The chords are very simple. It’s really meant to be music of the common people. It’s not sophisticated. It’s not clever. It’s just you know, simple music and triadic harmony. It’s the music that the people in the forest listen to.
Samuel Pegg, composer “Hood” audio drama by Spiteful Puppet
Join Samuel Pegg, acclaimed composer for audio drama Hood in a cinematic soundtrack to a reimagined Robin Hood story. An immersive listening experience. Headphones recommended.
TRANSCRIPT
INTRO
The piece of music we’re listening to in the background is called A Chance To Be Free. It’s one of the themes for the audio drama soundtrack from Hood: Noble Secrets, and the whole series by Spiteful Puppet. Today, we’ll break it down and get into why and how it was made. You’re listening to How I Make Music, where audio drama composers gets to tell their own stories. In this show, we break apart the music of fictional podcasts and take a trip into how it was made. My name is Samuel Pegg. I’m a composer from London, United Kingdom. And this is How I Make Music. Welcome back to How I Make Music, A Chance To Be Free from the audio drama Hood by me Samuel Pegg. Thanks for listening in. Hood was the first audio drama that Spiteful Puppet had ever put together. So we were all learning really what to do. But at the same time, we didn’t have any conceptions of how to do it. So maybe that was a good thing. And it’s a story of while Robin Hood, but in a way that you’re probably not used to hearing it. Robin Hood is not the character you expect him to be. There are quite a lot of twists along the way.
2:06 ABBEY ROAD
In London, there are just a plethora, you know, there’s just a huge pool of fantastic musicians, and especially at the moment, there isn’t a huge amount of work going on. So people are keen to come and record. I’m sort of classically trained, you know, playing in orchestras. But really, most of my training actually came through working with live musicians in the feature film world recording scores, the top studios in London and abroad. Next week, I’m going to go to Abbey Road to record something for an album I’ve written, got a string orchestra, and we’ve got some interesting baroque instruments as well, which will be quite fun. Oboe da caccia and oboe d’amore. They’re both period instruments from I guess, the baroque period of music, so they’re very old-sounding instruments. Here’s a snippet of how it sounds. Yeah, it should be really fun day.
03:22 DREAMING OF ANOTHER LIFE
This piece, a chance to be three plays between a poignant dialogue between Little John and Will Scarlett. John is dreaming of a different life – an alternative life – and Will is unsure, you know, maybe we need to play it safe and keep doing what we’re doing. There are three sections to the cue. But the major shift is when they decide they want to take as they put it “one last roll of the dice”. And they’re going to pursue a rather daring and sort of risky plan, with the aim that they might get a royal pardon and finally have a chance to live a free life with their families rather than being outlaws. Little John is really looking for this alternative life where he can be with his family. He could be dying.
04:54 SOLO CELLO
So the cue needed the emotional heart, but all honesty to it as well. It’s hard to beat a solo cello. Gives it a sort of sense of gravitas. My friend, Lily Thornton just gave an absolutely beautiful performance here. Redemptive type theme. I suppose it’s them just dreaming of another life. And then when there’s a shift in the narrative, we bring guitars, drums and energy. Because the decision has been made that they are going to pursue this risky course of action. It’s easy to write music when you have fantastic performances and an expertly written script.
06:17 FELT PIANO
A felt piano does sound a little bit different to a typical concert grand. It’s basically any piano where you put a layer of felt between the strings and the hammers. Here’s how it sounds. It gives you a level of intimacy you wouldn’t normally get. It’s almost got a ballad sound. The chords are very simple. It’s really meant to be music of the common people. It’s not sophisticated. It’s not clever. It’s just you know, simple music and triadic harmony. It’s the music that the people in the forest listen to.
07:13 PROPANE CANS
These are some cheap propane cans, I think or some paint cans or something like that, that. Yeah, they just, they sound great. And we got two colors, one played with brushes, one played with fingers and then panned left and right.
07:48 OUTRO
That’s about it for this week’s episode. We’ll listen to the full composition in just a moment. But before we do that, thank you for listening to How I Make Music. catch new episodes on Spotify, apple, or wherever else. We’ve been listening to music featured in the audio drama called Hood by Spiteful Puppet. To hear the full story or check out my other work, follow the links in the show notes. We video recorded the making of this episode. Check it out and support the musicians of audio drama by becoming a patron at patreon.com/howimakemusic. Top tier patrons get mentioned right here in the credits of every episode. How I Make Music is created by John Bartmann. For audio experiences that keep people listening, contact John Bartmann via the show notes. And now here’s A Chance To Be Free, a gentle and dreamy piece written for the audio drama Hood in its entirety. My name is Samuel Pegg, and thanks for listening to How I Make Music. Catch you next time.
SHOW NOTES
Samuel Pegg www.samuelpegg.com/
To listen to “Hood”, visit Spiteful Puppet Podcast Network
Katharina Spreckelsen РExcerpt from Wie sch̦n leuchtet der Morgenstern by J.S. Bach performed on oboe da Cacchia
ABOUT THIS SHOW
How I Make Music is where audio drama composers get to tell their own stories. In a dramatically edited sound experience, we challenge composers to break apart a song, soundtrack or composition and get into why and how it was made.
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How I Make Music is created by John Bartmann. For audio experiences that keep people listening, visit johnbartmann.com