December 21, 2024 • 34 mins
Juno-winning video game and concert composer Maxime Goulet talks his background in rock combo, importance of sensory experience, composing what you like rather than others, and much more!
Featured works:
Maxime Goulet: Symphonic Chocolates
Ice Storm Symphony, I. Turmoil
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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Hello and welcome to Notes of the North Talks, a series where we get to know our local Canadian
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musical talent.
Today I'm joined by Maxime Goulet.
Thank you so much, Maxime, for being here today.
My pleasure.
All right, to start us off, where are you joining us from?
Where in Canada do you call home?
So I'm based in Montreal, which is the place I call home and where I was born and it's
where I'm currently working as well.
Perfect.
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So what first drew you into the world of composition?
Do you want the short or the long story?
So I can try to kind of resume it in an interesting way.
I started actually music when I was probably about 14 years old.
My friend was playing bass.
I bought a guitar to play some music with him.
We were listening to pop music.
And the desire was just to play the music that we were listening to and that we liked,
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which is very different from some people that are in classical music.
They started music at five years old and it was imposed by their parents and stuff like
that.
So that was really not my case.
It was quite the opposite.
I was the one who wanted to do music.
I had a summer job to earn enough money to buy my guitar.
And so it really came from the desire from inside, the fire burning.
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And so we started doing that.
And it was just like pop music.
And one day I saw the movie Clockwork Orange and that made me discover classical music,
even though it was because it's played with synthesizer and stuff like that.
It was more appealing because classical music for me, I didn't feel any appeal to it before
seeing that.
But when I saw that movie, I was like, OK, classical music can be cool.
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And I started listening to bands like Emerson Lake & Palmer, who are bands of progressive
rock that plays classical music, but in a kind of rock setting.
So I grouped a band where we were playing classical music, but with me on electric guitar,
bass, piano and drums.
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And when I went to school in Cégep, so in Quebec we have this thing that's called Cégep,
which is like the last year of high school and the first year of university, and specializing
in music, I had to choose either if I want to play classical music, I had to go on classical
guitar, or if I want to play electric guitar, I have to go in jazz.
So there was no program for playing classical music on electric guitar.
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So I had to choose.
So I went to study jazz, which was really interesting because in jazz, what I really liked about
it is to understand what you're playing.
So because you do a lot of improvisation, you need to understand that on this chord
progression, you can play this mode and you can substitute this chord by this chord.
So it's a lot of discussion about what and not necessarily about how, whereas in classical
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music, the discussion is about how.
Here you make a little ralentendo and this and that and you perfect the performance.
It's really on how you play it.
But when you play in an orchestra, the musician cannot ask the conductor, why am I playing
this scale rather than this scale, wouldn't it be better to substitute this chord by that?
But in jazz, we're only mostly talking about, you know, kitchen stuff.
So this is something that I really liked about jazz.
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However, I discovered at one point that when I was improvising in concert, I was always
staying in my safe zone because I wanted to make sure that it would be satisfying for
the audience.
So I wasn't exploring as much.
Whereas if I was composing, I was exploring more because I knew if I didn't like it, I
can come back, erase it and do something more.
So it's more like a personality thing that I felt that my personality was more towards
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composition than improvisation, like real jazz.
That's what the thing that pushed them over the edges, knowing they cannot come back.
But me, it was the opposite effect.
So that's why I discovered I was more towards writing and composing.
And I still have my band where I was playing classical music with a rock quartet, where
I was doing this arrangement of taking a full orchestral score and reduce it for a rock
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combo, which is a really good way to understand actually orchestration.
Because usually in orchestration, you take a piano score and you try to put it to the
orchestra, but you don't understand how all these great masters have orchestrated.
But if you look at their score and you try to reduce it to just a piano reduction or
just like a rock combo, you understand that, okay, this instrument and this instrument
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are together to do the background layer.
And this is playing the foreground, which is double with that.
So I don't need this.
And you really understand what's the essence of the piece and also how it's distributed
around the orchestra.
So by diving in these masterpieces, I also feed my knowledge about how to write classical
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music in a way.
And I deepen my interest into that as well.
So there was that, there was the fact that improvisation, I was less inclined to that.
And also I have two sisters.
My older sister was studying film animation at Concordia.
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So I started doing the soundtrack for her movies.
So all these combined kind of led me towards, okay, I want to continue more in composition.
So I went to university in composition.
Back then there was only like two programs, you do electroacoustic music or instrumental
music.
So I went into instrumental music and studied with Alan Belkin, which is this great teacher.
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If you want to look him up, he has a lot of free courses online, orchestration, harmony,
but also composition analysis and stuff like that.
It's really like he wrote books and everything.
So a lot of free material if you're interested.
He has a very interesting vision of aesthetics and composing and stuff like that.
So I really appreciate his teaching and he's a very generous person.
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So I studied mostly with him.
And while I was studying as a side job, I was assistant for a film composer.
So that also made me understand better what's composing and writing music for image.
And what was good about being an assistant is that your client is really the composer.
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So basically for me, I was working for Robert-Marcel Le Page, which is a Quebecer composer.
He works a lot for television, movies and so on.
And he's also a free jazz clarinetist, so very versatile.
And he saw that I was more composing a lot of orchestral music.
So he was assigning me, we were a few assistants working for him.
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So I was more the person in charge of more orchestral stuff.
And for example, he would record in studio a clarinet and a harp.
And then he would ask me to, with simulation, to do some string pizzicato accompany in the
background.
Or give me a reference of a symphony of Prokofiev and say, can you do something with the strings
to accompany this and stuff like that.
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Or for example, he would compose a sequence of a movie that is last one minute and then
the movie editor and director, they change it.
Now the scene is a minute and a half, so we need to extend that music, but we cannot go
back in studio to record it.
So I have to extend copy, paste some melodies and rearrange the company and to make it work.
So that was kind of my job as an assistant.
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What's good about it, it really made me concentrate and focus on my craft of composing without
having the weight of the producers and the director.
Because my composer, Robert, was really the one going into the meetings and talking and
they're saying like, we want this, we want that.
And having these discussions about the direction and I was only following what Robert says.
If Robert says like, I wanted to go in this direction or that, I don't really question
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that.
I'm just trying to make it sound the way he has it in his mind as much as possible.
And it's really easy for me to talk with him because he's a musician as well.
When you work with a film director, they're not musicians, so they cannot really give
you very specific musical indication.
And when they do, sometimes it can be very misleading because they tell you jazz, but
they want blues and they don't know it's not the same thing and stuff like that.
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So being an assistant of a composer was a really good job for me at the stage where
I was.
And it made me realize that I really also liked composing, that I had an interest in
composing for image.
So all this kind of snowballed in the same direction.
And after that, when I graduated from university, I got a job posting in a video game company,
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M. Loft, which was an in-house composer job, so composer 9 to 5.
So a lot of people are finding it so weird to have this kind of thing, but it exists.
So it was really like a 9 to 5, 5 days a week job, and just composing music for video games.
And I stayed there for maybe 5 years, 5, 6 years.
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But I always had my passion to want to write concert music.
So I was continuing doing that.
I was doing that during nights and weekends.
So it's like a bit Batman, you know, by day he's this and by night he's that.
So I was a by day video game composer and by night concert music composer.
And also I had a lot of orchestra who liked my music, wanted to play, but it was mostly
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local semi-amateurs or stuff like that.
So they didn't really have budget to commission me, but it was okay because I was earning
good money with my day job as a video game composer.
And I was writing these music for the orchestra on the nights, the weekends, and then I was
taking all my vacation because I had a piece performed in Vancouver, so I needed to take
three days of my vacation, bang to go there, rehearsal, concert, come back.
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And then my music was performed more and more, and I had good recordings by these orchestras.
So I was able to approach higher end orchestra who had budget to commission me piece.
And at one point I had a lot of commission.
I remember I had like a commission of the Orchestra Métropole-Tin, two commissions
by Angel Dubot and La Pieta.
And I had also won a pitch to do another video game by another company.
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And then my contract for a game lock, which is a very standard thing.
You have a clause that says you cannot compete, you cannot work for another video game company
because again, you're in conflict.
So I was in a situation, a crossroad situation where I was deciding, well, either I say no
to this opportunity and I stay with my day job, my game lock, or I, you know, I take
the dive, the leap of faith and I quit my day job and I just do composing.
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So which is what I did because I never really saw myself long-term staying at game lock
because mostly what I find restricting was the schedule thing because I wanted, I had
more and more opportunity to write concert music, be paying for it.
So I wanted to devote more time at that.
So I wanted that to be my day job, you know, composing.
And I had the opportunities for it.
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I had like two years contract, enough contract to earn money for two years, a line.
So I decided to do that.
So then I left.
I have an agent for my concert, sorry, for my video game music production.
And so I still do a bit of video game, much less now, but now it's much more concert music,
but I still do a little bit of that.
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Mostly what I do is, and what I've always done for video game, sorry, is mostly orchestral
music because this is what I specialize in.
So the games I will work in is mostly like games like, a lot of them are from movies
like Spider-Man, Shrek, or games like, epic games like Warhammer, Dungeon Hunter, Brothers
and Arms and stuff like that, music that requires orchestral music.
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Sometimes it can be a bit of electric guitar, drums, stuff like that, but mostly the bass
will be orchestral music.
So in a really big nutshell, that's how I end up going to composition.
That was an incredible comprehensive overview and you really talked about the balance between
your orchestral side, the concert music side and the video game side.
So now it's gotten me a little bit curious.
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Is there a difference in your creative process when we are getting inspired to write concert
music versus if you're starting a new video game soundtrack?
Is there a difference in the approach you mean and my creative process and everything?
It's pretty different actually because in many ways, well first off the medium is very
different because video game music is, well actually concert music is linear.
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If you go to a concert and you listen to a symphony at Beethoven, they will always start
by measure one and then go to measure two.
They'll never start by measure two and go to measure one, you know.
And so it's very linear.
There's a certain flexibility on the performance or we can do like faster tempo here, a bit
slower and this and that but essentially it's always these notes playing in that order.
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Whereas in video game music, it's not always the case because it's interactive music.
So the idea that the music will always follow the action but the action will always be different
because the player will turn left or right so it'll take more time to go to the monster
or less or he'll go into the forest instead of going into the castle.
So the music will branch in a different way.
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So it's an interactive music and the music always change following the performance of
the player.
However, the player must not notice that the music is changing.
He has to have the impression that this is a soundtrack that was composed specifically
for this performance at every moment, you know.
So he has to have the impression like, wow, you know, my performance just matched so well
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the music, you know.
Or else it will break the immersive bubble if he knows that the music is following him,
you know, and not the other way around.
So actually he does.
The best would be that he doesn't really notice as much the music.
He just feels that this world is so immersive, you know, just like when you watch a movie,
you don't always notice the music, you know.
Sometimes you do, but the music kind of really blends in well.
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So this is the challenge.
So it's very different because one is linear, the other one is not.
So you have to think music differently.
In terms when I write music for video games, there's a lot of kind of the sequence where
here he's in the sequence and then he's in another sequence.
So this music, I don't know how long he'll be here.
So I have to create either a music that loops or little chunks of music that can play in
a random order.
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But then, you know, stuff like that.
And then when he goes to the other one, there's a contrast because then he enters the forest
so I'll do a build up.
So how long does it take from this to that?
I don't know.
So I can make like a music that is tension and with the, I can play with the video game
knowing what is the distance of that and make kind of a volume fade in if he goes closer
and then he goes away, you know, fade it out.
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So crying and creates the simulation of a crescendo as he gets closer from there, you
know, but you don't know how long it'll be.
So if he stands there in the middle, it'll be looping at that dynamic and then he goes
closer, volume will raise a little bit that.
And so you understand the idea.
So these are all kind of little tricks that we have.
There's many of them.
And the more you use different tricks, the less the player will notice them, you know.
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So this is kind of composing video game music, whereas when I compose concert music the other
way around, I want to have like really kind of build ups and it's not loops.
It's like really compose.
And I want to take the, I know that I'm on the, the music is on the foreground also,
so I'm not accompanying an image or something like that.
I'm really kind of taking the whole place when you're writing concert music and people
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are there and they're expecting to hear, you know, something that will be, that will satisfy
them on itself.
While when you play on a video game, you're just a part of that, that work of art, which
is the video game, right?
So you have to also blend in your vision with trying to align your vision with the vision
of the other people that are working on the game.
Whereas when you're writing concert music, most of the time you're mostly the kind of
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the artistic director of the piece you're writing.
So that's also different.
When I'm working with on a video game, often we will listen to reference music with the
team and we'll try to find what is the musical vision of that game.
So we'll listen to soundtrack of other games, of movies, of concert music, try to find,
okay, maybe a little bit of this, what do you like that?
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Okay, this is a good direction for this.
And then I'll compose, I'll try to find a personal sound signature for the game, but
we already have some discussion on what is the style on this and that.
And it's kind of a group discussion, you know, with the team.
Whereas when I do concert music, this is mostly me on myself.
It's a bit different if you work like on opera because you're working with a librettist and
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a dramaturg or if you're doing a ballet or stuff like that.
But if you're doing just like regular concert music, then you're mostly the decision kind
of, mostly kind of relies on you.
So that's another big difference.
And I think I like having both because I like having this space when I do concert music
where I can be very creative and have my vision of what the work should be.
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And I like, but it's also a lot of weight on the shoulders because everything relies
on the music that you will write.
But when I work for video games, since it's a teamwork, we're sharing the weight on our
shoulder because the responsibility of the success of the project is on everybody's shoulders.
So we're sharing the weight of it.
So it's good to have this space where I'm, it's not all my responsibility if it succeeds
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or fails, you know.
But if I would be maybe unsatisfied, if I would have only that, because I would sometimes
feel like I am trying, I want to do really this music and this, it doesn't work in this
project and I'm trying to force it in.
So I don't do that in video game because I know if there's something I really want to
do, I'll do it in my concert music as you know, instead.
And in the game, I'm really feeling comfortable that here I'm just here to work with as a
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collaborator and trying to find with them what is the vision, what works best for their
game.
And I don't have an ego about it or whatever.
It's just like trying to make this project work as well as possible.
So it's very kind of, it's different in terms of the music that I do, in terms of the collaboration,
the process.
Also the software that I use is a bit different.
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You know, when I do music for video game, a lot of the music is done with mock-ups and
simulation depending, it happened a few times that I work on video game when we have enough
budget to hire either an orchestra or sometimes just some soloist that I blend in with some
simulation.
But when I do concert music, it's all with real musician.
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So I don't really mind if the mock-up doesn't sound as well.
I don't need to spend a lot of time mixing and polishing my mock-up.
So I work differently and the music that I compose is slightly differently because I
know that my mock-ups and my samples, they're really good to do this or that.
And I really have a good sound of this, but I'd have a less good sound of oboe.
So I might not use the oboe as much, but if it's a concert music piece, I know it's going
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to be performed with real musicians.
So I don't mind if the oboe sound of my computer doesn't really sound well.
I'll just write the line knowing that one is going to be performed by the musician.
It's going to be OK.
And I can do stuff like a lot of change of articulations in the line because I know a
musician is able to do that sight reading very easily.
But with a computer, you need to program on these patch change for each different articulation.
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It's very hard to do and it sounds like it's two different oboe playing and this and that.
So I'll write a bit also differently when it's, I know that the end product is either
a simulation or it's live recording, live performance.
So there's also this, so it's kind of like two different things, even though there's
a lot in common because both of them are kind of orchestral music and this and that.
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And there's some kind of harmonic chord progression that I can use in both styles and in both
contexts and stuff like that.
There's a lot of similarity, but there's a lot of difference at the same time.
Wow.
Again, a super comprehensive overview of the differences.
And it's a different way of guiding listeners through a piece of concert music versus a
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soundtrack, which is about the immersive experience.
And so let's switch gears a little bit.
So your projects often have intriguing themes, like you have an orchestral suite for chocolate
tasting, I believe.
How do you come up with these original ideas and what's your process like for translating
themes into music?
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So often I get my ideas in everyday life.
So a lot of my concert piece has something more than it's not just like pure music.
There's something, sometimes it's image, sometimes for the chocolate, symphonic chocolate, it
was a flavor taste.
So in this situation, I just was in a chocolate shop and I was choosing chocolate that I wanted
to buy and I was reading the description and was talking about textures, about flavor,
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mix of flavor.
And I was thinking like, oh, that's interesting because in music we use these terms, texture
and flavor and contrast.
And these are all things we use in music.
So why don't I compose a piece following the descriptions of different chocolates?
So the idea started like that and I got the idea, oh, why don't also the audience get
to eat the corresponding chocolate as the music is being performed?
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So I thought that was a good idea.
It's kind of a catchy idea.
And I mean, I would like to be in that audience experiencing that, right?
So then I got the idea, okay, I can make four.
It can be like a little pocket symphony, like very short piece, because I don't want, if
it's too long and you have to wait 15 minutes before the next movement, it's like a torture
for the audience to look at their chocolate box and wait 15 minutes before eating the
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next one.
Right?
So I thought, okay, so each movement is about two, three minutes, which is just the right
length to eat the chocolate and let the flavor fade out and then go to the next one.
And then I thought, okay, I need, how am I going to have also movements that are, that
are complementary with one another?
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So I thought I need to have different flavors that are complementary to one another.
And I have to also have some flavors that are, that are kind of classic flavor that
the person I was looking for, because I was thinking if the person listens to it without
eating the chocolate, he can know what I'm referring to.
So I got the idea.
Like the first movement is caramel, which is very caramel for me is very soft and it
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leaks and everything.
So it's a movement that has a theme that's very kind of lyrical, where I felt it goes
well with the soft and smoothness of it.
The second movement is dark chocolate.
So dark chocolate for me is a bit more bitter.
It's more intense.
There's something, so it's kind of like a mix of tango and habaneras, which is more
like intense and, you know, also with minor chord progression.
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So it's kind of more dark a bit and there's a bit more dissonance.
So it's more bitter a bit.
So that's how the correspondence that I did with that for the third movement is mint chocolate.
So for me, when I eat mint is very kind of cold feeling in the mouth.
So I wanted something fresh and cold.
So there's these wind sound the music do like at the beginning and at the end.
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So it sounds very kind of cold and refreshing and music is very light kind of a bit like
an impressionist, you know, like Ravel or Debussy and kind of light and fresh.
And the last movement is coffee infused chocolate.
So this one for me, coffee is really kind of energetic.
So I wanted to finish with a fast movement.
So that went well with that.
And for me also coffee evokes Brazil and South America.
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So it's a mix of a Coro and Samba, which is two Brazilian musical style.
And so that's how I kind of, you know, so for some movement is the texture of the chocolate
that inspired me for other movement is the feeling of cold.
Some other movement is the origin of the flavor of coffee.
So it's different aspect of chocolate that kind of inspired me each time.
And it's also in the desire to have a piece that will have movements that are complimentary
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and will have kind of a rich experience for the for the listener.
And also that I think that it's obvious enough that somebody that's not eating the chocolate
will kind of understand and follow, you know, and often when we do it in concert, like there's
a chocolate tasting.
So we do it as a collaboration often.
So the piece has been performed a lot, like I think like 80 times.
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It has been performed last summer in Singapore and performed in Europe and Switzerland and
South America, really everywhere.
And the idea also of this piece was also to have something that could attract orchestras
to perform it, but also for them to attract new audience, you know, so they often use
it as a way to go reach out to new audience, which is a good way for them.
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Because I mean, eating chocolate in a concert, who doesn't want to do that?
I want to.
Yeah, exactly.
I want to.
So, so there's that aspect.
And also some orchestra, they also use the chocolate, either they give it to the audience
or they sell it at the intermission.
The often some orchestra used it as a fundraiser, so a way to, you know, like Boy Scouts selling
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chocolate at the door.
But now you have the soundtrack that comes with it, right?
So it's also another way for me to have my music performed because I can suggest it as
an orchestra, as a win-win, you know, this will attract you a new audience, but it will
also be a good way to have like a make a fundraiser and this and that.
So when I approach an orchestra, it's not just that my music can be satisfying for these
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audience, but there's also all these perks, these additional perks that they can see in
my music that will encourage them to want to play my music, you know.
Yeah, because when we're like, we're kind of unbranching to a lot of topic, but as a
composer, I mean, our competitor is Beethoven and Mozart, right?
So I mean, they're the people we're competing to be on the program with and they they sell
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tickets.
You know, if you write 9 Symphony of the Beethoven, you're going to sell tickets to your concert.
But if you write Symphony of Maxime Goulet, that's not going to sell tickets because nobody
knows my music, right?
But if you write Symphonic Chocolate and you're going to eat chocolate at the concert, then
I'm competing with Beethoven.
Now I'm in the race, right?
Because I can sell tickets with that.
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So when I approach an orchestra with a project, because this is often something that I do,
I mount my own project, I try to find what will the what's what's in it for the orchestra,
you know, when they're going to look at my project, they're going to be like, well, am
I going to sell tickets?
Am I going to renew some new audience?
Am I going to you know, what's in it for them?
You know, so I often try.
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So having this concept for my works also helps me sell my works to different orchestra.
Wow, that's such like an interdisciplinary approach.
And it's really I think it's important for the music industry today, especially for attracting
new audiences.
Like you said, it's really interesting how that relates to like, you're both doing multimedia
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and also interdisciplinary, which is like multi sectors and multiple fields.
So I really love this approach.
Now as a Canadian composer, how do you think this cultural background influences your work?
If it does?
I try to not think too much about about that when I compose, you know, when I work on a
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project, I try to find what is the best music for this project.
I often say that for my concert music, I'm composing the soundtrack of my idea.
So I have this idea first, for example, the symphonic chocolate.
And how can I best support this idea with music?
So it's really kind of writing soundtrack for my idea or my concept.
And I try not to think that I'm where I am, what I mean, I'm a Canadian, I'm writing
(26:58):
in 2024, stuff like that.
I just find what is the best music that I can write for this specific project.
And because it's just adding additional weight, you know, the kind of I think maybe the fact
that I'm in Canada, Canada and Quebec and Montreal is very kind of open minded area.
So there's less kind of these aesthetic wars and contemporary music must be this and that.
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I mean, there are still some people that are into those mindsets, but I'm not.
And it doesn't prevent me to work and do the music that I want to do, you know, whereas
and maybe in the 60s, it would have been harder for me to write this kind of music because
the music that I write, you know, has themes, have harmony, has pulse.
And sometimes that it's not really a super avant-garde.
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It's really kind of the continuation of the classical music tradition in a way.
A lot of music, a lot of people say that music is very kind of cinematic in a way, because
in cinema and movies, they're using the same kind of music technique that I use.
So I think that being in Canada gives me the freedom to if I want to do that, I can do
(28:06):
that.
So it's a place where the diversity is accepted and celebrated.
So I think in different aspects of our lives and music and art is one of them where I can
find, you know, the musician that will be interested to do the music that I want to
do.
That's so beautiful.
(28:26):
And to wrap things up, could you give a piece of advice to young composers or creators in
general who aspire to carve out their own path in the music world?
Yeah, well, this will be probably different from probably every other composer that you
interviewed.
But a lot of composer and I like to have this kind of work.
I teach also composition in university.
(28:47):
So this is something that I had noticed with a lot of my students that they have a lot
of weight on their shoulder that they need to find their own voice.
And a lot of kind of composer and teacher puts a lot of weight on that.
And I think it's kind of the unnecessary weight because and it kind of counterproductive
because when you sit at your piano and you play like C major chord, you know, I can start
(29:08):
my piece like that.
How many pieces has been started with C major chord?
You can't even go to measure two that you're already, you know, putting Xs on your music
sheet.
So I so I find it can be very counterproductive and people can have I'm not this has already
been done this and that.
So you're not able to move on with your composition.
So the approach that I prefer and the mindset that I prefer to have and I'm saying that
(29:33):
not only for my my students, but also for myself, that when I work for a project, like
I say, what is the best music for this project?
So the I think the best starting point is the music that we like and the music that
we love listening to.
So the advice that I give is try to understand what's the music that you like and why do
you like it?
(29:53):
So for example, you listen to a piece.
I'm a big fan of Prokofiev, probably my favorite composer.
I listen to piano concerto number three, one of my favorite pieces.
Wow, this is amazing.
I want I take the score, try to analyze what is that harmony?
What's that chord?
What's that pause?
This and that.
And then I plan to play around with I kind of improvise with, OK, to make sure I kind
of mastered what is the going on here, what's that chord progression, you know.
(30:16):
And then when you understand it, then I listen to another piece of music that I like and
then I try to understand what's behind it, what makes it so good, what makes it that
I really like it.
What if I change something and it's like, no, that's that's not good.
So so really, this is the assets that the tools that he used to create that, you know.
And then when you compose your own music, what you're going to do is you're going to
(30:36):
say, well, I've discovered this tool that I really like from Prokofiev and I've listened.
I love the harmony of Arvo Parte.
So I'm going to write a piece with kind of the syncopation of Prokofiev, but the harmony
of Arvo Parte.
And then it's not going to be a piece of Arvo Parte and it's not going to be a piece of
Prokofiev.
It's going to be something different.
And you're just kind of mixing up things.
And then so basically your personal style will naturally emerge from your musical preferences.
(31:01):
You understand?
So you're not looking and trying to focus on I have to do something new, but you're
just discovering music that you love.
What do you love about it?
And then you're mixing them together and that will create your own sound.
That's what I'm still doing now.
When I work on a project, I always try to find some, like I wrote this Ice Storm Symphony
and I was listening to it.
(31:22):
I know there was a second movement I wanted to be inspired by French Canadian folk music
because of this and that.
So I was listening to a lot of this.
What are these pieces of folk music that I really like?
Okay, this harmony is interesting, this kind of ornamentation, this and that.
So I write on a sheet of paper, all these things.
And then I try to forget what was the piece that these things emerged from, like the scales,
(31:44):
the chord progression.
I'm trying to just focus on that because I don't want to be too close to the source
what inspired me.
And I can listen to a lot of these, so I have a lot of different references in the same
style.
Then I play around with it on my piano and then I have, you know, I'm learning as I play
and I'm improvising a bit on the piano playing with those things.
And then I start to make something that interests me out of it, you know.
(32:05):
So the advice to wrap it up on this idea is that instead of thinking of focusing on developing
a personal style, I would say try to understand what do you like and love about the music
that you like and love.
That's absolutely amazing advice, especially in today's world where everyone is just trying
(32:26):
so hard to conform to something special or innovate.
I mean, composers back then, that's what they were doing.
Beethoven was, you know, studying Mozart and Bach was handwriting Vivaldi concerto and
they were all kind of, you know, were all kind of standing on the shoulders of a giant.
You know, if the music I do today is because I've studied all these people in the past
when I was a teen and I was transcribing these master scores back to for my rock combo, this
(32:50):
kind of feeds my imagination and how music is done and this and that, you know.
And the more you know about the music, the more you have to choose from, you know, the
more it's a buffet when you're coming to compose, you're like, oh, I like this, like that.
I'm writing a Halloween piece.
Okay, how did Bernard Herrmann and Danny Elfman do all these kind of horror, kind of spooky
soundtracks, you know?
(33:11):
And I was, I really liked that.
So I write on Halloween night, which is a suite on the Halloween music and this and
that.
So I went to study all those stuff, you know, and then I learned so much.
And if I do a video game that is spooky music, I have all these tools in my toolbox that
I've developed while doing that, you know.
So, so just keep putting tools in your toolbox and think more about that.
(33:31):
You know, think don't think about what, how will people pigeonhole you and say like Maxim
is doing this type of music or Maxim is good for this and that.
Why not leave that to the musicologist and you know, what aesthetic are you in?
I don't like this question because I never, it would be very constraining for me to respond
and what aesthetic am I?
Because then I will be like, oh, I'm composing a new piece, but it's not an aesthetic that
(33:55):
I was supposed to be in.
So should I do it or not?
You know, I try not to think about that.
Leave that to the, to the other people and just do the music that you like, you love
the music that you would want to be in a concert and hearing, you know.
Amazing.
And that brings us to the end of today's episode.
So thank you so much Maxim for sharing such beautiful pieces of your art and heart.
(34:16):
My pleasure.
Thank you for having me.
Thank you for giving me a space to share about my process and my music.
Until next time folks, keep listening for the notes of the North.
Hello and welcome to Notes of the North Talks, a series where we get to know our local Canadian
(00:11):
musical talent.
Today I'm joined by Maxime Goulet.
Thank you so much, Maxime, for being here today.
My pleasure.
All right, to start us off, where are you joining us from?
Where in Canada do you call home?
So I'm based in Montreal, which is the place I call home and where I was born and it's
where I'm currently working as well.
Perfect.
(00:31):
So what first drew you into the world of composition?
Do you want the short or the long story?
So I can try to kind of resume it in an interesting way.
I started actually music when I was probably about 14 years old.
My friend was playing bass.
I bought a guitar to play some music with him.
We were listening to pop music.
And the desire was just to play the music that we were listening to and that we liked,
(00:56):
which is very different from some people that are in classical music.
They started music at five years old and it was imposed by their parents and stuff like
that.
So that was really not my case.
It was quite the opposite.
I was the one who wanted to do music.
I had a summer job to earn enough money to buy my guitar.
And so it really came from the desire from inside, the fire burning.
(01:17):
And so we started doing that.
And it was just like pop music.
And one day I saw the movie Clockwork Orange and that made me discover classical music,
even though it was because it's played with synthesizer and stuff like that.
It was more appealing because classical music for me, I didn't feel any appeal to it before
seeing that.
But when I saw that movie, I was like, OK, classical music can be cool.
(01:37):
And I started listening to bands like Emerson Lake & Palmer, who are bands of progressive
rock that plays classical music, but in a kind of rock setting.
So I grouped a band where we were playing classical music, but with me on electric guitar,
bass, piano and drums.
(01:57):
And when I went to school in Cégep, so in Quebec we have this thing that's called Cégep,
which is like the last year of high school and the first year of university, and specializing
in music, I had to choose either if I want to play classical music, I had to go on classical
guitar, or if I want to play electric guitar, I have to go in jazz.
So there was no program for playing classical music on electric guitar.
(02:18):
So I had to choose.
So I went to study jazz, which was really interesting because in jazz, what I really liked about
it is to understand what you're playing.
So because you do a lot of improvisation, you need to understand that on this chord
progression, you can play this mode and you can substitute this chord by this chord.
So it's a lot of discussion about what and not necessarily about how, whereas in classical
(02:40):
music, the discussion is about how.
Here you make a little ralentendo and this and that and you perfect the performance.
It's really on how you play it.
But when you play in an orchestra, the musician cannot ask the conductor, why am I playing
this scale rather than this scale, wouldn't it be better to substitute this chord by that?
But in jazz, we're only mostly talking about, you know, kitchen stuff.
So this is something that I really liked about jazz.
(03:03):
However, I discovered at one point that when I was improvising in concert, I was always
staying in my safe zone because I wanted to make sure that it would be satisfying for
the audience.
So I wasn't exploring as much.
Whereas if I was composing, I was exploring more because I knew if I didn't like it, I
can come back, erase it and do something more.
So it's more like a personality thing that I felt that my personality was more towards
(03:28):
composition than improvisation, like real jazz.
That's what the thing that pushed them over the edges, knowing they cannot come back.
But me, it was the opposite effect.
So that's why I discovered I was more towards writing and composing.
And I still have my band where I was playing classical music with a rock quartet, where
I was doing this arrangement of taking a full orchestral score and reduce it for a rock
(03:52):
combo, which is a really good way to understand actually orchestration.
Because usually in orchestration, you take a piano score and you try to put it to the
orchestra, but you don't understand how all these great masters have orchestrated.
But if you look at their score and you try to reduce it to just a piano reduction or
just like a rock combo, you understand that, okay, this instrument and this instrument
(04:14):
are together to do the background layer.
And this is playing the foreground, which is double with that.
So I don't need this.
And you really understand what's the essence of the piece and also how it's distributed
around the orchestra.
So by diving in these masterpieces, I also feed my knowledge about how to write classical
(04:35):
music in a way.
And I deepen my interest into that as well.
So there was that, there was the fact that improvisation, I was less inclined to that.
And also I have two sisters.
My older sister was studying film animation at Concordia.
(04:56):
So I started doing the soundtrack for her movies.
So all these combined kind of led me towards, okay, I want to continue more in composition.
So I went to university in composition.
Back then there was only like two programs, you do electroacoustic music or instrumental
music.
So I went into instrumental music and studied with Alan Belkin, which is this great teacher.
(05:20):
If you want to look him up, he has a lot of free courses online, orchestration, harmony,
but also composition analysis and stuff like that.
It's really like he wrote books and everything.
So a lot of free material if you're interested.
He has a very interesting vision of aesthetics and composing and stuff like that.
So I really appreciate his teaching and he's a very generous person.
(05:44):
So I studied mostly with him.
And while I was studying as a side job, I was assistant for a film composer.
So that also made me understand better what's composing and writing music for image.
And what was good about being an assistant is that your client is really the composer.
(06:05):
So basically for me, I was working for Robert-Marcel Le Page, which is a Quebecer composer.
He works a lot for television, movies and so on.
And he's also a free jazz clarinetist, so very versatile.
And he saw that I was more composing a lot of orchestral music.
So he was assigning me, we were a few assistants working for him.
(06:28):
So I was more the person in charge of more orchestral stuff.
And for example, he would record in studio a clarinet and a harp.
And then he would ask me to, with simulation, to do some string pizzicato accompany in the
background.
Or give me a reference of a symphony of Prokofiev and say, can you do something with the strings
to accompany this and stuff like that.
(06:50):
Or for example, he would compose a sequence of a movie that is last one minute and then
the movie editor and director, they change it.
Now the scene is a minute and a half, so we need to extend that music, but we cannot go
back in studio to record it.
So I have to extend copy, paste some melodies and rearrange the company and to make it work.
So that was kind of my job as an assistant.
(07:10):
What's good about it, it really made me concentrate and focus on my craft of composing without
having the weight of the producers and the director.
Because my composer, Robert, was really the one going into the meetings and talking and
they're saying like, we want this, we want that.
And having these discussions about the direction and I was only following what Robert says.
If Robert says like, I wanted to go in this direction or that, I don't really question
(07:33):
that.
I'm just trying to make it sound the way he has it in his mind as much as possible.
And it's really easy for me to talk with him because he's a musician as well.
When you work with a film director, they're not musicians, so they cannot really give
you very specific musical indication.
And when they do, sometimes it can be very misleading because they tell you jazz, but
they want blues and they don't know it's not the same thing and stuff like that.
(07:57):
So being an assistant of a composer was a really good job for me at the stage where
I was.
And it made me realize that I really also liked composing, that I had an interest in
composing for image.
So all this kind of snowballed in the same direction.
And after that, when I graduated from university, I got a job posting in a video game company,
(08:22):
M. Loft, which was an in-house composer job, so composer 9 to 5.
So a lot of people are finding it so weird to have this kind of thing, but it exists.
So it was really like a 9 to 5, 5 days a week job, and just composing music for video games.
And I stayed there for maybe 5 years, 5, 6 years.
(08:44):
But I always had my passion to want to write concert music.
So I was continuing doing that.
I was doing that during nights and weekends.
So it's like a bit Batman, you know, by day he's this and by night he's that.
So I was a by day video game composer and by night concert music composer.
And also I had a lot of orchestra who liked my music, wanted to play, but it was mostly
(09:08):
local semi-amateurs or stuff like that.
So they didn't really have budget to commission me, but it was okay because I was earning
good money with my day job as a video game composer.
And I was writing these music for the orchestra on the nights, the weekends, and then I was
taking all my vacation because I had a piece performed in Vancouver, so I needed to take
three days of my vacation, bang to go there, rehearsal, concert, come back.
(09:32):
And then my music was performed more and more, and I had good recordings by these orchestras.
So I was able to approach higher end orchestra who had budget to commission me piece.
And at one point I had a lot of commission.
I remember I had like a commission of the Orchestra Métropole-Tin, two commissions
by Angel Dubot and La Pieta.
And I had also won a pitch to do another video game by another company.
(09:55):
And then my contract for a game lock, which is a very standard thing.
You have a clause that says you cannot compete, you cannot work for another video game company
because again, you're in conflict.
So I was in a situation, a crossroad situation where I was deciding, well, either I say no
to this opportunity and I stay with my day job, my game lock, or I, you know, I take
the dive, the leap of faith and I quit my day job and I just do composing.
(10:18):
So which is what I did because I never really saw myself long-term staying at game lock
because mostly what I find restricting was the schedule thing because I wanted, I had
more and more opportunity to write concert music, be paying for it.
So I wanted to devote more time at that.
So I wanted that to be my day job, you know, composing.
And I had the opportunities for it.
(10:39):
I had like two years contract, enough contract to earn money for two years, a line.
So I decided to do that.
So then I left.
I have an agent for my concert, sorry, for my video game music production.
And so I still do a bit of video game, much less now, but now it's much more concert music,
but I still do a little bit of that.
(11:00):
Mostly what I do is, and what I've always done for video game, sorry, is mostly orchestral
music because this is what I specialize in.
So the games I will work in is mostly like games like, a lot of them are from movies
like Spider-Man, Shrek, or games like, epic games like Warhammer, Dungeon Hunter, Brothers
and Arms and stuff like that, music that requires orchestral music.
(11:23):
Sometimes it can be a bit of electric guitar, drums, stuff like that, but mostly the bass
will be orchestral music.
So in a really big nutshell, that's how I end up going to composition.
That was an incredible comprehensive overview and you really talked about the balance between
your orchestral side, the concert music side and the video game side.
So now it's gotten me a little bit curious.
(11:46):
Is there a difference in your creative process when we are getting inspired to write concert
music versus if you're starting a new video game soundtrack?
Is there a difference in the approach you mean and my creative process and everything?
It's pretty different actually because in many ways, well first off the medium is very
different because video game music is, well actually concert music is linear.
(12:10):
If you go to a concert and you listen to a symphony at Beethoven, they will always start
by measure one and then go to measure two.
They'll never start by measure two and go to measure one, you know.
And so it's very linear.
There's a certain flexibility on the performance or we can do like faster tempo here, a bit
slower and this and that but essentially it's always these notes playing in that order.
(12:31):
Whereas in video game music, it's not always the case because it's interactive music.
So the idea that the music will always follow the action but the action will always be different
because the player will turn left or right so it'll take more time to go to the monster
or less or he'll go into the forest instead of going into the castle.
So the music will branch in a different way.
(12:51):
So it's an interactive music and the music always change following the performance of
the player.
However, the player must not notice that the music is changing.
He has to have the impression that this is a soundtrack that was composed specifically
for this performance at every moment, you know.
So he has to have the impression like, wow, you know, my performance just matched so well
(13:11):
the music, you know.
Or else it will break the immersive bubble if he knows that the music is following him,
you know, and not the other way around.
So actually he does.
The best would be that he doesn't really notice as much the music.
He just feels that this world is so immersive, you know, just like when you watch a movie,
you don't always notice the music, you know.
Sometimes you do, but the music kind of really blends in well.
(13:33):
So this is the challenge.
So it's very different because one is linear, the other one is not.
So you have to think music differently.
In terms when I write music for video games, there's a lot of kind of the sequence where
here he's in the sequence and then he's in another sequence.
So this music, I don't know how long he'll be here.
So I have to create either a music that loops or little chunks of music that can play in
a random order.
(13:54):
But then, you know, stuff like that.
And then when he goes to the other one, there's a contrast because then he enters the forest
so I'll do a build up.
So how long does it take from this to that?
I don't know.
So I can make like a music that is tension and with the, I can play with the video game
knowing what is the distance of that and make kind of a volume fade in if he goes closer
and then he goes away, you know, fade it out.
(14:16):
So crying and creates the simulation of a crescendo as he gets closer from there, you
know, but you don't know how long it'll be.
So if he stands there in the middle, it'll be looping at that dynamic and then he goes
closer, volume will raise a little bit that.
And so you understand the idea.
So these are all kind of little tricks that we have.
There's many of them.
And the more you use different tricks, the less the player will notice them, you know.
(14:42):
So this is kind of composing video game music, whereas when I compose concert music the other
way around, I want to have like really kind of build ups and it's not loops.
It's like really compose.
And I want to take the, I know that I'm on the, the music is on the foreground also,
so I'm not accompanying an image or something like that.
I'm really kind of taking the whole place when you're writing concert music and people
(15:04):
are there and they're expecting to hear, you know, something that will be, that will satisfy
them on itself.
While when you play on a video game, you're just a part of that, that work of art, which
is the video game, right?
So you have to also blend in your vision with trying to align your vision with the vision
of the other people that are working on the game.
Whereas when you're writing concert music, most of the time you're mostly the kind of
(15:29):
the artistic director of the piece you're writing.
So that's also different.
When I'm working with on a video game, often we will listen to reference music with the
team and we'll try to find what is the musical vision of that game.
So we'll listen to soundtrack of other games, of movies, of concert music, try to find,
okay, maybe a little bit of this, what do you like that?
(15:50):
Okay, this is a good direction for this.
And then I'll compose, I'll try to find a personal sound signature for the game, but
we already have some discussion on what is the style on this and that.
And it's kind of a group discussion, you know, with the team.
Whereas when I do concert music, this is mostly me on myself.
It's a bit different if you work like on opera because you're working with a librettist and
(16:11):
a dramaturg or if you're doing a ballet or stuff like that.
But if you're doing just like regular concert music, then you're mostly the decision kind
of, mostly kind of relies on you.
So that's another big difference.
And I think I like having both because I like having this space when I do concert music
where I can be very creative and have my vision of what the work should be.
(16:34):
And I like, but it's also a lot of weight on the shoulders because everything relies
on the music that you will write.
But when I work for video games, since it's a teamwork, we're sharing the weight on our
shoulder because the responsibility of the success of the project is on everybody's shoulders.
So we're sharing the weight of it.
So it's good to have this space where I'm, it's not all my responsibility if it succeeds
(16:56):
or fails, you know.
But if I would be maybe unsatisfied, if I would have only that, because I would sometimes
feel like I am trying, I want to do really this music and this, it doesn't work in this
project and I'm trying to force it in.
So I don't do that in video game because I know if there's something I really want to
do, I'll do it in my concert music as you know, instead.
And in the game, I'm really feeling comfortable that here I'm just here to work with as a
(17:20):
collaborator and trying to find with them what is the vision, what works best for their
game.
And I don't have an ego about it or whatever.
It's just like trying to make this project work as well as possible.
So it's very kind of, it's different in terms of the music that I do, in terms of the collaboration,
the process.
Also the software that I use is a bit different.
(17:41):
You know, when I do music for video game, a lot of the music is done with mock-ups and
simulation depending, it happened a few times that I work on video game when we have enough
budget to hire either an orchestra or sometimes just some soloist that I blend in with some
simulation.
But when I do concert music, it's all with real musician.
(18:02):
So I don't really mind if the mock-up doesn't sound as well.
I don't need to spend a lot of time mixing and polishing my mock-up.
So I work differently and the music that I compose is slightly differently because I
know that my mock-ups and my samples, they're really good to do this or that.
And I really have a good sound of this, but I'd have a less good sound of oboe.
So I might not use the oboe as much, but if it's a concert music piece, I know it's going
(18:26):
to be performed with real musicians.
So I don't mind if the oboe sound of my computer doesn't really sound well.
I'll just write the line knowing that one is going to be performed by the musician.
It's going to be OK.
And I can do stuff like a lot of change of articulations in the line because I know a
musician is able to do that sight reading very easily.
But with a computer, you need to program on these patch change for each different articulation.
(18:50):
It's very hard to do and it sounds like it's two different oboe playing and this and that.
So I'll write a bit also differently when it's, I know that the end product is either
a simulation or it's live recording, live performance.
So there's also this, so it's kind of like two different things, even though there's
a lot in common because both of them are kind of orchestral music and this and that.
(19:11):
And there's some kind of harmonic chord progression that I can use in both styles and in both
contexts and stuff like that.
There's a lot of similarity, but there's a lot of difference at the same time.
Wow.
Again, a super comprehensive overview of the differences.
And it's a different way of guiding listeners through a piece of concert music versus a
(19:33):
soundtrack, which is about the immersive experience.
And so let's switch gears a little bit.
So your projects often have intriguing themes, like you have an orchestral suite for chocolate
tasting, I believe.
How do you come up with these original ideas and what's your process like for translating
themes into music?
(19:54):
So often I get my ideas in everyday life.
So a lot of my concert piece has something more than it's not just like pure music.
There's something, sometimes it's image, sometimes for the chocolate, symphonic chocolate, it
was a flavor taste.
So in this situation, I just was in a chocolate shop and I was choosing chocolate that I wanted
to buy and I was reading the description and was talking about textures, about flavor,
(20:18):
mix of flavor.
And I was thinking like, oh, that's interesting because in music we use these terms, texture
and flavor and contrast.
And these are all things we use in music.
So why don't I compose a piece following the descriptions of different chocolates?
So the idea started like that and I got the idea, oh, why don't also the audience get
to eat the corresponding chocolate as the music is being performed?
(20:41):
So I thought that was a good idea.
It's kind of a catchy idea.
And I mean, I would like to be in that audience experiencing that, right?
So then I got the idea, okay, I can make four.
It can be like a little pocket symphony, like very short piece, because I don't want, if
it's too long and you have to wait 15 minutes before the next movement, it's like a torture
for the audience to look at their chocolate box and wait 15 minutes before eating the
(21:03):
next one.
Right?
So I thought, okay, so each movement is about two, three minutes, which is just the right
length to eat the chocolate and let the flavor fade out and then go to the next one.
And then I thought, okay, I need, how am I going to have also movements that are, that
are complementary with one another?
(21:23):
So I thought I need to have different flavors that are complementary to one another.
And I have to also have some flavors that are, that are kind of classic flavor that
the person I was looking for, because I was thinking if the person listens to it without
eating the chocolate, he can know what I'm referring to.
So I got the idea.
Like the first movement is caramel, which is very caramel for me is very soft and it
(21:44):
leaks and everything.
So it's a movement that has a theme that's very kind of lyrical, where I felt it goes
well with the soft and smoothness of it.
The second movement is dark chocolate.
So dark chocolate for me is a bit more bitter.
It's more intense.
There's something, so it's kind of like a mix of tango and habaneras, which is more
like intense and, you know, also with minor chord progression.
(22:08):
So it's kind of more dark a bit and there's a bit more dissonance.
So it's more bitter a bit.
So that's how the correspondence that I did with that for the third movement is mint chocolate.
So for me, when I eat mint is very kind of cold feeling in the mouth.
So I wanted something fresh and cold.
So there's these wind sound the music do like at the beginning and at the end.
(22:28):
So it sounds very kind of cold and refreshing and music is very light kind of a bit like
an impressionist, you know, like Ravel or Debussy and kind of light and fresh.
And the last movement is coffee infused chocolate.
So this one for me, coffee is really kind of energetic.
So I wanted to finish with a fast movement.
So that went well with that.
And for me also coffee evokes Brazil and South America.
(22:51):
So it's a mix of a Coro and Samba, which is two Brazilian musical style.
And so that's how I kind of, you know, so for some movement is the texture of the chocolate
that inspired me for other movement is the feeling of cold.
Some other movement is the origin of the flavor of coffee.
So it's different aspect of chocolate that kind of inspired me each time.
And it's also in the desire to have a piece that will have movements that are complimentary
(23:15):
and will have kind of a rich experience for the for the listener.
And also that I think that it's obvious enough that somebody that's not eating the chocolate
will kind of understand and follow, you know, and often when we do it in concert, like there's
a chocolate tasting.
So we do it as a collaboration often.
So the piece has been performed a lot, like I think like 80 times.
(23:37):
It has been performed last summer in Singapore and performed in Europe and Switzerland and
South America, really everywhere.
And the idea also of this piece was also to have something that could attract orchestras
to perform it, but also for them to attract new audience, you know, so they often use
it as a way to go reach out to new audience, which is a good way for them.
(24:01):
Because I mean, eating chocolate in a concert, who doesn't want to do that?
I want to.
Yeah, exactly.
I want to.
So, so there's that aspect.
And also some orchestra, they also use the chocolate, either they give it to the audience
or they sell it at the intermission.
The often some orchestra used it as a fundraiser, so a way to, you know, like Boy Scouts selling
(24:22):
chocolate at the door.
But now you have the soundtrack that comes with it, right?
So it's also another way for me to have my music performed because I can suggest it as
an orchestra, as a win-win, you know, this will attract you a new audience, but it will
also be a good way to have like a make a fundraiser and this and that.
So when I approach an orchestra, it's not just that my music can be satisfying for these
(24:45):
audience, but there's also all these perks, these additional perks that they can see in
my music that will encourage them to want to play my music, you know.
Yeah, because when we're like, we're kind of unbranching to a lot of topic, but as a
composer, I mean, our competitor is Beethoven and Mozart, right?
So I mean, they're the people we're competing to be on the program with and they they sell
(25:10):
tickets.
You know, if you write 9 Symphony of the Beethoven, you're going to sell tickets to your concert.
But if you write Symphony of Maxime Goulet, that's not going to sell tickets because nobody
knows my music, right?
But if you write Symphonic Chocolate and you're going to eat chocolate at the concert, then
I'm competing with Beethoven.
Now I'm in the race, right?
Because I can sell tickets with that.
(25:31):
So when I approach an orchestra with a project, because this is often something that I do,
I mount my own project, I try to find what will the what's what's in it for the orchestra,
you know, when they're going to look at my project, they're going to be like, well, am
I going to sell tickets?
Am I going to renew some new audience?
Am I going to you know, what's in it for them?
You know, so I often try.
(25:51):
So having this concept for my works also helps me sell my works to different orchestra.
Wow, that's such like an interdisciplinary approach.
And it's really I think it's important for the music industry today, especially for attracting
new audiences.
Like you said, it's really interesting how that relates to like, you're both doing multimedia
(26:11):
and also interdisciplinary, which is like multi sectors and multiple fields.
So I really love this approach.
Now as a Canadian composer, how do you think this cultural background influences your work?
If it does?
I try to not think too much about about that when I compose, you know, when I work on a
(26:33):
project, I try to find what is the best music for this project.
I often say that for my concert music, I'm composing the soundtrack of my idea.
So I have this idea first, for example, the symphonic chocolate.
And how can I best support this idea with music?
So it's really kind of writing soundtrack for my idea or my concept.
And I try not to think that I'm where I am, what I mean, I'm a Canadian, I'm writing
(26:58):
in 2024, stuff like that.
I just find what is the best music that I can write for this specific project.
And because it's just adding additional weight, you know, the kind of I think maybe the fact
that I'm in Canada, Canada and Quebec and Montreal is very kind of open minded area.
So there's less kind of these aesthetic wars and contemporary music must be this and that.
(27:20):
I mean, there are still some people that are into those mindsets, but I'm not.
And it doesn't prevent me to work and do the music that I want to do, you know, whereas
and maybe in the 60s, it would have been harder for me to write this kind of music because
the music that I write, you know, has themes, have harmony, has pulse.
And sometimes that it's not really a super avant-garde.
(27:45):
It's really kind of the continuation of the classical music tradition in a way.
A lot of music, a lot of people say that music is very kind of cinematic in a way, because
in cinema and movies, they're using the same kind of music technique that I use.
So I think that being in Canada gives me the freedom to if I want to do that, I can do
(28:06):
that.
So it's a place where the diversity is accepted and celebrated.
So I think in different aspects of our lives and music and art is one of them where I can
find, you know, the musician that will be interested to do the music that I want to
do.
That's so beautiful.
(28:26):
And to wrap things up, could you give a piece of advice to young composers or creators in
general who aspire to carve out their own path in the music world?
Yeah, well, this will be probably different from probably every other composer that you
interviewed.
But a lot of composer and I like to have this kind of work.
I teach also composition in university.
(28:47):
So this is something that I had noticed with a lot of my students that they have a lot
of weight on their shoulder that they need to find their own voice.
And a lot of kind of composer and teacher puts a lot of weight on that.
And I think it's kind of the unnecessary weight because and it kind of counterproductive
because when you sit at your piano and you play like C major chord, you know, I can start
(29:08):
my piece like that.
How many pieces has been started with C major chord?
You can't even go to measure two that you're already, you know, putting Xs on your music
sheet.
So I so I find it can be very counterproductive and people can have I'm not this has already
been done this and that.
So you're not able to move on with your composition.
So the approach that I prefer and the mindset that I prefer to have and I'm saying that
(29:33):
not only for my my students, but also for myself, that when I work for a project, like
I say, what is the best music for this project?
So the I think the best starting point is the music that we like and the music that
we love listening to.
So the advice that I give is try to understand what's the music that you like and why do
you like it?
(29:53):
So for example, you listen to a piece.
I'm a big fan of Prokofiev, probably my favorite composer.
I listen to piano concerto number three, one of my favorite pieces.
Wow, this is amazing.
I want I take the score, try to analyze what is that harmony?
What's that chord?
What's that pause?
This and that.
And then I plan to play around with I kind of improvise with, OK, to make sure I kind
of mastered what is the going on here, what's that chord progression, you know.
(30:16):
And then when you understand it, then I listen to another piece of music that I like and
then I try to understand what's behind it, what makes it so good, what makes it that
I really like it.
What if I change something and it's like, no, that's that's not good.
So so really, this is the assets that the tools that he used to create that, you know.
And then when you compose your own music, what you're going to do is you're going to
(30:36):
say, well, I've discovered this tool that I really like from Prokofiev and I've listened.
I love the harmony of Arvo Parte.
So I'm going to write a piece with kind of the syncopation of Prokofiev, but the harmony
of Arvo Parte.
And then it's not going to be a piece of Arvo Parte and it's not going to be a piece of
Prokofiev.
It's going to be something different.
And you're just kind of mixing up things.
And then so basically your personal style will naturally emerge from your musical preferences.
(31:01):
You understand?
So you're not looking and trying to focus on I have to do something new, but you're
just discovering music that you love.
What do you love about it?
And then you're mixing them together and that will create your own sound.
That's what I'm still doing now.
When I work on a project, I always try to find some, like I wrote this Ice Storm Symphony
and I was listening to it.
(31:22):
I know there was a second movement I wanted to be inspired by French Canadian folk music
because of this and that.
So I was listening to a lot of this.
What are these pieces of folk music that I really like?
Okay, this harmony is interesting, this kind of ornamentation, this and that.
So I write on a sheet of paper, all these things.
And then I try to forget what was the piece that these things emerged from, like the scales,
(31:44):
the chord progression.
I'm trying to just focus on that because I don't want to be too close to the source
what inspired me.
And I can listen to a lot of these, so I have a lot of different references in the same
style.
Then I play around with it on my piano and then I have, you know, I'm learning as I play
and I'm improvising a bit on the piano playing with those things.
And then I start to make something that interests me out of it, you know.
(32:05):
So the advice to wrap it up on this idea is that instead of thinking of focusing on developing
a personal style, I would say try to understand what do you like and love about the music
that you like and love.
That's absolutely amazing advice, especially in today's world where everyone is just trying
(32:26):
so hard to conform to something special or innovate.
I mean, composers back then, that's what they were doing.
Beethoven was, you know, studying Mozart and Bach was handwriting Vivaldi concerto and
they were all kind of, you know, were all kind of standing on the shoulders of a giant.
You know, if the music I do today is because I've studied all these people in the past
when I was a teen and I was transcribing these master scores back to for my rock combo, this
(32:50):
kind of feeds my imagination and how music is done and this and that, you know.
And the more you know about the music, the more you have to choose from, you know, the
more it's a buffet when you're coming to compose, you're like, oh, I like this, like that.
I'm writing a Halloween piece.
Okay, how did Bernard Herrmann and Danny Elfman do all these kind of horror, kind of spooky
soundtracks, you know?
(33:11):
And I was, I really liked that.
So I write on Halloween night, which is a suite on the Halloween music and this and
that.
So I went to study all those stuff, you know, and then I learned so much.
And if I do a video game that is spooky music, I have all these tools in my toolbox that
I've developed while doing that, you know.
So, so just keep putting tools in your toolbox and think more about that.
(33:31):
You know, think don't think about what, how will people pigeonhole you and say like Maxim
is doing this type of music or Maxim is good for this and that.
Why not leave that to the musicologist and you know, what aesthetic are you in?
I don't like this question because I never, it would be very constraining for me to respond
and what aesthetic am I?
Because then I will be like, oh, I'm composing a new piece, but it's not an aesthetic that
(33:55):
I was supposed to be in.
So should I do it or not?
You know, I try not to think about that.
Leave that to the, to the other people and just do the music that you like, you love
the music that you would want to be in a concert and hearing, you know.
Amazing.
And that brings us to the end of today's episode.
So thank you so much Maxim for sharing such beautiful pieces of your art and heart.
(34:16):
My pleasure.
Thank you for having me.
Thank you for giving me a space to share about my process and my music.
Until next time folks, keep listening for the notes of the North.
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