Name: Creating music for an alternative world history | Noughts + Crosses: Behind The Scenes | BBC
Uploaded: 2020-03-24T04:51:50.000Z
Duration: 6 min 47 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

One of the great myths of music is that it's a product that it's not.

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It's It's a process, extremely difficult TV show to work on.

You're really trying to unpick centuries off music and different musical approaches, whether it be Western, classical, classical Africa.

And it's not just a question of swapping them over.

You can't just have the North's listening toe, hip hop and crosses.

Listening to Mozart is about much more trying to create a unique language for it.

Trying to put all of that stuff aside, Matthew was phenomenal when it came to the scores.

The music's arrival was phenomenal in terms of proposing songs.

We made a choice to put tracks in the show that were from lots of black musicians, lots of African artists because we just wanted to reflect that culture and that vibe in the show.

We do need to see ourselves reflected in the world around us, and we need our stories to be told we need a tow, see that our perspectives of being acknowledged I really welcome any attempt to address that.

One of the things that we're really keen on was supporting young musicians or giving music and musicians that wouldn't have this kind of opportunity a chance on the score.

We worked with musicians like David Kuhn, Shirley Teta, and then we worked with Jessica Orchestra players From there, I did encounter really important problem in a really particular point in the show, which is when we're trying to recruit musicians.

And I I thought the right thing was to do was to put together on All Black Band.

I ended up getting in touch with Matthew and saying, You know, maybe this isn't a project I should be involved in.

I just don't really understand what it is or why you're making these choices.

I think he had perfectly valid point on DDE.

I messed up in how you know I messed up in how I dealt with it.

What became immediately apparent was that there was there was a need for for direct dialogue and communication and transparency.

You know the things which oil any successful collaboration relationship.

It's been really great to work on that to try and actually deal with some of those things head on because, of course, we don't like conflict, particularly with friends and musicians and colleagues that we sort of step away from having conversations about race and the different experiences that we've had of it through a position of trust and care and trying and listening.

Then hopefully you can create some sort of resolution, which we did, And we managed to find out a much more healthier, happier version of a way to talk and think about Latin to put together some musicians for the show.

I think it's a very powerful message when you say cultures can come together and people from different backgrounds can come to go there.

And yes, we're putting a spotlight on an area that may be doesn't tend to get that spotlight on dhe.

These people are working alongside people from all kinds of different backgrounds.

I think that's a really, really positive message, too, to put across and you know, sadly, that's something that sometimes requires conscious thought in order to facilitate that.

But that's the reality of the times that we live in, so I'll support anybody who has that intention.

Even if the dialogue around it may be awkward or clumsy or difficult or at times painful, it feels completely essential once that was in place.

And once I felt safe that it was possible to express my views on two make any changes that were that we felt were necessary.

The process of making the music was very straightforward.

Matt had obviously done a lot of hard work.

He had a vision, what he wanted the musicians to do.

He often allows me a lot of space to improvise, so there's a lot of freedom.

But also, you know, we're working to strict time codes and we were in a wonderful studio on.

It was a wonderful group of musicians, so it was a swift and painless process contributing to the music.

The thing that I created the first set of music from was the sound of elastic bands.

There was something kind of really pleasing.

On Dhe south, 40 potentials been capped, elated.

Something about the show, which is about elasticity on about violence off it and also the playfulness of it, even though this story is very painful.

And then I went on commission some more sounds, compose ical damn Pollard went recorded buildings and structures.

A Sonic history of Bristol's relationship.

No one will really know that apart from me telling you now when you listen to it.

But it's It's a way in and a way interviews, and it sounds to help tell the story and reinforce it.

The music was really good in a sense way was used to drive the story as well.

I think Matthew, in terms of the score and a lot of places was thinking out of the box was quite keen.

From the very beginning toe hold back on strings and piano that becomes so familiar they sort of instantly work.

We use a lot of horns to try and do what strings would do.

Create a kind of emotional bed for which the characters to sit above.

The horns are interesting because they feel like they go right back through human history a very long way, and then there are African instruments in there.

There's core on the bowl on on the full of flute, but they're all distorted and treated and things like that.

He treated every sound to make sure that it was slightly different, Which was the approach to the whole show, Really.

It should feel like a familiar show, but slightly disconcerting because it's slightly different in many, many ways.

There's a very iconic moment when Steffy puts a plaster on Kalam's finger.

His skin is pale, but the plaster is darker brown.

We tried so many different pieces of music and different approaches.

So many layers of meaning going on in there.

So every time you can identify an instrument, it's The thing starts to fall apart a bit because you immediately had associations with it.

 And I think it is much more important that we had a coherent musical language off its own that was totally unique to this world. 