As you know, last year, I scored a soundtrack for a movie called Mistaken Moves written and directed by Jimmy Cullors. There was a delay starting the editing because the editor was in a car wreck and seriously injured. Jimmy asked me to be on the company’s Board of Directors so I am looking forward to our first Zoom Board soon. My specialty will be the music part of the business and also I have several scripts ready to shoot.
I joined a website called Broadjam. On this site, they list people who are looking for music and for about $20 a month I get to send pitches to about eight of the listings. In the first month, I got one bite and a contract offer from Munchkin Music to pitch my music called The Gypsy Tango to film and video sources wanting to pay for sync licensing for my music. Hopefully, this will be the path to monetize my efforts at composing original music.
We finished shooting a film intended for a YouTube series called Across Bank Street. I played the part of the grim reaper in the film. I went to visit the Director Nancy Hanks this week and looked at the footage. I was surprised at how good the shooting of my scenes appeared. Nancy and I started working on the music. We would come to a section, decide to input music, discuss the mood, the instrumentation, the tempo, and similar pieces of music and then I would write a short melody and bass line with my laptop and Finale 27. Then, I would take the laptop home and fill in the two minutes or so of music for the section. The agreement we have is that I would keep the rights to the song and be able to use the music with other projects.
I finished recording 10 songs for a bilingual Spanish/English music CD that I wrote. The sound engineer, Dan Lewis, that I have been working with for years has a computer system that just died. We decided we had enough songs (10) to release a music CD and I’m just waiting for the artist (from Venezuela) named Reinaldo Gil Zambrano who teaches art at Eastern Washington University to provide the artwork for the cover. I’m trying to think of a bilingual title to fit the roster of songs, some of which are romantic, some light easy listening Latin jazz and some of which are Mexican polkas and humorous songs based on my experiences in Mexico and Chile and the US connected with Spanish speaking groups.
I have been producing a show featuring Cecilia Curtis singing songs made famous by Mildred Bailey a hundred years ago for the Coeur d’Alene Tribal Casino, for the last three years. We have a show coming up in Worley on September 12th. I transcribed the music for 15 songs and now I’m just producing the show, getting the band together, not performing.
I received an email from Steven Friel, jazz professor at Eastern Washington University who says the Wataino music concert has been postponed again to the winter quarter of 2023.
I had a new experience the other night modeling for a sculpting class by Cheryl Metcalf. The project was to sculpt my head from the neck up. I liked the results so well that I bought a permanent version.
I have been interviewed for two Podcasts recently. I am posting one of the podcasts by John P. MaGuirk on my website blog dated 9/5/2021. It is an hour long interview featuring me talking about my music projects and telling funny stories about my work as a composer. Please enjoy it.
Yours,
Gary A. Edwards