David Lowe
David Lowe introduced his fellow musicians Julia Palmer-Price (Cello) and Vo Fletcher (Guitar) whom he’d asked to accompany him in giving a different sort of presentation about creating music for TV. David manned his laptops and keyboard, he said they hadn’t done this before but wanted to try and demonstrate the working process rather than just talking about it.
As a trailer for what was to come, we were treated to a compilation on screen of some examples of David’s work to date. This included: BBC News, The One Show, Grand Designs, Fifth Gear, BBC Earth, Fossil Detectives, Countryfile, Panorama, Hardtalk and Ray Mears’ World of Survival. In addition, we saw a clip from a 1998 Top of the Pops show playing David’s Top 3 UK hit ‘Would you…?’ We also saw how this memorable tune went on to be used in adverts e.g. Carlsberg and for shows like Burn the Floor where the lyric became ‘Would you like to dance with me?’ It was an impressive overview of David’s prolific output which got the evening off to a great start and naturally drew appreciative applause from our packed audience.
David explained that he had been writing music for 20 years, starting his career on home ground at Birmingham’s Pebble Mill in the Local Radio Dept when he left school. He became interested in sound mixing and editing and his next job was sound recordist for a film company, also at Pebble Mill. Whilst he was doing this he started writing music as a hobby, he was then asked to write the music for Midlands Today and for other bits and pieces, ultimately deciding to write full time.
In 1993 he was commissioned to provide music for a British Airways ad. This came about because a friend had played David’s showreel to the Saatchi and Saatchi executive who was producing the ad. The memorable and well known ‘ethnic world mix’ that resulted changed everything for David and his career writing music for commercials and TV Shows began to take off. In ‘99 he was short listed, with 5 others, to write the music for the BBC News. Martin Lambie Nairn who was responsible for the BBC brand asked for initial ideas. David felt that he hadn’t produced his best but was nonetheless called to a meeting with Martin where the brief was provided in more detail. Although little time was allowed, the request was for a new style that moved away from the traditional formula. What was required needed to be instantly recognisable so that anyone on the planet would know that they were listening to the BBC.
David described Martin’s inspirational approach; he had redesigned the BBC logo to be simple, direct and less expensive to reproduce than its predecessor and wanted music in the same vein. As an example, he played the music from a French TV Channel which featured drums and went on to request a dance track feel, adding that when you heard the pips on Radio 4 you knew immediately what you were hearing.
The finished piece, which David played us a layer at a time (again to rapturous applause), had all these elements; pips at 120bpm – the signature tempo of time, drums, dance beat, hi hat, ethnic sounding bass line plus minor and major string chords that established the BBC ‘air of authority’. Needless to say it was a hit with the powers that be and David described the moment after he had played it to them as being ‘like scoring the winning goal for England in the World Cup!’ All the subsequent revamps have evolved from that original version, with more strings and electronic effects added in 2003.
With signature tunes, incidental music and commercials, picture editors cut to the music which may then be tweaked again before a final version results. Documentaries sometimes require a library or batch of music pieces to be written before or during the edit of the visuals. David regards dramas as the best thing to work on, writing to the pictures and finding this most rewarding and exciting when it’s seen what a difference the music makes to the visuals. We saw an example from a poetry series featuring a Byron poem dramatised in a modern and cool way. The pace was initially not quick enough to hold viewer attention. David described how he picked up on the tempo of the bare visuals which made him start to think about the rhythm that already existed. Although the editor was not working to music, there was a definite rhythm and everything started to fit into place. We then saw the finished piece which worked so seamlessly that it was difficult to know whether music or pictures came first.
David then showed us what he’d been working on earlier this year, a drama featuring Pauline Quirke. It was commissioned for daytime broadcast on BBC1 with very little budget but requiring several ‘classy’ music beds. We saw a couple of clips without music where it was needed to reinforce the tension of the scene. David had to provide music to cover 5 episodes and had only 2 weeks to do it all. Each episode contained 20 minutes of music but there wasn’t sufficient budget to employ several musicians. David’s approach is to compose freehand; he doesn’t score and arrange each commission. He said that strings and piano are quite popular with BBC drama so he knew what would work but found that the hardest thing was coming up with a theme.
He played us a few different versions to demonstrate how he developed the ‘motif’ sound that could be used later in the programme to remind you what it was and remain consistent. David spoke of his belief that you can capture an emotion with music and find something that ignites peoples’ hearts. He showed us his favourite scene where the main character evidently has hidden secrets but is loathe to reveal them. The scene required emotive music that would show the character actually had a kind heart. Without music, the scene lacked tension; David wrote the music freehand to fit the scene in much the same way as composing music for a silent movie. He demonstrated this approach playing us the finished piece with assistance from his fellow musicians, emphasising the value of an understated score that nonetheless plays on the emotions without being too dominant.
David was also commissioned to write the music for the TV Series Fossil Detectives and worked on this last year with the BBC Singers. The Director briefed David by playing some examples of Vivaldi with strings and choir. David’s demos didn’t quite hit the idea first time around, the second version that he played us was closer to the action packed, adventure, thrills and spills requirement of the brief (about searching for Fossils!). David honed this version down, adding choir samples and the Director signed off. This enabled David to go ahead and book the BBC Singers for the final recording session and allowed him to develop the piece with real sounds, the addition of a few actual instruments helps to convince the viewer that the music has actually been played rather than simulated.
Next, an arranger helped him find Latin words for fossils and these formed the vocal parts for the BBC Singers to record, David played us these from his keyboard explaining how he had chopped them up to form samples that he could build into the final score. We heard this in all its grandeur, beginning with African drums and with David, Julia and Vo joining in to play us the whole dramatic theme.
David next gave us an overview of how he updated the Panorama theme. The brief was to move away from the original style yet retain the recognisable and iconic theme. The mark or badge of the programme needed to be maintained whilst modernising the series, so the music also had to be renewed to make it sound current. Working with someone else, he initially came up with a ‘Rave’ version that wasn’t quite right. The solution he then came up with was to work with acoustic sounds which we heard layer by layer as David’s musicians played along. It took 2 days to record with musicians brought in to provide the different elements. David often works with musicians like Julia and Vo who can play along freehand, since he doesn’t notate his ideas, he prefers them to listen and play along. This collaborative way or working allows them to come up with ideas in the session. We heard the end result, played with the programme’s intro visuals, understanding how this process contributed to a perfect realisation of the brief.
For the BBC World Service (Radio), David explained that this was different from writing music for TV. It needs more variation that allows a greater flexibility of use.
David pitched a 3 note theme that was more business like and to the point than its predecessor which we’d previously heard. We next heard the new short version plus the subsequent versions used for inclusion in other parts of the programme and for different times of the year. Hearing the inclusion of the announcers’ voices, we understood how the headline bed made space for them to speak – in dips and troughs that lasted for perhaps 5 seconds. David finds this interesting work and is still developing new versions.
He produces other work like this for other programmes, an example being for an Arts Show for which a jazz trio soundtrack was required. David created a rough version using samples for sign off before recording actual jazz musicians in the studio. Again, to demonstrate, David’s musicians played along for our entertainment.
Hearing all these examples, it was apparent how the music makes such a
difference to visual excerpts, with music beds under voices reinforcing the message. ‘Incidental’ variations on themes are often required, to be used in a variety of ways within a programme. David played us more clips with and without music, indicating the different purposes, sustained for a ‘hold’ with less pace to resolve an item or to cover a whole news item as a longer full version for 3 minutes. This was for News 24 as a device at the end of the hour making it possible to get back to the top of the hour. With a minimum duration of 1.5 minutes, every chord was played alongside a time ‘pip’ building in intensity from 30 seconds onwards. Gathering pace towards the end, the note with chords underneath established one message throughout but allowed things to change around it. David cited the Countdown theme as an example of incidental music which has nevertheless become iconic, so much so that remixes have been made available on YouTube.
After an absorbing Question an Answer session, when many of our audience took the opportunity to quiz David for more stories and tips, he and his colleagues prepared to give us a rousing rendition of the 1998 Touch & Go hit ‘Would you…?’ This started life as a dance track for a mini record label, originally intended to be a reworking of the well known ‘Tequila’ theme, at first it didn’t quite fit the bill so it was then revamped, the concept being as the ultimate ‘chat up’ song for noisy nightclubs. David remembered a vocal from some previous work, grabbed it from an old VHS, stripped the track right back to drums, added piano and trumpet and the rest, as they say, is History.
What a finale and what a night, we ran out of time but we’d been thoroughly entertained and engaged by David and his colleagues. Much applause gave the message, we hope, to David that he will always be very welcome to return to our stage whenever he wishes. We thank him and his fellow musicians for their efforts.
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