MRH : My last question just sort of deals with the many orchestras that you work with, both in Europe and the United States.

I wonder if you've found certain orchestras are a bit more flexible or creative when dealing with a horror score; either due to the kind of training that students undergo in that country, or whether it's more of a specific musical heritage, where the culture is more open to performing experimental writing?

EC : That's an interesting question. I think it comes first of all from musical training. In a lot of Western countries, the training for violin is not romantic (like Tchaikovsky or Beethoven); they go much farther, which opens the door for orchestras to see the clusters and glissandos and strange things they're already familiar with.

In horror or contemporary scores, a large part of a score is actually electronica, and the orchestra doesn't hear it [during the recording session.]. So it's up to the composer in the control room to visualize and [make the orchestra] fit the electronica pre-recordings; so when you put it together in the mix, they fit together with the right gestures and performance.

When recording in Prague with a less experienced orchestra, you sometimes have to explain every single contemporary or strange thing you ask them to do in the time allowed for the recording.

Another aspect of recording [is the click track]: you have to be comfortable in playing with clicks and not play exactly on the click, but still stay in tempo. That's another craft that musicians trained here in Los Angeles and in a couple of other places [possess].

I think there are two aspects to recording film music: one is the technical level of the orchestra; the second one is how well they are used to playing, sight reading, getting fast into shape, and being able to understand the composer's language.

Some orchestras are good with one, and less with the other one... I recently did two scores in Prague, and it was not bad at all; they did a very good job. I was actually surprised because I came with some unusual writing and playing, which they performed very well and very fast, but the dream players are here in Los Angeles.

MRH : Many composers have expressed high respect for the Los Angeles musicians.

EC : How can you imagine any better training than playing and recording film scores every day? You master your instrument, but you also need to master your recording technique, which is very different from playing in an orchestra and playing concerts.

In a concert situation you play maybe a twenty minutes symphony from beginning to the very end; you have the conductor there, and you just play. In a recording situation, you sight read, stop, deal with the changes, play it again, stop, more changes, record several takes. It's not easy... It's very different from symphonies and concert work. To be a good recording musician you have to be trained for this particular situation.