ジョナサン・ハミル - 東京録音スタジオ
東京交響楽団首席ホルン奏者
Engish version Jonathan Hammill - the Tokyo recording studios
東京在住のプロフェッショナルミュージシャンとしての醍醐味は、幅広いスタジオレコーディングの機会に巡り逢えることです。日本では、メジャー映画、ビデオゲームサウンドトラック、コマーシャル、ジングル、Jポップの大半は東京でレコーディングされます。日本が世界に誇れるもう一つのエンタテインメントのカタチ。それは「アニメ」と称されるアニメーション映画で、日本では大人気です。毎年製作されるアニメの数は、東京在住のミュージシャンに多くのレコーディング機会を与えてくれます。映画、テレビ特番、連続ドラマ、DVDシリーズ、子供のためのアニメ、大人のためのアニメ、ありとあらゆるアニメが製作されています。私は幸運にも2004年以降、子供に限らず世代を超えて大人気のアニメ、「ドラえもん」のファーストホルンを全て担当しています。作曲家沢田完氏による楽曲は楽しく、まるでハリウッド映画のような、壮大で、早くて激しく、荘厳華麗なホルンソロパートが散りばめられているところは大好きです。
大人向けアニメ「TIGER&BUNNY」や「神撃のバハムート」の音楽担当池頼広氏もまた素晴らしいスコアを書かれる作曲家です。ぬいぐるみのようなふわふわのタイトルとは裏腹に、「TIGER&BUNNY」の力強い楽曲に向かうには、相当な体力を要します。「神撃のバハムート」についてはとにかく吹きっぱなしで、ホルンのあらゆる可能性を追求されます。このアニメ2作品は圧倒的な人気でしたので、レコーディングはもちろんですが、それぞれについてコンサートを3度もやりました。大きなコンサートホールで開催されたコンサートは、完売でした。熱狂的なファンの皆さんは、大好きなアニメキャラクターのコスプレをして来場し、映画のクレジット等で私たちの名前をチェックしてくれたのでしょうか、終演後は楽屋口で、時折名指しで演奏家の私たちを目当てにサインを求めて来ます。
Andrew Bain - "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" and the LA recording studios
Kristina Mascher-Turner: The first question on everyone’s mind is, how long did it take you to recover from hosting #IHSLA2015?
Andrew Bain: I think I'm still recovering! It was such a wonderful week that I've been living off the memories for quite a while. Thank you to everyone who came to LA for the event.
KMT: In addition to your playing duties in the Los Angeles Philharmonic, you’ve been an active Hollywood studio musician. What are the most memorable movie soundtracks you’ve recorded?
AB: Well... Star Wars was AMAZING! I also really enjoyed the Good Dinosaur, Creed and Rwanda and Juliet which were recorded over the Summer. Other's that come to mind are Godzilla, Minions and Night at The Museum 3 which were all fun and terrific music.
KMT: You’ve recently played on the soundtrack to Star Wars: The Force Awakens. How does it feel to be involved with such a legendary project?
AB: It was honestly a dream come true to work with John Williams and play this incredible score. As horn players we grow up listening to John Williams' music and the Star Wars soundtracks. It was a thrill each day to go to the studio to record The Force Awakens. I still can't believe I was lucky enough to be involved.
KMT: How far in advance did the musicians receive the music?
AB: The recording took place over a number of months and many sessions so we received the music to each session 3-5 days prior to the recording date.
KMT: Start to finish, how long did it take to record the whole soundtrack? How many hours did you spend in each session?
AB: The whole project was from June to mid-November which is quite unusual for a film recording. I'm not sure of the exact number but I think we recorded over 20 and 30 sessions of 3 hours’ duration. Sessions were usually grouped in 2 per day and 2-3 days at a time.
Jonathan Hammill - the Tokyo recording studios
by Jonathan Hammill, Tokyo Symphony Principal Horn
One of the great parts about being a professional musician in Tokyo is the opportunity to do a wide variety of studio recordings. Most of the major movie and video game soundtracks, commercials, jingles, and J-pop recordings in Japan take place in Tokyo. There is another form of entertainment however that makes Japan unique to the rest of the world. It's no secret that the Japanese love their animation films (aka "anime"), and the amount of anime produced each year provides Tokyo studio musicians with an abundance of recording opportunities. Movies, TV specials, long running TV series, DVD series, anime for kids, anime for adults. You name it, they make it. Since 2004 I have been fortunate to play 1st horn on all of the movie soundtracks for the popular kids anime (which is also loved by many adults) "Doraemon". The best part about playing Doraemon is that the composer, Kan Sawada, writes very fun, dare I say "Hollywood-esque" horn parts. Fast, loud, all over the horn, very rhythmical, and peppered with lyrical horn solos.
Ike Yoshihiro writes fantastic scores for hit animation films geared toward the adult crowd, such as "Tiger and Bunny" and "Bahamut". Although the soft and furry title suggests otherwise, Tiger and Bunny is very demanding and requires some serious stamina. In fact, the Bahamut score is constantly on the face and tests the extreme registers of the horn. Recording these scores is one thing, but these two anime films were so popular that we even did 3 live concerts each for both. They were completely sold out in big arena-sized halls. These diehard fans not only come to the concerts in full costume of their favorite characters, but they even mob the musicians outside the stage door for autographs. Sometimes even knowing musicians by name (our names are in the movie credits).
Terry Johns - the original Star Wars and the London recording studios
This month, we have the pleasure of presenting a double-interview issue, inspired by the Star Wars mania taking over the world. Both our featured subjects have illustrious activities outside of their studio work, making it fascinating to see how they do it all. Terry Johns is a prolific writer as well as distinguished horn player - you will be amazed at all he has seen and done in his decades-long career in the UK. Australian-born Andrew Bain, the fearless co-host of our most recent symposium as well as principal horn in the LA Philharmonic, has just led the horn section in the latest Star Wars adventure. Read on and learn what it was like to be a part of it! (May the Force be with you, of course) :-) -KMT
Kristina Mascher-Turner: Terry, during your illustrious career at the heart of the London horn scene, you have played on numerous movie soundtracks. Which scores stand out for you?
Terry Johns: The sixties was an amazing decade for music in Britain. The Beatles conquered America in 1964 and every international conductor wanted to have a London Orchestra. Andre Previn came to the London Symphony Orchestra in 1968, he brought “classical” music to a vast new audience with his TV series “Andre Previn’s Music Night ” and many American film composers were coming to London to work in the studios at Denham and Shepperton. Though I didn’t know it at the time, I was very fortunate to have been a part of all this, having left the Royal Academy in 1965 and joined the Royal Philharmonic.
The first film sessions I was invited to were at Shepperton studios for “The Blue Max” – they began a few days before my 22nd birthday in April 1966 and it wasn’t solely because of the occasion that it stayed in my memory. I’ve listened to the sound track again recently. Jerry Goldsmith’s score is brilliant and the horn writing terrific. I think it’s one of the best things JG ever did, and I found out later that he thought so too. The music has been performed quite a bit in the concert hall I believe but the film is hardly ever seen on TV now. I’m sure I don’t know why. It’s a terrific film with a great cast – George Peppard, Ursula Andress and James Mason – and a powerful story about a German fighter pilot on the western front during world war one. For the record, the horns were Alan Civil, Jim Brown Jim Buck (jnr) and yours truly.
I do remember being amazed by the sound and the sight of the orchestra assembled for the film “Oliver” that was released in 1968. It was, by necessity a mixture of jazz, light music and orchestral players in large numbers not often seen in a studio, even in the London of the sixties. The great John Green conducted all the sessions, winning an Oscar for his “ best musical adaptation score” of Lionel Bart’s music.
What Arnold Jacobs Taught Me
by Thomas Jöstlein, associate Principal Horn, St. Louis Symphony
Lessons with Arnold Jacobs were memorable from the second you entered the Fine Arts Building in downtown Chicago. There was the next door "Artists' Cafe" (that must be where the CSO players all eat after shows!), the ornate iron, glass and woodwork, and of course the smiling older gentleman who operated the elevator, with its accordion-style metal door. Seventh floor!
I arrived early enough for my first lesson to look around: the broom closet at the end of the hall ("William Shatner School of Acting," it read), the shrill voice lessons next door, and of course Jacobs' Santa Claus voice wafting out to the hallway.
The door finally opened, revealing both the legend himself, and also my former Interlochen Arts Camp horn teacher, Randy Faust, smiling from jowl to jowl. I knew I'd be fine.
Jacobs, the longtime Tubist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, was known as THE brass teacher for decades. I have my summer horn teacher, Nancy Fako, to thank for the idea of seeing him ("maybe he'll put a bug in your ear"), and my teacher at Rice University, Bill VerMeulen, for the phone call to Jacobs that got me "in." (I remember Jake testing and teasing me for a year, having me call every three weeks at certain times, to see how committed I was. My pay phone call from super loud Comiskey Park was especially tricky to manage, but it paid off).
My first lesson began with the usual measuring of my vital capacity on a large metal machine, resulting in a rather paltry five liter reading. "With your height (6'4") and age (21), you ought to be well in excess of six liters."
"Unfortunately, we need to work on respiration, and not music."
Out came the breathing bags, the tubes with ping-pong balls, the anatomy charts. I mastered these quickly enough to warrant a try on the horn.
What followed next sticks with me to this day: Jake quickly put the focus NOT on the respiration, but indeed, on the MUSIC.
A most unique horn technician/builder: a look at Bruce Tubbs
by Andrew Pelletier
Horn technicians and builders tend to be highly original, maybe even quirky, individuals; but I have not experienced one quite as unique and fascinating as Bruce Tubbs, of Ottawa Lake, Michigan. Just about 30 minutes from Toledo, Ohio, a trip to his 1870s farmhouse to see his “shop” (and also the extensive shop of his wife, Ann, who is an artisan potter) is always an event to remember. I use quotes around the word “shop” as Bruce has converted the tiny root cellar of the house into his shop, hanging bells and horns from the rafters to make the most of the limited floor space.
Bruce came to his trade late, and from an interesting and meandering path. Raised in Lansing MI, Bruce studied with Doug Campbell at Michigan State University, graduating with a Bachelor of Science in 1966. He went into the Peace Corps for a year, and then found himself teaching junior high school in inner city Detroit in 1967, the year of the riots − his school was, indeed, set on fire during one of them. From there, he taught in Saginaw MI, Washington DC, cofounded Spring Elementary School in Boulder CO, and then cofounded the Upland Hill Farm School in Oxford MI. He and Anne then moved to Connecticut, where Bruce worked as a carpenter, and was a self-employed artisan cabinet-maker.
In 1979, they moved back to the Midwest, this time to Toledo, where Bruce was building furniture and working as a building supervisor in Ann Arbor MI. Then, quite unexpectedly, Bruce began to suffer severe pain due to Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and had to change careers. He went back to teaching, joining the faculty at Maumee Valley Country Day School, in Toledo, in 1990. Of great importance to us horn players, he rediscovered his love for the horn in 1992 when he found his old cherished Reynolds Chambers model in Chicago at a friend’s repair shop. He started “fooling around” (his words) with repair and customization in 1995, and when he retired from teaching in 2010, threw himself into full-time horn repair work and custom building.
Ion Balu Interview
l to r: Steve Lewis, Dietmar Dürk, Jacob Medlin, Felix Cantesanu, Ion Balu, on their way to Venice Beach during IHS LA 2015.
Kristina Mascher-Turner: Ion, I can imagine you in your room as a kid, coming up with inventions based on whatever was at hand. Have you always had the urge to create new things?
Ion Balu: When I was six years old, I was sent to a special music school run by the Romanian communist government. I lived in a dorm along with other students, so we didn't have our own private space. I remember very clearly my visits back home, which averaged to about two and a half months a year. Once, I made a very basic, simple radio, and I used my mom's clothes line as an antenna. I made a tiny hole in the window frame, and late at night I would pull in a wire to my radio, and I would just sit there for hours transfixed listening to faraway radio stations. I should mention that under the communists we were so isolated from the world, that it's not even funny. Imagine North Korea now, but with absolutely no computers, internet, cell phone etc. This was the 80's. So, listening to random AM stations was a very cool way (for me) to connect to the outside world.
KMT: Would you say that growing up in a different culture has encouraged you to think outside of the box? If so, how?
IB: Definitely! I think the sheer lack of tools or information helped us come up with extremely creative solutions to problems that would arise. Nowadays, we have the "interwebs", and you can Google anything and basically come up with a solution. Not then. I remember once our football got punctured, and there was no option to buy a new one, I walked around the city and found a shoe repair shop that gave me some contact cement and some leather remnants. I easily patched up the ball.
Another time, I bought an electric guitar, and I completely reshaped the design using just very basic tools. A hack saw, sandpaper, and some auto body filler. I took it to a auto body shop to paint it, and the dude there was mesmerized at how good the finish was, and he offered me a job on the spot, saying something like, "You can make a lot of money fixing dents on cars...". I'm glad I didn't take that job and stayed with my music, otherwise I would've never been here now.
KMT: How did you come to make your first mute? Describe your work space and available materials.
New Member Benefit
We continue to add videos by prominent performers and teachers to the Horn Excerpts section of the website, for IHS members only. New this month are six videos by Randy Gardner, discussing excerpts from Dvořak's Symphony No. 9. If you're not a member, JOIN NOW to view these videos.
