Oh Danny Boy!

Music selection is one of the most enjoyable parts of putting together a new show concept.

It is truly disappointing when you find that perfect piece of music, only to find that it is impossible to license. Even after being told to choose another selection, we pressed on, with high hopes, only to have them dashed by the performer, who basically told us the same thing that WGI had. Not much chance of getting a license unless you were "somebody".

Deflated and defeated, we turned to our favorite composer, Danny Elfman, who is always at the top of our list. When we found his Serenada Schizophrena, we fell in love with it. The selection "Piano" was perfect for our show concept and we were dead set that we would use that piece.

Then came the editing. What parts to use? What parts to cut? Many hours were spent playing with the music, only to find that it was just too complex for mixing, and it was just too long for our purposes. We continued our search of soundtracks, a great source of show music, when we came upon the music that we ultimately chose to use. We decided to put Danny on the shelf, for future use. We thought our new selection was beautiful and had never heard it used before. Boy, were we wrong. Turns out it was mixed into the music of a World class guard in 2006, AND another guard in our class was using the movie soundtrack as their concept. OH NO!

THEN...Code Black debuts their show using the Danny Elfman piece which we loved. Wow, we had dodged a bullet, although sad that our future use of the piece was dashed. Today, I saw that yet another guard is using Piano from Serenada Schizophrena.

What are the chances? Creative minds think alike.