The Making of… ‘Epic Emotional Piano 4’
Gothic Storm returns with a hugely exciting new release. Legendary trailer composer Chris Haigh returns with the fourth instalment in the ‘Epic Emotional Piano’ series. All three previous chapters have enjoyed huge popularity amongst fans and trailer editors alike and we expect this new exceptional body of work to be no exception. We spoke to Chris about his recent achievements in the industry and inspirations behind the new album. Read on!
Firstly, congratulations (1/2) for your recent placement on the Garfield trailer with ‘When Stars Align’ from ‘Epic Emotional Piano 3’, how did you feel when you saw the trailer in context with your music? I also noticed you took the family to see in the trailer in-situ at the cinema, was this a proud moment?
Thank you so much. To be honest I was amazed how much of the track was used and loved how the editors made it work with the emotional, visual context of the trailer. It’s always incredible when the music I compose in my humble home studio makes it into a big Hollywood trailer, although when I composed this track I wasn’t visualising an animated ginger cat that loves lasagne.
Yes seeing it in the cinema was an incredible experience to be able share that with my wife and son. I’ve heard my music in cinemas on trailers a few times before but I must admit I feel extremely blessed to have my music still being used and especially in something my five year old son can see and relate to. It will be an experience I will never forget and although I hope there will be more in the future I never take it for granted and know it maybe a one time experience.
Secondly, congratulations (2/2) for winning the Best Use In A Movie Trailer award at the Mark Awards in LA last year for ‘Interstellar Ascension’! We were over the moon to be able to collect the award on your behalf. How does this rank in terms of career achievements?
Again I feel very blessed to win an award for my music and this definitely rates very high on my musical achievements. I have actually never won an award for anything in my life before so it makes it even more special. I will be forever grateful to Dan and the Gothic Storm team for creating these very special experiences. I must admit I’d have loved to be in LA to celebrate it with you guys.
After the success of the previous 3 albums in the series, what inspired you to write a 4th? I know last time there were various factors including the birth of your son and the pandemic.
This series of albums are so special to me, I get so much enjoyment from writing them and also feel they are so intimate and personal to me and my life experiences and I have used that as inspiration for all of them. I feel so lucky that Dan gives me the opportunity to explore that and allows me to realise that in music for the Gothic Storm label.
This album was born from just that. Although I don’t want to go over old ground, so it took me a while to come up with a unique concept for this one, as I want each album to have its own identity even though they are using the same fundamental main elements, piano, strings and with this new one, solo violin. I also had the idea to have my son feature on the album cover in an epic Hollywood style, before I started composing the album.
As ever, the new album is lush, deeply emotional and extremely poignant. Do you have a favourite track and what was the inspiration behind it?
I must admit it’s very hard to choose just one because there are elements on each of the tracks I love but if I had to pick just one. I think my favourite track on this album would have to be THREADS. This was the first track I composed for the album and it kind of set the tone and concept for the rest of the tracks. I love the simplicity and how it builds very organically, increasing in emotion and energy. Giving space in the piano chords and string arrangement to hear the subtle intricacies of the underlying background sounds, while the solo violin weaves in and out of those spaces. I imagined epic, vast sweeping aerial shots over frozen forests tundras.
I Also wanted the tracks to be very useful to editors. Giving them the space in the music for dialogue, SFX etc.
How did you begin writing this album? Does it start with individual melodies that you develop over time? Or an over-arching concept that leads to the genesis of the tracks?
For this album I didn’t want to go over old ground that I feel I’ve covered in the previous three albums. I procrastinated for a long time over the concept and style for this fourth album before I started writing a single note of music.
The first album was composed completely free of any restraints and I just wanted to create beautiful, emotional piano and string music, that hopefully was useful to editors but would be enjoyable as a stand alone album to listen to and enjoy. I adopted this thought pattern for the third album too and wrote it with pure melodic and emotional content over anything else.
The second album ‘Look To The Stars’ I see it as the big brother to the first album as I made the tracks much bigger and bolder making use of more percussion, synths and brass to create a much larger production sound but still keeping the melodic content of the first album.
This fourth album I wanted to be different. I wanted it to have space to breathe and build but still have lots of emotional content. I’ve also always loved the sound of the solo violin and wanted to somehow feature that in every track. As I started writing the album and using spacious piano and string arrangements I noticed I could write intricate violin lines that could be weaved in and out of these chords to add to the emotional melodic essence of the album. I also wanted each track to have a slow burn building quality to them, that continues rising into an overwhelming climax.
The other minor concept I had was to give limitations on all the track titles to be a single word. Which after composing lots of music over the years wasn’t easy. I have no clue why I gave myself this restriction, it just felt right for this album.
On the technical side, were there any go-to instruments (real or otherwise) or production tools that really helped define the album’s sound? And what did the live strings recordings bring to the table?
Like on the previous album I really took time to get the sound palette right. That included finding the right piano sounds, layering them up and adding delays and other space enhancing FX, to create a unique and solidifying sound set.
I also had the opportunity to meet Christoph Allerstorfer in London who would be the conductor for the string section, prior to the string recording in Vienna to have an in depth conversation about the concept and sound of the album. I talked about how I wanted to hear the imperfections and it to almost have a frozen tundra sound to the strings.
When it came to the recording Christoph had the players perform the scores in three different techniques on each different take. A normal straight playing take, another espressivo take and finally a con sordino take.
When these were mixed together they gave a very lush rich yet organic and unique sound.
I also asked Joni Fuller the solo violinist to record extra passes of atmospheric and textural, atonal drone like phrases using harmonic techniques to add unique characteristics to certain tracks.
Finally, after a long and fruitful career in music, is there any advice you would give to composers just starting out?
It may seem very simple and obvious but the main advice would be to work as hard as you can and not to give up on your dream.
The only definite way to fail or not make your dream a reality is to give up and quit.
You maybe a month, a week, a day from finally realising your ambitions as a full time composer. Always try to get better at your craft, learn and strive to improve.
Stream the album in full now:
Spotify: https://buff.ly/49DiMEK
Apple Music: https://buff.ly/49EFk7R
Amazon Music: https://buff.ly/3T3f81r
Deezer: https://buff.ly/49gXDjZ
Tidal: https://buff.ly/49iyBRb
