Interview: Claus Gahrn. Composer for Film and Media

diciembre 29th, 2011

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Versión en español

We are very proud to show you an interesting interview about music composing. Claus Gahrn is a professional musician from Denmark who works with International projects. He composes original music for Film, Television, Machinima and interactive media. He owns a long baggage and a great imagination.
You will enjoy listening his music and reading his answers!

He will talk us about his work, his actual projects and how is the composing work, how envolves life and which are the quiz for making and choosing a good music theme for each project, moving contents online and how works a professional musician using the new media.

Hello Claus, how are you? Let’s begin talking about your working space, please. First, Where do you live? How is your working space? Can you tell us a description of the computer, instruments, gadgets you use for composing please?

I live en Esbjerg, Denmark. I compose and produce music using mainly my keyboard and guitars and lots of sound samples and software synths on my computer. Because most of my music is based around virtual instruments, I do not need a huge recording studio to create the music I want – I simply work here in a small room with everything centered around the computer.

As my main music software, I use Cubase. I use lots of samples from companies such as East West Quantum Leap, Soundiron and Soniccouture. On top of that I use software synths and different kinds of audio plugins to manipulate sounds.

Which are your actual projects? The present or future works you are working on. Can you explain us them a little, please?

Right now I am working on a Danish independent horror movie. I am using all sorts of dark orchestral sounds in this movie, but for the first time I am also including a lot of heavy metal type guitars to give it a kind of edge, that I can not get from a traditional orchestra. This has been a lot of fun – and a good occasion to get my guitar playing back into shape.

TRAILER

My next project will be a machinima – the 5th episode of Time Travelers. This is a very cool sci-fi machinima series that I have been involved with since episode 3. It requires lots of music in different styles and it is quite a fun challenge to score.

TIME TRAVELLERS. 4th Episode

Inspiration arrives working, isn’t it? ☺ Can you explain us your timetable, if you have it; if you have any special things you like to have around, or you need silence, or walking, what are your daily habits?

Yes, absolutely. For me inspiration comes from working with music – it needs to be very much hands on. I do not have any particular rituals that I need to perform before I am ready to compose music. It is mostly a matter of taking the time to sit down and work with ideas on the keyboard or directly on the computer.

You have a classic music formation. Now you are working on several areas, movies, tv ads, digital cinema… How changes your mind for each different area? What you have to forget and consider.

Each project is really something unique and I try to approach every new project in a fresh way. I usually do a lot of research into the genre that I have to compose for.

It is important for me to know where I need to follow rules and where I can bend rules. The main thing in all the project I do is, of course, the story behind the images. I need to understand what the story is about – and what kind of emotions the music needs to portray.

Let us know your music taste as consumer, please. What music do you listen and what Tools you use more?

I really listen to lots and lots of music in a vast variety of genres – but naturally music for films and video games is what I pay most attention to at the moment. A composer like Cliff Martinez is quite often on my playlist. I like to listen to music on CD when possible – or on high quality mp3 here in my studio.

You had worked on different genres too. From mystery and dramatic soundtracks to live action music themes. Can you show us examples we can listen now, please?

Certainly. Here is an example from the horror movie that I am working on now. It is pretty dark, but it also got some highly dramatic orchestral elements to it:

LT – Trailer Music by ClausGahrn

http://soundcloud.com/clausgahrn/lt-trailer-music

Here is another one, which is rather dreamy and ambient sounding:

Remembrance by ClausGahrn
http://soundcloud.com/clausgahrn/remembrance

How is a professional musician career actually? Let us know how you get your clients, please. If you work as free-lance or you have any kind of contract.

All the work I do is freelance. When working in film music that is almost always the case for composers these days. I try to write the best music I can for the projects that I am hired to do. Hopefully clients will then get back to me for future projects.

I also do the occasional networking online. Meeting interesting people in the film and media industry is important – and the old word of mouth is still working for me.

Remarkable works you want to show us, please?

About a year ago I scored this machinima documentary, which I find highly remarkable, and I find the story very inspiring.

It is about a man who, after a prolonged coma, and years of rehabilitation, discovers a whole new life on the virtual platform of Second Life.

For ending, whats the composition theme or full work you would like to do next?

One of the things I would really like to do in the future is music for video games. There are many interesting possibilities in this media – especially working with non-linear narrative. From a composers point of view, this is quite an exciting challenge.

LINKS:
http://www.clausgahrn.dk
http://twitter.com/ClausGahrn
http://www.youtube.com/user/clausgahrn