Composer Balamurali Balu On Creative Process
Balamurali Balu: Hey, I'm Bala. I'm a music producer. I primarily work on film scores and also on pop, rock, and hip-hop productions.
Althea Billings: Very cool. Well, you're hosting a series of music workshops at Las Adelitas starting on October 17th about music production. What will these music workshops look like?
BB: When I do these kind of workshops, the first thing that excites me is it makes me to come out of my studio and interact with the humans and see the sky. And another fascinating thing about this workshop is I'm not going to talk to the musicians, which is what I usually do, right, on a day-to-day basis. This time I'm going to interact with the general public who are interested in music production and want to take their first step towards the process.
So the residents of Las Adelitas, I want to meet them and I want to listen to their stories.In fact, there were like two other workshops that were done, one related to storytelling and another related to painting. I would love to get some inspiration from the stories, what they have told during the storytelling workshop and also the paintings they have done, which was inspired from their personal lives. So I want to see how I can convert this into a sonic art form.It could be a song or it could be a narration with a background score. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with respect to the output, but it's going to be exciting. That's what I'm very sure about.
AB: And it's kind of for folks of all levels of familiarity with what you do, right?
BB: Exactly, exactly. I said that the only requirement to attend this workshop is curiosity. So that's all they need.
AB: Nice. Let's talk about you a little bit. How did you first get into producing music?
BB: Yeah, it happened as a happy accident, like some 15 years ago when I was in a drummer for a punk rock band.
And then the band got dissolved because one of the singer's girlfriend didn't like us and then she didn't give us the basement. So I couldn't take the drum set to my house because I was living in a small cramped one bedroom apartment. So I traded in my drums for a keyboard from the band and then I got that into my house.
I had a small iMac those days, which happened to have this software called GarageBand. I hooked up my keyboard to that GarageBand. This was like in 2009, 2010, around that time. And I started producing my first song ever since there was no turn back. And then I upgraded to Logic Pro Home Studio Setup. Invested a lot of thousands of dollars, but I'm happy with whatever I have right now so far.
AB: And you do a lot of different types of production. You mentioned film scores, but also a bunch of different genres. Is there a different approach to those different types of things?
BB: Right. Definitely. So when I was producing these songs, when I started as a producer, I got interested in scoring for short films. So that's how I got into the film scores. And then I realized it comes with a lot of knowledge base that needs to be acquired before pursuing that any further. So I joined Berklee College of Music and then pursued film scoring, orchestral composing and everything. And then I came back to the short film industry, started scoring for short films. And then eventually I got into feature films.
By God's grace, I have composed music for a dozen of feature films so far. And while working with film scoring, it's a completely different sonic spectrum that we need to fill in when compared to hip hop or pop or rock. The choice of instrumentations, the template, what we have in the DAW to come up with the ideas, everything is different. So it's more like two personality in one. And when I'm working on a song, I wear a completely different hat. And then film scoring is like a completely different genre for me.
AB: I would imagine film scoring is much more focused on mood, right?
BB: Exactly. We basically need to understand what the director has in his mind. Sometimes the music can be one additional character that is not there on the screen. There could be two persons talking, but it needs the third character to say what the scene is about. And that could be the music sometimes.Yeah.
AB: So in that case, if someone brings you a short film that they want you to score, what is your process?
BB: You watch it through, no music. You make notes where you feel that maybe tension should build or there should be a release.
AB: And how do you map those things out? That's interesting.
BB: So the first thing is like, if possible, I will first read the script before even watching the film.
Because the script will tell exactly what the director or the writer had in mind. Sometimes that might not have been conveyed on the screen because of the budget constraints or the actors. They couldn't extract the essence from the actors.
A lot of other things could go wrong during the film shoot. So I usually try to read the script first and then see the first cut edit to see how much of the script has been translated on screen. And then I sit with the director and say that this is what I think and this is what we need to work on. And then he will have some inputs and sometimes the director will come with a temp score or the editors while editing it.
They find it useful to have a temp score to convince the director or else the director will ask for more revisions.
So they always try to come up with some temp scores to get like the first good impression from the director. And then it will make their job easier. But sometimes it makes the composer's job tough, right? Because the director would have watched the film with the temp score 20 to 30 times.
Now when I try to compose something new, he will be like completely thrown away. So those things I need to be mindful about. Sometimes the director will mute the temp score when they give it to me. So I always, I will make sure, was there a temp score? If so, can I get a copy of that? I want to see what it is and how we can deviate from that or how much can we stick to that? All these things, I want to talk to the director first before working on something or else it will make my life miserable.
AB: Well, it sounds, I mean, a very collaborative type of work. How do you sort of approach that, especially because sometimes those tight collaborations when there's like a product at hand can be tense if you have a different vision?
BB: That's true. That's very, very true.The first thing is to make friends with the director and the editor.
If you're good friends, then your job becomes easier. So it's, it's the creative process will always come with this double edged sword called creative differences, right?
There could be creative friendships and creative differences will also happen. So, so, so, so at the end of the day, it's all about trying something new and then showing them even before thinking that they might reject. I will probably, I'll, I'll say that, okay, hey, today I'm going to try something out, a new sonic spectrum for this scene. If it doesn't work out, it's okay. I'll save that in my song bank or theme bank. I could use it for some other score or some other movie, right? Because when I go in that path, I always discover new sounds, which I could say that it's mine, right? So I always try to do something like that first. And if it doesn't get approved, I will use it in some other movie and then follow the temp score for this one.
AB: I'm curious, has there ever been, I don't know, a motif or something that you've held on to for a long time that,
that hasn't gotten used or you've been waiting for the right moment to?
BB: A lot. Yeah. A lot. I have a lot of those cues in my hard drive, which has been accumulating and collecting dust for a very long time. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Sometimes I even forget that that was done. And so whenever I feel very sad or depressed, I'll just open up my hard drive and see 2021 song number three, 2019 song number one. I will use, I will listen to those things and probably I'll get inspired by that and compose something new as well.
AB: Who do you envision as the folks that should come?
BB: Uh, like I said, I don't want to have any restrictions on the audience. I want everyone to participate. I actually, in fact, I want more of the non-musicians who are curious about music to participate because in this workshop, I'm, um, going to cover some of the AI tools that can be used for music production. For that, all you need is, uh, curiosity and interest in doing something with music.
So, um, yeah, anybody who is, uh, interested could come. And if you're a musician, that's well and good. If you can play a guitar or you can sing, or even if you can write lyrics, um, it's going to be like a fun playground. Uh, I don't know, uh, the, uh, musicality of the, uh, people who have signed up so far. Uh, it's, I'm going to discover it on Friday. Based on what they bring on to the table, I'm going to decide what I'm going to teach them. I'm, I'm going with a very open mind to the workshop.
AB: What do you wish people knew about music production, composing the work that you're, you're doing regularly?
BB: Like, I would, I would talk about the film scoring, uh, when people watch a movie, there is a reason it's called a background score. Because it's in the background. Nobody notices it, um, except for big names like Hans or John Williams. Uh, nobody notices what's going behind the scenes. Um, I would love if they, um, uh, know about what, who did the work they like, which made their, that movie memorable for them. So, uh, I, it's, uh, it's a wish actually.
It's not a, it's not like I want them to do.
No, uh, it's a wish if they, if they, uh, like after, after the movie gets over, when the credits starts crawling, um, I would love for people to see the people standing and seeing the rolling credits instead of going outside the theater.It always, like, it's, uh, like, disheartens me when people leave, when my come, name comes, all right. So get curious about who scored the films that you like. Yeah, not only scoring, editing, photography, everything. Yeah.
AB: What do you hope folks walk away from this workshop with?
BB: I want them to walk away with a very personal music product. It could be a song or it could be a narration with a background score or it could be just an instrumental recording.
I want them to walk away with some form of audio, like an MP3 file, that they could say that, hey, I did this. So that's the goal.
AB: Do you have any final thoughts?
BB: Um, I'm, I'm, I'm very, very excited at the same time, a little nervous because I, I don't know who's, um, going to, um, come to this workshop. Uh, I think the first half an hour is, will be more about knowing what, uh, uh, music background they have.
And then I need to reverse engineering for the first half an hour to make sure that I go on the right path.
So, yeah, that's the final thought.
AB: That's very exciting. Thank you so much for coming in to talk to us about it.
BB: Thank you. Thank you so much.
AB: That was Balamurali Balu, the composer and music producer, heading up a series of music workshops with Heidi Duckler Dance Northwest. The first workshop is on Friday, October 17th at 5 p.m. at Las Adelitas in Portland's Cully neighborhood. That's at 6735 Northeast Killingsworth Street. More information is online at HeidiDucklerDanceNorthwest.org.