Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Harry Gregson-Williams, Award-Winning Composer

Episode Date: April 24, 2019

This week’s conversation is with Harry Gregson-Williams, one of Hollywood’s most sought-after and prolific composers whose long list of film and television credits underscore the diverse range of his talents. His recent projects include Warner Bros summer hit “The Meg” directed by Jon Turteltaub, and the action thriller “The Equalizer 2,” starring Denzel Washington.He wrote the score for Disney Nature’s “Penguins,” which just opened a few weeks ago and will next score Disney’s live-action feature film “Mulan” scheduled for release in 2020.Harry was the composer on all four installments of the animated blockbuster “Shrek” franchise, garnering a BAFTA Award nomination for the score for the Oscar-winning “Shrek.” He also received Golden Globe and Grammy Award nominations for his score for Andrew Adamson’s “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.” Harry has collaborated with a number of directors, including Ben Affleck on the films “Live by Night,” “The Town” and “Gone Baby Gone”; Joel Schumacher on “Twelve,” “The Number 23,” “Veronica Guerin” and “Phone Booth”; Tony Scott on “Unstoppable, The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3,” “Déjà Vu,” “Domino,” “Man on Fire,” “Spy Game” and “Enemy of the State”; Ridley Scott on “The Martian,” “Prometheus”, “Exodus: Gods and Kings and “Kingdom of Heaven” and the list goes on and on.This was one my favorite conversations I’ve had since we started this podcast.We covered so much: creativity, pressure, authenticity, relationships, failure, and emotion.I hope this conversation makes you think a pay a little more attention to the score next time you watch a movie._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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stay present and engaged with my thinking and writing. If you wanna slow down, if you wanna work smarter, I highly encourage you to check them out. Visit remarkable.com to learn more and grab your paper pro today. I'm a composer on the edge of disaster the whole time. I'm complete disaster. But I think that's probably what the appeal is

to some directors, that I'm not by clockwork and I'm not that predictable. and I'm I'm not that predictable and you know I've got a bit of juice in me and and I got a bit of fire in me and I definitely can express emotions both as a person and through my music and that's you might say well aren't there lots of composers like that but I think a lot of people hide that or don't have that to offer. And it's quite risky to have that as part of your thing. So yeah, I'd say, yeah, a donkey on the edge. All right, welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast. I'm Michael Gervais

and by trade and training, a sport and performance psychologist. And I just want to say, I love the Finding Mastery community. I love what we are creating here. And I hope that this is becoming a vehicle for you, a place and a vehicle for you to explore in your own life, how to become the man or woman that you're working on own life how to become the man or woman that you're working on becoming and how to do the same for other people. And that's really what the design of this is, to learn and then apply. So the whole idea is for us to deconstruct, to demystify how the extraordinaries think and how they do. And we want to understand what they're searching for, how they organize their life and the mental skills that they use to build and refine their craft.

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So if you're trying to hit your daily protein goals with something seamless, I'd love for you to go check them out. Get a free variety pack, a $25 value, and 10% off for life when you head to davidprotein.com slash findingmastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash findingmastery. Now, this week's conversation is with Harry Gregson Williams, and he is one of Hollywood's most sought after and prolific composers whose long list of films and television credits underscore the diverse range of his talents. This is one of my favorite conversations that we've had since the inception of Finding Mastery. And let me give a quick rundown of some of the things that he's done and what he's about

to do and where he's been. I mean, he's an extraordinary human being. Not only what he's done, but how he works. And his recent projects include Warner Brothers' massive summer hit, The Meg, and the action thriller, The Equalizer 2, which starred Denzel Washington. And he also wrote the score for Disney's Nature's Penguins, which just opened a few weeks ago. Family favorite here. And he also scored the next live action feature film, Mulan, which is scheduled for 2020, released in 2020. Harry was the composer on all four installments of the animated blockbuster Shrek.

And he was also nominated for that from BAFTA. He also received the Golden Globe and Grammy Award nominations for his score on The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Harry also collaborated with, check this list out, so many directors, including Ben Affleck, and that was the film Live by Night, The Town, and Gone Baby Gone, Joel Schumacher on 12, the number 23, Veronica Gruen, and Phone Booth, Tony Scott on Unstoppable, Deja Vu, Domino, Man on Fire, Spy Game, and The Enemy of the State. I mean, legit movies. Ridley Scott, he worked with for a long time, The Martian, Prometheus, Exodus, Gods and Kings, and Kingdom of Heaven. And the list goes on and on. I know you've watched those movies. I know you've been gripped by them. And his contribution is the music, the thing that amplifies or celebrates

or pulls you along on the emotional journey. And like I said, this is one of my favorite conversations since we switched on Finding Mastery. And we just covered so much about creativity and pressure and authenticity, relationships, failure, emotions, all of it. And I just hope this conversation amplifies his genius. Thank you. Thank you, Harry, for the conversation. And I hope that it also forces you to pay a bit more attention to the music and how that helps you feel when you're lost in the world

of animation or you're lost in the story on the big screen. And with that, let's jump right into this conversation with Harry. Harry, how are you? I'm pretty good today. Thank you. Yeah. Is that, you say that in a way that you actually thought about it? Like today's a pretty good day. Some days aren't not. Yeah. No, yesterday wasn't such a good day, but, um, you know, good days and bad days. Uh, um, yeah, I have many more good days than bad days. A bad day is not even a bad day. Isn't too bad for me. Uh, when I say a bad day, you know, in what I do, it's pretty easy to miss the target, or at least have someone else decide that you've missed the target. So is much of your professional life determined by your standards or by others? That's a very good question. But look, I could say that it's determined by other people's standard because

as you know as you know i'm a film composer and i serve my my music has to serve the film um i haven't written and directed my own film yet so if and when that happens then everybody can bloody well follow me uh but um until then you know if i'm working for Ridley Scott or Ben Affleck or one of these pre-visionary directors, part of my job is to fulfill their vision for the film. Now, hopefully I can bring something to it. That's what I aim to do every morning when I start work. And that's what I hope I've done every evening when I finish. But the fact of the matter is that as a film composer, one is depending on the decisions of others.

And, you know, everybody's got an iPad. Look, you, an iPod or an iPad or an iPhone or an i-something, tell me the last time you came rolling out of a movie theater with a bunch of friends and one of them said, you know what, I don't think the costume design was that good. Or someone said, you know what, I think the hairstylist was a bit off in that film. I didn't think so.

I don't think that happens much. But we've all got an opinion about music because we all love it. We all feel that it speaks to us personally, and it does. So, yeah, as a film composer, well, let's put it another way around. As a film composer who wants to retain his position and be a working, fairly successful film composer, one of the things you've got to understand early on

is that, yeah, your standards can be met. I mean, my standards, I can aim for what I need to aim for. But the final decision on things is going to happen with a director or producer. And often that can quite hurtful. Not in a tragic way, but yeah, if you provide some music, just like in any walk of life, if you provide something you feel is right. It's tough to write, say, a romantic scene in a movie you're working on and have a director come and sit here. You play the music and he might say, you know what? No, I'm not feeling that at all. Listen, she really likes him.

I'm like, well, yeah, I know that. What do you mean? Yes, I get it. I understand the scene. But his version of romantic may just not be mine. So what do we do? Cry into our cup of tea? No.

We've got to find out what. First of all, what if he's wrong? What if I'm right? But that doesn't really come into the equation until much later when perhaps things have gone so far that you're in a bad spot. But mostly we're thinking, okay, what is he thinking? What would make him feel the romance without pushing it over the edge without pushing it into sentimentality um and so as a film composer a lot of it is kind of political a lot of it is um psychology i remember hans zimmer who's my mentor there's a reason i'm

sitting here actually but um i remember him saying to me um well harry yeah your composing job's pretty good you know pretty good not bad uh but man you gotta work on your uh your your ability to to administer therapy i'm like what are you talking about yeah he's like well i'll tell you what i'm talking about you know i've done films when this is him speaking i've done films with major directors who are coming into your lair. You don't know what's been happening up the road in Studio City. They're probably being beaten with a large stick like you are. They're coming in here looking for collaboration, looking for some respite.

You've got to find a way of getting to their heart and if you're not interested in really getting under the skin of what makes them tickle it's going to make them happy and fulfill their vision then you know you should be writing music for for something different so hans zimmer legend he was your mentor yes and when i hear what you just said is that he was really good at the relationship as well as the craft. Really? So you had two parts of that. So he helped you on that relationships side as well.

If we go way back to what I'm listening to you right now or here in your studio, beautiful place. Obviously, it's something that you've designed to meet your needs and wants. And then I hear you talking about some really difficult parts of being an artist, of being a composer. And those difficult parts that I'm paying attention to are, how do you bring out through your craft? How do you express what, whether it's Ridley Scott or any of the legendary folks that you're mentioning, what they're seeing and feeling, and then calibrate back. So can you talk about where, for you, does music come from?

If we could start, you know what? I really want to know that, but I've got this other thought in my head. I want to know where you came from. Right. So can we do where you came from before where music comes from? Absolutely. Can we do that? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I grew up in a large family and we didn't, my father's, I don't know if it was his dream, but his, we lived in a house so far from anybody else that the electricity board hadn't actually reached it yet.

So there was no electricity there. There was a generator, which if you switched a light switch on, there'd be a generator in an outbuilding somewhere with startup. And we were under instructions not to do that unless you really needed a light. So how do we entertain ourselves with music? That was basically it. What ages are we talking about um well um you know i have two two older siblings and two younger ones so um yeah so by the age of four five six seven eight that's what we were doing we're outside climbing trees if we weren't doing that then we were inside making music together and different combinations you

know we all played different things i sang and I played violin and piano. And we learnt kind of the way our relationships were formed with each other was quite often through music. And our relationship with our dad through music. And our mum who played. But she was more of an artist, a painter. So I don't know why he got the idea. But with the two that are older than me, he didn't have this idea. They went to regular schools.

Was he a musician himself? Yeah. Professional? Yeah, he was a creative professional. Quite often, of an afternoon, we'd be interacting through music. And that was really exciting. But by the time I was about six, he had informed me that I would be the first of his children. So I'm the third, actually, of the five, who would go off for this particular audition.

In the University of Cambridge, which you obviously know about, there was a little prep school, a little boys' school, which was formed, I think, by Henry VIII. And it would revolve around 16 boys who were choristers and would learn music and nothing else, pretty much. Now, by the time it was the mid-1960s or actually 1970 or something when I went there, a school had sprung up around these 16 boys, a regular school. It was a boarding school, but you didn't have to be particularly musically orientated to be in the school. But to one of these 16 boys there was a intensive audition all vocal singing uh but you had to also have learned instruments so i was packed off to the school i don't know how i managed to uh ace the audition but i did um with my mom's help and uh hold on what does that mean like so you again go back to the age well there was yeah at six years of age i was carted off to cambridge which is a long way from where we lived um what did cambridge

mean to you at that time at that time i knew it to be an austere place with buildings that were ancient and you left your family structure at age six yeah so they packed me off there and that's where i was for five years and um becoming one of the 16 yeah and then eventually becoming the head coaster and the captain of sport and the head boy and all the rest of it so i i i uh i suppose you could say i was pretty successful at that school but um how long did you before we get too ahead of ourselves no no this is really good i made i made up for it by what came next okay we'll get there too. But how long did you stay there? Well, you could only really stay there as long as your voice was useful to them.

So it was super transactional. Yeah, oh yeah. 13 was the optimum age that you'd leave. And that's when I did. And I got a top music scholarship to another school, which wasn't as intensive, not in Cambridge. But still, I think most of my fees were paid for and yeah I mean when I arrived there I remember asking one of the teachers it was also boarding school so so when when do I practice my instruments because what I'd been used to was

being woken up before dawn, chucked out of the door into my gym kit, run a mile, come back, practice our instruments for about an hour or an hour and a half, then have breakfast, and then the day started. So I thought, you know, I didn't know anything else. So when this teacher at my new school said, oh, you just kind of find the time for it, I thought, oh, is that how it's going to work? So it's extra.

I rebelled against it. Yeah, no, hugely. Without that focus, I had a moment where I was like, oh, okay. Sounds like I don't have to do it, to me. But, you know, these things come and go. I have kids of my own now. I don't make them run a mile before breakfast. But, yeah, practicing.

My experience has always been, and subsequently as a teacher, which I spent many years teaching after music college, my experience always was to try and make it so that music practice wasn't something that was competing with something else that I would want to do. Now, what would I want to do? I'd want to go kick a ball around. I'd throw a ball around. I love sports as well as music.

So when I became a teacher myself, I realized very quickly that I had to schedule things so that if you were in the orchestra or you wanted to sing in the choir, that wasn't going to exclude you from playing in the rugby team or the cricket team because that just didn't seem fair to me because those were the two things that I really wanted to do. So I had quite a lot of success with that actually because the kids really appealed to the kids and to their parents. Not many people, not many schools will do that.

It'll always be a throwaway thing, an extra thing. Okay, now I'm going to pull out for just a minute. When you think about a complete human, we could use the marker of success. But if you think about a whole human, somebody that has integrity in all parts of their life, how do you describe that? Probably someone who's happy i can't imagine a whole human being an unhappy one because why would the what would the point of being human i mean i can only imagine that if i were to meet a whole human as you say that would be a person who is happy with himself herself it's different than happy to than happy bubbly or buoyant?

No, not that. You're not saying that. No. You're saying content. Content. So would you change the word happy to content? Yeah. Or is that how you describe happy?

No, I would, yes, I would describe it as that. I mean, I gauge my own happiness by my own successes. My professional successes are actually quite secondary to my own as a father. So I've told you I was one of five children. I have five children. I don't think there's any coincidence in that. And they're all a work in progress.

And I take that very seriously. And I love that part of my life. But the two are kind of intertwined, not because of my earnings or where we live or anything like that, but my life. But the two are kind of intertwined, not because of my earnings or where we live or anything like that, but they are. I don't think I could be as much of a guide to them if I wasn't expressing myself professionally. If I didn't have the outlet of music.

Harry, I struggle with this. I struggle with this dilemma about the importance of family and craft. And the struggle that I have is if I know what it takes, the amount of time and energy, intensity, and thoughtfulness. What you just said, all those words? Yes. They could describe either of them. That's right of camp that either one right and so you stack them on top of each other if you okay so but they i think they compete in my life they compete with each other i

don't want them to i love i love them in different ways yeah and so one of my struggles early days this conversation these podcasts were to try to sort out mastery of self, mastery of craft. What is the tensions between the two? And my experience has been that many people that are mastering or have mastered at some level their craft are a bit of a mess in other parts of their life. And so I share that with you because I want to understand the tensions. You're at the tip of the arrow for your industry and your craft. You're talking about the importance of family. And I'm going, okay, I think we're going to speak the same language.

And I'd love to ask you, I don't even know exactly how to express the tension between the two, but how do you manage that tension? How do you do it? One of the things that I have thought quite a lot about over the past few years is the necessity to understand an opportunity that's there that will help one to a better level of dealing with everything that we're talking about. And I know that this might seem randomly unconnected, but here's an example. When I work with Ridley Scott, who, by the way, after breakfast most days, goes into

his outbuilding and paints. He's a painter. Look at Prometheus. Look at the Martian. Look at the Gladiator. Freeze film that frame anywhere in the film and tell me that that's not a work of art, just the way it looks. Don't talk about the script.

He doesn't do that. But, man, the guy's an artist. So was Tony Scott, his brother. They both went to art school in London before they came out here. Anyhow. Did you know him? No, I didn't know him previously i mean i worked with his brother almost exclusively oh you did tony scott until the day that he died yeah until the day he committed suicide

i didn't know yeah i i met him in 1996 which was a year after i came here with hans and um yeah i did enemy of the state man on fire spy game Spy Game, Deja Vu, Domino. I mean, I did all his films from 1996 until the day he decided he'd had enough. Okay, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. First, two things. One is you ramble off those films. That's massive. But I want to go to the more important part of the conversation is you lost a dear friend well precisely and that's that's why i mentioned that because that

was a that was that was a a voyage you know that and and and life's nothing but a voyage i know it sounds cliche but is it it is precisely the relationships that one has during one's voyage whatever that voyage might be that that are meaningful to me. And that's what I can reflect on now with Tony Scott. And I have an ongoing relationship with his brother Ridley, who's still alive. Hold on real quick. When you are connecting right now to your relationship with Tony,

can I take it a step deeper? Sure. Where do you feel that? I feel a sense of loss and offensive a sense of um business incomplete because there's no one there's no one quite like him i i've known a couple of directors so i became extremely close with done a lot of work with who have died and he he in particular um just because he either way he treated me he treated me very harshly very fairly

without any ever pulling a punch but he was he was like a pattern he was like one of these generals and if this would have been the war you would have followed him over the ridge into the firing line

and you just would have done that. Why? Loyalty. He demanded loyalty. And I was able to give it. I wanted to. I'm kind of a loyal guy myself. I would absolutely love that about him.

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Mastery listeners 20% off. Just head to FelixGray.com and use the code FINDINGMASTERY20 at checkout. Again, that's Felix Gray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code finding mastery 20 at Felix gray.com for 20% off. This is, this is who he was for you. My, my original question was, where do you feel it? And I want to map that to music later. So when you were thinking, I don't know if you can go back, but when you are connected to the loss that you felt to him, where does that live inside you? Um, well, I'm probably going to avoid the question again a second time, but I'll try not to. to him where does that live inside you?

Well, I'm probably going to avoid the question again a second time, but I'll try not to. In various moments that I had with him, which... You're avoiding it. I am. But I wanted to tell you in various moments that I have in my memory. So that's part of me. You pointed to your, you pointed to your stomach when you said your memory. Absolutely.

Well, I can, I can, I can think of those moments, what they meant musically and how he pushed me to a, to a place of almost despair. Listen, when you're on the way out of here, if you look at a couple of the posters that he signed, I mean, I've got all of them somewhere them somewhere but you know one of them says halfway down the stairs it says h each one takes a bit of us you know he the guy he was so soulful and he felt it and he made sure you felt it as well and that's he didn't you couldn't duck away from it. And I felt that for me personally, it was a great lesson in commitment. Commitment to something. I needed to have been his composer. I could have probably found another director who'd make my life a lot easier, who wouldn't be so demanding.

Commitment to what? Because when you said it, did you feel that intensity? When you said it in the eye contact, we just said, commitment to what? Commitment to, I mean mean i think he saw me you know he understood he saw me commit so he was committed to you yeah and your abilities yeah well and you're yeah but just as a person also you know we did up both strangely we didn't we didn't you know he was such a prolific filmmaker that we saw each other a lot. I'd blink and he'd be shooting another film. And my time post-production would be just over the brow of the hill. But we didn't see each other in a social point of view.

I mean, he's probably old enough to be my dad. So we weren't socially... But I mean, during a time that we were working together, he'd be in my studio every other day. And even if I didn't have something ready to play him he'd come and sit at the back of the room I mean once he showed once my my assistant poster and said Tony's on his way out the stairs I'm like no no no no I said too late came in the door I'm like time

man thought you're coming tomorrow he's like H I'm having my haircut this is a bald guy okay were coming tomorrow. He's like, H, I'm having my hair cut. This is a bald guy, okay? He's got hardly any hair on. He said, H, I'm having my hair cut. She'll be here in a minute. Just get on with it. I want to listen. I want to feel it.

I want to be a part of it. So I'm like, okay. And so I did. There's another thing that Hans taught me early on was one had to be, occasionally one was going to be asked to almost get undressed in front of of people and i said look i'm english i'm not bloody doing that and han said you're gonna have to make because not all these people can speak your language music and what they need to feel is that you are prepared to collaborate with to let them into your world and in order to do that you've got to drop some of this

brush it under the carpet english nonsense you've got to you're going to have to open your heart up and you're going to have to let them see you for you and all your faults and your vulnerabilities but they're going to love you more for it so did i tell you hans was good at the political ah yeah yeah so i wouldn't call it political that's relational like he switched Like he switched on about you becoming vulnerable to be able to connect deeper with others. There is a limit to the depth of relationship for people who cannot dress down. And that vulnerability is really hard because we don't know how it will be received. Absolutely. That's the hard part.

But hold on. Can I be relentless here with you yeah go okay how come it's hard to articulate for you where you felt that loss because i bet if i asked you a different question where does music come right i bet that you could get there yeah but is this a um is this about not wanting to be vulnerable or is this about i don't know where it is it's all over or is this about not wanting to be vulnerable? Or is this about I don't know where it is, it's all over? Or is it something else maybe? I think maybe it's more I'm not certain about where that's coming from. And I think that's intrinsically part of something that I'm still on a voyage to learn.

Now, earlier when we were setting up yeah yeah i get what was the comment that i made and i said oh i turned to my assistant here and said oh steph yeah what was that yeah this was before the microphone where you said we're talking about oh you you said um yeah no we're going to talk about we're going to be really open about uh difficult like conversations that are it's difficult to find the words to express it. Right. And this is where music steps in, by the way. I turned around to my assistant here and said, Steph, yeah, no, it sounds like this is perfect timing, right?

Did you see her face? She's smart. Yeah. where it was decided that we should express ourselves a bit more often and a bit more clearly to each other about what we're feeling, what's going on within the studio, what we're doing. And that was actually her suggestion. She's half my age and twice as mature, you see. And I thought it was a great idea, and we decided we were going to do that. So that's why I was kind of smiley when you said,

if we brought her in, what would she say? I don't know. I'm thoroughly embarrassed. Yeah, sure. Okay, good. But I've found that there are different ways of describing things and expressing your feelings. And I still feel I'm learning that.

But if I told you that going back to the Scott brothers, not Tony this time, but Ridley, who I haven't done so many films with, but I have a relationship with, I realized that looking at his films, they're so beautiful, they're so like paintings, that if I was going to be able to talk to him and understand what he wanted from the music,

he wanted to feel certain emotions, but he's not able to tell me C major, F minor. How am I going to get that? Because again, he's not really my generation, so I'm not going to go out for a beer with him or anything. I need to be able to find a way. And then I suddenly heard him speaking to me one day, and I thought, that's it. He was speaking to me in terms completely I could understand, but they were his terms. They were art terms. He was talking in tone and texture and light and dark and how light might bounce off this and how I could bring a roughness to the texture of this. And it was just perfect. I thought I didn't tell him that. I was just like, okay, now now i know this is this is how i'm going to speak to him because all these terms are used in music as well god i love this because what you have now is a calibration tool right right so

it looks like two different languages but the commonality is expression between the two and you've got a calibration method when he says rough or texture or whatever then you go oh rough is bigger than texture or whatever and and the language is music yeah right and so so he's got paints you've got notes and then the language is music right and so can you can you talk about i'm so geeked right now to sit with you like because my words fall short they fall short of being able to express the ideas and the feelings that I have. And I know that. And I spent a lot of time thinking about it. So I feel like my voice is not enough to share what's inside. And this is one of the reasons that I get lost in music and i am if i had the chance to come back if whatever happens after you know our physical form dies here like i want to be part of music for sure so i'm geek to be here with you and i'd love if you could riff on how do you translate

either from another person or from yourself the the notes that express and move people, yourself or others. Because when I listen to your work, it's like I go places. But man, you see, I think it has to come down to having a sense of some sense of security. And I know all of us are insecure in some fashion and some of us more so. But in terms of security security and i mean that by knowing the little world inside me well enough the musical world inside of me the the chords

that shift here to here that i like now are they mine only mine no where did they come from? Are they somebody else's? Well, no, not intentionally. They've come from that six-year-old boy who was packed off to Cambridge. Now, what was the music that they... When I was six or seven, I could read music better than I could read English. We were having several hours of music lessons a day, singing, playing, together, alone, performing. But what was the source music? It wasn't just Mozart. It wasn't the things that you would expect. It was some of those things. But because it was Cambridge, and because one of our duties was to sing Evensong every night in the college chapel what is even song um it's an anglican yeah it's a it's sing the praises of god now the the music that we sang was composed by 20th century 19th late 19th century 20th century early 20th century english composers. I could name a few. You wouldn't know them. John Allen,

Hubert Parry, Charles Villiers Stanford. But, you know, they all have one thing in common, the harmonic approach of those things. I hear that in my work. Now, have I sequestered it? Have I stolen it? No, I don't think so. But, you know, I'm trying to answer your question in terms of how do i trace back how do i feel any how do i be in touch with what really moves me i think that's the first thing and then you can start thinking about trying to move somebody else but as long as i you know and hans said one thing to me really early on um i had managed to get this really low budget um love story uh movie really indie little low low budget thing and thing. And, uh, I was so excited to write the music for it. I never really thought I'd ever be doing anything like that.

And he said, I just make sure, cause I was really worrying about, I was like, Hans, but love, I mean, I gotta write a love thing. What the hell am I going to do? He's like, H, it's got to come from your heart. It's got to be honest. It has to, you have to be honest so i said hans i am honest what are you talking about no no i'm talking about the music you give you you your audience the something won't track right if you're putting it on or the chords that you choose don't really come from you they don't really appeal to you they don't you don't love them them yourself there's no way that it's going to translate okay so let's pause there how do you how what do you do to help you come from that place right is it it's easy to say life experience

but that's not it no right like what do you do to prepare yourself or to condition yourself and those are in some ways very masculine words but what do you do to prepare yourself or to condition yourself? And those are in some ways very masculine words, but what do you do to allow that expression to take place? I try and set myself free from all the things that would, would, would hinder me and enable myself to at least have a shot at doing something. I mean, you have no idea. I mean, I know that something writer's block is a cliche, but staring at a blank sheet of manuscript paper is pretty scary, especially when we're not talking about a

song or a two-minute piece of music. I just signed up for a film with Disney. There are 108 minutes of music I've got to compose. Now, Abbey Road Studio One is already booked in the first week of September. They probably booked my flight. I have nothing. I have nothing. 108 minutes. That's three Beethoven symphonies?

But it's all got to be written and orchestrated and approved, and it's all got to be good and orchestrated and approved, and it's all got to be good and brilliant. So looking down the barrel at that, so you asked me how can I start to try and feel that I'm giving what I can to just move those things aside. I have to move those things aside. The fear factor. So those are the pressures. You move those aside, right?

And then what are you afraid of? When you say looking to – Failure. Okay, let's go there. Oh what does that mean that means that means having to admit that I I haven't been able to do it I haven't reached the standards that that I've set for myself and I have said I love myself yeah so then go back to that first question like you writing for yourself or others the standards so it's it's like it's admitting to yourself that you don't have what it takes to deliver yeah it's not the other people's

possibility but that's the first that's the great fear the second fear is what they think of it yeah well then i'll get fired or whatever and that's so that's a business yeah that's just another fear that's but but but the first one is primary and did you did you use the word admit to myself? Yeah. Okay. So that conjures up for me this idea that you or we are playing a game. And that game, that inner game is I think I can, I think I can. Yeah. I scored the opportunity.

Oh my God, can I? And then as I start to get into the weeds of whatever, your craft, my craft, somebody else's craft, that I don't know. Many times I'm above my skis. Yeah. Okay. And I love that. I bet you do too. But how do you work with that little finite, that's not the right word, that textural conversation with yourself about can I? I think it's hope.

I think hope is the thing. So for me, I hope and... I hope I can? No, but more than just I hope I can do this. But so long as there's hope, then I haven't failed yet. Look, I told you the project I'm about to start, it's a gargantuan task. You know, some movies might hire you and there might be 23 minutes of music to write in the same

amount of time. Not this one. But so today I have hope. And last night I had a really bad, a bad conversation with myself because I was up here in my studio going through the early parts of my process, which are persuading myself that now is a good time to do this. You haven't failed yet. You can do this. You've done this before. There's hope. There's only hope. There's nothing getting in your way. I'm not going to think about the amount of music. I'm just going to think about the joy of music. And I'm going to think about the amount of music i'm just going to think about the joy of music and i'm going to think about the things the times that i have actually managed to succeed at this so push all the negative stuff out of the way and yeah at that moment a fear crept in so you're too neutral you're no no no this is this is the good stuff like so you let me let me let me

play back what i'm hearing you're sitting down, you're getting prepared, you've cleared away the mechanical pressure stuff. Yes. And then you say, okay, I can do this. Like I got this. And then all of a sudden, and you're walking through the actual texture of it. And then all of a sudden you're like, wait a minute. Yeah. What if I can't?

Yeah. What, what if I can't? So that's doubt. So that's why I say hope, hope plays a huge part in it. So, but, but, you know, I wake up this morning and there's still hope. And so I want to go back to that good stuff like how did you wrestle because that that inner dialogue is the essence of our relationship with ourself well so i'm literally you ask me and i'll tell you literally i um i felt okay i just i need to

remind myself that firstly, should I fail? This isn't the end of my life. My children are still here. There's still a lot of things. Should I fail? But I'm not going to fail. But one of the things I'd do is I'd skip over to my piano and I'd beat the hell out of it. Yeah, I'd run through, you know, a bit like, you know, if I was Elton John, I'd probably

knock out Rocket Man or something, but I'm not. So I don't don't know i probably sat down and played life on mars by david bowie um or i and uh i probably had a look and see what's sitting on my piano at the moment what are you feeling right now i'm feeling in this very moment in this very moment i'm feeling like um i haven't i haven't really analyzed my thoughts quite so much as we are. So you're doing deeper analyzing now? Yes, than I would normally expect to do. Yeah, that kind of happens in these conversations. But that's not unpleasant.

Yeah, it's not. No. For some people, this is the hardest conversation that they'll have. How come? How do you create that freedom? Well, it's probably partly you that's creating that but um no i mean i think it's because i think all these things are they're worth challenging and talking about and essentially learning from because you know i don't you didn't start out by saying so you know you're really good at this how do you do it you you're going much further back say

digging away up presumably have doubts here and there are issues here and so of course there are so i think it's actually quite a relief to to recognize that i know that about myself but i also know you know my strong love of music and and the the craft of doing what I do. And I love the challenge. I love the challenge. And that's what, you know, it goes back to me and my, my love of sports, competitive sports. You know, I do love the challenge. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep. It starts with how we transition and wind down. And that's why I've built intentional routines into the way that I close my day.

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Are you familiar with some of the science on flow state? Yeah. Yeah. That skills challenge balance, that loving the challenges of the science on flow state yeah yeah that skills challenge balance right that loving the challenges of the requisite and knowing how to back yourself yeah you can meet the challenge is one of the key levers to get into that's what i was talking about hope that's almost yeah same thing because i mean in order to back yourself you've got to you're going to have some hope that you could you could succeed right yeah so that so that hope for me sounds like you have this optimistic view that the future is going to work out as long as I can get some stuff out of the way.

Yeah. And then does music come through you or do you make it? The more I go on, the more I have to make it. You make it. So it's not the idea that you're a channel for it. No. Sadly, yeah. doesn't you're a channel for it no sadly yeah wolfgang amadeus maybe sat in his little hovel with a candle burning and and the muse hit him somehow no this is you know i have um music i

have to write by next wednesday and that's the end of it so there'll be tuesday evening and i've got there already or i'll be in a very a very rarefied state of not panic at all but but like now it's going to have to happen do you like that state there there's a utility to procrastination um if it's a forcing function for deep focus yeah and do you use that or do you say my best work is when I have space well no i i tell you what i i actually have some animosity towards people who've loved me during my life who say oh harry but you always work in that you always work best in that heightened state of uh of panic i'm like get out of here don't say that but you know maybe maybe i do no i feel like i can no i i feel like the more i go on the more

i like to try and work at a gradient i mean yes the this the the nearer the deadline comes the more you know defcon whatever you know gets elevated but but no i you know that there's especially i'm trying to do fewer films and do them better. I'm trying to do, it's not a race to the finish line anymore that it felt like when I first came here. Can you point to, artists have this unique ability to maybe point to a masterpiece. And maybe that's, there's some arrogance, like some weird, you know, scoffing at humility to say that.

But have you created something? No, not anything like it. But however, I've created a couple of pieces inadvertently in a couple of cases um that really people seem to love and i'll tell you one one little thing so i did this film man on fire with tony scott it's a gnarly film denzel washington um and you know the music you know it's kind of nine inch nailsy it's kind of hard ass and then there's a very soft edge to it well there's a little blonde blue-eyed girl who's one of my daughters is kind of identical age and size to dakota fanning who did it when she was little and uh so there's a scene in it where

denzel and dakota fanning they're sitting opposite at the kitchen table and he's been a real hard ass he's not been a bunch of laughs to be around for this little girl but she adores him he's her bodyguard and they play a game called smiling and he he tries to make her smile

and she tries to make him smile to see who will go first and there was just a little 25 second cue that I had to write for that. So wheel on, and I did. I don't think anybody noticed. Tony Scott liked it. It's fine. But I guess it went on the soundtrack.

That's how people got it. But wheel on, I don't know, to the last Olympics or something. And some huge watch maker made a commercial Omega watch and took this piece of music. I didn't rearrange it or anything. I took it and they doubled up it's so damn small that for a 60 second commercial they just had to repeat it but i don't know i must have had millions and i mean millions of people contact me about how incredible that piece of music was how did they contact you um through facebook or not facebook um i YouTube, because it went up on YouTube.

Yeah, right, yeah. But, I mean, so much so that about two years ago, I had some time where I was doing some recording with an orchestra. I thought, you know what? Bloody hell, I'm going to rewrite that thing. I'm going to make it twice as long. Because people wanted their friend's death or their mother's something or their wedding or

that and so no i haven't created a masterpiece but there's just a couple of little itsy bits that that people seem to like but i would be is this like english humility no not at all this is like no no masterpieces around here i've definitely um hold on could we no none at all i've definitely you know there is a couple of film scores where I got a couple of cues just like worked really nicely. Like that one. Okay. Yeah. But there's no masterpiece in there.

But, you know, I do think I've worked for and worked with a genius, definitely. And that would be Hans Zimmer. And, you know, some people love to hate his music because it's kind of this very big power anthem type thing. I'm not passing judgment on the music, but just as the person, he's an absolutely fascinating, intelligent, soulful, unique human being. So that was an incredible. I do. I do appreciate listening to him, like how he speaks and his intellect. He's a smarty pants. He is. Yeah.

I don't know him personally but i appreciate like the interviews i've watched and then how do you characterize yourself oh definitely a lot of smarty pants um not a smart i know i think i'm i'm uh i think other people certainly as a as a as a human being i i don't know i wish you if you could reframe the question so that how do I suspect people? You want to know what I think? Yeah, I do. I want to know how you know.

This is funny because like part of your job is to recognize what other people want. Yes. And I asked you the question and you wanted to reframe it to that, which is an easier question. Yeah, it is. It's a much easier question.

But like, if you think about it, how do you describe yourself? And well, okay, I can try. I think, you know, definitely I'm a father and family man, first and foremost. That's what I always wanted since I was little. I don't know why. Probably because I grew up in a big family. So that's that.

And then I think I'm a bit like the donkey in Shrek. I'm a donkey on the edge, he said. I'm a composer on the edge of disaster the whole time. A complete disaster. But I think that's probably what the appeal is to some directors, that I'm not by clockwork and I'm not that predictable. And I've got a bit of juice in me and I've got a bit of fire in me. And I definitely can express emotions, both as a person and through my music.

And you might say, well, aren't there lots of composers like that but I think a lot of people hide that or don't have that to offer and it's quite risky to have that as part of your thing so yeah I'd say yeah a donkey on the edge where does that, that spirit come from for you? And by the way, I know I interrupted your flow there. I love what you just described. I feel like I relate to that. Maybe that's why there's an appreciation for your craft and your work and even how we're co-creating this conversation. But that fire, I can trace it back for me where it comes from

how does it do so can i ask you where does that come from for me yeah yeah so i i grew up in a family i grabbed some roots early on a farm and so parents kind of dropped out we moved to a farm in virginia you know the luxury was if there was enough snow to go melt in the winter to have running water it was kind of like that. And so maybe I'm over-dramatizing it like my parents were listening, but that's the way it felt to me. And then when I came to California at a young age, I didn't quite fit. I got in a lot of fistfights early days.

Yeah, and I didn't fit. And then I didn't want to – I loved athletics, but I didn't want to be coached by somebody. I didn't fit. And then I didn't want to, I loved athletics, but I didn't want to be coached by somebody. I didn't fit there either. So then I found this world of action sport and off-access, you know, risk-taking sport.

And I never saw it as a sport. And just that counterculture piece felt right. And so where does it come from? It comes from not being seen early days. And so that's, that's so interesting. You should say that because I think by having listened to you say that, I think I could, I could say almost the reverse is true for me because during those, between the age of six and 13, I was seen, I was on parade. I was, you know, I can remember standing with the 15 other boys in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and thousands of people sitting about to listen to us sing. and he knocked a tuning fork on his knee and we could just just hear an A

and eye contact and we had to come in on some and we had to come in on an F sharp minor chord but with a G sharp at the top and just pluck that out of the air and you know that

being able to succeed at that somewhat, I mean, you know, being told, you know what, that was good. That was good. That was out of the top drawer. Or perhaps it wasn't. So we'd be called back after the concert. We'd be like, okay, boys, we're going to practice that 49 times. Were you inspected?

Yeah. Because I wasn't, when I said not seen yeah i was i was in the back country i was in on a surfboard i was in in a garage park you know on a skateboard so there was it was just me and the boys right no we we you know we were we were we were so visible i mean we were so incredibly uh the standard that was set for us was so high. So as I told you, in my teenage years, when I figured out that, wow, life doesn't have to be like this, that other people have much looser standards and expectations of me. So I kind of slipped into that, blah, blah, blah. But, you know, I came out the other side,

I went to music college and, you know, i did years of teaching and i think i hope i brought a lot of that the stuff that i learned in those early years to my own teaching methods where it was all about the pursuit of perfection and enjoyment okay so marry those two. I've never heard that. Perfection and enjoyment. In the course of achieving perfection, there always was a smile. There always was reward. And I don't mean it wasn't fiscal. It wasn't a pat on the back. The reward was doing it as well as we did it and knowing that.

I suppose we must have been told that or we could hear it with our own eyes it is yeah we knew the difference between a perfect pitch a perfectly rendered you know song and something that was sketchy are you when you created your structure to teach were you wanting to help people reach perfection or to free them up to be artistic and maybe i've i got the wrong question but i see them i see one as being mechanical and yeah i agree with you but i i would say very quickly that the schools and the children that i taught subsequently in my early 20s they hadn't been to auditions and plucked out of so so so so so immediately that no i wasn't trying to recreate those conditions what i was trying to recreate was a love of doing something

well and i loved whether it was hitting a cricket ball how i'd been taught and perfectly in the middle of the bat so it went in the direction you wanted to, or being able to pluck out that top G sharp absolutely out of nowhere and to love the pursuit of trying to get that as good as you could get it. Now, in the schools that I taught in, the standards weren't nearly as high, and they couldn't have been. These kids didn't spend seven hours a day practicing, which is what I had done as a little boy. So I wasn't trying to compare those things.

But I think that love and that inspire people to be able to push that to their outer limits, but at the same time to enjoy it and to love that. And I think that I never didn't love music and sports. I was never in the pursuit of my particular perfection or whatever. I haven't got any memory of anybody. You know, I've got memory of not succeeding and not being as good as I should have been. But there was always a smile in there.

There was always encouragement. And there was always hope that I would get there. I've never been able to ask somebody this, but can you express in musical form the love of getting to the edge? Yeah, well, yeah, the love of getting to the edge. Well, the edge is two things for me. I think the edge that you're referring to is the one that we is perilously close to to disaster whatever disaster is failure not just failure more than that being

realizing that that actually you know everything's built on sand and and and perhaps you weren't any good at this thing anyhow uh but the other edge um the slightly different edge is um the edge of where you possibly could go because i mean look listen some people you know that expression god that guy drove me around the corner or he's just pushed me to the edge you know that that i do come across people i work for with who who are kind of unreasonable in the way they push me to an edge and it's not the edge i think you and i necessarily want to be at it's an edge um is that agitation is that what you're talking about there yeah and it's and it's not it's not necessarily i'm not saying that in order to push me to an edge that i that i kind of agree with you'd have to be qualified to do that but there you know that yeah you'd be surprised there are quite a few

people working in this industry who you've got to kind of question how how did he become the decider of all things yeah i mean i can see his personality i don't get it but you know you've been hard and do it do the best you can and move forward but those don't get it. But, you know, you've been hired, do the best you can and move forward. But those aren't the people you want to have repeat business with. And that's what I was saying earlier on. Hans showed me really early on that it's going to be, you know, if you're going to stay and do this thing, it's going to be the relationships that you build that will get you through.

And they might be key directors, if you're lucky. They might be the odd person who works in production. It'll, you know, you'll have a wife. It'll be the children you have. It's going to be the relationships that are going to endure, that are going to make you endure, and not necessarily, you know, because at that time, I don't think either of us knew whether I'd be any good at this or not. You know, I'd only just started. So he's like, man, if you want my advice going forward, take note that it's going to be the relationships that you form that will allow you to endure. There's a phrase that I, an axiom that has been with me for a long time, which is that

through relationships, we become right. And it's an open-ended become what, but it's, it's the becoming, right? So it's through relationships and you probably wouldn't recognize this, but it's called self-determination theory. And there's three components to this theory. And the theory really is about how do people become internally driven to explore the edges? And those edges are whatever it is, craft and or self. And those three components are, and you can remember them by CAR, C-A-R car okay competence which is really getting better at something and knowing that you have a skill autonomy which is you know i kind of can choose how i live my life and then the third is relationships you have all three

so i don't need to ask you the question are you internally driven or externally driven it feels to me as though you are working from within to understand and unlock as opposed to there's always we always have external drivers which is money and attention and recognition we all have those for the most part but it feels like the higher driver for you and i don't want to put words in your mouth is the unlocking yeah right because you have all three components of that right so yeah no i think it's that's that's okay get us to the edge that's from my get us to the edge but that's remarkably perceptive because i think but don't you think that um i'm going back to you know my years of teaching you know i'd look at a kid and think what is it that i need to unlock for him in order for

him to to come out of himself express himself himself. But I think, yeah, unlocking the puzzle or finding the missing links, not necessarily expecting them to be put together perfectly immediately. But yeah. So you've used two words. You've used puzzle, linking, and then you've also used voyage. Yeah.

And another, you know, I hear people say that, you know, the journey, that feels really weak to me. The voyage has a little bit of an adventure to it. It's going to eat a person. No. Well, sorry. So the people who love the journey. Yeah.

I know it's. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. Yeah. Voyage kind of sounds a bit more like it has the potential to be rocky and get marooned occasionally, i think we all do so honesty keeps coming through yes for me for you yeah and it is one of the sub components or substrate for mastery i believe right of self and craft certainly important for relationships so we just stop there for a minute

and that relationship can be with yourself or with others so how what do you do to be able to be more honest? Or I can say to be honest. I surround myself with people, I might be repeating myself here, who aren't afraid to speak up about, you know, and I said, I don't have a bundle of assistants. I have two assistants. One who looks after the technical running of the studio and the other one who's learning to be a composer. She's already a very good composer, but she's my composing assistant. But their mental health and their state of play

is really important to me, really important to me. And we encourage each other to check in with each other about that sort of thing. Now, taking that a little bit further, I do my... Yeah, you're still in control. You're still of an influence there. I want to know how you... What do you do? I hear you saying that I'm around people that hold me accountable. How do they know what is true and honest for you?

They probably don't, but they know what is true and honest for you? They probably don't. But they know they would have seen me in situations that few other people would have done. They would have seen me in combative situations with a director, perhaps, with no time left and with music that's not being liked. So they have context. Yeah, they have context. They've seen the ups and downs and they've seen me shine and they've seen me perhaps below my best. So I think being accountable to, but, you know, one can't really put that on one's staff, as it were. But, you know, that's one aspect of it.

And, you know, another aspect of it is to do with, as we've been talking about, having relationships with people that one encounters more than once. It can be very flighty otherwise. Are most of your relationships transformational or transactional? Absolutely. Most are transformational. Yes. How many friends do you have? Other circle deep friends.

I have quite a large circle, yeah. Large circle? that would be that would be an american quite yeah what do you mean well i think well i mean you noticed that we probably wouldn't because we're in america i'm like saturated no i don't know no i can i can tell you you need to know when speaking to an english person if they said that if you said you know what that music's quite beautiful that would mean that you thought it was half beautiful it wasn't very so quite quite as as a qualification of the word after it. It's less than that.

So if I said, oh, it's quite sunny today, it doesn't mean it's sunny. It means it's not very sunny. So you've got to be careful with that. It's a double. It means it's quite sunny means it's extremely sunny. What did you say? I've forgotten that. Yeah.

Was it something about your circle? It was something I said. No, I have quite. Yes. You said quite. You said quite. I said quite a lot of friends. Quite a lot.

And I thought, he can read that either way he wants. That's right. Yeah. Does that mean large or does that mean small? No, I said it was in English quite. That is English quite. Yeah.

Okay. That's good. Okay. I've revised my opinion about it. And then like, is that, I don't know. Is that a good thing? 10, 15? I have no idea.

Oh, I don't know. What do you call a friend though? Oh, I can, I'd like to take that, I don't know. Is that a good thing? 10, 15. I have no idea. Oh, I don't know. What do you call a friend though? Oh, I can, I'd like to take a stab at it. Stab. We're talking about stabbing friends at this moment. That doesn't quite fit. Yeah. So a friend is somebody who I feel like I can trust that they know me and I know them.

Yeah. Right. And then the third component to it is that they have my back and i have theirs like that's what i feel like a friend but when you say they know you how much of you do that well it depends on the intimacy of the relationship right so there are some like it's the concentric circles like i feel like my relationship with my wife she has full context yeah right back to the earlier conversation that she's seen every part, you know, of my inner life and the outer life. And so that is, um, something that is rare and

cherished. And so because of that, it's at the center. And then as we move out, my, my, the, the intimate tight group is small. And then I feel like I have, um, many friends, people that I'm friendly with. And then there's probably a handful of folks that would get in the foxhole together. And they drop what they do to get in my foxhole. And I would do the same for them. Yeah. I mean, that sounds, I relate to all these, you just said. That sounds about the same for me.

For you? Yeah. Is that two, three, four? Or is that 15, 20? Yeah, I'd say 15 or 20. Yeah. Oh, that's pretty big. Yeah.

Maybe you're more successful than that. No, no, no. Judging each other. Quite successful. Yeah, quite. Okay, good. So can we do something fun? Like can you walk me through where music comes from and can I feel it and hear it?

And can you do some of that work together? Sure. Like I'm putting you on the spot. I'm looking at your body language. Is that putting you on the spot. I'm looking at your body language. Is that putting you on the spot? Yeah, I haven't quite understood what you mean, but I'm fine with that. Right in this moment, if you went back to the piano,

what does love sound like to you? What does frustration sound like? What does buoyancy feel like? I don't know, if you could just walk me through some stuff is that like yeah no be it be a be a like a little puppet no that's not what i'm suggesting like no i'm interested in the artistry i mean i think i'll be able to answer that better if i relate that to relate that to to things that mean, what does love sound like? I noticed on the piano, when I was at the piano a second ago,

I have, because love and tragedy and hate and all that, they actually sound the same with me. They do. Pretty much. Not about hate, but I'm known as a melancholy bastard, and most directors have to pull that out of me.

Or, you know, they're like, it's Shrek. He's kind of a happy guy. Why have we got such a, yeah. Well, speaking of Shrek, so he's a happy guy. Yeah, but it's in C minor.... ends in the major starts in the minor but then so does most of my music so i was i was sitting here looking at this i have the main theme for zookeeper's wife here it's a movie set in the holocaust so it's not a bundle of laughs um so it's right up my straws. Wait, hold on. Before you rip on that, where does the melancholy... I don't know.

Yeah. I don't know, but it's ever-present, I can tell you. Isn't it? It is. So what was that riff for you? What? What was that riff for you just now? No, nothing.

Just a distraction? Yeah, just a distraction, yeah. So melancholy, if we snap that back to early life, does that relate? Yeah, probably. I could make a story up about it. No, it probably does. distraction yeah so melancholy if we snap that back to early life does that relate like yeah probably i could make a story up about it no it probably does it probably you know there must have been some like how come my parents dumped me in a cambridge when i was six i mean i remember by the end of my first week at the school the headmaster had shown his real true colors now this wasn't the head music teacher just the head i think you would call a principal here uh he was a mean old so-and-so but uh he had you know i've been jumping on my bed in the dormitory

greg's my name's out of here pj's down and he beat me with a cane but i was beaten quite a lot because i was a naughty little boy um i didn't really mind that that was all part of the thing is that you rationalizing it do you beat yourself no i beat myself yeah yeah the large kid um i do i have i definitely um you know that that no because as i told her i managed to overcome that i managed to succeed i managed to get through some some of these kids fell by the wayside i don't know what happened to them but they they couldn't hack it. So then you've got some sort of deep survivability for –

Yeah, there you go. Right? And melancholy – teach me about that. Teach me about sadness. Teach me about how that works inside of you. Oh, you know, I don't know. I don't think I'm any different to anybody else i mean if i think of like deep sadness i think of of people who i've known and loved who's

aren't living anymore it's as simple as that so you know coming to a movie like zooki was wife where there's you know huge deep tragedy going on there. You know, again, I had to trust my own instincts. I don't know what I've got here. Let's see what I've got here. I know. Well, on this movie, interestingly, one of the characters sings something. I wasn't familiar with it because I'm not Jewish.

But one of the guys said to me, you know, Harry, that's a seda. That's something they sing at dinner. And it kind of went like this. I kept repeating that. I thought, hmm, that's right, I wrote this. Oh, shit. See, that's what I like about me. I'm so fallible. It's unbelievable. Just what I could have done with that perfect performance. Oh, shit.

I should be able to finish this. so that's where that's where that came from. You know, they say the setter was something like that. So I just plucked it out. I made sure it was public domain. I wasn't ripping somebody off. You know, okay. You know what my favorite part of that was? Watching you make a mistake.

Yeah. And then watching you go back into it yeah yeah and i want to i would love to open up what you just did the piece is moving and that is there's tragedy in it yeah right and so that creative process of going from those couple little notes into something full yeah and sad that putting a pin in that what did you do when you made the mistake what was the flashbang thing that you said or felt um no hint of regret but um a big sign a big i know myself i'm not a concert pianist i never was uh i'm liable to make mistakes. I could play the same piece for you 10 more times and play it perfectly.

But I am liable to make mistakes. And I got enough to contend with without thinking that I wouldn't make a mistake, even in front of an audience and on tape. So it didn't bother me once. It kind of pissed me off a bit that i would do that but in a humorous i mean i'm not i wasn't going to beat myself up about it and so immediately i had to quite get back on the horse as it were and correct it if i could so you made a choice some people some people could have um that i don't know you don't want to hear that i'm not i'm not a concert

pianist and most we would have started again so that we'll do that again. And you picked up in a different place. Yeah, exactly. I'm not, but I know that about myself and I know my limitations. So you have a lot of space. You're available and open and that's maybe what that little edge of disaster is, right?

You know, like as opposed to this rigid, straight-lined. Yeah, I'm not rigid. I think I'm'm flexible i think that's a quality that's necessary in the creative field unless you know unless you know once i don't know maybe you know musky's gonna create an electric car that's what he's doing but but you know the most of us have you know for me you might say okay well you're just doing music. Actually not, because every piece of music is different.

Every film is different. Every director I've got to interact with is different. Every situation is very different. And each time I'm different, if I need to look at Tony's poster, which says each one of us takes part of a sage. And he, the guy knew what he was talking about. And so I think every time i come to the process i'm a little bit different and you know the hope is that one's a little better or more prepared something but that's not necessarily the case i um i really appreciate who you are and how you

articulate this process and your process and the sensitivities and subtleties and the texture to it is rich and it's deep and i feel like you know i want to honor your time and i want to say thank you and also welcome yeah and it's nice talking to you as well thank you yeah i feel that as well i i would love to know how you articulate or define or think about mastery? I think it's slightly out of reach for me, if I'm honest. But I'm going to give it a bloody good go. I'm absolutely committed to and determined to, actually have been all my life,

chasing that, some sense of mastery. I don't think I am a master of anything yet um uh that's not so i've got lots of things i'm proud of and i've done reasonably well but but mastery that's a that's you know that was you know take me back to that six year old i told you we were why why were we trained why do we accept that training so well i think i i mentioned you know we were rewarded in many ways but we were never rewarded with whatever the top reward could possibly be why because why how would we have continued on if someone would have said to me at six or seven years of age that's it you that was brilliant that was 10 out of 10

i don't think anybody did there was nine out of 10 you know but to say you're a master or you have mastery it seems to me it seems to me like you know you you pulled up on some beach on that voyage and and that's it but you know that's only from what i can imagine a lot of people that you talk to actually really do have a sense of mastery because they just mastered their situation i don't feel like i have i feel like i'm giving it a good go but i don't um that's my honest answer yeah that's i have no question i had no worries answering that question yeah that's really cool if there's one habit or a couple habits that you would hope other people could learn from you

to install or include in their own life what would some of those habits be um habits that i have that i would put on and maybe maybe you don't have any habits maybe it's a free flow yeah well i don't know i definitely have an open mind i i i know that's that's an easy those two words are easy just to peg together and throw out there but um but i've you know i came to these shores in 1995 at the invitation of hans zimmer with no expectation at all. I'd never done any, I didn't even own a computer. I'd never used computers in music or I'd never really thought about film music or it existed. So I didn't know how I was going to be here. I knew we became really good friends. And what I could see in him was that he was loving doing what he was doing and I had loved

teaching my life up to there I'd loved it I had no wish to change I loved it so it had to be something it had to be something that I would if this was going to be something it's got to be I love it um and I think that did show a certain amount of open-mindedness, because especially since I had no experience, I had no idea this might work out at all. And then one other thing, I think, and often if I'm asked by a bunch of young composers or something, what would your advice be about starting up composing?

It's less about composing and more about my advice or my observation, I should say. There's no advice in here. My observation was, in my case, that by the time a little crumb fell off that Zimmer table, and it did after a couple of years, two or three years, I was ready to catch it. And not just because I'm a bloody good catch, and I am,

but because I was alert to it. And he and I had prepared myself pretty damn well for that moment. And, you know, I guess when one's trying to achieve things and one's at the beginning of your, whatever your voyage is, your journey, as you said, it's quite difficult to see how something like that could happen. And my observation is that the best you can do is to prepare yourself. Prepare yourself in a number of ways, the obvious ways in whatever your craft is but also to be prepared to see that an opportunity is actually an opportunity that little crumb actually could be an opportunity to better myself to you know to launch lurch forward

launch launch a career lurch forward you know in some unseemly manner but you know that that that that when i look back on that you know that i wasn't done single-handedly hans almost like prepared me for that moment but but there was a it was a good job that what had come before that moment had come before and at that moment didn't come to me two weeks years, ten years before it did. Because I was able to, in that moment, see what I can see now looking back as an opportunity. But I may not have recognized it as one if I hadn't been prepared for that. Does that answer your question?

Yeah, your purity is astounding. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us. Our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you. We really appreciate you being part of this community. And if you're enjoying the show, the easiest no-cost way to support is to hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you're listening. Also, if you haven't already, please consider dropping us a review on Apple or Spotify.

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