a look at 'Mind Game'

I'm a big fan of lots of 80's movies simply because of the preponderance of the synth-based scores that dominated the soundtracks of that era. The 80's was an exciting time to be a keyboard player, as synthesizers were not only shaping the pop music sound, but also film music. To this date, some of the most interesting and enjoyable electronic music I have heard has come from that period.

One of my favorite film composers from that era has always been John Carpenter, who pretty much still scores his own films I believe. I always loved the music in Carpenter's early movies (Halloween, The Fog, Escape from New York, and others), so one day a few years ago, I sat down with the intention of creating my own Carpenter-flavored theme. I decided my fictitious movie, dubbed 'Mind Game' (directed by Carpenter himself, perhaps ;-), was some sort of dark 1980's sci-fi/suspense/thriller; featuring the typical anti-hero main character (starring Kurt Russell, perhaps? ;-) who had to figure it all out and save the world despite himself!

I started out, simply enough, with a throbing, buzzy bass pedal, with a wide-panned delay. Then I came up with the rather angular melody, background ostinato, and some ambient chords - all tied together with a some simple drums. Of course, the middle section is probably more Florio than Carpenter, but I wanted to shift into a more heroic feeling there. So, a key change with some sweeping chords did the trick nicely, and gave it the lift it needed.

'Mind Game' is written as a main title theme, envisioned to play under the opening credits and establishing shots (whatever those would be!). It would also work just as well for the end credits too, I think.

Since this is October, when you can find Carpenter's Halloween movies shown multiple times a day on the AMC network, I thought it would be fitting to take a look at 'Mind Game' this month.

Listen to Mind Game