My first review! Penguemic: Word Domination

So I happened to discover my first review last night! I am really excited about this even though the music criticism was only an afterthought in the video, but still! It was a review of my music and even better: it was a positive review. I'll take it!

In case this doesn't work the way it is supposed to, the music review is at 10:25. Please check it out:

5IVElements Suite for Orchestra

Joseph Carrillo has recently completed work on the 5IVElements Suite for Orchestra. The five movement piece was composed to accompany an art exhibit. Each of the participating artists created works on canvas for Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Spirit, using a variety of media, including oils, spray paint and watercolor. The music and interstitial sound design (such as rain, birds, wind, ocean, campfire, and crickets) serve as an ambient meditation on each of the themes and plays on a continuous loop for patrons to enjoy an immersive experience.

"The term "ambient," might be a little misleading," Carrillo says, "the music has a meditative quality to it, but it is composed for full orchestra, and the recording features several live musicians: oboe, English horn, violin, cello and a choir, assembled from 48 individual voices." Fellow SCL member Catherine Grealish is also featured as a vocal soloist.

The Elements, is on display, visually and aurally, at the Northeastern Nevada Museum in Elko, Nevada from August 13th through October 29th.

The music is available for purchase. CD's are available in the Museum Gift Shop, and it can also be downloaded from iTunes and Amazon.

New Project: Five Elements

For the past few months I have been working on a new orchestral piece, which will play as part of an art show at the Northern Nevada County Museum from August 13th through October 29th, 2013.

The title of the show is "The Elements." Each of five participants created five works, one inspired by Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Spirit.

I composed five movements for orchestra and choir. And the recording will be further augmented with sound effects, such as wind, waves, and birds.

This has been an enormous undertaking to compose, perform and deliver in just a couple of months. And though I performed the oboe parts and sang vocals, I am not alone in the performance of this. I had help from an amazing collection of talented musicians, to whom I am eternally grateful:

Jen Choi Fischer, violin
Catherine Grealish, soprano and alto vocals
David Mergen, cello and baritone vocals
Victoria Sabonjohn, English horn and soprano and alto vocals

I hope to do a YouTube video about this project soon, as there is a lot to talk about.  All this week, leading up to the Album release on iTunes on Monday, I am posting excerpts at my Soundcloud page, which is Soundcloud.com/JosephCarrilloComposer.

The opening reception is the 23rd of August, and unfortunately I will be unable to attend, as we leave for vacation the following day. But I am looking forward to being there in spirit.

Deranged Update!

I am excited to announce that Deranged won 3rd place in the festival, and was chosen to participate in the Best of San Diego event on August 11th.

I plan to remix the music and post examples as soon as I have some free time to do so.

Deranged in San Diego

Last week I received a message from a friend asking if I was available to provide music for their entry into the Sand Diego 48hr film festival. I have been so busy and overwhelmed with my current workload that I immediately said, yes.

The title of the film is "Deranged." I never actually received picture to work from. I had the script, and a couple of conversations with the director.

As a general rule, I don't like working from the script. What I picture in my head is not necessarily what I will see on the screen. So the entire time I was writing I kept thinking, "I really hope we are making the same movie..."

So I started on Friday night and read through the first scene and imagined the doctor nervous in his office, trying to decide what to do, and walking hurriedly out of the hospital. And I came up with a little motif that became the main theme. It mostly revolves around the 2nd so it starts off feeling a little off kilter, but it's catchy enough to give the listener something to hold onto.

That night I composed and orchestrated 10 minutes of music. By midnight, which was my original goal for delivery, I was recording the MIDI into audio tracks to start mixing. I ended up delivering it all by 6AM.

Part of what held me up was a lack of time invested into my mixing template, so as soon as this project was done, I went through that thing and made sure everything was set up in a much better way: making sure every track had its EQ and reverb set, so I just have to plug in the audio files and start mixing.

My MIDI track template was pretty in tact, but I made a few minor tweaks to that as well, just to future-proof it. I immediately move into working on the music for the Elements show (look for a future post about that), and will be putting all my new template tweaks to the test.

I plan to clean up the mixes for "Deranged" and post a couple of excerpts on Soundcloud later this week, once my ears and fatigue have settled back into their normal routine.

Creating the music for Emo Dad

As the series of Emo Dad draws to a close, I did a little video about the process of creating the music.

Leave a comment thanking the musicians. And also, there's a freebie download in the store!

Dancing About a Shoe Store

I joined twitter yesterday. And now I'm blogging about it. Maybe I should post this blogpost on facebook about having joined twitter.

And you can like it, and I can like your like that you like it.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this, but the urge to be nothing but a smart ass is overwhelming. I intend to rein it in, though. I went with the twitter handle @josephcomposer since all the other ones were taken.

Okay, back to work on the orchestration task at hand.

ASCAP I Create Music Expo 2013

It is year 3 of the Expo, and it honestly took me a while to get in to it. I did meet some really cool people, and ran into some old friends.

It was just a whirlwind of inspiration, desperate frenetic craziness and a combination of hot messes and ridiculous talent, people who need to consider new careers, and people who will be on the national stage any second.

I feel that I learned a lot, both about myself and the industry. But as inspiring as it was, I have to say that I often feel that kind of inspiration. Especially lately. And I'm not sure if my experience was either tamped down overall, or if my threshold for inspiration has been raised to a more consistent level.

Now it is Monday. Now what?

I need to go through the business cards, the receipts, my brain, and figure out what is what. After an exhausting frenzy of energy, what is the takeaway? I'll tell you when I figure it out. I'm still riding the high.

I do have a three minute orchestra piece to compose, orchestrate and copy by the end of the week, so it there is little time for rest. More on that opportunity later.

New webseries: Emo Dad

I am very excited to announce the new Fine Bros webseries Emo Dad is now live. It was very exciting to work with Benny and Rafi again, and I had a great time composing the score for them. One of the other exciting things about the score is it features live players.



I have restrictions on how much I can say about them, as they are union members and therefore only do union work. So their time and talent contributions to this project must be done so anonymously. I am dying to make a video though, so I'll have to figure out a creative way to make them a part of it.

A Week In The Life

Yesterday had a dilemma like Monday in spades
pushing pulling with weapons and fists of the flame
courage was needed but strength pulled us through it again
why don't leave me so you can come back home at ten

Tuesday and Wednesday fell silent more aimless than me
watching the dark shadows grow and letting it be
sitting in winter as bitter tears fall in their hands
if you had a moment to spare then we wouldn't be sad

Thursday was tough and she fought for every last breath
after she forcibly beat six o'clock half to death
casual tension that just pulled us through at the end
gristle and severity choke on the tears of a friend

Friday played you wrong and left you feeling low
he raped you with alacrity and then just let you go
never regretting the time left was hardly enough
laughed in your face and then stripped you of all of your stuff

Saturday started too late and then ended at three
gloried your smile and gilded your lilies with rain
nothing but sunsets and horrible blue skies would do
pushing your face to the glass as she smashes it through

Sunday only hung around for a couple of hours
flirting in sunlight and braids, and stained purple flowers
she tried to observe it but misery failed the attempt
my heart once was open and empty now filled contempt

-JMC