"Pantages"

One of the ways we mark our progress in life is through the checkpoints and milestones on the way to our dreams. As an artist, I have pieces of art that I think of as “milestones” for showing the (slow, tedious & depressing} maturing of my abilities. “Pantages” is one of those pieces. It’s a film studio bumper (the fanfares that play before the opening credits). The tune and melody are lifted from an older work of mine, “Last Sunday In February”, around the 1:27 mark. The theater itself was definitely of inspiration but like Last Sunday, at it’s core this piece is about the magic and spirit of Oscar night. It’s about people smiling.

Pantages was crafted in Finale 2011/14 and calls on the Garritan Personal Orchestra and Instant Orchestra vsts. There may be an Edirol Orchestral instrument in there…the solo violin, if anything. I don’t quite remember. I don’t recall much in the way of mixing aside from some simple tweaks in Audacity.

I want to say it took maybe a month and half of work off and on before completion. The song was intended to be a bit heavier and include a gigantic bass drum hit before the strings come in. I eventually started to sway more toward a dreamier, lighter vibe…more akin to the Dreamworks bumper or…oooh!...I almost freaking forgot, I spent several weeks studying “Smiling” by Harry Gregson-Williams before getting started on Pantages. You may remember it from the Omega Watch commercial.

There’s always an emotional commitment to something or someone in every piece of music I write. This one’s for me. I scored my first film gig earlier this year (pun intended) and I’m lucky enough for it to be festival bound this summer in Los Angeles Those places i use to talk, use to write about...I'm actually going to for real... :

-Love, always.