# Short Flight in a Big Balloon (Live Orchestra, Warner Bros. Eastwood Scoring Stage) **SCORE ADDED**



## bennyoschmann (Feb 22, 2016)

Hey guys,

last December (2015) one of my life dreams came true: During the first *Hollywood Scoring Open Orchestra Session* I was able to record my music with the fabulous *AFM Local 47 studio musicians* at the *Warner Bros. Eastwood Scoring Stage* in L.A.

Here are a few words about my experience which might be interesting for the ones of you who plan to book an own timeslot in a future session:

I have to say this was one of the most intimidating and most exciting moments in my life and although I couldn’t attend the session in person, I listened via SourceConnect and was stunned how good and fast the musicians were. I recorded with many orchestras around the globe, but the L.A. musicians were definitely a league of their own. I had booked a 15-minutes timeslot and they absolutely nailed the 2,5-minute piece in time.

There were quite a few legendary players in the orchestra like *Armen Ksajikian* in the cello section, who played on almost every John Williams score or *Dave Washburn*, who was James Horner’s principal Trumpet player. But all the other musicians were great as well and the level of concentration was consistently high throughout the whole timeslot.

However IMO the one thing that differs the L.A. musicians from most other orchestras I worked with, is that I could actually feel the passion and the respect they have for this particular style and film music in general, while they were playing.

The piece was recorded and mixed by the legendary *Dennis Sands* (Alan Silvestri’s scoring mixer), music preparation was handled by *JoAnn Kane* and *Mark Graham* conducted the piece.

The overall structural approach was a programatic piece with a coherent theme throughout the composition. Stylistic influences are obviously coming from the great scores from the 80s and 90s (Williams, Horner, Silvestri, Broughton…). I composed this straight into Sibelius without mockuping anything.

I also ordered the optional video recording/edit which was was top notch. Please enjoy and thanks for listening:



*Score: http://bocomposer.weebly.com/score-sheets.html*


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## Pianistikboy (Feb 22, 2016)

Wow ! thank you Benny for sharing your experience on this fabulous project. It is the dream for every composers to have its own music played by such awesome musicians and orchestra. What a chance ! Your music is wonderful and so well crafted. Congratulations on this successful orchestra session ! All the best. Anthony


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## Steve Martin (Feb 22, 2016)

Hi Benny,

sounds amazing! thanks for sharing the music with us. The orchestral musicians did a brilliant job with your awesome music here. Wonderful orchestration and sounds terrific!

thanks again for sharing the music and the video. It's inspiring to listen and watch this.

best,

Steve


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## Oouzha (Feb 22, 2016)

bennyoschmann said:


> Hey guys,
> 
> last December (2015) one of my life dreams came true: During the first *Hollywood Scoring Open Orchestra Session* I was able to record my music with the fabulous *AFM Local 47 studio musicians* at the *Warner Bros. Eastwood Scoring Stage* in L.A.
> 
> ...




What a dream! Thanks for sharing — inspiring! And beautiful score


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## Assa (Feb 22, 2016)

Congrats Benny, absolutely wonderful music... as usual  since you have done it in the past with your music, would you be willing to share the score with us?


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## handz (Feb 22, 2016)

A M A Z I N G !!!

you really know how to write in the golden 80/90s style, I hear Silvestris influence there a lot - in a good way. It sounds awesome and video looks great, lucky You! (I would kill to have a midi for this )


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## TGV (Feb 23, 2016)

That's some superb old-school writing. I guess they hit a spot of bad weather, but finally reach their glorious destination, don't they? How much better this sounds to my ears than the modern scoring style. So joyous and dynamic. And what a sound. It's nothing like a concert hall, but almost hyperrealistic.


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## Hannes_F (Feb 23, 2016)

Fantastic, this is how it should sound. Congratulations everbody!


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## markleake (Feb 23, 2016)

Wow.... what a wonderful thing to get your score played/recorded like this. Fantastic writing that really has a lot of character to it. I can't believe the musicians only had 15 minutes on this! Thanks for sharing this.


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## handz (Feb 23, 2016)

TGV said:


> That's some superb old-school writing. I guess they hit a spot of bad weather, but finally reach their glorious destination, don't they? How much better this sounds to my ears than the modern scoring style. So joyous and dynamic. And what a sound. It's nothing like a concert hall, but almost hyperrealistic.




if something scares me it is when this kind of music being called "old-school". Bach maybe old-school, Mozart sound too but Music in Romantic / 80/90s movie style - it is like a rock music, it never gets old, even we have a lot of hip-hop, dubsteb and Hanz Bzzzzzzzzzumerlike music nowdays.


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## bennyoschmann (Feb 23, 2016)

Thanks a lot guys, all your comments are highly appreciated 



Assa said:


> Congrats Benny, absolutely wonderful music... as usual  since you have done it in the past with your music, would you be willing to share the score with us?



Thanks man! Yeah, I will certainly post the score in the next few days here 



TGV said:


> I guess they hit a spot of bad weather, but finally reach their glorious destination, don't they? How much better this sounds to my ears than the modern scoring style. So joyous and dynamic. And what a sound. It's nothing like a concert hall, but almost hyperrealistic.



Many thanks! Yeah, that's exactly the story I imagined  I couldn't agree more with you about the sound. There are a lot of fantastic rooms around the world, but the American scoring stages (at least Sony, Fox and Warner) have that characteristic sound, you described. What I like most about these rooms is that while they sound very big, they are rather dry, which allows to hear all the details. I think that's quite unique...



handz said:


> if something scares me it is when this kind of music being called "old-school". Bach maybe old-school, Mozart sound too but Music in Romantic / 80/90s movie style - it is like a rock music, it never gets old, even we have a lot of hip-hop, dubsteb and Hanz Bzzzzzzzzzumerlike music nowdays.



I don't feel that style as "old-school" as well, but it depends a lot on one's listening habits. Having said that there are still elements/stylistic trademarks from that 80s/90s-era that are used frequently in some genres and I guess that means that fortunately this style hasn't died out entirely yet.


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## R.Cato (Feb 23, 2016)

Congrats Benny. I am sure the musicians had lots of fun playing your music.


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## AlexanderSchiborr (Feb 23, 2016)

Really great track I have to say. Wonderful performance. Reminds me also on the race, just structurally and from some stylistic devices, but in a very good way. I was transcribing a few bars from you piece to have a reference to build up my orchestral template. Coolio!


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## AlexRuger (Feb 23, 2016)

Ah, my good buddy and sometimes composing partner Andy Forsberg recorded a track of his at the same date. You guys probably met.

This was really, really fantastic. Amazing work!


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## FredericBernard (Feb 25, 2016)

Benny,

this sounds absolutely amazing! Very inspired, charming orchestration. Like with your Raven Overture, congrats on this one too( - would wonder how this specific piece would sound if played by this orchestra.)

I had a few sessions with the Budapest Scoring Orchestra last year, but never did anything in LA so far.
Just out of curiosity, the recording isn't with complete buyout rights is it? I actually would love to record there too, but IMO this would be kind of a deal-breaker.


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## bennyoschmann (Feb 25, 2016)

@R.Cato, @AlexanderSchiborr & @AlexRuger: Thanks a lot guys 



FredericBernard said:


> Benny,
> 
> this sounds absolutely amazing! Very inspired, charming orchestration. Like with your Raven Overture, congrats on this one too( - would wonder how this specific piece would sound if played by this orchestra.)
> 
> ...



Many thanks, Frederic! Yes, unfortunately these recordings from the Open Session can only be used for demo reels, website etc., not for commercial projects. I don't know if they offer complete buyout rights now, but feel free to contact the guys from Hollywood Scoring.
However the prices for a full session are about 10(+) times higher as for a session in Budapest


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## bennyoschmann (Feb 25, 2016)

You can now find the score on my website's 'http://bocomposer.weebly.com/score-sheets.html (Score Sheets') section. Enjoy!


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## Assa (Feb 26, 2016)

Thank you so much for sharing your score with us benny !


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## Steve Martin (Feb 27, 2016)

Thank you Benny for the score. Great! Looking forward to reading it.

cheers,

Steve


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## germancomponist (Feb 27, 2016)

Humans are humans, sample libraries are (only) libraries of one moment. Not and never comparable to a live session!


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## FredericBernard (Mar 5, 2016)

Thanks again for sharing the printed score. It's a joy to study and great to see the magic behind the music!
The ending is just gorgeously beautiful, somewhat like the love theme from superman. (maybe this was a inspiration for your cue)

Just out of interest, do you also work a lot with mock-ups in DAW for your tracks, or do you mostly work with Sibelius/Finale?


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