It has been a hectic month in ICOM with all the submissions and performances held in span of a week. I was the MD for the Musicals Show in which we played some of the most memorable and epic Film Scores that were written till date. These included- ‘I See You’ from the movie Avatar, ‘Hedwig’s Theme’, ‘Jurrassic Park Theme’, Fast Five theme, ‘Like Dogs Chasing Cars’ from the movie Dark Knight, ‘Blackbeard’s Theme’ from the movie Pirates of the Caribbean.

We had 6 keyboardists, 1 cellist, 1 violinist, 1 singer, a drummer, bassist and a guitarist. Arranging for this peculiar setup was overwhelming, as we had to make sure we sound like a real orchestra and not a keyboard orchestra playing. The pieces chosen were almost all hybrid scores so that it would be a bit easier to perform than a pure orchestral score. Though, Hedwig’s Theme and the Jurassic Theme were purely orchestral, they had celesta and piano carrying the melody throughout the song which made it much easier to perform with keyboards.
For the orchestral sounds, we decided that we would use East West Quantum Leap libraries combined with some Kontakt samples and divided most of the scores into 3 Strings and 3 Brass section for the Keys. We used the violinist and the cellist as a layer to enhance the string section. I made the backing tracks with some FX and sent the click tracks to the performers. We also had a screen that projected the Movie that we synced to.

The setup:

• 1 Master Laptop running Mainstage and Logic ProX with click tracks and FX.
• 1 Slave Laptop synced via network, running Logic ProX with the Video.
• 5 laptops (Keys) running Mainstage.
• 4Mbox Pros, for sending and splitting audio for the click.

This was one of the best shows that I have done and the response from the crowd was overwhelming.

Here is my arrangement of Fast Five theme for 6 keyboards, guitarist, bassist and a drummer.

Can be used only for educational purposes

More exciting news coming soon..