Tongue of the Hidden (the short film I recorded and produced the music for) has been nominated for a Scottish BAFTA. Here is a link to the BAFTA Scotland Nominations.

You can also watch a (small) version of the film on my Showreel page.

I was at PRS today - having a perfectly nice time finding out how the Society is very good at using Powerpoint. I think there is scope to call the recent collapse of Western economy - the PowerPoint Bubble. Lots of presentation - not much substance. I feel sorry for PRS in a way - trying to update their whole database - itself effectively inherited from the 70’s - can’t be fun, but with best foot forward they are updating to the ice system (whatever that is).

One of the (many) graphs on display was one that showed a graph of drop-off in monetized consumption of music compared to ever-expanding music consumption. The picture was bleak and really exponentiates around the 2006 mark; the general consensus being peer-to-peer downloading is to blame but I wonder is it a co-incidence this was also the year Top of the Pops was canned? (Top of the Pops for non-uk readers was the oldest music show on the BEEB that gave a weekly list of the Top 40). It was claimed to be a bit of a tired format - but very little resistance was put up by sectors of the industry that really ought to be putting up a fight. But I think there is scope to argue that this graph dropped off at exactly the same time TOTP was confined to history. Nothing has taken its place - and with that the music industry lost its flagship vehicle for promoting weekly sales. Its not many people who know what it number 1 these days….people just aren’t sure what to buy. Would Leona Lewis have sold so many records without X-Factor? I doubt it.

I propose a relaunch of TOTP on Saturday night - for a whole hour….Live. Weekly sales may never be what they once were but maybe this would give them a kick up the arse.

What was that with the football the other night!?! England finally pull a performance out the bag and due to Irish sports moguls I was unable to watch it anywhere! argh!! Apparently the argument came about when Setanta put a price on the highlights package of £1 million. ITV came up with half of that and Setanta refused. Result: 4-1….result for me (and loads of other fans)…no footie. At all. Theo Walcott scores a superb hat-trick, England run riot and just about the only people in Europe who want to watch it - don’t get too!

A day passes and I am working deep into the night to get my blog integrated into my website (more on that in a minute) and my friend Dan sends me a text to say that “The Highlights are on now!!”. ITV obviously relented and stumped up the cash for the highlights a day later. I tuned in in time to see the last goal! So I got to see the hat-trick; I just missed everything that proceeded it. It seems in these modern times the result is becoming just as important to the fans as it is to the players, afterall its the only thing the majority was partial too. I hear Heskey had a blinder!!

Anyway - as I mentioned, I got on with integrating my blog into my website. With a bit of jiggery-pokery and a lot of help from this site I can now have the blog nestling within the new site design. So thanks Mr Moshu - whoever you might be.

I’ve been thinking about this subject for quite a while….what has happened to tv music these days? The BBC (who I know I tend to bash a bit on this blog) really seems to have its eye off the ball. I should be careful what I say for offending my fellow colleagues who, after all, are only responding to briefs (I assume) - but there could be no doubting that the general standard at the moment is very low, no one seems to want to take any risks and we are left with program after program where the theme is not only forgettable, but trite to the point of being pointless; after all what is the point of having music at the start of your show? Tradition I guess - a format getting on for 70 years old. Most of the time I am hearing theme tunes at the start of a show and then never referred to till the end - take Mary, Queen of Shops with its bewildering array of recent pop hits that seem to serve no other purpose than to keep a rather tepid reality format clunking on for its hour slot.

Many classic themes of old are actually still going: Mastermind, Doctor Who, University Challenge etc - and I think it is no coincidence that these shows are being revisited with success because their theme tunes give them such a strong identity. I was listening to the theme for “I’d do anything” and couldn’t even recognise it as a piece of music. Notable exceptions would be David Lowe’s theme for Grand Designs - a gentle waltz that has helped what is really just another reality show feel like it is set apart as somehow a more solid program. David Lowe is without doubt the current king of theme tunes and although I have the utmost respect for his output, I can’t help feeling his influence is part of the problem. His style is instantly recognisable - Countryfile, Holiday and the all-conquering BBC News Theme (amongst many others) - and if he is the King (the modern day Hazzlehurst) we seem to have been left with many poor imitations. Certainly from the pitches I have been involved with recently the feeling has been that if I haven’t basically ripped Mr Lowe’s style off I have no chance of progression within the project. Personally I find this synthetic production style interesting but not classic - functional but, on the whole, forgettable.

The counter-argument is that functionality is surely its first port-of-call - but so many programs with this type of theme tune fall by the wayside. I was personally very pleased with ITV’s reintroduction of their wonderful News at Ten theme with its bombastic symphonic call to arms. It was a bad call to drop it and 10 years or so later it has finally been reinstated as a trump card.

This overall malaise isn’t just within television; I went to see Hancock a couple of nights ago. As a composer myself I would jump at the chance of a Super hero theme yet I left the movie not being able to recall a single melody, theme or otherwise of a score so flat they may as well not have bothered (notably Cloverfield “didn’t bother” with good effect - I don’t argue that all films need music) and on one level I sympathise with the composer - film producers these days don’t seem to want the music in their film to make any statement at all.

I had a chat with a film producer recently who thought the music in There Will Be Blood (Jonny Greenwood) made too much of a statement. I felt this gave a lot away as personally I thought it was one of the great scores of recent years - the nub here is that composers like me feel the music should be as much of a character as any of the leads whereas the producer is more likely to feel it should support the main characters and overall feel of the script. A score like this seemed to give the film its gravitas - careful use of Brahms Violin Concerto also added a superb contrast in relief to this high-minded soundscape. What I think is key here is that the director took a chance and made a statement - it came off and now has undoubtedly given the project extra longevity….after all: would 007 be on his 22nd film without such a good theme tune? I doubt Hancock will last that long!!