This piece heralds the essential and frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. It reflects a strength and perseverance with an augmentation to the melodic line reflecting the unease of the entire situation.
voices unheard repeated
Small Ensemble, Minimalism, Violent
This piece is an intense exploration of cycles of abuse, particularly relating to children in domestic situations. The unrelenting piano descends slowly into an extremely heavy place while the rest of the ensemble interject with aggressive gestures culminating in the final silence coming as a relief, until the cycle begins again.
don't mess with mars
Full Orchestra, Cinematic, Thematic
This cinematic orchestral work inspired by the larger than life Hollywood stylings of John Williams and John Powell builds an inspiring, out-of-this-world adventure.
weary traveler
Light Orchestra, Song Form, Christmas
This song was commissioned by online theatre group Musical Mugwumps for a Christmas concert during the Melbourne pandemic lockdowns. The piece was performed online via Zoom and Facebook Live and reflects the exhaustion and camaraderie of the community and globe at the time; seeking some peace as a Weary Traveller.
Giveout
Small Group, Classics, LGBTQIA+
These videos were used for a social media campaign by LGBTQIA+ support charity GiveOUT. They featured these arrangements of classic Australian gay anthems for prescribed instrument groups. They capture the spirit of the originals whilst playing to the strengths of the instrumentation.
I touch myself
Can't get you out of my head
I go to rio
absolutely everybody
Art Music
Instrument Creation, Intense, Theatrical
The Organ of 1000 screams
This composition is comprised of an organ built from sampling the screams of numerous individuals. The percussive elements are all created from things that tend to be considered an ‘annoyance’ or anxiety inducing.
Human Insectoid suite
Musique Concrète, Gargling, Hydrophone
This piece contains three movements with the vocals all recorded with a contact microphone to the throat while singing and gargling. The first is a series of improvised vocal layers over a stochastic field of clicking generated through probability. The second is a call and response movement. The third is explosive sound design built from a hydrophone inside a balloon.
1/10th of a picture
Microtonal, Stochastic, Conceptual
If a picture paints 1000 words, then this work paints 1/10th of a picture. It is crafted from 100 randomly generated words, given randomly generated microtonal harmony across two octaves. It is an exploration of tonality and its effect on our perception of words.
You
Minimalism, Poetic, Ernest
This minimalistic palindrome of a poem demands attention and builds gently and subtly in its underscoring. As it unfolds it hangs on each word, then asks for contemplation upon retreat.
The of
Poetic, Theatrical, Radio Play
This light comic radio play has a sketch-esque introduction before a dramatic reading of the top-hundred most used words in the English language. These words are read as prose, as if crafted by dramatist with fluctuation voices varying the character of the self-devised narrative the listener is asked to create.
Etude for the Cultural Understanding of the Aria's of the East Wimbadong Sect of Tarnarian's
Fantasy. Absurd, Challenging
Fully titled ‘Etude for cultural understanding of the aria's of the East Wimbadong Sect of Tarnarian's from Southern Neptune and surrounding areas,’ this piece is designed to challenge cultural competencies and listeners definitions of musicality and song form.
