TV & Film Composer Richard Tuttobene Chats About His Career Path & Work in Nickelodeon's Golden Era

Composer Richard Tuttobene discusses his work as a television and film composer. From Dadaist silent films, to the classic live action shows in Nickelodeon's hit 90's era, Richard has uplifted a diverse array of stories with his orchestral scores.

Tell us a little bit about yourself and how did you get your start as a composer?

Even at a young age, I was fascinated with film and TV music and would write my own dramatic themes. I was hired, from time to time, to write a jingle for a local radio or TV ad, but I was hired mostly as a piano player.

Then, I was a successful studio pianist in New York City in the late 80’s, playing on jingle dates and records playing everything from pop to jazz to funk to country. You had to be able to cover any style in those days. But then the studio scene started to slow down for players, because digital synthesizers were introduced into sessions to imitate and replace acoustic instruments. While I had always loved the analog synths, I hated the sounds coming out of the first digital synths, and so I decided to go in a different direction. I had always wanted to compose for film, so I got some gigs writing for TV shows like America’s Most Wanted, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, and a couple of daytime dramas, and also started making connections in L.A.. My son was born in 1992 and my wife and I decided that it would be a good time to move to California so I could pursue projects on a bigger scale which turned out to be a very good decision.

Let's talk about your work in Nickelodeon. How did you get involved with Kenan and Kel, The Amanda Show and All That?

An old friend from New York introduced me to Mike Tollin, co­founder of Tollin/Robbins Productions and they had just completed the pilot for All That, which I successfully demo­ed for. The show was like a SNL for kids with a ton of satirical parodies of movies and TV shows and everything else you can think of. Mike and Brian Robbins loved that I could pull off anything from intense drama to silly goofiness. The show was a huge hit and and they spun Kenan & Kel off from it, and later, The Amanda Show. I did six seasons of All That and all the seasons of the spinoffs. The great part of the gig was that I got to write and produce in a huge variety of musical styles , usually, with breakneck deadlines. Having all of that thrown at me for all those years was an education in itself.

Were you influenced by any other television or film composers?

Absolutely! More than I have time to name. While I grew up playing and listening to classical and jazz, I was always mesmerized by scores like Maurice Jarre’s Dr. Zhivago, or Rota’s The Godfather or Bernard Herrmann’s North by Northwest, Korngold’s Kings Row. What was intriguing to me, as a kid, was that I could see a movie in the theater, and then buy the soundtrack record, which I did for almost every movie I saw, and look at the photos on the album cover while listening and have the movie come back to me on a deep emotional level ­­ which is why, today, I’m always intent on capturing the essence of the narrative and the cinematography and characters thematically and/or sonically on a deep level, otherwise, it’s just creating wallpaper.

Another side of that influence has always been how experimentally bold a composer can be in serving a film. Composers like Morricone and John Williams, Alan Silvestri, James Newton Howard, Goldsmith, Howard Shore, Thomas Newman, Alexandre Desplat all inspire my work because they create works that help bring a picture to life but always seem to strive to do it in a way that’s different than what they’ve done before. That said, I’ll add that my influences come from a much wider sphere than film and TV composers; Hindemith, Copeland, Nico Muhly, Corigliano, Arvo Pärt, Piazzolla, Radiohead, Led Zeppelin, and on and on and on. Everything is derivative to an extent, and imitating the work of others is a great learning experience, but if I had to spend my creative life recycling the work of other composers because it worked for a project in the past, rather than trying to add my own voice to a collaborative project, I’d find something else to do with my life.

I also love going back and listening to the great TV show themes that stuck with me throughout the years; The Defenders, Perry Mason, Peter Gunn, Barney Miller, Mash. All of them, innovative and timeless in their own way, all of them having a lasting impact on the richness of our culture ­­ for me, that’s the juice ­­ trying to create music that resonates deeply and that becomes a unique and lasting addition to our culture.

For someone who is starting out, what would you say is the most important thing to learn when scoring a film or TV series?

The most important thing? If I have to boil it down to one thing, I’d say it’s this; Don’t fall in love with what you’ve created. The job is not about how great your music is. It’s about helping the director realize his/her vision, or if it’s TV, the producer’s vision, and that can, more often than not, be done with far less than one might realize. A single sustained note can often be more effective than a powerful and dense piece of music that is magnificent on its own. While you’re hired for your musicianship, you’re also hired for your sensibilities and sensitivity – you’re hired for your taste. One of the more difficult aspects of scoring a film or tv show is finding out what a spoken line or gesture means to the director – what the subtext is – what does he/she want the audience to feel or perceive, should the next major event be foreshadowed or be a complete shock to the viewer? It can be very complicated because a scene can be played a million ways and the director may want an unusual kind of interpretation and it’s your job to help them explore the possibilities and you have to be prepared for some of your work to be rejected, not because of its quality, but because it wasn’t “right” for the scene. I scored an AFI film a few years ago for a brilliant young director named Joel Moffett and he was passionate about a piece of music that he had been using as a temp track. It was the 2nd waltz from Shostakovich’s Four Waltzes, and Joel was adamant about the original score for his film being heavily influenced by it. The waltz resonated with the film when I watched it but I didn’t know why Joel felt it worked. There was an underlying meaning that I needed to understand before I could adapt the piece into the score. We talked about it for weeks and I’d play it one way and then another and he liked what I had written but it didn’t knock him out. Finally, after all those weeks of discussion and trial and error and asking questions and him trying to find a way to explain it, he brought in a photo of Bertolt Brecht with his oompa band and that was it, I got it! So, if a composer wants to write at a level beyond a generic, action track for a chase scene, he/she has to be willing to dig deep and do the detective work to help a creative director discover and fulfill her complete vision.

You have also scored several films. Which scores are you most proud of?

That’s a tough question. I’m super critical of my work and if I go back to listen, I generally focus on what I could have done better. That said, I guess After Image would be one of them because, first, it was psychological thriller, which is a genre I really love, and because there was romance and fragile characters that I got to characterize in the score. Another one would be a CNN documentary that I scored years ago called Silicon Valley: The New Gold Rush that I thought I nailed with a recurring timpani and cathedral chimes theme that resonated with the power and money and sense of adventure that was pervasive during the years that preceded the bursting of the tech bubble.

How would you describe your musical style?

I’m always trying to incorporate different styles into my musical voice. That’s one of the great challenges and joys of composing for film and TV, always having to adapt explore a wide variety of musical genres and styles. So, I’m not sure I can boil it down to a musical style, but in general, I shoot for something unique that might make a style play more specifically to a character or scene or mood, giving the viewer a deeper musical connection to what they’re seeing.

When you are feeling creatively blocked, what do you do to get back in the creative flow?

I just try not to acknowledge creative blocks. I continue to write and go back and rewrite if I need to, and that brings me through the difficulty. For me, a great score is one that has a touchstone that encapsulates the entire overall mood of film – something that’s sticky, almost like the hook of a pop song and has a continuity throughout the film. Hear a few seconds of the drum solo in Birdman and the feel of the film is triggered or a few notes of Morricone’s score for The Mission, or James Newton Howard’s score for Grand Canyon, or John William’s score The Witches of Eastwick, or any score he’s written for that matter.

The creative hump for me is finding that thru­theme and once I’ve come up with something that resonates and that the director loves, it becomes about incorporating and reworking again and again. I’ll also sometimes take a “Salvador Dali nap” where you sit in a comfortable chair holding a spoon between your thumb and forefinger over a pan. When you doze off the spoon hits the pan and wakes you and you create. I’ve heard that Sondheim does something similar to get into that creative state between sleep and consciousness. Of course when you’re doing all­nighters on a vicious deadline, that’s not really possible, so you have to stay calm and trust that your palette and sensibilities will continue to inform you on some level.

What tools and technology are you currently using and why?

I’m currently using Digital Performer and Protools. They’re both very deep programs but you can set up a very easy flow that doesn’t get in the way of your creativity. I have more sample libraries and sounds than I can list here.

What are you working on right now and can you tell us more about that project?

I’ve just finished writing a score for a 1924 silent film called Entr’Acte, directed by Rene Clair. It’s one of the first films of the Dada movement and was originally scored by Erik Satie. The score will be performed live by a string quartet with me playing some improvised piano along with a soundscape created by Don DiNicola. The debut performance is the 1st week of August at the Vermont College of Fine Arts to be followed by 2016/17 performances at modern art museums throughout the U.S.

I’m also writing for a number of reality TV shows and am just beginning work on a concert piece for the incredible Talujon Percussion Trio, a group that specializes in performing new music for percussion.

Any hints, tips or motivational speeches for the readers?

Yes. I think a lot of musicians try to get into scoring for films, TV and games because they heard there’s a lot of money in it. That’s a terrible reason to do anything. I don’t know a single major composer that doesn’t put in a minimum of 10 hours daily. More often, 12 or 16 hours. Years ago, at the ASCAP film scoring workshop, I asked James Newton Howard what he attributed his success to, beyond his brilliant writing, and he cited his discipline. He said he worked from 8am to 8pm, seven days a week. Consider the endless hours of training and dedication it takes to become a real composer/musician/conductor, which, by itself, is a herculean effort. Then, the time and effort to master the rapidly­changing technology, and whether you’re starting out or are an established professional you have to be out there meeting people, shaking hands, learning the mechanics of the industry, learning about contracts, and when you list all of it together, it sounds quite exhausting. So, if it’s not something that you can’t live without, that puts a fire in your belly, it would be easier to become a neurosurgeon. And if you think you can rely on technology to replace the effort of really learning music from the ground up, you’ll at some point, face those limitations to your career. Being a media composer can be artistically and financially reward, but you have to be willing to pay the price.

Listen to a highlight playlist of Richard's work via this SoundCloud playlist here. You can also visit his website for more info about his projects and career -- http://www.richardtuttobene.com/