Working with Composer Jo Paterson at the National Film and Television School

Hello Everyone!

So, my friend Jo and I have known each other a very long time now. We’ve been friends since we were 12 years old and always enjoyed exploring different genres of music and “attempting” to play them on our instruments. At school, one of our favourites was Sayuri’s Theme from Memoirs of a Geisha and we learned how to play it by ear, listening to the beautiful recordings of Yo Yo Ma and John Williams (Sayuri’s Theme). I think this period in our lives helped develop our own individual sense of musicality as it allowed us an opportunity to fully explore different sounds and textures and create something new and exciting. Improvising around some of Jo’s Tracks *CLICK TO LISTEN*

Jo is a beautiful pianist and composer and has done some amazing things during her Masters at NFTS, now working at Spitfire Music Studios in London, and I thought i’d use this blog entry to share some of the projects we have been working on.

The first project was for a Documentary and is entitled “Echoes”:

https://soundcloud.com/jopaterson/echoes

Jo and I were currently living in different parts of the UK when we recorded this, I was in Wales and she was in London. Therefore, I used my Zoom recorder and sat in my flat in rainy Cardiff and improvised around a poem she sent me as part of the brief. It was a really enriching experience to play on this track as the brief contained a lot of emotional experiences from the director and the project meant a lot to her. The nice part about doing this kind of work with Jo is that I was “free” to explore different sounds and effects and Jo had the fun job of layering and editing some 20 plus tracks I sent her to create this beautiful piece of music. It is interesting, listening back on it now as at the time I was working on the Kodaly Sonata for Solo Cello, Fratres by Arvo Part. You can hear some inspiration from these two pieces throughout, exploring the boundaries of my instrument, the dissonance in some of the textural effects and whilst trying to create real emotion and voice throughout.

If you like this recording feel free to listen to more of Jo’s tracks on Soundcloud and check out her website: http://www.jopaterson.com

More recently, we recorded the soundtrack for a short animation film, as part of Jo’s final project at NFTS, entitled “Moth“. Studio Recording Photo