Composing : What’s the Most Emotional Cue You’ve Ever Written? by Kat Spencer

I wrote about my husbands heart attack at home.... our children saw everything. Pretty much wrote the entire screenplay with a box of tissues by my side. As painful as it was to write, it was surprisingly an equal release. What was yours?

I sadly can’t mention it without spoilers… but let’s just say that when I realised I can’t not write it when I heavily foreshadowed it subconsciously…

Oh boy....Lauren Hackney! That's so scary. Umm....all of my music is emotional, so it would be very hard for me to nail that down. But probably my instrumental, July. It really brings up the emotions I felt when I had to say goodbye to my beloved kitty. He was my everything.

Hi, Kat Spencer. I can't think of any scene in particular, but I do remember getting emotional when I wrote some scenes in the past. Sad, happy, etc.

Kat Spencer I'm so sorry you lost your beloved kitty - animals connect with us in a way humans don't. I bet you were the best kitty-mum to your beloved feline!

Thank you Lauren Hackney I appreciate that. He was my baby boy when I was a teenager, and probably my best friend during that "wonderful" time in life haha. Animals really do. They need to have longer lives :) Especially now that time flies faster than ever!

Here’s a personal one. I was asked to do a demo for the Scarbee rhodes library a some years ago. I only had a few days to come up with something. I remember it being a Friday afternoon and I was recording some stuff and my son was playing guitar on the session. He started complaining of chest pains. We stopped the session and my wife and I took him to the ER. We stayed there maybe 36 hours. They had him hooked up to a monitor and I watched his heartbeat the whole time like I was lookin’ for flams against a snare track. Totally focused for hours. I look over at my wife and she’s asleep in chair in the corner. She’s had heart surgery before. We finally get home late Saturday and everyone is fine, but I’m spent emotionally and physically and the demo is due Sunday. Here it is:

My Broken Hearts.

https://www.stage32.com/media/3822242197474912536?ref=search&autoplay=1

Sorry to hear your son and your wife went through that, Linwood Bell. I'm glad everyone is fine! I just listened to My Broken Hearts. It's incredible and moving!

Maurice Vaughan Sometimes real life comes knockin’.

Oh wow Linwood Bell! I'm glad everyone is ok!!

Kat Spencer Thanks. Everyone is fine and lived happily ever after. I remember when I was taking lessons from Dave Blumberg, one week I turned in a piece that I thought was pretty good and I was proud of it. He looks at the score and listens to the audio of it. He says to me, “ It sounds really good. The orchestration is nice and all the notes are correct, BUT it sounds like something anyone could do. Sounds like anyone who graduated from “XYZ” Music school could have done this. I’m not hearing “you”. I need to hear you in what you write. I need to know it’s you.” What he was giving me wasn’t criticism. It was advice; a reminder to go inside and use your life experiences to tell your story. Play what you’ve lived. Be you. Connect.

My Broken Hearts is a moving, melodic masterpiece, Linwood. Thanks for sharing your story and talents.

Allen Lynch Thank you for the kind words. That's a nice sample to play. Thomas' stuff always feels so good under the fingers. All the rhodes libs he did are great and I use his bass samples all the time. He's got a new one coming out soon that I'm sure I'll buy. I've got a real rhodes here in my room that I play every day. I rebuilt it during covid and put in a preamp from Tines and Reeds in it. Super nice...