OFF THE RAILS

Dirk Campbell: Composing For TV

Published in SOS November 1997
Printer-friendly version

People + Opinion : Artists/Engineers/Producers/Programmers

Composer and multi-instrumentalist Dirk Campbell is a successful TV music writer who refuses to toe the corporate line and never watches television. He talks to DAVE STEWART about the complexities of an industry that offers substantial rewards to those strong-minded enough to take on its challenges and contradictions.

Although they may occasionally irritate, British TV ads are acknowledged to be among the best in the world. The latest Eurostar ad is particularly sophisticated, involving a brace of flying businessmen and complex, multi-layered split screen visuals. Listen to the soundtrack, and you will hear a pair of female voices hovering over a powerful 'Eleanor Rigby'-style string orchestra. The music is the work of Dirk Campbell, a composer and multi-instrumentalist, and it's the latest achievement in a career that has never quite run along established lines.

It began in the early '70s, when Campbell played bass in bands that were trying to overthrow the Establishment by playing insanely complex music. The Establishment did not fall, but merely shrugged its shoulders and invested in glam rock. Somewhat miffed, Campbell quit the music scene and worked in graphic design for a few years, though he continued to expand his musical horizons by studying the folk music of Ireland, Greece, Turkey, Persia and Armenia. A graduate of the Royal College Of Music and classically trained French horn player, Campbell became an expert on ethnic wind instruments and a self-confessed bagpipe addict. For a while, music was relegated to a hobby, but after writing two film soundtracks for a friend, Dirk found himself drawn back to his former profession. Now, he tries to reconcile his deep and original musicality with the commercial concerns of '90s TV music.

How did you get involved in TV music?

"I started in 1989, as a direct result of my association with the film maker David Anderson, at that time a student at the British Film School. We were friends -- and fellow Morris dancers, but that's another story! I did a score for his animated film Dreamland Express. There was no dialogue in the film; it was all music and sound effects. This gave me the freedom to look at the rough cuts and say, 'Hmmm, I fancy some music there'. I didn't think much would come of our collaboration, but David suddenly turned up one night brandishing this BAFTA award he'd received. We were both totally stunned by it! After that he used me on two more of his films, Deadsy and In The Time Of Angels."

Did this inspire you to look for more TV work?

"It was more a case of I just couldn't bear doing graphic design any more. After Deadsy, David Anderson asked me to do the music for a TV ad he was filming. I was completely out of my depth. There were all these people from the agency milling about, telling me what to do, drinking coffee... I didn't know what was going on. But what I wrote seemed to go down OK: people seemed to like it."

Tell us about your early jobs.

"My first TV ad was for the Electricity Board's 'Shower Electric' campaign. Seems a bit dangerous to me, I'd rather use water. Anyway, it was quite an eccentric ad, with household utensils like mops and monkey wrenches dancing around. Luckily for me, the creative team were interested enough in the ad to go and listen to a few albums to select a suitable music style. They asked me to do something along the lines of Paul Simon's Graceland album, with black South African singers. It was like falling off a log for me, because I grew up with African township music in Kenya. I wrote 40 seconds of music for guitar, bass, African percussion and three female African singers singing monosyllables -- 'hé, ho'. [No, not 'it's off to work we go'.] There was no demo, we just went straight into the studio and mastered it. Never happens these days -- you have to demo everything."

What equipment were you using then?

"Virtually none, zero. I had a piano, an old acoustic guitar and a Portastudio. It would be nice to think you don't need much equipment in this line of work, but I only got away with it on that job because the director was a friend of mine. My next ad, for Pilsbury Dough, was a Tom-and-Jerry-style cartoon soundtrack. It was really terrific fun, because every single visual cue was underpinned by some funny musical effect, like a brass fall, violin glissando or xylophone arpeggio. I scored that for a 30-piece orchestra. I don't use a copyist -- I write out all the orchestral parts myself, which is quite arduous. Next time I write for an orchestra I'm definitely going to get some notation software to make my life easier!"

Though you started off fairly classical in style, many of your latter-day ads feature tribal drumming and ethnic instruments.

"That all started with a Christmas ad I did for Bailey's Irish Cream. The director, who had worked in Kenya for a few years, wanted African tribal music, and when he heard I'd lived in Kenya, he was convinced I was the right man for the job, even though he'd never heard a note of my music! I played a couple of frame drums, the bodhran and the bendir, neither of which comes from Africa, and multitracked myself singing Nandi tribal noises: 'uggh', 'mnnnn', and so on. The ad also had to feature the Barcarole from Tales Of Hoffman by Offenbach [he sings a familiar, rather trite tune in 3/4], usually sung by operatic mezzo-sopranos. The formula of a simple operatic tune harmonised in thirds over a heavy ethnic drum track has now become a cliché in advertising, but I was the first to do it. I suppose the idea originated from that '60s album African Sanctus. Lately the trend has been to reverse the roles and have fake ethnic singing over orchestral music. Miriam Stockley does a lot of that vocal work; she's a very good improviser."

Are your drum tracks programmed or played?

"Usually a mixture. I might start off with a played dumbek pattern, and add programmed drums from the Wavestation or S760. To get a deeper, more authentically African sound, I'd add hand drums like the Senegalese boukarabou. Their skins are thick, traditionally animal skins, and they have a nice, meaty sound. If I want a continual drum pattern, I'll record me playing hand drums on the Fostex DMT8, pick a couple of good bars and loop it with the S760. Sometimes my tracks stay tribal-sounding, but occasionally, as in an ad I did for Purdeys, they develop into something more electronic and urban. I like working with voices: either a solo female, or several male voices doing quasi-tribal chants. I also use ethnic winds such as the suling or ney flute, which I always play myself. On a practical note, it's sensible to keep things in the sampled/sequenced domain for as long as possible, because you often get asked for last-minute changes. If you'd committed everything to tape, you'd have to start again."

With samplers, workstations and specialist CD-ROM sound libraries, you can have the sound of any instrument you choose. How do you decide which sounds to use?

"As I said, I had very little equipment when I started doing TV music. I scored my first job, Dreamland Express, for string quartet and piano because it seemed to go with the vulnerable, rather personal quality of the film. Nowadays I have more equipment, and anything's possible, but I tend to get a bit overwhelmed by the range of sound possibilities. In a way, there's no such thing as instrumentation any more, because someone will say 'Can we have a synth sound or a brass chord coming in there, or maybe some sound design effect?'. With sampled sounds, there are no budgetary limitations either. But I think it is a good discipline to limit yourself to using certain sounds, because it creates a continuum which will lend consistency and a recognisable style to the film. I saw one car ad that I thought was very brave, because it employed just a single kit cymbal making different sounds. Very minimalist."

Is it necessary to have a formal music education to work in TV music?

"No, a lot of people work instinctively with sounds without knowing the names of notes or chords. I did a session for one guy who was completely musically illiterate, he didn't even know what the keyboard black notes did! I'd say that at least fifty percent of advertising music is done by people with no knowledge of music theory."

Film music editors sometimes edit the music so that the end product is quite different from your original conception. Does this bother you?

"You have to become detached. I've learned that you can't afford to have any proprietary feelings about what you do, because if they don't like it, they bin it. So you learn very quickly to have this dual attitude -- while you're doing it, you're trying your best and putting a lot of yourself into it, with as high standards as possible. Then you give it to your client, and it no longer belongs to you. Anyway, I'd rather they chopped it about a bit than didn't use it at all!"

TV music seems to involve a quite complicated hierarchy. Can you explain how it works?

"Yes, it's very confusing. There are about seven or eight levels of command. Let's say Kelloggs UK decide to do a 1998 ads campaign. Their marketing director contacts the account handler at the advertising agency which handles all Kelloggs advertising. They agree on a new marketing angle for the cornflake, and decide what their 'spend' (advertising outlay) is going to be. The ad agency's creative director then gets involved, and selects a 'creative team' from within the agency, usually a writer and an art director, who come up with a concept for the ad campaign. Finally, they hire a film company, who appoint a director to shoot the TV ad. A week or two before 'playout day' -- that's the day when they have to deliver the ad to the broadcasters -- everyone decides the ad isn't quite working, and they start thinking about the music. They contact about six music production companies who specialise in music for advertising, brief them about the ad, and ask each of them to submit a demo. The music company decides which of its composers is best suited to the brief, and asks him or her to write something. If it's a very lucrative job, such as a jingle for a commercial television station, they might ask all their composers to have a stab at it. The trouble with that is you're up against 25 other writers!"

Do they pay for demos?

"There ought to be a demo budget, but there often isn't. Big multi-national campaigns with huge budgets seem to expect demos for nothing, but if they accept your idea, the pay is good. One thing I've noticed is that the director often has a mate, a favourite composer in one of the music production companies. Once you know who this mate is, you have a much better idea of what the winning brief will be, because the film director very often has the final creative say. You find out the other guy's style, and try to do a much better track in that style. It's quite political; you have to be aware of your competitors' strengths and weaknesses."

Do TV composers need an agent, or is it possible to work freelance?

"I was very keen to get an agent. I didn't like being on my own -- I felt insecure and vulnerable. At first I didn't know a lot about the money, the political structure, and so on. I got on the books of a music production company, on an exclusive basis but with no written contract. That's generally the way it's done: there's not a lot of point signing something. Ironically, my first agent only got me one job; all the others I got myself but still had to pay them commission! But the main benefit was that they were able to increase my fees considerably, which I don't think I could have done on my own. For a couple of years I was on the books of Ronnie Bond, who I liked a lot. He was the man behind 'You can't get better than a Quickfit fitter', and 'Tasty, tasty, very very tasty', though that always embarrassed him. He comes from the Mile End Road school of ad songwriting, but he's a really great guy, very ethical and kindhearted. We made a strange team, me the supposedly off-the-wall, arty music writer, and him a big soul and rock & roll fan."

All the TV composers I know agree that the hardest thing about the task is working out what the client wants -- they ask for a 'key change' when they want a tempo change, and so on.

"That's right. TV music is all about problem-solving. The clients say contradictory things like, 'We want the music to be very cheerful and enlivening, but at the same time deep, profound and mysterious, stimulating but relaxing', all these opposites. And they always start off with 'We don't want it to sound like music for advertising, we want it to be original, different and radical', before eventually caving in and asking for something that sounds completely standard and middle of the road. At the end of the meeting, they say 'Well, I hope I haven't confused you too much!' It would be a lot more honest if they admitted they didn't know what they wanted, but that only happens one time in a hundred. I used to take all this seriously, but I must admit, I don't take any notice of them now."

It seems that misunderstandings abound.

"Most of the time there's some terrible confusion going on. One minute you think they're asking for something in the style of Steve Reich, the next they're talking about drum and bass. None of these people, with their visual background, are musically trained enough to be able to discuss the different elements that go into a piece of music, but I've learned the hard way not to confront them -- I just quietly stick to my guns and do what I think the ad needs. In a demo I did for Nescafé, the director asked for some Celtic music, so I wrote an Irish melody played on a fiddle. When he heard it, he said 'It's too Irish -- we're not supposed to be in Ireland!'. The 'Celtic' thing was a red herring. I've had to learn not to interpret their words too specifically. They're just throwing phrases at you in a sort of scattergun effect."

How can a would-be TV composer get a break?

"Agencies like anything that's new and original, and if you're a new composer on the scene, word soon gets round. You need to get together a show reel, which is the TV equivalent of a demo tape. My first show reel consisted of one ad and two short films. I collected a lot of names and sent out about 20 VHS copies to ad agencies, though nowadays they tend to expect Umatics, and I got a few calls back. You don't necessarily have to show them ads you've done -- if you haven't done any, you could play them an album that sold well, or got great reviews. As with record company demos, you don't need a lot of tracks: just one good one could be enough. This could also work the other way round -- if you do a high-profile TV ad with impressive music, it could lead to record company interest and a record or publishing deal."

• MUSIC FROM A ROUND TOWER
Dirk owns a large collection of ethnic instruments, mainly winds and percussion. These sometimes appear in his TV ads, but come to the fore on his wonderful solo album Music From A Round Tower (1996). This work was built up slowly over a period of four years, and represents for Campbell "a blend of most of the elements that give me pleasure: minimalist, middle and far Eastern, African tribal, weird synth sounds, early Mike Ratledge (Soft Machine), Stravinsky, plus a lot that comes from me!". The album, originally conceived as one long piece, is ambitious in its range of sounds (Campbell jokingly estimated that he'd need 254 musicians to perform it live) but disciplined and superbly composed.

As with any album of originality, people have been having problems finding a convenient pigeonhole for the music, one likening it to Steve Reich, another claiming it was 'contemporary chamber music with a strong ethnic feeling'. Campbell himself simply describes it as 'New Music', but reviewers agree that it is music of depth and intelligence.

• SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY
With Egg: Egg (1969 -- Deram 844 168-2), The Polite Force (1970 -- import, Deram POCD 1844), The Civil Surface (1975 -- Virgin CACD 1510).

With National Health: Missing Pieces (1996 compilation -- Voiceprint VP113CD).

Solo: Music From A Round Tower (1996 -- Voiceprint/Resurgence RES120CD).

• CONTACTS
Voiceprint/Resurgence: PO Box 5, Derwentside, County Durham DH9 7HR, UK.

Dirk Campbell & Dave Stewart: Broken Records, PO Box 4416, London SW19 8XR, UK.

Web pages: http://www.davebarb.demon.co.uk/

• COMPOSER'S FEES, RECORDING BUDGETS & MUSICIANS UNION RATES
Dirk: "For my Pilsbury Dough ad, the music budget was 16 grand. Of that, about half went on recording, split between the studio (2K) and the orchestra (6K) -- that's about £200 for each orchestral player. The remaining 8K was split between me and my agent. These are 1990 rates, but they give an idea of where the money goes -- however, it would be unrealistic to expect all ads to pay the same, as the budget depends on the length of the run and whether the ad is used nationally or regionally. Some music production companies still pay the composer a relatively small composition fee and keep the lion's share of the money, but I don't do that kind of deal any more. If you're getting started, it's something you might have to put up with until you get more established."

The MU's current TV recording rate is £214.15 per player for a three-hour session.

• MUSIC AGENT'S PERCENTAGES
Some agents of 'applied music' (that's media music to you and me) seem to operate on stratospherically high percentages. An exclusive arrangement with a composer means the agent will still take a cut (up to 35%) of a job even if it was originally sourced by the composer. If the agent finds the work, the cut can go up to 50%, and these percentages may extend to the publishing revenue (see below). On paper this seems excessive, but music agents are often involved in all stages of the job from the initial briefing to the final mix, and can sometimes bridge the comprehension gap between ad agency and composer.

• USAGE FEES
These are monies paid by broadcast companies for use of a composition. The PRS's TV rates, current at the time of writing but subject to review, decree that a composer should receive £41.16 for 30 seconds' usage of advertisement 'background music' on ITV. That's the good news. At the other end of the spectrum, Channel 4 have to stump up a mere £7.17 for the same usage. As a rule of thumb, don't expect to get rich from usage fees alone unless you write the theme tune (which attracts a 40% higher, 'featured music' rate) to some long-running ITV soap series.

• PUBLISHING
It is a fact of life that more and more TV companies now demand a share of the composer's publishing revenue, which can lead to difficulties. One writer lost a job worth £15,000 because his publisher, with whom he had signed an exclusive contract, refused to give away a percentage to the TV company. In principle the publisher was right to make a stand against this coercion, but defending ethics can be expensive. With music agents and TV companies both demanding their pound of flesh, TV writers would be well advised to establish guidelines over this difficult area before signing a publishing deal.

Unlike many of his colleagues in the industry, Dirk has resisted amassing a huge arsenal of equipment, and cheerfully admits to being 'not technically minded'. He uses his home studio mainly for demos, and masters all his TV ads in commercial studios. After some arm-twisting, he agreed to talk about his key pieces of gear.

• Alesis Quadraverb
• AT4033 Audio Technica cardioid capacitor microphone
• Behringer Composer compressor/gate
• Two Beyerdynamic M210 microphones
• DAC 44Mb Syquest drive
• Emu Proteus 2 Orchestral sound module
• Fostex DMT8 VL 8-track hard disk recorder

"Many useful edit functions including copy and paste; also acts as a synchroniser, with tempo changes, song position pointer, and so on. Internal memory expanded to one hour. Excellent sound quality."

• Korg SR Wavestation
• Lexicon Alex
• Mackie 1604 mixing desk

"Very quiet with good EQ range, takes up a remarkably small amount of space. I also find the mute button which routes the signal to an alternative output very useful. One can sample, for instance, while monitoring the sample back through the desk with effects added."

• Photo CD CD-ROM drive
• Roland S760 sampler with 32Mb memory

"Like all Roland gear, impossible to understand at first, but, like French wine, becomes a little more mellow with every passing year. Good sound quality and some very useful functions, though I'm not convinced about its time-stretching."

• Roland W30 sampling workstation

"I use this as my main sequencer. A very compact keyboard which possesses most of the useful functions of other more powerful sequencers and samplers, plus some that they don't have, such as the 'sub-tone' function which enables you to employ a sample in a variety of different ways simultaneously without using extra memory. One excellent feature: it doesn't crash. A lot of the best Roland samples are available on this machine, including all the S550 sounds. My album Music From A Round Tower was composed on the W30."

• Two "fantastic old hi-fi speakers"

"Given to me by a German friend who deals in old hi-fi. I don't know what they are as there is no label on them anywhere, but the sound is completely natural."

The composer also added some unprintable remarks about the poor quality of his amplifier, while admitting to being "too stingy to buy anything decent. Anyway, I do most of my monitoring on headphones".

Dirk's collection of world instruments includes:

• FLUTES
Suling (Indonesia), Ney (Turkey), kaval (Macedonia/Bulgaria), Irish whistle, Irish low whistle, bansuri (India), panpipes (South America), 3-hole whistle (England).

• SHAWMS
Shenai (India), sorna (Persia), zournas (Greece), zurna (Turkey), ghaita (Morocco).

• REEDPIPES
Zummara (Egypt), duduk (Armenia), mezoued (Berber), balaban (Persia).

• FREE REED
Melodeon (England).

• TRUMPETS
Nafir (Morocco), didgeridoo (Australia), kudu horn (Kenya).

• BAGPIPES
Gaida (Greece), tulum (Turkey), piob (Scotland), uilleann pipes (Ireland), Praetorius (Early German).

• STRINGED
Nyatiti (Kenya), bouzouki, laouto (Greece), violin, cello, steel-string guitar.

• TUNED PERCUSSION
Balafon (West Africa), sansa (East Africa), bowls (India), prayer bowl (Japan).

• DRUMS
Naqqara, bendir (Morocco), bodhran (Ireland), daf (Persia), dumbek (Turkey), toumbeleki (Greece), davul (Turkey), req (Egypt), tabor (England).

• PERCUSSION
Kraqsh, dakhare (Morocco), cymbals (China), sistra (Egypt), leg bells (England), rain stick (Central America).