Adventure. Exploration. Discovery. Pyramids. Pharaohs. History. Danger. Wonder. Are these words that spark your imagination and kindle the fires of intrigue within you? If so, then the Navigating History: Online Video Tour is for you.

My brother Isaac is on the ground in Egypt at this very moment with a team he has assembled for the purpose of cataloging the history and assessing the culture of the oldest civilization in the world… from a decidedly and self-consciously Christian worldview. I thought it was an interesting idea when I first heard the concept brought up a few months ago, but since then I’ve become way more invested and fascinated in the series and the subject matter than I ever thought I would.

In summary, you need to sign up. Now. Go to www.navigatinghistory.com and do so before the hyperbole of this post wears off. Or, if you are not totally sure you can afford to meet the paltry $49.99 sign-up fee, enter the Navigating History Subscription Challenge. For every 5 friends you get to sign-up for the show, you will be given a free subscription yourself, or a $35 Western Conservatory gift card–whichever you prefer. I would totally do this myself, except that I already have all the video they can crank out because I’m writing the music for the series.

On that note (har har), here is a teaser medley of some of the music I have written thus far. I also wrote the music in the video above… visuals courtesy of the guys at The Effects Forge.

At about 0.35 in this track you can hear my wife, Audri, playing harmonics on the cello. I only had about an hour to write that cue (0.13-0.45), so I played a series of notes for Audri and told her to improvise on them for a few minutes while I loaded a template in Cubase 4 to start the project. By the time my template had fully loaded and started up, I had some quality ethnic cello phrases to slide of our H1 handheld recorder into Cubase, ready for reverb and processing. I love my wife.

Look out for an upcoming post on the instruments and tools behind the production of the score, but for now, Here is a question for all of my dedicated readers (Audri and Mom, please rise):

How many of you would you be interested in purchasing some of the music from the show when it is completed as an mp3 album download?

I am in the process of writing the score for the up-and-coming feature film, “Ace Wonder: Message From a Dead Man.” Below you can hear a short teaser of a cue I’m working on. In the scene I am writing this for, Ace Wonder, professional half-pint shamus, begins his investigation into the type of case that only a hard-boiled 4′11” detective could solve.

Here is the second teaser trailer:

More posts on the score to follow.

As you may have noticed, this site has been silent for rather a long while. That is because I have had something more important than music to think about. God has been working wonderful things in my life and in the past 9 months I’ve begun a relationship, become engaged, and, as of September 21st, married! I have wed a godly, one-in-seven-billion young lady, Audri Vernier (now Audri Botkin), who has appeared on this site before in less exclamatory fashion. Our journey to this point has been a blessed time of growth and we’ve witnessed the Lord’s hand on us in mighty ways. Looking back, we can see clearly that we were not really the ones who made this match, but God working through us and beyond us in spite of our puny, sinful efforts. For what reason? For His glory.

“Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness!” Psalms 115:1

Many of you already know Audri as a gifted cellist (massive understatement) and someone who would be very helpful to me in my musical endeavors. This is true, but music is only one of the areas that we plan to be working in together over the course of our lives. That is because the guidelines of our life are not pulled from “The Well-Tempered Clavier”, but from the Word of God, and our mandate from the scriptural canon–not Pachelbel’s.

“All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” 2 Cor 5:18-20

The future is bright in and through Christ. Look out, world! - SDG.

A couple months ago I received a phone call out of the blue offering me a position to help out on the musical score for The Vision Forum and Erwin brothers studio’s latest film, The Mysterious Islands. The film is about a group of extraordinary men who travel to the Galapagos Islands to refute the evolutionist theories of Charles Darwin 150 years after his historic visit to the islands.

Needless to say, I was already looking forward to the film’s release with much anticipation, so being asked to be part of the music team was a real honor. I was joining the film’s primary composer, Paul Mills, a professional based out of Franklin TN, and Audri Vernier, a San Antonio-based cellist (and interviewee in Homeschool Dropouts, I might add) who recorded multiple Bach cello solos for the film.

Above is a short scene from the film where the adventurers go beneath the surface of the water for the first time. Underwater music has a rich and glorious heritage; From Saint Saens to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea to John Williams, there is a lot of great music here to draw inspiration from (and be judged by), so writing in the style can be an exhilarating and daunting experience. Nevertheless, I had a blast. You can hear the music I composed for the scene and judge for yourselves how well it works.

Over the next couple weeks I will be posting an assortment of different clips and teasers of the score, so be sure to check back regularly. Also, be sure to check out Paul Mills’s myspace page to hear some of his music!

Media used with permission from Vision Forum 2009

The Western Conservatory of the Arts and Sciences just recently completed the documentary Homeschool Dropouts: Why the second generation is headed for a spiritual wasteland, for which I was privileged to write the music. You can view the trailer above.

Here are some screenshots I took of Cubase 4 in mid-project. The screenshots couldn’t show everything in my project windows, but it will give you an idea of what the software looks like. Click on the pictures to enlarge them.

You can also hear a short medley of some assorted musical cues that found their way into the film.

One thing I have noticed is that film and documentary music (though subject to the same fundamental principles of design), can be very different in the ways that they’re applied to their respective categories of visual media.

Homeschool Dropouts is a documentary, so most of the music I wrote for it plays under constant dialogue and keeps a very subdued and submissive role– almost exaggeratedly so, as most of the music is little more than ambient or atmospheric. Though I developed a couple different melodic motifs and musical textures that I could weave throughout the film, there was never really a place for a big, developed symphonic approach to melody or movement–most of the music would be pretty uninteresting or boring if you heard it on its own.

In the style and texture department, we were looking for a sound that could effectively represent the “serious” and almost “crisis” flavor of the film. The documentary was shot in dry, barren locations in Texas and New Mexico, so the music had to match that empty, wasteland feel. In addition to this, I was also looking to find a musical sound that would be quick to write, as I only had about 5 days to write most of the 30 minutes of music that appeared in the final version of the film.

Prominent Musical Elements in Homeschool Dropouts:

Low Drones and ambient rumbles
Ethnic flute phrases
Subdued electric guitar
Thunderclaps/Explosions*
Percussive Piano
Muted string sustains

*My secret weapon on this score was the site www.freesound.org, a user-based audio community which offers a very wide of sound effects for free. The sounds on the site are uploaded by its users, so the quality of the files is kinda hit-and-miss, but it is a great resource nonetheless. I wanted a very distinct audio signature that I could use at points of emphasis throughout the film, so I used www.freesound.org to download an assortment of explosions, thunderclaps, metallic clangs, engine noise (even rattling chains), and other sounds that I thought would add that extra punch and grittiness the music was missing.