Rick Reifenstein

Summers at the house are usually a busy time with kids swim team practice and meets. Mini vacations to amusement parks and water parks are the second big items on the list. Summer is pretty much a good time for me to let my creative batteries recharge. I did however spend some time in the studio composing and recording some music for my daughters animated short she is creating. It was fun working with her on a creative project. There is still more work to be done on the film. I just scored the first couple of minutes to give her an idea what is possible. I was impressed by the fact that she didn't just agree to what I wrote; she listened carefully then politly said that it didn't quite fit with what she was looking for. She then gave me some examples to listen to. Typical director; going for the temp tracks straight away! ;-) There are some projects taking shape for the near future. One is to continue writing music for Dr. Kathy Gruvers guided meditation recordings. The next o...

Beautiful day here in Central Virginia. Soccer this morning, nice afternoon visit with Father inlaw. Nice relaxing day! Speaking of relaxing I wanted to share with you all the link to the iTunes store that contains the meditations and visualizations for which I wrote the music. Even if you aren't the meditation type person; give it a listen. If you like ambient electronic music, your gonna love these. meditations & visualizations on iTunes

Before the holidays I discovered that my piece titled "The Kings Chamber" was used in an episode of Last Call with Carson Daley on NBC. The episode had Neil Gamain appearing. Being a fan of Neil Gamain's work, I was interested in seeing the episode. I finally saw the episode the other day. During the interview Neil is talks about his writing for Doctor Who and how that was a dream come true. My music appears when he starts talking about when Moffet asked Neil to create a new version of the Cybermen. That's cool! As a big Doctor Who fan from the Tom Baker years this is really fun! I can now play Three Degrees of Doctor Who by saying that my music appeared in an interview with Neil Gamain when he was describing his writing for Doctor Who.

Over the years I've scored about many live theater productions. I love live theater. I even have my undergraduate degree in acting and directing for theater. Composing an original score for a theatrical production can be an exciting experience; it can be daunting as well. Especially if what your composing is underscoring action on stage. Not difficult if what your working with is an opera. But your normal run of the mill dram? That's a different story. If your reading this you are probably familiar with what I am referring to when I say underscore. It's that music that accompanies a scene that adds mood or creates a certain emotion. Most of the time your not aware it's there. That's a good thing! It means the composers ego got out of the way and actually supported the scene. In theater, music is usually found during transitions, preshow and intermission to help set the mood and maybe cover over the sound of stage crews changing scenery. As a sound designer for theat...

The evenings of this past week were spent at the local theater for whom I volunteered to write music and sound design work. The show opens tomorrow night. My family has been very involved in this little production. My youngest children are acting in it. My oldest did some set design and painting, and my wife brought her craft and former stage manager skills out of retirement. While it’s been nice to be involved in the production; we will look forward to some quiet family time and not so much running around. I’m happy with the music and will be sharing it soon with you all. I’m looking forward to getting into the studio soon. I’m continuing to compose and record music for Dr. Kathy Gruver’s meditation project, as well adding to my Jingle Punks production music catalog.  

Getting ready to watch Microsofts Build conference sessions and keynotes this week. One session I will definitely be watching is on Day 3. “ Sequencers, Synthesizers, and Software, Oh My! Building Great Music Creation Apps for Windows Store .” http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2014/3-548 Why?? It’s simple really. I have been using Windows for composing and recording Film and Theatrical music and SFX since the mid nineties’. While I have used Macs for music production from time to time; I always seem to find a reason to go back to Windows based machines. I guess it’s a comfort level thing. I know how Windows handles digital audio recording, I know how it handles MIDI, and I know the software that runs on it to make music. After 20+ years of composing and recording, my workflow is based very much on the modern Windows environment. Especially with Windows 8 having One Drive so well integrated I use it for sending files to clients, receiving files from clients, backing up documents...

It's been very busy at Reifenstein House. My kids are involved in a local stage play, as well as a few sports teams. Seems like rehearsals and practices are coming together as a perfect storm, fighting for time. But the play is a good thing and gives the kids a chance to experience that which was a big part of my life over ten years ago. At one time theater production was my main focus outside music. As fate would have it have also gotten involved by agreeing to be the sound designer and engineer. Of course that's not all that's going on. I am currently writing and recording music for a meditation series by award winning author and leading authority on health and wellness issues Dr. Kathy Gruver. I've known Kathy since college and have composed music for her for some of her other projects. I like the project because it allows me really dive deep into slow evolving and layered synthesizer patches. Something I always have enjoyed creating. Of course I am continuing to w...