Composing / Arranging / Songwriting

The perfect project studio doesn't exist, as everyone has different working methods — and so it is with equipment for creating music for picture. However, there are some fundamental bits of gear you will need. We provide some guidance...

If you're ever going to make it in this game, you need a calling card, a way of impressing potential clients with your musical ability — you need a showreel. We explain what to do to create one...

Harry Gregson-Williams's drive to explore original ideas and sounds has made him one of Hollywood's leading composers, scoring everything from romantic comedies to spy thrillers and historical dramas.

Writing music for picture seems like the ideal career. You get to work in your studio for a living, you can earn good money, and there's so much potential work: action films, travel and nature documentaries, romantic comedies, cartoons, low-budget sci-fi, even breakfast cereal ads. But how do you break into this lucrative world?

I've spent years dabbling with studio technology, but when get a few spare minutes to actually sit down and create music, I seem to be devoid of inspiration. Can you offer advice?

For his latest album, musician/producer Brian Eno has returned to the world of songwriting. But his ideas about music are as radical as ever...

Is writing TV show theme music as easy as it might seem? To find out, we follow the progress of David Lowe and Paul White's music for a recent BBC series on gardeners.

I have a melody which I'm absolutely sure I made up when I was a kid and I want to use it in a composition I am working on. However, the things kids make up can be 'derivative', and I need to confirm that I hadn't heard it before. Do you know of any melody databases that could help me find out?

I know that the white keys on a keyboard form a diatonic scale, but what does diatonic really mean?...

BBC Bristol's natural history series 'The Life Of Mammals' was a high-profile production, with stunning visuals that demanded an equally impressive soundtrack.

One of Hollywood's most intelligent composers, Elliot Goldenthal is equally adept at writing for the big screen as the concert hall or theatre. We talk to him about his background and approach to composition, technology and orchestration.

Glen Ballard was already a first-call songwriter and producer in LA — and that was before a young, unknown singer called Alanis Morissette walked into his studio...

Jack Wall is a leading light in the video game soundtrack industry, where his credits include the latest chapter in the best-selling Myst series of computer games.

Composition runs in David Newman's family, and he's become one of Hollywood's most sought-after writers of music for film.

From Rain Man to The Lion King, and Gladiator to Mission Impossible 2, Hans Zimmer's music is known by audiences worldwide. With business partner Jay Rifkin, Zimmer is also responsible for Media Ventures, a music studio that offers a unique environment for media composers.

According to Oval's Markus Popp, traditional definitions and categories are inadequate when it comes to evaluating electronic music. Instead, his highly conceptual projects aim to make us understand music in terms of the software processes used to produce it.

Not content with reviving and staging a 1920s avant-garde work for the first time, Paul D. Lehrman also worked out a way to reunite the piece with its contemporary film, which was never used due to technical problems. This is how...

Do hit songs have a hidden ingredient that makes them successful by appealing directly to our emotions? It's a question that musicians and scientists have sought the answer to for many decades. Acoustic researcher Ernest Cholakis has a new take on the theory...

Once Rob Davis was a pop star himself with Mud. Now his songs have taken Kylie Minogue and Sophie Ellis-Bextor to the top of the charts.

Abbey Road's famous Studio One has played host to innumerable big-budget orchestral recordings for film, but the final session before its refurbishment in 2001 saw it being used for a new purpose: to record the soundtrack for a video game.

Gez Gourley specialises in creating sound for console games - whether it be orchestral music or crashing cars...