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Creativity isn’t tidy—it’s risky, chaotic, and full of surprises. It’s full of breakthroughs and breakdowns, moments of flow and moments of doubt. Join Mishu Hilmy for unfiltered conversations with artists, filmmakers, musicians, and fearless makers who thrive in the unknown, embrace imperfection, and create at the edge of possibility.
This is your front row seat to the self-doubt, unexpected wins, and messy emotional work of making something real. But craft isn’t just about feeling—it’s about problem-solving, process, and the devotion behind mastery.
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Mishu Hilmy (00:03.244)
Welcome to Mischief in Mastery, where we embrace the ups, downs, and all around uncertainty of a creative life, and that steady, and sometimes not so steady journey toward expertise. Each episode we talk candidly with people I know, people I don't know, folks who produce, direct, write, act, do comedy, make art, make messes, and make meaning out of their lives. You will hear guests lay out how they work, what they're thinking about, where they get stuck, and why they snap out of their comfort zones and into big, bold, risky mo-
So if you're hungry for honest insights, deep dives into process philosophies and practical tips, plus maybe a little mischief along the way, you're in the right place. For more, visit mischiefpod.com. Hey everyone, it's Mishu and welcome to Mischief and Mastery. Talking with Tony Scott Green. Tony is a composer whose scores have been featured worldwide from the Cannes Film Festival to the Chicago International Film Festival. Originally from Scotland, now based between Chicago and Los Angeles, he brings a storyteller of sensibility music.
Today we're talkingg with Tony Scott-Green. Tony is a composer whose scores have been featured worldwide, from the Cannes Film Festival to the Chicago International Film Festival. Originally from Scotland and now based between Chicago and Los Angeles, he brings a storyteller’s sensibility to music
Mishu Hilmy (01:02.836)
often weaving vintage instruments and unexpected textures into his work. After two decades of tech consulting, he shifted fully into music, now serving as chair of the Chicago chapter of the Society of Composers and Lyricists, president of the Midwest Film Festival and a faculty member at Columbia College. He also worked on several of my short projects and it was an absolute delight getting to collaborate and make music and stories together. So what do we talk about in the episode?
We chat about how music travels across cultures, why intentional listening matters in the age of Spotify and crafting and shaping sound so that it helps audience see a story more clearly. We also talk about balancing creativity with teaching and the ways he brings curiosity and structure into both composing and life. So if that interests you, stick around. You can learn more about Tony at TonyScottGreen.com as well as at Tony Scott Green on Instagram. I'll have all that in the show notes.
but without any further delay, please enjoy the conversation with Tony Scott Green and myself. Here you go.
It's funny that this summer has been really nice. I've had a couple of projects. I started teaching at Columbia College. so school's about to start up again. So I'm trying to get these projects wrapped up so I can really kind of get myself over to teaching a couple of days a week and just trying to get organized. As I said, I really do like to have my time organized so that I'm not just, it's not just 45 minutes of this and 45 minutes of that. And it's just a really fragmented day.
So I need to kind of get things organized. So I've really been kind of working on trying to get these things wrapped up so I can really kind of bring my best, my best energy to the time I have.
Mishu Hilmy (02:42.486)
For Columbia, is this going to be teaching sort of music composition or music for film?
It's actually, I do a class called Music Time and Place and I've done this for the last year or so. And it's looking at how music moves around the world. At least that's, they said that's the point we get to. So all the interconnectedness of music, you go every, why is it that there's an instrument in Taiwan that looks very much like an instrument in Mongolia, but it's played a different way. Why is that very, why is the music in the Southern.
mountain regions of Poland, very similar to Texas bluegrass or Wisconsin polka. What are these connections and how do people move and music moves with people. So how does that work? that's really fun.
That's pretty cool. think, I don't know if we talked about this, but I remember there's like a book that came out a while ago around like its argument was like rap was the last sort of organic musical evolution because their argument was like the internet has made anything referenceable. like, you know, there's no real sort of organic tonality, but I don't know if I agree with that. that like, yes, you can't reference anything on the internet. You can listen to like
Japanese music or these weird folks, not weird, but these obscure folk songs anytime you want. But I was just curious if you had any thoughts on that, like how there might be, you know, because of the internet, organic music movements aren't as common.
Tony Scott-Green (04:12.454)
It is interesting because you're talking about organic movement. I guess the first organic movement is either voluntary or forced migration of people. taught songs or maybe mobile instruments with them. And then one thing we talk about is just when cars suddenly got hi-fives and you had eight tracks and cassettes and cars, suddenly music was mobile then. And you could share that. You could give this piece of recorded music to someone.
And they could record or record over it. And so all these things happen. just goes on and on. mean, it never ends. So I hear what you're saying, but it is interesting to talk to a class of people and ask them to imagine back pre-97 or pre-2000, pre-internet, because they can, because it's just, what are you talking about? I might as well be a Victorian chimney sweep.
talking about what child labor was like in a Charles Dickens novel. it's good to imagine that, say, what if you couldn't just look it up? What if you had to go find it? What if you're going to be a musicologist? What if you actually had to be like an archeologist? We've got to go to the site and explore this and record it and see it ourselves and try to incorporate that mindset into what you're doing every day, which is let me go there.
And see it. And that could mean, hey, let me go to the South side or let me go to this neighborhood and see how they do footwork. Let's see what that is. Let me go to this, go to the West side, to this club and see how they're doing things there. It could be as simple as that.
think it's like interesting, like how I think the internet just makes migration of information, whether it's physical bodies moving through space, right? Like if you're in a quiet neighborhood and then you have a family from a different part of the world to come, that might change your musical influences and how you decide to design music. But now it's like, you can get or manufacture that kind of bodily migration by like not either physically being present there or having someone from that community come to you, but you can just like listen.
Mishu Hilmy (06:21.974)
and find it and let that inform. maybe there's more like micro expressions that you're influenced by music rather than like this type of singular place.
I think that's really true. And I also think that the electronic nature of digital music doesn't lend itself to bringing your full attention and full energy to it to experience it fully. And not in the same way as if you're in the room or you go to a place to deliberately experience a particular style of music or if you're in your example, family from across the world.
moves next door to you, and suddenly you're hearing it and maybe you're having dinner with them or you just hear it through the wall. You experience that in a whole different way than you do when you interact with something electronically. Electronic music, it occurs to me, doesn't call for the same level of emotional attention and concentration.
Yeah, I mean, I think it's kind of heartbreaking because honestly, like with things like Spotify, they'll just either curate a playlist for me or they'll have their sort of royalty free versions of like a certain vibe, which is even more problematic. But it's like, there's, I've noticed myself losing an intentionality when it comes to music. Cause it's like, used to know the artists, the album I was listening to the track names. And now I'm like, Oh, I love this song, but I don't even know who, who recorded it, who made it, what is called where I could find it again.
That's absolutely right. The idea that it's not just on in the background, the intentionality as you said is gone now. You know, we've gone back to vinyl a lot and we've gotten away from Spotify. We rely a lot on Bandcamp. We'll use Bandcamp for streaming and for buying the physical media because we want it to be much more intentional.
Tony Scott-Green (08:07.82)
I don't want just a vibe on the background. want to know what music I'm listening to. The flip side of this, and my daughter points this out to me, it's a great New Yorker cartoon. And as someone showing off his great vinyl and hi-fi setup, and he says to his friend, what I like most about it is the expense and the inconvenience.
You
You learn a quote pretty quickly. yeah, you get like 15 minutes aside on an LP. yeah, I forgot about that. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So that's funny.
you get like your four LPs and you gotta like go through it. I do like it though because you actually like listen to the whole album. You're more likely to listen to the whole album than just like skip around. So that is one benefit, but there is a cost and a convenience.
Well, is there a more cinema corollary to this? Where if I'm just watching something streaming as opposed to me saying, Hey, I'm actually going to put in my Criterion Blu-ray and watch this. there an analogy there? Is it the same?
Mishu Hilmy (09:03.724)
I think so. think it's the same. And I think that's what I've been at least sitting with and confronting, you know, on a daily weekly basis of like, I usually reference it more in terms of platforms. Like you grew up similarly and I probably grew up at a time where the major platforms were TV and movie theaters. like there's maybe a romance or nostalgia with the presence there versus like the world we live in now. It's like, there's a incredibly high supply. You can go on, you know, Netflix, Paramount Plus, Hulu, Amazon, all that. And you have all this access plus.
You have even more shorter form, enjoyable access to like media on your phone, Tik Tok. So I just think it's like similar corollary with, you're, you're able to do like more unintentional behavior and also maybe more forgettable behavior of like consuming media and stories, much like you consume an album in the background and not even remember it.
Yeah, I think that's right.
Absolutely right. Yeah. Well, we'll fix it. We'll work on our own intentionality. But then the other question I had was just around like the time blocks. So like you're gearing up for this class to start and you're trying to like maybe wrap up some projects. What sort of organizational method are you using to really, you know, make time blocks work for you? Cause it sounds like you don't just do like maybe 45 minute chunk, 45 minute chunk. seems like maybe more of a systemic approach and like how you want a day to look or a week to kind of feel their shape.
I, yeah, it's good. the parts of the system you see kind of on the behind me, you'll see the notes. there's, definitely some of that in terms of organizing my time. mean, essentially if you're, if you're a composer, you're a creator, it doesn't matter what you are. You're an editor or a filmmaker, writer, whatever, you know, you're, you're running, you're independent, you're running a business. That's your job. And so yeah, you got to do the work, but you also have to run the business. So I tried to have admin days. tried.
Tony Scott-Green (10:51.342)
working like admin and outreach and my social media and do that into, I tried doing that in every day, but then make sure I had time to compose and that didn't work out so well. So what I do is I dedicate a couple of days a week to my admin days. say, Hey, I'll do my outreach. I'll do my teaching. And those days can be fragmented. That also means that it's three other days that really need to be set aside and dedicated to music. If we're going to do calls and meetings and say, Hey,
going to be in one of those, days. Cause the other days are set aside to have a big block of time for composing because I really need to be deeply in the world for which I'm writing music. Can't, I can't keep hoping it enough. Yeah. I think I've used this analogy with you before. It's not that I really need that time. Although if I get, I'll take as much time as I can to write music, but
I want to be so deeply in that world and playing so much. It's a bit like, you ever see these divers who actually, just the free divers, but the divers are working at great depths and there'll be a chamber that they'll live down at depth for a long time because they can't keep coming up and down. So they go down there and they'll live down there in this little dead chamber for three or four days and do the work they have to do on.
the internet on the pipeline or whatever, whatever they're doing down there. think that's what it's like for me as a composer. I've got to be able to get down there and not keep coming up for interruptions. So I've got to live down there to really be in that world. And then at the end of the day, I'll come up, then I'll dive down again in two days time. So I can't keep, you can't, it's impossible to keep going down and back up every 45 minutes. There'll be no, there because you do that, there's just no time left at depth. When you're at depth, that's when the good stuff is happening.
I think that's such a great metaphor. I've never heard that one in such a good visual metaphor. Cause I think it also aligns like I remember learning maybe reading, I don't know if it was like Cal Newport's deep focus or some other psychology book. though I don't think defocus is necessarily a cycle. Something around, a like one is like attention residue. Like every time you switch a task, the residue, the residual focus from the other task will impact you. So if you're doing some deep work on your, your composing.
Mishu Hilmy (13:10.958)
And then you're like, all right, I 45 minutes. I'm going to hop and do 15 minutes worth of emails and admin. Like they're all going to like blur into each other. And then the other thing is reading about this was in the context of like volunteering people burn out more and are less satisfied if they volunteer. Say you're doing like 30 minutes, five days a week. That's like what? Two and a half hours. That's going to burn you out more than if you just do.
a one every Sunday for three hours, I'm volunteering or I'm doing this volunteer task. I think similarly with just the dedicated admin tasks, more, you're less likely to burn out. you know Mondays for four hours, I'm doing all my emails, all my lead generation, all my client stuff, all that. And then it's done the rest of the week. can kind of figure it out rather than pocketing 30, 60 minutes every other day. You're more likely to feel burned out and resentful.
Yeah, it's interesting that the flip side of that, course, is that, when it comes to things like exercise, you know, yes, better to have the 30 minutes a day. Agreed. say, I'm to run a marathon Saturday. You know, I just go out and get some walk run. I get a two mile jog in every day. Just do that. So yeah. So I try to balance that, but ultimately, you know, it's all about trying to bring the best energy I can to the workout I have.
And then in terms of like that, that depth of getting into the world, if you do want to share any kind of either approaches or spaces, like what's been working for you or has been working for you to really be in the presence of the world, might be composing or making or recording music for.
You know, every project is its own world and you're trying to find the musical language of that world and you're trying to find, develop that whole musical character, the supporting character, that is the music in that world. And you really have to be, you have to be in it. You can't just keep popping in and out. I mean, I'm in the space where, the physical space where I do this, which is in my studio. I have all my tools and toys here and that's what I rely on.
Tony Scott-Green (15:16.43)
comes to just being in that space really, well, the first thing is this, and this is really important. this is the, I think it was the scientist and there's a few different versions of this. I'll give both. One is from the legendary scientist EO White. He said, a scientist has the soul of a poet, but the work ethic of an accountant. know, and I think
the, and that's the art and the craft side of things. And the other one I like is from the, musician Nick Cave has said that, I believe in inspiration, but inspiration only shows up when I'm already at my desk working. So, you know, I have to be in here and I slide the, the soundproof glass door behind me. All right. All right. I'm back in this world. Where are we? What are we, what are we doing? And it's, it's that process of showing up.
to work and it takes it, you're trying to get, you're trying to get a fire started. You know, it's, you know, these, these people with the rubbing sticks together and suddenly get it going. You're, gathering firewood, you're trying to get the fire going. Sometimes it takes a while to do that, but once it's going, you got to keep feeding it and you want it, you want to keep going. I'm, I've been doing this, I have been doing this so long as you know, as you know, I, I did something completely different for quite a while, but I've been doing it long enough now that I learned that that process of trying to get something going and.
the excitement being tempered with the, don't know what I'm doing. I'm lost. This is weird. I've done this a hundred times before, but I still, maybe this is the project where I find out that I'm just empty, which never happens. Of course that's all just, that's all just fear of getting started. So I know enough now that to get past that. And so I'll come out after a day or so, my wife would be like, how'd it go today? I'm like, terrible. It started this thing. I've got nothing done. And she knows now she's like,
You're in that stage of the project. So you're working through that. Okay. Good. It's just that, it's just that showing up every day and just understanding you're going to chip away at it. Just chip away and try and find something.
Mishu Hilmy (17:22.806)
Right. Cause from my understanding, part of your ethos or processes, acknowledging that lostness, right? Like I think I've seen you kind of post-reels and speak to it. Like, how has that relationship developed and like, yeah, when it comes to really, you know, sitting with that, like that fear and that, you know, being utterly lost.
Well, when you're lost, to be lost is to be good because you're, you know, the, have no map or maybe, or maybe you had a map and you always say when the, when the surroundings don't match the map, got to throw away the map and pay attention to your surroundings. So I'm trying to get lost. I'm trying to get lost and trying to do something that I haven't done before. And I, because every project is different. So I'm always trying to bring something different, slightly different to it. And it's just, it's just the getting lost thing.
is really important to me. It's so funny. Some people talk about, you know, they're getting lost in music, just getting swept up and getting caught up in it. And that's, that's part of it. That's, that's the good getting lost. The bad getting lost is when you're like, man, I've got to find a way out of here. I can't, it's the forest is dark. I can't see anything. I don't know where there's water. There's no lights. I can't see stars. I don't know where I'm going, but you develop a confidence that
You can go deeper and deeper into that forest and still be lost and you'll still be okay. In fact, unless you get lost, you have to get lost to find something. You've to lose sight. Man, I am mixing metaphors here. It's just terrible. You you've got to lose sight of land to get to the good stuff. you're a sailor, I moved from land to sea. Let's do that next. Yeah. Oh my God. This is horrible.
in the clouds pretty soon.
Mishu Hilmy (19:03.374)
Yeah, maybe we'll get to it. Cause like, I think the interesting thing is like, you know, you're dealing with a variety of clients from feature films to short films to even, imagine advertisements or kind of industrials. don't know if those have been kind of wound down here and there, but like, um, how do you know when like to, um, approach any given project with the level of depth of, you know, creative expression, right? Cause I imagine if you want to do some, you know, original challenging fresh work, there's a little bit more space to.
lose yourself versus something that might be like, Hey, two weeks, we'd love to see this. So like, what's been the difference depending on sort of project type.
Yeah, you there's your rights. There are parameters you have to evaluate. There's the three sides. There's the, the, the, scope to create a brief and then there's the budget and there's time. It's kind of a triangle. And if you can define that, then pretty much anything you do inside that triangle, anything that fits the form of those three vertices is going to be fine. But you've also, you've got to deliver on time. So there's a, there's an art side to it. There's a craft side to it too. You've got to show up and be able to do your job.
And sometimes it's two weeks, sometimes it's tomorrow 9 a.m. Sometimes it's that. And it's like, all right, what can we have by then? yeah, you just dive into it, I think. You know, you just commit to it. That's really it.
I know we work together and I'm curious like how your approach has evolved. Cause have you sometimes start kind of tinkering and exploring with stems you might've recorded in the past to just kind of play with vibe and then you start rerecording or is there different approaches on like how you like to, you know, you're working with the image, the moving image and you might have a brief, maybe they've given you temp or not temp, but like what's, you know, how do you like to enter, you know, when you first start looking at a picture?
Tony Scott-Green (20:52.43)
If there's, if there's temp, know, temp is, you know, some people hate it. Temp or a temporary score can be a really useful thing because it's the way if the director to communicate to you, Hey, here's, I was thinking, here's something that I, I like. And it could also be something that the picture has been cut to. So it's useful to listen to it once. And I'll really, I won't listen to it any more than that. Unless the only time we'll go back and listen to it again, is if I'm going through my process and the director's like, well,
And in the time we did this, I'll say, well, let's go back and tell me what it is you like about the feel of that. But I'll try to just listen to it once. And then you kind of nailed it, which is the process where you start. I'm trying to see if I can picture you. know, if this is the graph, you know, I'll start from this side. Here's time, here's zero, here's when we start and here's our deadline over here. You know, at this range, you've got the broadest idea possible and you're trying to narrow in on something.
And so you're playing with a lot of different things. You're putting a lot of ideas out there. Hey, what about this? What about that? It's really a collaborative thing. And you're also trying to find the balance of what might be possible. You're trying to show, give a sense of the scope of what's possible because you're trying to find something that seems, you know, like suddenly when you hear it, you say, that's part of the DNA of the picture that that that belongs to that.
You're also trying to, as you do that, you're also trying to find a way to work with the director or editor or producer or whoever it is, the post production supervisor, whoever it is you're working with and seeing how they like to work. Some people like to hear a lot of things. Some people like, no, I just, you know, I don't want to hear too many. So you're trying to figure out that relationship, the creative process, and also the working relationship, the professional relationship. But it is an iterative approach. And that's something that a lot of people maybe don't understand. It's really a collaborative, iterative thing. So I still kind of try to dial these things in.
I try to make sure that I'm not asking, if I'm sending an idea off to the director, I'm sending it off to you, I try to make sure I'm not asking the director or you to do too much work. I'm trying to give you enough of an idea. They say, oh yeah, I see where that's going. So I'm not asking you to say, oh, imagine it's this, but imagine it's right now it's solo piano, but imagine with a full orchestra and this and that. I'm trying to give you a little more than that. But I try to make sure
Tony Scott-Green (23:13.708)
I'm not going too far down any one pass that I might have to backtrack on later on.
if it's partly like commitment and time management, right? Like where you want to get that buy-in from the director or the party is to say like, Hey, this is where I'm at initially. What do you think of this? Rather than like you present something that you've very much committed too much time to. is that like part of like the earlier stages of the process of like getting, getting the feel and the vibe closer, and then you can kind of make those tweaks as they align better.
If you're involved really early on and you've got a ton of time and the inclination to do so, it'd be great to say, hey, I'll come back to some ideas and you might present three or four fully fledged pieces and say, which of these grab you? And the great thing about being a composer is that you'll have those pieces and none of might work or maybe one works, but maybe none will work. But you'll use those someplace else. You you put those in your back pocket there for another project.
But what I do try to do is not go too far down that path and say, Hey, here's, here's something I was thinking about. Is this worth developing? Yeah. Okay. Keep, keep, keep doing that. So it really, it really is time management because if I don't have enough time and I've got, let's say I've got two weeks, I can't take 10 days and come back with one piece and say, what do you think of this? I've got to, I've got to have, you know, three or four sketches in the next 40 hours and say, here's a couple of ideas. there anything in here that grabs you?
I like number one. Okay. Well, let's, let's go ahead with that and develop that a little bit. Or I like, I like the number one, but I like a little bit what you did here on number three. Can we combine those two? And so it's, it's trying to do that. So it really, it really is kind of a practical thing as well.
Mishu Hilmy (24:53.55)
How do you personally organize the tracks that might not have made the cut? what's sort of, do you have a system in place? Cause I imagine the master waste nothing. So you have all these, these sounds that you've already developed, like, what do you have a system in place? Like, how does that work for you to go like, it was a by vibe, by instrument, by year, you know.
it's just, it's just done by projects. The orphans, I've got a little space in my hard drive, the island of misfit toys. It's all the, work in progress stuff, the things that I kind of like and I might get back to, that might be good for other things. And so they all just, they all just sit there and every now and again, I'll kind of go through them and whether it be for, if I get a brief for a trailer or to license something or a commercial, I'll kind of look at that. Or maybe that's even kind of a starting point for something else.
So yeah, they're always there. They're always there just waiting to be. We're hoping to open the toy box and see what's inside.
I wonder if like a degree of it relies on memory, right? Like where you maybe have a project a year down the line and then it's like, you know what? I feel like I did something on this thing and you might just pop into that, that folder, that area.
Yeah, that sounds about right. I certainly don't have any more, a more rigorous system other than, yeah, I did something similar to this or now and again, I'll go back and listen to something. And sometimes I'll go back and listen and I'll like, you know, that's, really not worth saving.
Tony Scott-Green (26:16.398)
But yeah, really is just, it just depends on my memory. And I'll go back and I'll listen to these things to see what's there. But there's no, I don't have a more, a more rigorous cataloging system than that. But for the, the, the ones which have the demos, the things that got rejected, it's just based on, hey, let's go and see, or, or just something like that. That's it. Right. Exactly.
I imagine some of it's depending on client, but like, how do you approach either recommendations or your initial, you know, recording composing? I think you, probably have a masterful system with a mix of, you know, real instruments and digital. like, is that a budget thing or what's your relationship to, you know, building out sort of soundscapes given the instruments you might have or not have access to.
I have pretty much like most composers pretty much digitally have access to any instruments I want, which is incredible. You know, amazing. It's fantastic. And I would also point out that I think for 90 % of people who are listening to film scores, digitally, Netflix, Amazon Prime, whatever, I'm going to say 90 % of that stuff is all digital and it's sitting so low in the mix. can't really tell.
So first part of it is budget because live players are expensive and there are different levels of it. know, and when we think about live players, so oftentimes we're thinking of happy road, big orchestra. How do we do that? And that's great. And you can understand that if you're, if it's going to be a Marvel film and you're in the theater and the sound is great, the mix is great. You know, you know, real and you want that. You need to have that.
You can't, so if you can't do the full Abbey Road Orchestra, then maybe, hey, I'm going to use my samples. I'm going to bring in, we want it to sound a little better. I can bring in a couple of string players and going to add them into the mix. And it just gives it a little more that human touch. so it sounds so much better. Sometimes we don't need to do that. If there are things I can do myself, I'll do that, you know, guitar, piano, whatever. I'll do all of that as much as I can. Uh, if budget and time permits, but so often it does come down.
Tony Scott-Green (28:28.366)
to budget and time. And also to a certain degree, it's mainly that, but to a certain degree, you also think about how are people going to hear this and are they going to know? And at a certain point you say, well, I'll know. And so I should push for that. Now the one exception is there are certain instruments that digitally don't sound good. And there's one example I can think of. was doing a theme for a TV show and the director really wanted a big band sound with a lot of horns.
When you hear saxophone or horns, you know right away when it's real or not, because there's a, it's, you just know. And so I said, we really need to have some budget to do this. And I remember I wrote the horn parts and we brought it, but we just brought in two players and one came in and he played down four, let me see if I can get this right. think maybe four trumpet parts and two trombone parts. Then a sax player came in and he played down four.
tenor and four alto parts that I mixed them in and it sounded great. And I was able to say to you can get all the overtones and squeaks and humanization in there that you want. Cause I really want people to know it's live. And I remember having the editor and the director there in the studio at the time and they were just so happy. like, this is so great. This sounds so much better to have these folks in here. So there are ways to do it.
But there are certain instruments that just, they're just not going to sound right.
And do you find from your side, like you have a certain integrity there where you're like, you will make the recommendation. You will be like, look, we can do it this way. can compose it. You like it, but this is what I think this needs. And you know, whether the client wants to take it or not, but you find that you're pretty consistent around spotting those moments and speaking to it.
Tony Scott-Green (30:19.246)
I think so. I think I have good enough taste. I mean, don't have a formally trained musical ear, I'm, you know, I always say not everyone's an expert musician, but everyone's an expert listener and people know something. Oftentimes they know in their gut when something's real or not, or how it makes them feel. So ultimately it comes down to can we spend a little bit more money and make this sound real or am I going to have to spend another two days trying to make it sound as real as possible and never quite get there?
So, so how do we do that? And ultimately does it matter that much? Cause if it matters to me, I have done this, I'll put my own money into something just so I want, I want it sounding good. So I'll do that. Even if they can't spring to the budget, I've done, I've gone into my own pocket just because I can't have it out there not sounding quite right. But more often than not, this experience of having that I described to you, which is that when people hear it.
And oftentimes this is what I'll do. I'll bring the students and say, come over here and hear it yourself. And when they hear it, it's like, yeah, this is so much better. Even if it's a, let's have a string player or a cellist do that top line. And they hear it mixed together and they're yeah, that's, that's transform.
When it comes to sort of the variety of people in the room, collaborators, partners, clients, you know, they might provide the brief, like what, what's your preference or what works best for you given that not everyone's an expert in the world of music, but everyone can be an expert in feeling and listening. So how, how have you sort of developed either, you know, navigating those conversations, those relationships when notes can be varied from any kind of, you know, collaborate.
It's always nice if there's a single point of contact for notes and not just everyone throwing stuff at you. And you know, I just did a TV show and there was, with the post-production, the post-producer that has a great musical ear and a couple of other people on the team are also really musically informed. And so the notes just came through a Google doc, but it was kind of moderated by the post-production supervisor, which was great. So.
Tony Scott-Green (32:23.874)
I got these different perspectives, but they were kind of channeled and speared and just moderated. They edited a little bit. So that was certainly helpful. If it can be one person, then you're developing a relationship with that person. that's the best, because then it becomes a collaboration with the two of you. Navigating notes is tricky. Sometimes, know, you know, sometimes notes are, hey, can it come in a frame earlier? That's easy enough to do. It's tricky if you're, some people, when they set up a contract, they'll set up a number.
finite number of revisions and I don't do that because if I get beyond a certain number of revisions, I'm not getting it. Then I need to go back and understand what I'm missing. You know, my friend, Kubee Oner down at Columbia always says, you want to make sure that you and the director are watching the same film. want to make sure you're on the same page. And it's the same with music. What are they hearing that I'm not? I think this is great. And they're just not hearing it. What am I missing?
Right. So, and nine times out of 10, it's me that's missing something that they understand that I haven't dug deeply enough to get from them. And it's rarely that they're, that they don't understand the music is that I don't understand the story well enough or what they're trying to accomplish. So I try to, I try to do that with notes. So, you know, there's different kinds, you know, we always laugh and say, someone says, could it be more purple?
And you that's, you, you got to dig into it, kind of figure out what that is. It's funny sometimes when you do work with filmmakers that are plenty of them, who are really good musicians and they'll say, is this, know, here, when you go to this, could you actually go to more of a minor tonality here? If we drop that an octave and that's great. And I think in that case, and the beauty of working digitally is you can very quickly do that and say, let's hear it. Let's hear it your way. Let's hear it this way and let's, let's see which is better.
So, and that's the other thing of course about when you're working digitally, you can work really, really fast. you, and you, and it's good and bad about the fact you can work fast and you can also change things quickly. You're not, excuse me. You know, if you bring in live players and you've recorded something, then you say, well, it's, you know, it's, it's, it's recorded. had the players in, we them. This is kind of what we have. And up until that point, everything's changeable. But there's that as well.
Mishu Hilmy (34:35.022)
So, right. Yeah. That's like the blessing and curse. want to say, we might've talked about Walter Murch's blink of an eye, Walter Murch, added Apocalypse Now, but I think he appreciated, also bemoaned that speed because like you don't have that time of like physically holding the celluloid and like all the time you spend doing these things versus you can't process, it takes time to process versus if you can make all these cuts, maybe you might've needed to sleep on something for an hour or sleep on something for a day.
But because we can move so fast, might be losing some of those things that just, you know, living with it, taking your time can kind of discover.
It's interesting. was having this, I was talking to that exact point and it's a little off topic, but I'll bring it back. I'll do my best. Someone was talking about AI and how we're all using it and how you get this information from AI, then you really do have to put it through your own filter. So you got, you got this information and you do have to process it yourself. And part of that is, well, does that sound right? Can I trust it? How do I feel about this? And so yeah, you're right. That whole thing of letting it process a little bit is so important.
And that goes back of course to conversation you and I have had about John McPhee, the writer and draft number four, the whole notion of, you know, muscling through a really shitty draft. then so that, so that your brain has something to subconsciously react to, subtly optimize in that point on. So I think that's, that's, that's the process. That's a very subconscious process of that optimization and just sleeping on it. And let's see if we can prove this a little bit instead of just going with it and a knee jerk response.
Yeah. Like given that sort of processing, how do you, like, is it a frequent occurrence? How do you navigate, you know, whether you're, you know, drifting off to sleep and a melody comes to you? Like, do you have tools around you throughout the day where you can capture those, those fleeting solutions or those fleeting thoughts?
Tony Scott-Green (36:29.238)
I will use the voice memo recorder on my phone. It's great. Here, I'll look at this right now. Cause what I do is I'll record memos and then I'll dictate in what a name for them or an idea. And the names that come up are always just horrible. And I have to kind of decipher what it is. Let me see if I can do this because this could be somewhat funny because I'll see kind of what names are on here. Let's see, it's all stuff like, yeah.
Riff fives, Riff four, first 40 unfolding. synth arpeggio. I think that's supposed to be synth arpeggio idea, but it says here synth, synth arpeggio idea. There's one here called Baseline Gym, come back to this later. There's, there's all kinds of weird dancing monkey idea. yeah, actually, you know I see on here? I see dirty dishes.
30 dishes doctories.
from when you and I worked together. there's stuff in there, I try to give them names that means something, then I go back and look at them, I see how serious transcribed them. I don't know what the hell that is. But yeah, I'll just use that because if something comes to me while I'm living in the world of the film, there's a very good chance that that belongs to the world of the film. And if it comes to me and I don't, I wake up and I haven't...
I haven't recorded it or I've forgotten it and that then it just passes through me.
Mishu Hilmy (38:00.462)
Yeah. Yeah. Lost to the ethers. Yeah. I had that happen like a week ago. was like noodling on the guitar and I like, but some lyrics came up because I usually improvise when it comes to like just lyrics. I haven't played music in a while. Oh, those are nice. And then I didn't record it. I didn't like do a little memo on my phone. I lost it and I couldn't, I couldn't find it. couldn't remember it.
That's just going on to someone else.
Yeah. Yeah. I think for a brief period, you're at least sharing or recording maybe these 40 minute or 60 minute jam sessions with yourself. Is this still like a generative process you'd like to do to explore your tools and sort of loosen up or have you just, you know, I'm just curious where that idea came from, you know, what sort of values you've extracted if you still use it as a tool as needed.
I use this all the time. It's just back up to your listeners. So what happened was when, before I was writing for film and TV, was, and before I was even back in music, I was management consultant for 20 years or so. And then I transitioned to becoming, spending more time playing guitar and played out quite a bit. And I would do typically do either acoustic fingerstyle guitar. all instrumental is instrumental guitar, acoustic. And then I do one set, which was more experimental electronic and I had.
these looping pedals and effects pedals and all kinds of stuff. And I had like two big effects boards and I'd make up these weird ambient soundscapes. And I really loved the whole thing of I'd be recording something and I'd record it and loop it and I could play on top of it and do stuff like that. And I loved doing that with guitar. And then when I transitioned into becoming a composer for film, I realized that I hadn't done that in a while. My pedalboard was sitting there and I kept thinking, man, I wonder if I could, I'm doing everything digitally. I wonder if I could do the same thing I did with guitar where I'm composing stuff.
Tony Scott-Green (39:42.562)
And then I could somehow send out and loop it and layer things up that way. And so that process turned into, I'll see if I can create brand new textures and different motifs and different things and mangle things and put things back into a film score that no one else has heard before. So it's my little generative AI thing, but then it became something else, which was that the, the process then turned into kind of a performance thing. I've gone out and played, I played live shows now.
Just doing this and it's the sort of thing where the show goes on as long as it has to. Yeah. It's like, like, like fight club. Um, but it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's become a really important part of my process. And it really is just the patience of tweaking and digging for something. It's like, kind of soon an old radio into a station and just, you hear it. You spin the dial and you hear something and you're going to go back and you're just trying to get it. You're trying to tune into it.
You hear it's a little bit distorting. You're just trying to find it. And sometimes you do and sometimes you don't, but that's another reason that when I'm doing that, I always have to be recording because in a situation like that, it's largely an analog process. And so there is no recalls unless I'm recording it. I have to get it. There's no way I'll ever, ever get the exact sound back. I won't be able to recreate it. So releasing the femoral thing. So I have to give myself over to that. So yeah, I still, I still, I still do that on pretty much.
every score.
I think in terms of relationships to like getting lost in the process, when I think of that free form kind of experimental looping approach, that seems like not only getting lost as part of the process, but also like breaking, breaking the process in terms of like, how do you break a score or destroy or dismantle what you thought you've had to then, you know, remix it, loop it or whatnot. So I'm curious, like beyond getting lost, like what's your relationship to the approach of like, do you break things when you're.
Mishu Hilmy (41:40.386)
playing around. I'm sure it depends on the project, but where does that kind of fit into your approach?
So much of what I'm doing with the process we're talking about is I'm trying to, it's almost like making a film where I'm trying to generate coverage. So I have all these things that I can edit together to make the score. So I'm not necessarily breaking anything because I probably haven't made that much up until that point. But I do need to have something to feed into the machines over here. So I'll have some of those ideas, some of those early motifs, different things, maybe I flash them out a little bit.
Then I'll run them through here and just play with them for a couple of hours or a day, just see if I can get anything out of there. But then it really is that process of man, we've got hours is like an editor because hours of footage. do we cut this into a 90 minute feature? I always thought it's a bit like you find these things that you kind of like and suddenly you've got these Lego blocks, these musical Lego blocks. Now I'm trying to find a way to see if they'll fit together. And remember it's a record.
from Brian Eno and David Byrne from maybe the eighties called My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. And they very much did that. It was very much a musical composition as collage or collage as musical composition, depending how you look at it. And I think that they said that the experimental musician Holger Zucke from Cannes did the same thing. And I very much resonated with that process in terms of let me assemble all these things as things that are kind of great that have come to me while I'm living in the world of this film.
And let me see if I can put them together in a way that somehow supports the visual narrative. So yeah, that's a huge part of it. So I'm not breaking too much or at very least I'm breaking things down. It's like chipping away bits of marble and then having them fit together somehow.
Mishu Hilmy (43:23.81)
that's such a revealing process as well because it's like through that approach, should the creative team or director come back to you with other questions, you can say, look, here's what I did in the past. You can show them a chunk of marble that's lying on the floor and they'll realize, yeah, the thing you want, it's on the floor. It's maybe not, it's not that worthy, but you at least were able to explore and experiment. I mean, I never heard it put that way sort of kind of, you know, musical coverage, but I really liked that idea.
Yeah. It's funny when you, there's a, there's a great book. forget the name of it now, but it compares the works of Picasso and Cezanne. And it talks about how, you know, Picasso was not, was not an experimental painter. Picasso just had an idea of what he wanted to do. He's like, all right, I'm to go paint that. And Cezanne was very much in every painting looking for something and trying to refine something. what we talk about when we talk about experimental music or experimental film, part of it is you're doing something, you do it as an experiment, you're trying to find something.
You know, so expand upon music, you keep doing it again and again. You can do experiments until you get something. And so that's kind of the process here. You know, you keep doing something and doing it and you're dialing and you're trying to hone in on something until you can find something that seems like it lives in the world of that film. But yeah, I think in that sense, I'm much more of a Cezanne than I am a Picasso. And for me, it's the process. I wish I was...
a good enough and well enough trained musician to be more kind of Picasso like, just like I hear it my head, boom, now it's coming out the speakers, it's up on the picture, that's it. For me, it's like, let's try different things, let's try this, let's, no, okay, let's backtrack. It's much more of the, much more of experimentalist in that sense.
When it comes to say like filtering, choosing collaborators to work with and you're getting pitched or whatnot, like how, you know, how do you go about knowing there's a project that your approach, your set of skills would align with? Like, do you have any rules that you've developed over time or just general, you know, guideposts?
Tony Scott-Green (45:29.71)
You're only pretty mercenary about that and I'll give anything a crack. if it's, I remember a while ago, there was a project where they said, oh, we really want some great hip hop. And I had to say, no, I may not be your guy. And you know, and by the way, you know, we could, I could partner up with someone and we could put something, we could do something great. To matter from two different perspectives, you know, partner me up with someone who's got a great hip hop sensibility and we'll do something together. That'd be great. And I did that on.
a great multimedia project and the results were fantastic. But if you're looking for something that's really authentic, someone says, Hey, it's going to be great hip hop or it's going to be reggae or it's going to be something that's really, really specific. Then that's something that might say, you know what? I can do it, but for it to be really authentic, know, either partner, me partner with someone else or let me know if you can find someone else. You know, the flip side of that is that.
Then you've got, know, Barry Jenkins going to Nicholas Brattell or Moonlight. And Brattell of course is, you know, classically trained and Barry Jenkins says, Hey, here's this whole Atlanta chopped and screwed hip hop style. Incorporate this into what you're doing. And he does it brilliantly. So if there's room for that, then great. Then I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll take on anything. But if someone's like, no, I want it to be, I want to have a real purity and fidelity to the genre because people will know. Then.
That might be the sort of thing where I say, I might not be your man.
Yeah. Yeah. It's, think it's like an interesting position because like, Hey, I had that mercenary element of like, I'm, I'm down. I'd be down, but also having like an awareness of like, you might be wanting to seek something else, but I think there's still that spirit of like a willingness to fail for is like, sure. I'll give it a crack if it's not problematic.
Tony Scott-Green (47:16.31)
If it's, yeah, as long as not problematic, there's no, there's no danger of cultural appropriation or anything else like that. If it's a, like a 30 second commercial spot and someone says, Hey, we need some great beats. I'll, I'll, I'll give that a crack. I'll pitch it. But if someone's saying, Hey, want hip, I'm leaning on hip hop here. I'm not sure why someone says, Hey, this, this film has my heart and soul. I want some great hip hop. I'm like, you're not asking for a mercenary composing for someone who really understands the story. So.
Let's find another way in here that serves you.
best given that it's sort of the post-production pipeline, the solitude of, know, composing music. mean, it's great if they clue you in early and you're there before, you know, before it's even shot. That's a great opportunity, but how have you sort of navigated community in what can sometimes be a solo endeavor.
Well, one thing that's happened in the last year or so, which is great, is that my colleague Tim Corpus and I have set up a networking group, a professional group for composers, media composers here in Chicago. And then just earlier this year, we folded into the national or the international organization of the Society of Composers and Lyricists. So now we have, you know, a really great group of composers in Chicago.
Of course, I say that now, but in reality, you it's like your earlier question, you were talking with the people in the room, the room is virtual now, know, the community is virtual. So just being able to lean on folks, run ideas past them. Hey, you know, what's, do you think about this? That's great. But you do, it is a solitary thing. And I remember one of the first times I was out in LA and I was at a party, was a reception the day before the Oscars. And I was there with my wife and it her first time at this party and all.
Tony Scott-Green (49:01.934)
all the composers who were nominated for Oscars, getting up and saying, Oh man, it's just great to get out of the studio and be among people for a while. It's not just you, everyone. Everyone needs this community. As I said, Tim Corbis and I are trying to do that here in Chicago in a physical sense, but I'm very lucky that I've got a great network of colleagues and collaborators I can rely on. But you do have to be somewhat self-sufficient and you do have to
Yeah, you just, I come back to this idea of being a creative athlete. Ultimately it's all you. It's like being a solo athlete, a long distance runner, you know, you, you hear a lot of things in your, in your head when you're just out running. It's that, and you've got to be physically and mentally aware and just, you hear those voices. And it's just, it can be, it can be tough sometimes. You know, when you start, you ever watched, Sanis and you'll see that the players will start talking to themselves.
They've beaten themselves up and you're like, man, this could either be great or it could go really badly. It's kind of an inflection point sort of thing. I think that's true with lot of creators. It's really tough. And I think you have to listen to that and realize when it's serving you, when it's not. And just make sure that, you know, physically you're taking care of yourself and mentally you're taking care of yourself. I won't do the over the crazy overnights. I won't do those anymore. I'll organize my time accordingly.
My sleep and physical wellbeing are far too important now. I want to be much more like an athlete. I want to be rested and ready.
Yeah, think I reflect on, you I mean, I did tennis in high school and yeah, it's totally a head game, but I do think like you practice, right? Like you get your reps, you practice and like the way to get out of your head, think is like through, you know, practice and like letting the mistakes go. But it's really, if you're not practicing, it's easy for your mind to just like envelop you and, you know, kind of show you where you're, you know, not right.
Tony Scott-Green (51:00.878)
And if you're not practicing, you know, is everything, whole self-worth is tied up into this one, this one project. you're, if you're doing a lot of projects, all right, next one, next, what did we learn? What did we learn? Yeah. You just keep writing, keep working.
You mentioned earlier, sort of music being the supportive player. So I'm curious, like how do you allow or invite or see yourself or your point of view within a piece as well as, or if that even matters, as well as like, how do you go about taking swings or like using subversion within your process? like, you know, deliberate subversion, something you think about. So I'm just kind of curious where you see yourself within work that's, you know, sometimes designed to be in support of a story.
As well as if while you're doing your work, subversion is something you kind of actively consider.
There's a lot in there. So it was, always see myself in the work, the supporting someone else's story, no matter I'm bringing any subversion.
so I guess it's a two questions there. Yeah.
Tony Scott-Green (52:01.122)
Yeah. Well, it's, mean, the music comes from me. So I should say that, of course it's me in there, but it's not, I'm no different than an actor pretending to be someone else. And I often think about, you know, the music is like a character actor who sometimes has some great lines or sometimes it's just standing in the back of the room, but maybe he's doing something where you're like, well, there's something's about to happen or that that person just did this and it changes the scene. So I think a lot about music being the character actor and
I guess in that sense, I'm the actor because I get to be something that maybe that I'm not, whether I'm writing something that feels very much like me, like an indie rock thing, feels much like me, or maybe I'm writing jazz or classical or whatever. I get to play these different roles, which is super fun. So there's definitely that. And that's another reason that sometimes you'll hear people say, how should a director talk to a composer? Well, talk to a composer like you would to an actor.
You know, just do it that way that the composer should understand. So I think a lot about that. I'm looking for, I'm the character actor and I'm trying to think of the musical character and sometimes it's, what's the whole backstory of that music, that character and how much of that do we really see? You know, so I think a lot about that. And I think that that's what I'm looking for in terms of it being me, but it's me pretending to be something else. And sometimes it's closer to me, but then in terms of subversion, tell me.
When you saw this version, you saw about, you know, as you're going up, playing against the scene or just different things I'll do, or just.
Yeah, think, yeah, it's like subversion or even like a big risk. Like it doesn't necessarily need to be subversive, but I think sometimes I associate subversion with risk, but yeah. Are you subverting the expectations of the scene, of the genre, of the melody, of the moment? And then outside of subversion, like what degree of risk taking do you inject in, you know, sort of the music itself?
Tony Scott-Green (53:53.902)
That's a great question. You know, I do want to make sure that early in the process when I'm coming up with these ideas that I am taking some big risks and sharing the widest possible range of things that might work. And I just know, you know, early on when I decided to get back to music, I took some classes at Second City and did several seasons of that. Just this idea that if I have an instinct, if I get an instinct to do something, I should follow through on it.
So if I suddenly get an instinct, like, know what? Maybe it should be like a noise metal score. You know, there's, it would be a shame if I didn't follow through in that a little bit. You share that idea. Just for no other reason, I just, my own edification, I just share with the director like, I was working on this and just suddenly got a wild hair to do this. I think, I think that's part of the process that you're hired for. When you're in that world, it's not, you don't want to be too narrow. You want to be, early on you want to be really
open and focused, you want to let the universe send you these ideas and you want to kind of filter them a little bit. if something sticks with you, you wake up the next morning and you're like, man, that's still a great idea. the way through and then, and then share it just in case. you just, you simply don't, you just never know. I don't want to self-censor those things. So I do want to share them because if it's, if it's coming through me,
then it has merit and it wouldn't have come to me if it didn't have merit. So I want to honor that and pursue it and share it. There are little things I'll do. Like I said, I'll do my whole thing where I'll take sounds and I'll try to create things that no one else has heard before. So want to make sure that's in every score. And there are certain instruments that I'm looking at right now that I always wanted to make sure are on every score. And part of that is just me being a little bit sneaky, just putting something in there that just
Um, gives me a bit of a laugh that no one else is going to hear. Yeah. I just, I just know is there, but in terms of the person, can be fun to kind of go against the scene. It's just, it's just trying to come up with all these different, these, these different ideas early on them and then pursue them. Does that answer your question in any way? I don't know what's all anymore. can't tell.
Mishu Hilmy (56:11.926)
No, you did. did. Yeah. Cause I, you know, I think it's version wise, there's elements that you can go like playing against the scene or also for you, like a personal point of view, whether it's cheekiness or just your love of an instrument to like, no one might even notice this or maybe someone with great headphones speakers, they might catch, I have a marimba, you know, just kind of bouncing around.
That's just sitting there. I seem to remember the composer, Daniel Pemberton was working on some TV show and there's a particular cue and he said, I want to use an orchestra of kazoos. And I think that that sort of thing, that that last one where you, get that idea late at night and wake up next morning. You're like, that's still a good idea. Let's do that. So I'm always, I'm always listening for those things and I want to make sure that I'm not discounting them. Just cause we're on a deadline.
hang on, let's pay attention to that. There's a great line from something Ron Howard said to Hans Zimmer. can't remember what film it was. For a while I thought it was Apollo 13, but I don't think Zimmer worked on that. And he said, and they were getting down to the final mix and they were still talking about some of the music and Ron Howard said, don't close the doors of the laboratory too early. And I think about that a lot. Even when you're like, we just gotta get this thing done. Those ideas are coming. It's like, well, let's...
Let's not close the doors of the laboratory too early. Let's explore that a little bit as much as we can. People aren't just paying for the end result. They're not just paying for the music, they're paying for the process. And so you want to make sure that they are getting the best process possible and that you are really giving them the best process possible.
Given the uncertainties within the entertainment industry and the world at large, how have you been staying motivated or connected with your work or yourself with all the uncertainties?
Tony Scott-Green (58:01.144)
mean the uncertainties around the ability to... They build one's craft?
Yeah, either that or just like, you know, things change, you know, very rapidly. It says there's no guarantee A in life and B in the industry. So it's, it's a totally uncertain industry. like there's ups, there's downs, there's dry spells. Like how do you personally navigate that within your kind of current place or your relationship to the career?
first thing I know is that, and this is maybe the advantage in having not been a musician for a long time and having come back to it and discovered it and being able to do it, is I get to do this. So I love doing this. So I'm going to keep doing this. I'm going to find a way to stay relevant and do this. music is the thing I hear and I don't want to die with my music still inside me. So I want to get that out. Now, if I can get paid for that, fantastic.
And if the ways in which I get paid for that are going to change, I'm going to change with them. But I'm also going to make sure that the other weird non-commercial, absolute room clearing music I hear in my head, I still going to get out there. I'm still going to do it. So the changing commercial platforms, AI, aren't going to change the fact that I'm a musician and I've got to create music. So I'm going to keep doing that. Now things change, you got to change with it. So.
whether it's I'm doing music for a TikTok or I'm licensing stuff or licensing my own library or doing more commercials. I'm going to do that. But I've always been a big fan of the great Frank Zappaline, which is that you draw a frame and you announce the world, say this is the frame, inside this frame, I'm going to put my art and then you go get a part-time job so you can keep putting art inside the frame. I'm going to, I'm going to find a way to keep doing that.
Mishu Hilmy (59:46.638)
Thank you so much for sharing Tony. And this has been so, so enjoyable. It's your time and Chad. This has been absolutely lovely.
I have no idea if any of this is useful or listenable. I'm just looking at this right now and I see that over an hour has gone by, which I don't understand. So yeah, that's a little silly. This is an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for having me on. As you can tell, I could talk about this all day and half apparently.
Alright, I'll see you around.
Mishu Hilmy (01:00:22.67)
Before sending you off with a little creative prompt, I just wanted to say thank you for listening to Mischief and Mastery. If you enjoyed this show, please rate it and leave a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. Your support does mean a lot. Until next time, keep taking care of yourself, your lightness, curiosity, and sense of play. And now for a little Mischief Mo- Alrighty, here is a creative-
Prompt the album pause tonight or sometime this week instead of streaming a playlist. Put on a full album, whether you have a vinyl, a CD or go on BandCap and listen to a digital album. Just listen to it to start to finish without skipping. Notice how your attention changes when you remove the option to shuffle or just have a random playlist in the background. This is playing around with deep listening, which could
strengthen your focus, recall, it's similar to other mindful practices. So give it a shot. Find an album and listen to it. Sit with it. Present. Be present with it. Maybe have a sketch pad and doodle while you're listening. But the goal is to find one album and just listen to it as an intentional choice versus background music. All right, that's it. Have a little mindful listen this week or tonight if you're feeling up to it.
Alright, thanks for listening this far.