Dan McCaughern Blog

I’ve just finished another piece for an animation which is called “Migration.” (Hopefully on the website soon.)

The thing is, I can hardly remember composing it!

I remember starting it, and playing a kind of gentle waltz on the piano, then I went back to it and found that I had almost finished it, orchestrated and all!!

I wish all composition was that easy! I tweaked it a bit and mixed it and that was that.

Sometimes someone gives me something to work on and I get very inspired straight away. =Dangerous!! Right-brain working overtime and probably in need of some left brain editting. I have instantly “composed” before and then realised that Frank Zappa or Dimitri Tiomkin has (rather selfishly,) written the damn tune first!

I’m not the only one this happens to (Danny Elfman’s Batman music sounds perculiarly like some of the incidental music to “The Wolfman”  with Lon Chaney Jnr, but I bet Danny didn’t realise it when he wrote his theme! I’m not bitching Danny Elfman is great!) -but it’s a sod when it happens, because I get carried away and think “…oh great, I’ll have trombones doing the theme there and some quick woodwind -hang on a minute this sounds a bit like -Oh…*%$%^%$*@”

But as they say *%$%^%$*@ happens!”