JEFF GOLD: SOUNDTRACKS OF THE MIND

"To touch beauty," they say, "you must first see, smell or create it." Jeff Gold creates the sounds which accompany others images. He colours our imaginations and brings aural understanding to our visual imagery .. for Jeff Gold is an independent film soundtrack composer.

"I would say that I have been involved with film music right from the start,” enthuses Jeff. "I am a visual composer. I compose pieces with two things in my mind simultaneously: filmic vision and emotions.”

As a child Jeff found solace in his father's classical music selections. One particular piece stood out: "Gustav's Holst's 'Jupiter' from 'Die Planeten,’ .. which impressed me so much .. I would ask him to play it again!"

Jeff studied Physics at the University of Utah and spent the majority of his time pestering the University's management into letting him have access to the building's three pianos:

"I initially taught myself how to play, or more accurately how to translate the tunes in my head to the keys of the piano.

"Some of the influences along the way were composers like Vangelis, who, like me, doesn't have a formal education in music.

“I appreciate Vangelis for his incredible layering and texturing and minimalist scores, John Williams for his brilliant melodies and arrangements, and Ennio Morricone for his innovation and melodic lines."

It's the emotional content of the compositions that cause Jeff's melodic antennae to sit up take notice.

"Occasionally .. you make a transition which causes you to smile and remark to yourself: "Now that is a chord change Peter Gabriel himself would have made.

"So little footprints like that occasionally show up in my compositions."

As a visual composer Jeff Gold doesn’t view himself as a musician, and for that reason has never found comfort in joining a collective or band of performing/recording musicians:

“I have many ideas in my head but I am limited in what I am able to do sometimes to get those ideas out, which is my main impulse: birthing the musical ideas so that I may make room for more.”

As a fledgling composer Jeff Gold signed up to the mp3 internet revolution as way of getting his music heard, though he’s at pains to stress that film music is “only a small segment of the entire music industry, in which film soundtracks, as in popular music used in film, commands the lion's share of the potential audiences.

“Film scores,” Jeff continues, “comprise an even smaller segment of the film music market that you need to be a John Williams or Hans Zimmer to command any attention, not only with audiences, but also within the venues in which you would seek to peddle your wares.”

Jeff had sought to widen his professional field by writing, directing, photographing, editing, producing, and even acting in a number of film projects.

“I wrote the score to a short film, Monk, by director Alkesh Vaja while I was at Cambridge University,” explains Jeff. “It was screened at the BAFTA Centres in Cymru, Wales and in Piccadilly, London.”

Jeff then went on to score a small animated project, Falling Leaf, and then did the same for some of his own documentaries: Twilight, Isles in the Midst of the Great Green Sea, and Children of the Wind, the latter of which was shown on television in the U.K.

Bringing Jeff Gold‘s fascinating career up-to-date, we find him working with fellow mp3.com artist, Rachel Innes.

“I was searching through mp3.com for local artists, I stumbled across her site, and was, of course, attracted by the photo of the beautiful Rachel.

“I then downloaded her songs, and after hearing the first one, I knew we had a winner...a natural. Her voice has an incredible quality and articulation (which I don't have), and seemed very appropriate for the piece that I was working on at the time, which was my foray into mixing trance and film music (not a new idea, I'm sure).

“Rachel Innes is an intelligent lady, focused on her career and talent. When I had her come over for the first time, I sang the words and melody of what I was looking for. She didn't laugh once, which I thought was not only very nice but also projected a maturity which many people lack.

“I often talk about those people who don't know what they have unless it comes in a shrink-wrapped package, meaning people without vision, people who lack the basic overarching insight, the god's eye view to see what something could be, if the piece were in its finished form.

“Having listened to me once, Rachel sat down and sang something which had my idea in it, but she also infused it with her own stylings, and I was very excited, because Rachel got it immediately.

She surpassed my own imaginings of what the piece could be. As far as costs are concerned, it is very viable, but then I like to work with people I like and those whose aptitudes exceed mine, regardless of the cost.”

As far as the traditional versus digital forms of musical distribution arguments go, Jeff comes across as both open minded and forward thinking:

“Any new technology, if we take a careful look at what it has done throughout history, has empowered the individual; to use that tired phrase.

“On the other hand, if you ask me, "Will record companies disappear?", I would say "Probably not!" Record companies have money for advertising and that is the other critical factor for success .. commercial appeal being the first and talent being the second.”

As regards others who may wish to follow Jeff Gold‘s diverse vocational/professional musical path .. Jeff has these words: “Be selective in the opportunities you seize. Be original. Break the rules. Be smart. Be nice. And smile!”

Jeff will be releasing his first album, "Antheme: Music for Film and the Imagined Nation" in the fall of this year.

Listen to a selection of Jeff Gold’s work @ www.mp3.com/jeffreygold

Find out more about Jeff Gold @ www.jeffreygold.com

Corpus is an Indie Record Label, serving music artists: www.corpuspolymedia.com