Piano students create film soundtracks

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Piano students create film soundtracks

Software scores big at Montgomery Blair

by Meredith Hooker | Staff Writer

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Naomi Brookner⁄The Gazette

(From left) Agia Alston and Leandra Tidwell watch Tidwell’s finished project, in which she and other students wrote music to accompany short films during Sara Josey’s piano class Friday at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring.

Drums were perfectly timed with cannon blasts coming from a ship. A flute played as the ship then sailed calmly through the water. As it hit the high seas, an upbeat instrumental sea chantey began to play.

It had taken a few class periods, but Eric Peterson, 18, had created a score to go along with a short film segment called ‘‘Pride of Baltimore,” and on Friday his work was almost ready to be screened.

‘‘I put it in kind of a pirate situation,” the Silver Spring senior said. ‘‘I put some upbeat and piratey music in, and the part where the cannons fire, there are drums. ... Then there’s battle scene music,” he said. ‘‘... I’m proud of the entire thing.”

He was particularly proud of timing the cannon blasts with loud drum sounds. It was not easy to time the film clip with those sounds, he said.

Students in Sara Josey’s beginning and advanced piano class at Montgomery Blair High School have learned to create music for film with the help of Silver Spring resident and composer Michael Josephs, the parent of a Blair student. On Monday, they will present their film clips to parents and representatives from Wolf Trap, which funded the project through its foundation scholarship program, Josey said.

Josey, who was nominated for the scholarship by the county’s music supervisor, received a grant from the foundation and used the money to pay for expansions to the music software the students use.

Josephs, who has composed music for films on National Geographic and the Discovery Channel, gave students a presentation Friday on how to score music for video. Then students chose one of three minute-long films to score using computer music software and keyboards to lay tracks, layering sounds like drums, horns and flutes to create their own music.

‘‘They enjoy it,” Josephs said, adding the students have done well, quickly picking up concepts like tempo. ‘‘I’ve seen all the kids’ films. They’re great.”

‘‘They’ve learned how everyone views things differently,” Josey said, adding students also have learned how to bring film alive.

Christopher Morrison, 17, sat in front of a keyboard and computer, finishing a soccer film and the music to accompany it. He had created loops of different beats, drums and chanting.

‘‘It’s soccer and I mostly made it feel like it was a real game,” the Silver Spring junior said.

Freshman Roxana Calderon, 14, and sophomore Johnny Macario, 15, also worked together on the same soccer film, but their music sounded completely different.

They picked different world music from their computer software, Calderon said, and tried to choose music from different countries where soccer is popular, as well as some techno music and applause.

Senior Leandra Tidwell, 17, chose to use a film clip called ‘‘Pride of Baltimore,” which featured the Baltimore clipper ship. She created ‘‘piratey” music to go with it. Tidwell said she enjoyed being able to use the computer to write her film’s score.

‘‘I can’t write music, so being able to play a song and just have it there [on the computer screen] is really cool,” she said.

Through the project and working with Josephs, students have also learned that creating music is not just a fun diversion; it can be a valid career choice. Peterson, for instance, is interning with Human Factor Music, a Virginia-based music production company, and doing things similar to what he has learned in Josey’s class.

‘‘It’s exciting,” he said. ‘‘I get to do this stuff all the time.”