Composer David Benjamin Steinberg Discusses "Million Dollar Listing" & HBO Documentaries

There's a specific process in scoring music for reality shows that many passive viewers overlook. The sound needs to be upbeat but dramatic, subtle and yet noticeable. Similarly, the world of documentaries, the music must work to enhance the moods and themes of the story trying to be told. Multi-talented composer David Benjamin Steinberg talks with us about how he brings both worlds to live with his music. Most recently, his scores can be heard enlivening the popular series, Million Dollar Listing, including all of its spin-offs, as well as HBO documentaries such as Sundance hit Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures, which is also set to premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival. Below, David reveals the inspiration and process behind his sound creation, as well as his career path as a professional composer and musician.

Are there differences between your scores for each spin-off of Million Dollar Listing?

Yeah, starting with the theme, they tend to vary in that they capture a vibe of each of the four cities. Miami, for example, is sort of breezier and has a beach swing to it; New York is very in your face; LA is slick and a hybrid of pop; and San Francisco has a tech element, and is more synthesizer-based.

With each of the themes, I try to have a bit of nuance of each of those cities and try to carry that flavor through in the music cues for each show. Also, the cast often dictates the musical approach. For example, in New York there is a cast member named Frederick who is Swedish and he and some of his underscore might have aspects that refer to his background. In one episode he went to Sweden, so we created a lot of Swedish music for it. Another cast member in New York, Luis, who is from Puerto Rico, often gets a Latin flavored groove. I try to have a motif for each of the characters, not that every cue follows that plan, but I try to make it so that when a cast member appears there is music that accompanies them.

What was your favorite scene to score for in Million Dollar Listing or any reality tv show?

In the New York show last year, one of the cast members, Ryan, had a big storyline where he was going to propose to his girlfriend. He actually booked out Time Square for the morning and he specifically wanted to have a string octet playing in Time Square while he was surprise proposing to his girlfriend. So, I scored that and wrote a cue for that 8 or 10 piece string section that played in Times Square. That was a nice scene that was pretty memorable.

There is so much music in Million Dollar Listing, maybe like 125 to 150 cues per episode. Most of the time, music is not scored to picture. It is a process of building a library, and then the editors pick and choose the music. However, every season does have at least a half dozen cues that are scored to picture.

What was it like scoring the documentation of a one-woman play, particularly about Carrie Fisher and her ups-and-downs throughout her career? What sources did you turn to for inspiration?

It was great. One of the unexpected and fun parts of working on that was that I got to work with Carrie in the studio -- and she’s actually a very good singer. We went and recorded a couple of songs and she was really fun, funny, and nice to work with.

For the film’s score, they already had some music she had been doing for the one-woman show on Broadway. But, there was a sense from the directors that they wanted to have a lot more music, so I augmented the existing music with about another 20 minutes of music. It was inspired by whatever was going on onstage. In the documentary version of the show, there was a lot more video and photo archives -- and that dictated what was required of the music.

For the sources of inspiration, that was a process of talking to the directors and getting feedback from HBO. I submit cues and ideas to the directors, and once there is a rough cut, the music goes to the network and they give comments about the music direction. Sometimes along the way, a cue can get thrown out or tweaked, so it is a very collaborative process.

With Carrie Fisher’s ‘Wishful Drinking,’ we weren’t trying to define a very esoteric tone for the music. It was there to support her and whatever was going on onstage, so that really dictated the approach.

Reality television seems to have a lot of music , orchestral, light, and dramatic. What steps do you take to make your own music stand out (or blend in)?

It’s a fine line. Reality is nonstop dialogue obviously, so often the goal is not to stand out too much so that you are fighting dialogue. Often I get notes from the network and the production company wanting very simple cues. Typically, I’ll submit multiple mixes of cues and often the ones that are used are the very stripped down versions of cues that might just have bass and drums because it leaves dialogue in the clear. But often, scenes start with a bang coming out of commercial and so I like to think that those cues are really a chance to shine. Those cues tend to have a lot of energy and often they are pretty aggressive hip-hop and, certainly in the case of Los Angeles, there is a lot of urban influence to music.

There is a lot of comedy mixed with drama so we do a lot of dramedy cues that are sort of ironic, but also dramatic at the same time. These would be the ‘blend in’ steps. For the ‘stand out,’ I think the music that I deliver for reality, or just music that I do, has a story arc to each cue. The cues tend to evolve and there is not just a loop that plays under dialogue. That gives the editors an opportunity to let their jokes and stories intertwine with the music cue.

I also think that the music I do tends to be a little more complex than one might typically hear in a reality show. That is a blessing and a curse because, as I said, I sometimes do get notes to keep things more stripped down. I like to think that I maintain a certain quality level and hopefully that is how I distinguish myself.

What is your process for composing themes? How does it differ from crafting scores?

The process starts with sitting down at the computer. Then, I bring a drum track and come up with a base line and start building from the ground up. I have a lot of great sampling and synth gear in my studio. It involves just sitting down and coming up with something that feels really grooving, honest, and inspired.

The themes get a lot more scrutiny both from the production company and the network. The motif of the theme inspires the bumpers that come in and out of the commercial. It is important and much more time goes into a theme. On occasion, I will submit as many as ten versions of a theme and then the production company and the network will decide which one they like best. So there is a lot of attention paid to the theme, which is great because I get people to pay attention, but it also means that it can be very time intensive.

I love working on themes. My background is in advertising and doing a theme makes me feel like I’m working on a TV spot, which I love doing. Also, you can pay a lot of attention to detail when working on a theme and interacting with the graphics company, and it is much more of a specific kind of writing than underscore for the shows.

Do you compose music without a specific project in mind? If so, does it have stylistic tendencies?

I haven’t had time in the last few years because I have been so busy in that if I’m working on music it goes into one of the shows. Now that there are four cities going on, there is a Million Dollar Listing season that is going on year round. With the amount of music that they need for the shows, it is really time intensive. In addition, I do a lot of documentary work and I am typically piggybacking on MDL with working on documentaries. I just finished a couple of HBO documentaries, one of which is called ‘Mapplethorpe: Look at the pictures’ that just premiered at Sundance, and another one for HBO called ‘Every Brilliant Thing’ that will be airing towards the beginning of this year on HBO.

Who are some composers you look up to or have been influenced by?

I have so many and there are so many great composers. My heroes are pretty old school. I love Bernard Herrmann, Ennio Morricone, Nino Rota. I’m a big Beatles and Rolling Stones fan. Thomas Newman, Carter Burwell, and Cliff Martinez would be among my favorite contemporary composers.

Did you face any emotional struggles while scoring for “Children of God”? The subject matter is rather heavy, and it must be hard to search for a dark way to give the story a musical flow.

It was pretty dark, but I actually liked that aspect of the film and getting to explore dark themes. I enjoy that. I am more drawn to stories that might be moody and dark. Certainly this Robert Mapplethorpe documentary that I just completed falls into that category of very ambient, dark, and textural.

I think the filmmaker might be more prone to let dark subject matters get under his skin. I’m too busy making my deadlines and getting the work done to get drawn into any kind of dark mood or depressed or stuck. If those dark subjects get into my psyche. I’d say that they don’t except in a good way. I just sort of let myself go there to come up with something interesting, moody, and appropriate.

Are there any movies or TV shows that inspired you to become a composer?

Yeah. I really loved, when I was a kid, the great adventure films like the ‘Seven Voyages of Sinbad’ and all those Ray Harryhausen effects movies that Bernard Herrmann scored. I remember really loving those when I was a kid. I was really interested in TV themes and loved the themes that I grew with as a kid, like ‘The Twilight Zone,’ for example, ‘The Munster’s,’ and ‘Get Smart.’ I loved just how in 30 seconds the theme could encapsulate the vibe of a show and that really interested me.

What is your go-to instrument for scoring TV shows?

I’m a drummer, my main instrument is drums and I was very inspired and influenced when I heard Stewart Copeland’s score for Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘Rumble Fish.’ I was blown away how the drums were used in that film and how Copeland used loops. The score to the film was so provocative. I’m a huge Police fan and Stewart Copeland fan and seeing the way he did that and listening to that score was a big inspiration to me and I felt -- If he could do it and figure out how to do it all, then maybe I could too.’

Peter Gabriel, who also started as a drummer was a big inspiration and influence with his scores to ‘Last Temptation of Christ’ and of course his records were so cinematic. Just listening to his records and the story arc of those songs were really inspiring to me.

I sit at my piano and will typically bang out a melody and then will usually go from the acoustic piano over to the computer and start sketching in an idea at the computer and will build a track around the melody. It usually starts with an idea for a scene and I tend to do that at a real piano and then I go to my computer and start sequencing and building from there.

Do you have any upcoming projects we should know about?

I just finished this HBO documentary called ‘Every Brilliant Thing.’ It is a very interesting off-Broadway documentation. It was a hit off-Broadway one-man show and it tells the story of a kid whose mother was manic depressive and suicidal and he starts, at a very young age, creating a list of things that she should stay alive for. This lists ends up having a million things on it and it is his way of talking her out of killing herself. That should be coming out in May. ‘Million Dollar Listing: New York’ season 5 is being worked as we speak, and I know that is going to be airing in the near future. There are a couple other things in the works too.

Read more about David on his website or listen to his music on his SoundCloud.