Hairball Jazz

This week I composed a film score for a film titled “Hairball”. The director gave me some temp tracks, and the first track was in the style of a jazz trio; piano, bass and drums. So, this is what I composed. The first part is upbeat, with the piano running around as the character in the film wakes up and starts coughing. He fixes some tea but continues to cough. Then he runs into the bathroom as he coughs up a big hairball. During this time, the music slows down, and a brass section chimes in with a slow, dissonant set of notes playing in wide-pitch intervals.

The jazz did not really fit the action on the screen, so the director ultimately asked me to replace it with a totally different style of music, a style that matched the unfolding dark comedy. I will post that score as soon as the final film is released. In the meantime, here is a very nice jazz theme that stands up quite well by itself, without the accompanying film.

This music is produced entirely using a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) using VST instruments. The piano is Pianoteq’s version of a Steinway D grand piano. It is a modeled rather than a sampled instrument. This means that instead of a huge collection of acoustic samples, the sound of the piano is physically modeled. This allows a greater versatility in the acoustic parameters, it takes up much less space in RAM (and on the hard drive) and it sounds just like a real piano. This version has won more awards than any other virtual piano, and in fact Steinway & Sons has endorsed this virtual instrument.

Hairball Jazz