# How Many Minutes per day?



## Herman Witkam (Mar 7, 2005)

Per day? I can't write at day 8) 

If I'm really inspired by something (new sample material or compositional approach) I might be able to produce 3 minutes. On other days I won't be able to produce music at all.


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## Sid_Barnhoorn (Mar 7, 2005)

Indeed, my norm is also around 1/2 minutes a day. I usually work ideas out first when a movie is in preproduction and I read the script. Mostly I get ideas during and after I read the script and these ideas I work out and send to the director. If he likes it it's easier to work on a score then starting from scratch.

So it really depends on your approach. If you've got ideas already lined up it's easier to get more minutes finished a day.

Cheers,


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## Lpp (Mar 7, 2005)

Depends on desired style, complexity, creativity on that day and "deadline factor", but normally... 

2 minutes "easy music" ( lounge, electro, bossa and the like ) or

1 1/2 minutes orchestral background music or

1 minute orchestral main theme or

1/2 minute battle music

All this includes composing, orchestrating, arranging, mixing and mastering.

And then there are these days or even weeks, where all this doesn?t apply. Days of desperate seeking a main melody or the opposite... 2 minutes of main theme in one day


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## Marsdy (Mar 8, 2005)

I can write twice as much music a day at 80bpm than I can at 160bpm.
 :roll:


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## Evan Gamble (Mar 8, 2005)

Hehe :D ..thanks alot for the responses I wasn't sure how I stood. I just composed a 1:46 cue in a day, so I guess thats not too bad. I just thought everyone was like Elfman, doing an hour and a half in 2 weeks :roll:


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## Buckles (Mar 9, 2005)

Im writing 2 minutes a day at the moment for this friggin film Im sick of scoring. 

Make it stop.

-s


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## Aaron Sapp (Mar 10, 2005)

I'm the slowest composer I know. I also don't use a template, so for every song I gotta load every instrument blah blah blah - and I'm always maxed out at 99% on both giga machines. For big polished complex orchestral stuff, I can do like 15 seconds a day. For basic orchestral I can do _maybe_ 30 seconds. For sparsely orchestrated music I've done two minutes in a day, *ONCE*. 

Any takers?! C'MON! :wink:


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## Alex W (Mar 10, 2005)

Aaron Sapp said:


> I'm the slowest composer I know. I also don't use a template, so for every song I gotta load every instrument blah blah blah - and I'm always maxed out at 99% on both giga machines. For big polished complex orchestral stuff, I can do like 15 seconds a day. For basic orchestral I can do _maybe_ 30 seconds. For sparsely orchestrated music I've done two minutes in a day, *ONCE*.
> 
> Any takers?! C'MON! :wink:



It also depends on the client eh mate?...


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## Alex W (Mar 10, 2005)

Buckles said:


> Im writing 2 minutes a day at the moment for this friggin film Im sick of scoring.
> 
> Make it stop.
> 
> -s



Hang in there champ, from what I heard you're doin great so far.


Back on topic, for calm orchestral stuff I'd say about 30 seconds is a good day, action music takes about twice as long.


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## Scott Cairns (Mar 10, 2005)

Yeah, it really depends on the style and as Marsdy pointed out, albiet jokingly, the tempo actually plays a part too. I hate writing at a fast tempo for hours and realising Ive still only done 15 seconds. :lol: 

I can create a theme pretty fast, kind of sketch it out on piano or whatever. The tweaking takes forever....

Also, those stories of Elfman doing 4 minutes a day... I think he has the luxury of creating the initial sketch, even counter-lines harmony etc, but the tweaking and polishing most likely go to his mate the orchestrator (forget his name) and the actual recording on the day.


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## AndreasWaldetoft (Mar 10, 2005)

Normal days I do 2-3 minutes. Close to deadlines it normally get trippel that. It all depends on what project one is working on though. But i try not to get under 2 mins per day. Im using templates both for scoring and mixing.

Cheers


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## Ed (Mar 10, 2005)

Aaron Sapp said:


> I'm the slowest composer I know. I also don't use a template, so for every song I gotta load every instrument blah blah blah - and I'm always maxed out at 99% on both giga machines. For big polished complex orchestral stuff, I can do like 15 seconds a day. For basic orchestral I can do _maybe_ 30 seconds. For sparsely orchestrated music I've done two minutes in a day, *ONCE*.
> 
> Any takers?! C'MON! :wink:



lol it must have taken you ages to do those SAM demos! 

And what would happen if you gave a piece to a producer and they wantd you to redo it? :D


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## choc0thrax (Mar 10, 2005)

Aaron what will you do if you ever get a job say doing the music for a 1 hour show thats on weekly? When you've got like 5 days to do 40 minutes of music.  When you're looking for ghost writers you can give me a call. My music wouldn't exactly be good or even music but like I said I can churn out about 15 minutes of it a day.


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## FilmComposerZ (Mar 10, 2005)

Yeah, I also take a while. My latest composition Descend With Angels is about 3:20 seconds which I did probably in about 10 hours. So that was fast for me.

For me it's the first bars (3 of 4). If I can get those down, then everything else starts to flow automatically. So I might be hours just tryig to come up with a theme, hundreds will go to the trash, and one will stay. 

There are times when nothing comes to me, like now!


Pablo


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## Aaron Sapp (Mar 10, 2005)

If I had a decent setup (DAW, 4 Giga slaves), I could write music so much faster. But for now its always like pulling teeth - especially a gig I just got through with that used my sequencer, gigastudio, and a load of vsti's on one computer - 2.1 gigahertz with 1 gig of ram... :roll: Cubase SX3, here I come!


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## ComposerDude (Mar 10, 2005)

choc0thrax said:


> Aaron what will you do if you ever get a job say doing the music for a 1 hour show thats on weekly? When you've got like 5 days to do 40 minutes of music.  When you're looking for ghost writers you can give me a call. My music wouldn't exactly be good or even music but like I said I can churn out about 15 minutes of it a day.



Five days? I've heard of TV composers doing 40 minutes in 3 days. The orchestrator was in a back room cranking out later charts while the orchestra was recording the earlier ones. Of course those weren't so much "days" as nearly-continuous 72-hour writing sessions...

The common theme in the above posts is that two things take time: 1) reflection, 2) complexity.

One can cover more ground via a rough score (general themes intact but using temporary quick orchestration) and by farming work out to helpers.

James Horner wrote Troy in about 10 days last May, which may be a record (though he may soon be overtaken by Choc0thrax :D ). Lee Holdridge wrote the score for 1982's 'Beastmaster' in just two weeks in a hotel room in Italy, with two orchestrators and a piano, later describing it as a trial by fire.

IIRC, John Williams required about 2 months for Star Wars, which is around 2 minutes per day. Of course, those were especially good minutes!

I love the intricate detail in Aaron Sapp's compositions, and it doesn't surprise me if it takes a bit of time. It's actually very cool how much he is doing just on one computer -- watch out when he finally gets his PC rack!


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## drasticmeasures (Mar 10, 2005)

I would say that writing around 2 minutes a day is "normal". With somewhat sloppy orchestrations, I work comfortably at 2 minutes a day.
However, some hectic tv series work forces one to put out upwards of 7-8 minutes a day. Of course, the music will usually sound like it.
Before I actually write a score, I tend to spend at least a week or two fleshing out different themes, as well as themes that will interact with one another. For me, it's so much easier to write a solid score if I have already figured out the thematic material before sitting down to picture.


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## choc0thrax (Mar 10, 2005)

Well I said 5 days cause I didn't want Aaron to wet his diapers. 8)


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## TheoKrueger (Mar 10, 2005)

I once wrote around 2-3 minutes a day . Now i barely write 2-3 minutes a week :(


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## choc0thrax (Mar 10, 2005)

You know what i've noticed is I can't write action music no matter how much time I have. Sucks to be me.


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## Frederick Russ (Mar 10, 2005)

Nathan Furst said:


> I would say that writing around 2 minutes a day is "normal". With somewhat sloppy orchestrations, I work comfortably at 2 minutes a day.
> However, some hectic tv series work forces one to put out upwards of 7-8 minutes a day. Of course, the music will usually sound like it.
> Before I actually write a score, I tend to spend at least a week or two fleshing out different themes, as well as themes that will interact with one another. For me, it's so much easier to write a solid score if I have already figured out the thematic material before sitting down to picture.



Off Topic: 
Nathan? Is this you? 


> Dust to Glory (2005) (pre-production)
> Bionicle 2: Legends of Metru-Nui (2004) (V)
> Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie's Island Adventure (2003) (TV)
> ... aka Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie (USA: promotional title)
> ...


I've heard some of your stuff - love it man! Welcome to VI Control - share an mp3 or two if you can.

Back on topic:

Lately I've been averaging about 1-1/2 minutes a day of writing, mockup and mix, not counting last minute changes the following day.


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## TheoKrueger (Mar 11, 2005)

The funny thing is that when i load a crappy GM set soundfont, i can write like 3-4 minutes a day . But not including good quality sound i suppose . 

I sometimes feel all these high tech libs are limiting me because of Specs Vs cash , but there is no turning back once you go to the dark side


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## drasticmeasures (Mar 11, 2005)

Frederick Russ said:


> Off Topic:
> Nathan? Is this you?
> 
> 
> ...



Yeah, that's me. Thanks for the welcome. Sharmy turned me on to this place a while back. I'm happy to post a couple things when I get a second. I have a soundtrack album coming out in a few weeks (my first!), so maybe I'll post something from that.


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## Craig Sharmat (Mar 11, 2005)

cool!

hi Nathan...great to have you here...


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## Leon Willett (Apr 14, 2005)

I'm with Aaron at 20-30 seconds of music a day. These days I have switched from full score to short score format (around 9 or 10 staves) and then I fire up my template and get it simulated. So it's write in the morning and simulate in the afternoon. The simulation process is quite a drag and I often have to modify my initial writing in accordance with the limitations of current libraries. After this project I'm gonna try real hard to get on something with budget for a real orchestra, seriously!! 

I really don't get how someone can do 2 minutes....... I think my fastest was 45 seconds ONCE.


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## Herman Witkam (Apr 14, 2005)

Leon Willett said:


> I'm with Aaron at 20-30 seconds of music a day. These days I have switched from full score to short score format (around 9 or 10 staves) and then I fire up my template and get it simulated. So it's write in the morning and simulate in the afternoon. The simulation process is quite a drag and I often have to modify my initial writing in accordance with the limitations of current libraries. After this project I'm gonna try real hard to get on something with budget for a real orchestra, seriously!!
> 
> I really don't get how someone can do 2 minutes....... I think my fastest was 45 seconds ONCE.



Hi Leon - you need an introduction!


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## Aaron Sapp (Apr 26, 2005)

It pisses me off you don't embrace your ability to write a lot of music.  Gosh, if I could write 2 minutes a day, I'd be overjoyed. I can't turn on creativity like a faucet like most of you guys can apparently - it takes real work for me!

:x 




adamfrechette said:


> hehe interesting post. Um about 2 minutes on a bad day. I come up with too much stuff. I come up with melodies all day and when I get home I try to sequence them in. Then I play a piano piece and make an offshoot. I am a loser I compose too much. I have wrtitten 5 minutes in one day.


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## groove (Apr 26, 2005)

i read that Graham Revel did a score for feature film in 6 Days !

i'm around 1 or 2 mn a day for orchestral stuff with normal complexity, but the real stuff is synchronizing to pict when neaded ! that takes a lot of time and is it considered as composing ?

the real thing for me to consider is the schedule that a production gives you : 5 days for a mini series around 3 weeks for 40mn of music in tv film
and generaly 3 to 6 week for feature films sometimes 8 ! at least in france...


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## choc0thrax (Apr 26, 2005)

I bet Graeme Revell was pretty happy to accomplish that...Until he realized he's Graeme Revell and that he sucks.


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## groove (Apr 26, 2005)

yeah maybe ! but i got the job done as J Horner for troy witch wasn't a better score...

anyway we are talking about timing not quality i think ! witch is an eternal dabate between production and artists no ?


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## choc0thrax (Apr 26, 2005)

It's got to be easy for Revell to churn out a score fast since a lot of his stuff is droney pads and ambient noise.


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## Niah (Apr 26, 2005)

Graeme Revell rulez since his days with SPK - One of the most innovative industrial/experimental/noise bands of the 80's. After he left it turned into synth-pop :D 

In his film works he has done some serious inovative stuff, blending all sorts of musical elements either modern or tradicional with the orchestra.
I still don't understand why his name is always associated with the term "electronic" when the bulk of his work is mostly orchestral.

IMO he along with zimmer and others belong to a new generation of film composers that have changed the movie scoring scene forever.


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## Edgen (Apr 27, 2005)

damn.. Either I'm really sloppy, or superman johnnylighting fast .. I just finished a recent film with a duration of 9:22 in 10.5 hours. Just so happens I got the footage a day before it was supposed to be due for print for the Celebration III. Granted it was a starwars fan film and all the themes were already set in place.

I have to agree with Folman on the like/dislike of certain genres.. Some you can whip out el pronto, and others.. damn they are a drag. Of course, My time all is dependent on the director coming back with changes. 

Now.. we are talking final polished music? or first drearty.com/images/


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