Joel McNeely

A funny thing happened today. Just one of those great coincidental confluences that set you to wondering if there are in fact any such things as coincidences. Maybe it's all part of the grand design. Like running into a friend you haven't seen in years sitting next to you in an airport lounge. Well, whatever, this isn't the time nor the place to get metaphysical.

Okay, so I was mountain biking up in a nature preserve near here. It was a long slog mostly up hill but at the end, the reward is to come barreling down these huge beautiful hills into a meadow with thick prairie grasses. I had been listening to the soundtrack to Hook by JW, which is something of a masterwork (the score, not the film) for the whole ride. Just as I crested the rise of the last hill and came flying over (think The Sound of Music) the cue where Pan realizes he can fly swelled and exploded in fanfares and emotional soaring melodies precisely as I came flying down the hill. A perfect cinematic scoring moment, one that couldn't have been edited to be any tighter. I threw my hands in the air and cheered. Then I almost crashed, so I got back to business. It was great.

I'm teaching now at USC in the Scoring for Motion Pictures and Television program. I've been enjoying it so far. There are 20 students in the program. This term I'm only teaching master classes, the last one about writing for brass and woodwinds. Next semester I'll be teaching a regular class on composing for film, plus a few private lessons. It's a funny thing to try and teach someone what you've done your whole life. It makes one really bore down and think about the process, think about what you believe, think about how you do what you do, rather than just doing it. It's quite interesting.