How does composing for a soap opera compare to other genres, for example, films or popular music?
DN: Music for soaps is a very particular context. The sheer bulk required is awesome. When OLTL decided two years ago that they wanted to court a younger demographic, Kevin Bents and I created the equivalent of three albums of “alternative” music in several months. In the record world, we would have had ten times the budget and five times the time to create a similar body of work. What about the comparison to films? DN: On a soap opera, the music is used, re-used and then filed away after a time. On a feature film, very special care is taken to create a fit musically, and then the music is married to that film forever. We have probably written the equivalent of 60 feature films in the last six years! Additionally, work on feature films and other TV is mostly done with the finished picture in hand. Music is scored to the picture so you know exactly what you are dealing with in terms of mood and tone. The soaps sound like quite a challenge then for a composer. DN: In the soaps, we are wo
