In dit interview komt een leuke vraag voorbij waarin Harry Gregson-Williams iets prijsgeeft over de plaats van muziek in zijn jeugd en het ouderlijk gezin.
What was the first instrument you learned how to play and what would you say is your favorite instrument to write for, play?
I learned music since I was probably four. By the time I was seven I was shipped off to a boarding school, which was a specialist music school. So where some people would have an hour and a half of biology, an hour and a half of math, etc … my day was centered around music. Learning to read, to write, and sing music. I had all of the other lessons to get through high school, but they were very much secondary. So I could read music probably before I could read words at the age of 7.
My brothers and sisters all played musical instruments. My sister played the clarinet and I would play along with her. I played many instruments, but my main instrument was the piano – and I sang. Now it doesn’t really apply in a movie like The Equalizer where I didn’t use woodwinds at all, but on a movie like Shrek or countless other scores that I’ve done – often when I’m orchestrating a passage that may be sensitive, romantic, or has got some deep feeling in it- there will be a clarinet somewhere. And that probably goes back to my childhood and just making music with my brothers and sisters.
Nowadays I’m primarily a keyboard player. I have a lot of electronic equipment in my studio in order for me to make the demos that I make. Like all symphonic composers in the world I have a sampled orchestra. I have all the sounds at my fingertips.