Animated Cards from Jo and Joe
Making the music for Jo and Joe e-cards
Alan Miller is the man behind the music. Alans are naturally shy creatures, and although incredibly talented, they're not very good at blowing their own trumpets! It took weeks of cajoling to get him to sit down and tell you about himself, so why not take a moment to get to know him.
Hello!
Jo & Joe have very kindly let me have a page to scribble on for myself.
They said I had to tell you about the music, but I'm not sure what you want to know so I'm going to show you a short film of me instead whilst I work out what to talk about for the next 500 pixels.
This is me at the back of my house happily noodling away on the guitar. I'm not sure about the un-coordinated neck wobbles. I do that standing up playing as well, I call it the 'sniff that armpit' move. Normally I'd have both feet tapping independantly of each other, and my tongue out the corner of my mouth.
Anyway, about the card music........
The Jo/e's and I have been friends for ages, but we've never worked together
creatively before. Just when I thought I'd got away with it, Jo popped
round one evening and asked "have
you got an orchestra in your head?" My
first thought was to sit her down and make her a nice cup of tea until
she felt better, but then I realised that it was all a cunning ploy to
get me to reveal some of my MUSIC SECRETS.
The process of writing the music for the cards begins when I see the first draft of Joe's animations. Generally, from the instant I see it, I get an impression of what sounds will work with the pace, shape and central 'characters' of the animation.
Initially, when Jo and Joe asked me to create the music for the cards,
I'd thought it might end up being a dangerous experiment - calculating
beats and bars, and dividing by frames and seconds (which as a musician
just made my toes curl), but happily, once you find the 'rhythm'
of the animation everything seems to just fall into place. 
And no, I haven't got an orchestra in my head. It starts with a hum - normally whilst out walking Billy (my dog) or lying in the bath (not with the dog!). Then in the studio it's just a case of choosing an instrument to fit the character, and developing it from there. Sometimes it comes together really quickly, if not, Billy let's me know.
And of course, I just love doing it - you get into what's happening in the animation and suddenly you find that it's making you chuckle, or that the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, and that's when you know you're in the zone.
(Alan says 'you're in the zone!' Whatever next?!)
Anyway, feel free to drop us a line - it'd be lovely to hear from you (unless you're trying to sell viagra).
If you'd like to hear some more stuff, then have a peek here www.edgepilotz.co.uk. Notice the 'z' at the end of the name which makes it sound dangerous, but I think it's probably OK really (although I do own a hoodie).