Christopher Young and my OASYS !
Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2011 8:36 pm
I have a hunch I'm going to make Mike Conway very jealous -
I've just completed a 3-day filmscoring master class with Hollywood Composer Christopher Young.
As some of you might know, Ireland runs an outstanding part-time film scoring programme including doing the UCLA Extension Film Scoring Programme over a two year period part time; as well as offering master classes / seminars.
To date I've had the profound honour to have been trained by the following Hollywood Composers and Orchestrators:
Don Ray
Bob Drasnin
Conrad Pope
Bill Ross
Craig Garfinkle
Fiachra Trench
and now - Christopher Young. For this course, on writing / developing melody, Chris took 19 of us and gave us his undivided attention for three full days.
My OASYS was used for the course. We fed it through a pair of Genelec 1031A's and it was used exclusively as a piano.
The general consensus from everyone - including me by the way - is that it sounded stunning. I mean - I was beside myself with pride - EXs2 sounded rich, deep, full and pianistic - very natural - (we all has to write a piano cue for the final day). Everyone on the course was very impressed with the OASYS - including its RH2 action which was commented on - and when I told them of Kronos at half the price and with even better pianos they were genuinely impressed.
The tuition given by Christopher Young was outstanding - inspiring and hugely informative and insightful. He has just finished the film the The Rum Diary and had duties to do with that till last Thursday; and arrived in Ireland on Friday morning. Yet, he immediately came to class and taught us for that day. He had in advance asked that we compile a CD of our music and over the three days at any spare moment - during lunch, before class on Saturday and Sunday and on each of the three evenings - he met with each and every one of us individually for 30 minutes (and was extremely thorough, helpful and complimentary to my music which is a huge, practical help I can tell you). I've never witnessed such genorousity of spirit and such deep and helpful insight from any mentor, ever before. All of the class feel the same way.
And - I can vouch for RH2 being a very robust keybed - on the first today he got some of us to do an improvisation to a murder scene - using the OASYS piano as a kind of gestural / percussive instrument. About 8 of the class had a go - and it entailed each student hammering out a gestural improvised cue on piano to create massive tension and fear during the scene. Well I can tell you - those doing it did not hold back. I genuinely thought I'd have to buy a new keybed - I resigned myself to it - one girl hit the keyboard so hard that it hung the OASYS which bellowed a continuous high-pitched screech from the Genelec's. Everyone thought she had snapped a key or cracked some sort of underling electronic sensor - but a simple reboot was all that was needed - while I have inspected the keyboard today and it shows absolutely no signs of wear and tear!.
Just felt the need to share this with my beloved OASYS community. I now know the OASYS can take a pounding and survive (could have been a enpensive weekend otherwise!!)
Best regards,
(a still floating on air) OASYS owner,
Kevin.
I've just completed a 3-day filmscoring master class with Hollywood Composer Christopher Young.
As some of you might know, Ireland runs an outstanding part-time film scoring programme including doing the UCLA Extension Film Scoring Programme over a two year period part time; as well as offering master classes / seminars.
To date I've had the profound honour to have been trained by the following Hollywood Composers and Orchestrators:
Don Ray
Bob Drasnin
Conrad Pope
Bill Ross
Craig Garfinkle
Fiachra Trench
and now - Christopher Young. For this course, on writing / developing melody, Chris took 19 of us and gave us his undivided attention for three full days.
My OASYS was used for the course. We fed it through a pair of Genelec 1031A's and it was used exclusively as a piano.
The general consensus from everyone - including me by the way - is that it sounded stunning. I mean - I was beside myself with pride - EXs2 sounded rich, deep, full and pianistic - very natural - (we all has to write a piano cue for the final day). Everyone on the course was very impressed with the OASYS - including its RH2 action which was commented on - and when I told them of Kronos at half the price and with even better pianos they were genuinely impressed.
The tuition given by Christopher Young was outstanding - inspiring and hugely informative and insightful. He has just finished the film the The Rum Diary and had duties to do with that till last Thursday; and arrived in Ireland on Friday morning. Yet, he immediately came to class and taught us for that day. He had in advance asked that we compile a CD of our music and over the three days at any spare moment - during lunch, before class on Saturday and Sunday and on each of the three evenings - he met with each and every one of us individually for 30 minutes (and was extremely thorough, helpful and complimentary to my music which is a huge, practical help I can tell you). I've never witnessed such genorousity of spirit and such deep and helpful insight from any mentor, ever before. All of the class feel the same way.
And - I can vouch for RH2 being a very robust keybed - on the first today he got some of us to do an improvisation to a murder scene - using the OASYS piano as a kind of gestural / percussive instrument. About 8 of the class had a go - and it entailed each student hammering out a gestural improvised cue on piano to create massive tension and fear during the scene. Well I can tell you - those doing it did not hold back. I genuinely thought I'd have to buy a new keybed - I resigned myself to it - one girl hit the keyboard so hard that it hung the OASYS which bellowed a continuous high-pitched screech from the Genelec's. Everyone thought she had snapped a key or cracked some sort of underling electronic sensor - but a simple reboot was all that was needed - while I have inspected the keyboard today and it shows absolutely no signs of wear and tear!.
Just felt the need to share this with my beloved OASYS community. I now know the OASYS can take a pounding and survive (could have been a enpensive weekend otherwise!!)
Best regards,
(a still floating on air) OASYS owner,
Kevin.
